There’s nothing really to say about last night’s loss - the Cubs sucked and they lost to a terrible team, dropping ever further out of a playoff spot they’re no longer in contention for anyway. But the team named its Arizona Fall League players yesterday, so let’s talk about some future Cubs instead of the current bunch. The Cubs prospects who will be on the roster of the Mesa Solar Sox are Josh Vitters, Wellington Castillo, Andrew Cashner, Starlin Castro, John Gaub, James Russell and Blake Parker. Here’s what they’ve all done this season:

• Josh Vitters: After tearing it up at Peoria, Vitters was promoted to High-A Daytona, where he’s struggled a little bit and has battled a hand injury. His line there is .245/.265/.371. That’s bad, but not as bad as it looks - if you adjust for his park and luck, his line becomes .287/.306/.420. That’s still not what you’d want to see out of your supposed best hitting prospect, but he’s still young enough that it’s not panic time just yet.
• Welington Castillo: Castillo came into this season as one of the Cubs’ best prospects, a 22-year-old catcher who seemed to have found his hitting stroke. But he had dismal numbers with the bat the first three months of the season. They’ve ticked upwards since then, and in the last month he’s hit .303/.338/.500, so a good performance this fall could go a long way towards easing concerns about him.
• Andrew Cashner: Cashner pitched well enough at Daytona to get himself promoted to AA this season, and his AA numbers are a mixed bag. On the one hand he’s sporting a 3.5 ERA, which is good. On the other hand he’s given up seven unearned runs to 18 earned runs - he seems to be allowing a lot of balls that his defense, for whatever reason, can’t handle. Maybe it’s on his defense, maybe it’s on him. But his 24 walks in 45 innings are not too encouraging, either.
• Starlin Castro: Castro is 19. He plays shortstop. He hit well at Daytona and was promoted to Tennessee. He’s still hitting after the promotion, to the tune of .280/.349/.347. I guess if I wanted to look for negatives it would be that he’s committed an incredible 39 errors in 110 games this season, and that he isn’t hitting for power. But he’s 19 and we can expect him to develop a little more power at some point. And shortstop is the most difficult position to play in the field, so even if he doesn’t improve with his glove there’s hope that he could be moved elsewhere.
• John Gaub: He put up cartoon numbers in AA, and after being promoted to AAA, has done even more of that. In 26.1 innings with Iowa he’s struck out 30, walked 11 and allowed only two runs. I’m guessing that if he has even a decent fall league performance he’ll be a virtual lock to make the Cubs roster next season.
• James Russell: I don’t know much about Russell at all, but he was promoted from AA to AAA this summer and responded by putting up better numbers than his uninspiring AA performance. At Iowa he’s got a 3.51 ERA in 53.1 innings, after putting up an ERA around six in two partial seasons at AA. I imagine the Cubs are looking to see if the change is real or not with the extra work this fall.
• Blake Parker: Like every other pitcher in the Cubs system, Parker strikes out a lot of guys and walks a lot of guys. He’s another player who’s split time between two levels this year, and he’s done well in his 45 innings in Iowa, striking out more than a batter per inning. Once again, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see him in the Cubs pen next season.