Minor League Discussion & Boxes 7-14-2008

[imb]

Jeff worked around a couple two out singles for a scoreless 6th inning. Got to think his day is over.

 

6 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 4 BB, 9 K, 1 HR, 4 GO-5 FO, 102 pitches (61 strikes).

 

That's a career high in strikeouts.

 

I don't know anything about the lineup he was facing, but that's a pretty exciting line

[Guest]

Jeff worked around a couple two out singles for a scoreless 6th inning. Got to think his day is over.

 

6 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 4 BB, 9 K, 1 HR, 4 GO-5 FO, 102 pitches (61 strikes).

 

That's a career high in strikeouts.

 

I don't know anything about the lineup he was facing, but that's a pretty exciting line

 

The lineup featured MiLB's leading HR hitter, Dallas McPherson, who went 0 for 3 with 2 strikeouts against Samardzija. And the game was in extremely hitter-friendly Alburquerque. The Isotopes lineup appears to be veteran-laden...5 hitters born before 1980 (McPherson), one born in 1982 and one born in 1984 (that means Samardzija was younger than everyone in the starting lineup he faced).

 

Let's not forget that the good numbers he's putting up at AAA are in the hitter-friendly PCL.

[Guest]

Just read a story in ITI about Blake Parker that said that he used to pitch 88-92 when he converted last year but now is up around 93-95 mph. His out pitch is a slider.

 

http://cubs.scout.com/2/769213.html

[ctcf]

Jeff sure is intriguing.

[Guest]

The SL All-Star game is about to get started. The Cubs have 3 representatives: Donnie Veal, Douge Deeds and Nate Spears. Deeds is starting in RF and batting 9th for the North.

[Outshined_One]

Jeff Samardzija is confusing the heck out of me. I thought he was supposed to suck.

[craig]

Cal, thanks much for the info from that Blake Parker article. Good slider with a 93-95 fastball as a secondary pitch is a combo that could be taken seriously. Thanks for the info, nice to know he's got a chance to have a good big-league fastball.

 

On Samardz, Muskat answered a question about Samardzija with a rare bit of possible scouting info: "The right-hander has pitched well since he was promoted to Triple-A and the Cubs have seen progress (he's hiding the ball better, for example)." There have also been reports of the splitter working well recently.

 

Also, a guy who went to the game today posted the following: "Sam pitched pretty well today. He is definately a thrower...consistently threw high or in the dirt. But the fact is, they didn't hit him besides the HR. He threw gas and even had a 2B."

 

The "threw gas" is interesting. While BA always alludes to the 98 that he hit once or twice in college and a few times in spring training, I've sometimes wondered whether his velocity during real-season games was anything special. But the "threw gas", while hardly precise, sounds positive in that regard.

 

The Samardz thing is pretty crazy. After 5 K/9 in AA, he's now at 9K/9IP in his 5 AAA starts. His last three have been 22K/19IP. And while I'm not sure, I'm somewhat guessing that 6 K may have been his personal best two starts ago when he reached that; 7 may have been his personal best last start; and 9 obviously was his personal best today.

[YearofDaCubs]

Let's hope he figured it out. That would be great for this organization.

[sneakypower]

And while I'm not sure, I'm somewhat guessing that 6 K may have been his personal best two starts ago when he reached that; 7 may have been his personal best last start; and 9 obviously was his personal best today.

5 or 6 starts from now and he should have a 20 K game

[NCCubFan]

In the Southern League All-Star Game, the North Division beat the South 6-1. As mentioned Deeds, Spears, and Veal represented the Smokies, but only Deeds played. He played the entire game, going 1 for 4, with 2 strikeouts. His 1 hit was a solo home run which represented the North's 6th and final run. The MVP was Carolina 2B Chris Coghlan, who hit a 3-run bomb to break the game wide open (it was 2-1 before then); naturally the hometown crowd was quite happy with the selection. Interestingly, a former Cub farmhand (Miguel Negron, now with the White Sox organization), made the final out of the game. A highllight was Harry Canary leading the 7th inning stretch. The game may have lost a little luster when Cameron Maybin (currently playing for Carolina) went on the DL with an injured back and missed the game.

[El Rojito]

Any reason why Pie and Hoffpauir didn't play? Regular rest?

[TruffleShuffle]

vitters went a boring 1-for-4, that hit being a double. josh harrison - or as i like to call him, youkilis lite - went 3-for-5 with 2 doubles and his 7th stolen base.

 

and, matt craig has a 1.517 OPS in his first five games at iowa.

[Rob]

Does anybody happen to know what's changed that's allowing Samardzija to strike out more batters? Is he relying on a different pitch more often, has a pitch gotten better, etc...?

[sporrer17]

What kind of prospect is Nate Samson, SS, Peoria?

 

He is hitting .300 as a 20 year old in A ball, which isn't all that bad, age/level wise. Not much pop, decent discipline. Seems like a contact guy. Seems a little bit like Theriot without the speed right now. He is 6'0, 170, so he could fill out and add some power I'm assuming...but does he have any upside or is he just a career minor leaguer? And how is his defense at SS...playable or will he have to move?

 

Also, I'm confused, is he a RH hitter or a switch hitter, the Chiefs site has him as a switch hitter, but milb.com has him as a RH.

[badnews]

vitters went a boring 1-for-4, that hit being a double. josh harrison - or as i like to call him, youkilis lite - went 3-for-5 with 2 doubles and his 7th stolen base.

 

and, matt craig has a 1.517 OPS in his first five games at iowa.

 

I think Jeff Natale is a better fit there than Youk.

[roadster]

Does anybody happen to know what's changed that's allowing Samardzija to strike out more batters? Is he relying on a different pitch more often, has a pitch gotten better, etc...?

 

I read somewhere that the Cubs coaching is saying that he is hidding the ball better...whatever that means. I guess if you can't see it, you can't hit.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

What kind of prospect is Nate Samson, SS, Peoria?

 

He is hitting .300 as a 20 year old in A ball, which isn't all that bad, age/level wise. Not much pop, decent discipline. Seems like a contact guy. Seems a little bit like Theriot without the speed right now. He is 6'0, 170, so he could fill out and add some power I'm assuming...but does he have any upside or is he just a career minor leaguer? And how is his defense at SS...playable or will he have to move?

 

Also, I'm confused, is he a RH hitter or a switch hitter, the Chiefs site has him as a switch hitter, but milb.com has him as a RH.

 

Samson's a non-prospect to me. A terrible IsoP leaves him at just a .734 OPS despite that average and decent walk rate. He's also made 23 errors in 87 games.

[Guest]

Does anybody happen to know what's changed that's allowing Samardzija to strike out more batters? Is he relying on a different pitch more often, has a pitch gotten better, etc...?

 

He switched his out pitch from slider to splitter this offseason. Maybe it took him a while to get the splitter going. I remember a few weeks ago, Dallas McPherson was talking about how it was a big league out pitch and a good split.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

Does anybody happen to know what's changed that's allowing Samardzija to strike out more batters? Is he relying on a different pitch more often, has a pitch gotten better, etc...?

 

He switched his out pitch from slider to splitter this offseason. Maybe it took him a while to get the splitter going. I remember a few weeks ago, Dallas McPherson was talking about how it was a big league out pitch and a good split.

and Dallas McPherson knows how to get out in the big leagues

[NCCubFan]

Does anybody happen to know what's changed that's allowing Samardzija to strike out more batters? Is he relying on a different pitch more often, has a pitch gotten better, etc...?

 

I read somewhere that the Cubs coaching is saying that he is hidding the ball better...whatever that means. I guess if you can't see it, you can't hit.

Maybe it means he was tipping his pitches before and that's been corrected now.

[craig]

Harrison is really doing well. One error in 23 games, that's good. 16BB/11 walks, that's good. .457 OBP, that's good. 11 XBH to 15 singles, that's good. .970 OPS, that's good. Just turned 21 last week, so he'll be 21 for most of next year. So despite being a college draft pick, I assume he'll skip to Daytona and at 21 will be reasonably young there.

 

The defense, of course, is critical. I think BA questioned his defense, but I think that may have been more as a SS. As a little guy who won't play SS, he really needs to be fine/good at 2nd if he's ever going to start, and even for utility pretty tough if he can't play an acceptable 2nd. Lucas McKnight, the Cub scout who signed him, said his arm strength is average but is very accurate; "average" would preclude SS, but an average arm that's very accurate could be fine at 2nd. McKnight seemed to think he's got a chance to be a solid 2B. Obviously too small to project power. But hopefully a high walk low K guy can be an OBP factory table-setter. Perhaps a Theriot-like OBP guy, but the early returns (11 XBH in 23 games) raise the hope that Harrison might have more than Theriot-level power. Perhaps he'll be able to hit for average/OBP like Theriot, but hopefully Fontenot or Fukudome might be more his type in terms of power?

 

Biggio is a HOFer, but if harrison turned into a Biggio type guy, that would be a nice model. Well, minus the base-stealing speed... or the gold glove defense.... or the HR's..... OK, maybe that's kind of ridiculous.

 

Anyway, hope he keeps it up.

[imb]

Does anybody happen to know what's changed that's allowing Samardzija to strike out more batters? Is he relying on a different pitch more often, has a pitch gotten better, etc...?

 

I read somewhere that the Cubs coaching is saying that he is hidding the ball better...whatever that means. I guess if you can't see it, you can't hit.

Maybe it means he was tipping his pitches before and that's been corrected now.

 

Sounds more like a motion-thing to me. Like the batter can't see the ball until later in his motion. Seems like that could make a pretty decent difference.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Does anybody happen to know what's changed that's allowing Samardzija to strike out more batters? Is he relying on a different pitch more often, has a pitch gotten better, etc...?

 

I read somewhere that the Cubs coaching is saying that he is hidding the ball better...whatever that means. I guess if you can't see it, you can't hit.

Maybe it means he was tipping his pitches before and that's been corrected now.

 

Sounds more like a motion-thing to me. Like the batter can't see the ball until later in his motion. Seems like that could make a pretty decent difference.

 

That was one of the big things in Hill's emergence when he first came up. His 89-91 mph fastball wasn't visible until the last possible moment, giving it the reaction time of a heater several mph faster(especially coupled with a slow curve). Sounds like the same thing with Samardzija.