I don't feel like talking about the Cubs current struggles so I decided to break down their future. I've never done this before and I'm sure there are those out there with a much better grip on these things. However, here are my top ten prospects half way through the season. I've got them ranked 1-30 and I'll be posting the other 20 in two more parts. Hopefully this will provide positive things to talk about as we look at what could be down the road. You'll notice a strong pitching presence in the top 10. When ranking my players I've given the benefit of the doubt to younger players over older players and starting pitchers over relievers. Anyway, here you go:

1. Josh Vitters – the consensus top prospect in our system and will hopefully not be used for trade bait. If he stays on course, he should be at 3rd in 2012. Currently coming out of a slump at Peoria he is hitting .316 with 15 homers however he is striking out 15% of the time.
3. Jay Jackson – Hopefully he can stick as a starter because the Cubs don’t have many starters on this list. After a slow start he had been mowing people down until a rough start last time out. Still before that he had a 2.95 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, and .227 Avg/Against while striking out almost 1 per inning. He has the stuff to be a nice #2 in the league. He got better as he moved up last year and should be in the bigs at some point this year even if it’s just in September.
5. Chris Archer – Came over in the DeRosa trade (shhhhhh, don’t tell the DeRosa lovers) and has been nasty. He walks to many but at the age of 20 he has a 2.19 ERA, 1.28 WHIP and a sick .174 Avg/Against. He’s been on a pitch count but he’s struck out 66 in 53 innings while walking 36. He has ace stuff if he can cut down on the walks. Oh yeah, and he hasn’t given up a HR yet this year.
7. Andrew Cashner – The Cubs top pick last year struggled a bit in the minors after getting drafted but has been mowing people down so far this year. I’m not sure if he’ll stick as a starter but he’s got a power arm and if he’s not a starter he’ll be the closer. In Daytona he’s got a 1.50 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, and .201 Avg/against. He’s only pitching 3 or 4 innings a start so it’ll be interesting to see how he does when he has to go through a lineup up 2 or 3 times.
9. Starlin Castro – Barely 19, the Cubs challenged him by placing him in High-A to start the season and he hasn’t missed a beat since June started. He earned an All-Star bid and as we all most likely know was awarded the MVP for the game. He’s striking out about 11% of the time. It would be nice if he could learn base stealing a little more as he’s only got a 66% success rate. From what I understand he needs to work on his fielding. Hopefully he won’t remind any of us of another Cubs shortstop prospect whose last name started with a “C” and ended in an “O”.
11. Chris Carpenter – Drafted last year out of Kent State, Carpenter is a nice looking starting prospect. I originally had him ranked a little higher before giving the nod to Cashner and Archer. But, he has been lights out at Peoria with a 2.44 ERA, respectable 1.19 WHIP and solid .210 Avg/Against. He’s struck out 60 in 73 innings while walking 33. He has good size and I would think he’d be up for a promotion shortly.
13. Chris Huseby- Struggled last year, but has been dominant relieving at Peoria. He owns a 2.28 ERA, ridiculous .98 WHIP, and respectable .231 Avg/Ag. He is intimidating on the mound at 6-7 and has make you miss stuff with 39K in 27 IP while only walking 2 batters. That’s right 2 BB’s all year. That’s not a typo. He’s only 21 and looking at his stats most of his ER’s have been given up on days he worked after long layoffs as in 4-7 days off. He’s a future closer.
15. Tony Thomas – Sort of up and down so far during his professional career. He needs to be more consistent. He has a nice bat and will get as far as it can take him. He’s having a nice year at AA batting .271/.346. He has been leading off most of the time but strikes out way to much with 69K’s in 266 AB’s. An RH batter he is crushing lefties and struggling against righties. He’ll need to get that straightened. Once he does, I would think his bat would be ready.
17. Casey Coleman – Perhaps you should call him a “gamer”. His stuff won’t blow you away. His K rate is down this year compared to last but he owns a 2.8 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, and .255 Avg/ag. He progressively got better as he moved up the chain last year and looks to be a solid starting prospect for the future especially since he’s still only 22.
19. Blake Parker - #10 was a hard one for me to place. I went back and forth between Parker and a couple other guys. Ultimately, Parker is a very nice eighth inning bridge to the closer type prospect. He’s 24 now and pitching well in AAA with a 1.62 ERA, 1.26 WhIP and a .197 Avg/ag. He needs to cut down on his walks, if he can do that he’ll be set as he strikes out more than 1 per inning.

I'm curious what everyone thinks of the following moves:

Trade Hinrich for Andre Miller

Trade Deng, Noah, and Michael Ruffin for Gerald Wallace

If possible trade Hughes to the Clippers for Kaman and Brian Skinner.

Here's what I am thinking... With Rose here Hinrich is a luxury so trading him to a team like Philly that needs a legit PG may be doable. Plus Miller's contract ends after this season so we would have cap relief from the deal and Philly would have a legit PG to stick with.

Gerald Wallace is clearly unhappy in Charlotte and possibly could be had right now. I would think Jordan would like someone like Deng and may be willing to make the swap. I just don't think Deng will work along side Rose and don't think he'll ever be the star a lot of people thought he would be. You have to include Noah and Ruffin to make the deal work under the cap and getting rid of Noah wouldn't exactly hurt the chemistry of the team. Wallace is a much better defender than Deng will ever be.

CLEARLY we need more inside presence and trading for someone like Kaman would help out in that area. The Clips may go for it as it would give them quicker cap relief as Kaman is locked up for 4 yearsBoth Utah and the Clips have a lot of extra inside players and perhaps we could snag one of them and Kaman makes the most cap sense.

This would give us the following starting lineup:

Rose, Gordon, G. Wallace, Gooden/Thomas, Kaman

with Miller, Skinner, Gooden/Thomas, Hunter, Gray, Nocioni, Sefolosha the bench

Also, we would have Miller, Gooden, and Gordon coming off the books at the end of the year. That's roughly 23.5 million in salary.

Thoughts?