Rocky Cherry

[don_kessinger_was_good]

At the current pace, a Cherry thread may not be long for the minor league forum. The kid has been lights out and is making Hendry and Fleita look like geniuses for protecting him instead of Holdzkom. Of course, they'd be bigger geniuses if they'd not protected Dopirak and kept Campusano instead, but I digress...

 

Wuertz is well behind because of his shoulder and will almost certainly not break camp with the big league Cubs. We may (thankfully) have passed through the Novoa Era with his #1 supporter (Dusty) gone. And, Lou is pretty much saying at this point that they will go north with 12 pitchers.

 

So, Rocky Cherry--does he hit the show? I think he does. AZ Phil has been watching everyone live in Arizona as many of you know--I really respect Phil's take, the guy is thorough. He has been raving about Cherry, the kid is unhittable. Like so many young power pitchers, he only gets in trouble when he doesn't throw strikes, but that will come with experience.

 

I'm thinking we might have our future Bobby Jenks-type reliever here, and I started the thread to see if anyone else has seen Cherry or has some relevant comments.

[RyCubsFan]

Good thread, Don. I've def been wondering about Cherry and his stuff. How hard does he throw, etc etc?? Anyone seen him in person?

[Quakers]

Good thread, Don. I've def been wondering about Cherry and his stuff. How hard does he throw, etc etc?? Anyone seen him in person?

 

I saw him a few years back with Boise. Boise had a lousey team, but with Cherry, Marshall, and Hill starting they had some pitching talent at least. I thought that Cherry was the least amongst the trio. Fankly i expected him to top out in AAA.

[karenmac]

in AZ now, and got to see Cherry pitch an inning vs the Brewers yesterday. He looked great. As many of you know, I couldn't tell you much of anything mechanics-wise, but he was fooling guys. He looked better than Gallagher at this point (and I *love* Sean), and I was impressed.

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

My concern about Cherry's success is that it appears to always be late in the game when most team's hitters are minor leaguers. I'd like see him get an inning or two against the meat of someone's order.

[craig]

Another guy was at yesterday's game, and said that Cherry was throwing very hard.

 

Another friend is friends with a Baltimore scout, who has actually spent about ten days at the Cub camp. They had lunch on Saturday, and my friend passed along a lot of interesting comments that the scout had to say.

 

But he said that Cherry has been consistently throwing in the 90's (92-93, I think), and he'd seen him top at 95. He said he'd been told that he's topped at 97, although I'm not sure whether that was this spring or based on last summer.

 

Cherry has always had pretty reasonable walk-control. I believe Baseball America and Vineline both said that the Cubs people had ID'd Cherry's slider as the best in their system.

 

So it would seem to me that if he's combining a fastball that is consistently in the 90's and is topping up at 95 or even more, with a slider that's very good, and he has reasonable control, then it looks like we've got a guy with a big-league arm and big-league stuff. Not a case of a fringe-stuff guy who'll necessarily be exposed once he faces real big-leaguers.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Craig, those 97 mph readings were during the season before he got hurt (I don't know about how he did last spring).

[CubbyBlueThruampThru]

I saw him pitch in Des Moines a couple of times last year. At that time, the radar gun had him topping out at 94, if memory serves.

[Guest]

How violent is his delivery? He's had quite a few injury problems to this point, which is why he's just now reaching this point at his age.

 

Guesses on whether he'll be able to hold up with his mechanics?

 

Unfortunately, I've never seen him pitch so I have no clue.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

I saw him pitch in Des Moines a couple of times last year. At that time, the radar gun had him topping out at 94, if memory serves.

 

If you're referring to the reading that displays in the OF, I wouldn't put too much faith in the reading. A friend of mine and I watched Kerry Wood top out at 86 according to that one night, and we also saw Nate Teut hit 98 on some off speed stuff in 2003.

[Tracer Bullet]

I saw him pitch in Des Moines a couple of times last year. At that time, the radar gun had him topping out at 94, if memory serves.

 

If you're referring to the reading that displays in the OF, I wouldn't put too much faith in the reading. A friend of mine and I watched Kerry Wood top out at 86 according to that one night, and we also saw Nate Teut hit 98 on some off speed stuff in 2003.

 

Seconded. I attended several games in DSM when I was in college and the gun always seemed off.

[NCCubFan]

If I recall, Cherry had TJS a couple of years ago. After all of the Cubs' pitching prospects that seemed to have been ruined by injury (Brownlie, Hagerty, Blasko), it's nice to see one making a successful comeback.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

If I recall, Cherry had TJS a couple of years ago. After all of the Cubs' pitching prospects that seemed to have been ruined by injury (Brownlie, Hagerty, Blasko), it's nice to see one making a successful comeback.

 

Yeah, Cherry had TJS after getting hurt in his first start at West Tenn in 2005.

[jaxxradio]

Rocky has always had an explosive fastball. It sits in the low90's, topping out at 95 (give or take 1-2MPH). He also has a FILTHY slider.

 

It's good to see him putting up great numbers this spring, but its even better to see him completely healthy. Rocky blew out his elbow after his first start in the 2005 season at West Tenn. He did the Tommy John surgery and came back last season. He looked very impressive last year but missed part of the season with a bone spur on the middle finger of his pitching hand.

 

He's got a legit chance to make the trip north. I would love to see another West Tenn alum on the Cubs opening day roster.

[Bruce Miles]

Lou had an interesting comment after yesterday's game, in which Cherry was the losing pitcher after giving up the winning run in the ninth: "I wanted to see how he'd do after I threw his name out there." The reporters all talked to Cherry after Lou "threw his name out there." Now we'll see how he bounces back after the bad inning, an inning that any pitcher can have.

[goonys evil twin]

Lou had an interesting comment after yesterday's game, in which Cherry was the losing pitcher after giving up the winning run in the ninth: "I wanted to see how he'd do after I threw his name out there." The reporters all talked to Cherry after Lou "threw his name out there." Now we'll see how he bounces back after the bad inning, an inning that any pitcher can have.

 

That old trickster.

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

There's a good article in today's Trib on Cherry and his chances at making the team.

 

Link.

 

"Lou and I were in agreement from Day One," general manager Jim Hendry said. "You want to come to camp with a few jobs open, and no matter how we sliced it coming into camp, there were going to be a couple [of jobs] up in the air. [Cherry] put himself in the mix.

 

"We have a good problem with our pen. We have some depth and a lot of guys who still have options. What we're going to try to do is break with the best 12 guys."