CHICAGO -- You can spot the Cubs' prospects from across a room.

Or at least you can if you know what they look like.

"Who's who?" I asked a fellow reporter Friday night at the Cubs Convention media social. "Point someone out."

"That's Javier Baez sitting right there," he said.

"Where's there?"

After our Abbott and Costello routine ended, I sidled up to a quiet young man in a black suit, black shirt and black tie and started a conversation about the future.

Because when it comes to the Cubs, you're either living in the past or thinking about the future.

The two big charity events this week were hosted by ex-Cubs -- David DeJesus and Kerry Wood -- and the big media event was the "rookie" player workout at Northwestern, which was part of the team's rookie-development program, a skills camp/vacation/media training seminar.

"We want to be up here tomorrow," outfielder Albert Almora said. "But we have to earn it. When they call our name is when they think we're ready." Mark J. Rebilas/USA TODAY Sports

Even at the media social, the only reason to talk to an actual Cubs player was to take the temperature of Jeff Samardzija, who is going to arbitration with the team. With a long-term contract extension not seemingly on the horizon, most people figure he'll be an ex-Cub by July.

Starlin Castro, the erstwhile face of the Cubs, was nowhere to be found during media time, while Anthony Rizzo mingled but didn't address the media.

The present-day Cubs are nothing more than the company softball team for a local real-estate conglomerate.

Or as Cubs president Theo Epstein put it Friday, "We're not trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes: We're a last-place team."

A last-place team with a new super-cool mascot, Theo.

Now, if the Cubs can land Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka by his Jan. 24 deadline, they could easily be a third-place team. At the worst, they would show they're serious about being a major league franchise.

But if they don't -- and I'm not brushing up on my high school Japanese -- expect another lost season at the ballpark.

But there's plenty of time to grouse about high ticket prices and low expectations from an ownership group more concerned with appearances and infrastructure.

With the future in mind, I talked to three of the Cubs top prospects -- Baez, Kris Bryant and Albert Almora. All were careful not to sound too eager to come up to the bigs.

But don't expect the cavalry any time soon. The Cubs aren't in a rush to win, and they don't have to rush their winners to the big leagues. As Epstein joked, the Cubs haven't given a "timeline" for a reason.

"You can do a lot of damage rushing prospects before they're ready," Epstein said.

But we all know that the minor-league stars are licking their chops in Daytona, Tennessee and Iowa because they know the big-league Cubs are a slapdash organization more concerned with mascots, scoreboards and "branding arches."

OK, they probably don't know about any of that. But they do know the Cubs stink, and that their own future is coming soon. Trust me, they all said they have apps on their phones to check the scores.

"They got really good players in the big leagues and really good young players, but we're not ready yet," Baez said.

Nice kid, huh?

Baez, who has the Major League Baseball logo tattooed on the back of his neck, is the closest thing the Cubs have to a major league-ready prospect as a parade of highly touted Cubs minor leaguers prepares to be tasked with delivering a historic franchise back to respectability.

Well, respectability first and a World Series next.

After hitting .282/.341/.578 with 37 home runs (tied for second-most in all the minor leagues) between Single-A and Double-A last season, Baez will start at Triple-A Iowa in 2014, where he will work on playing second and third base. But Iowa is not where he wants to stay.

"It don't really matter where I start," he said. "It's about where I finish."