Cub prospects in the news

[rawaction]

So, Baez hit a first pitch 450ft to the opposite field yesterday. And another first pitch for a bloop single to the opposite field. All concerns lifted.

[Guest]

Javier Baez will be proof that Jim Hendry wasn't a total imbecile.

It wasn't the Hendry picks I had a problem with, it was the development of those picks. Under Hendry, Baez would have gone all Vittersery.

 

I wouldn't go THAT far, although I do think Baez is the type who would benefit greatly from much better player development and structure (at least compared to what was going on here before), but I also wouldn't give Hendry that much credit for that pick, just like I would credit McLeod for our current picks moreso than I'd credit Theo or Hoyer (not that Theo doesn't ultimately have final say in everything).

[Bilbo161]

Javier Baez will be proof that Jim Hendry wasn't a total imbecile.

It wasn't the Hendry picks I had a problem with, it was the development of those picks. Under Hendry, Baez would have gone all Vittersery.

I think most of Hendry's problems stemmed from the Tribune Co's tight draft and minor league development budgets. When he had support from above he was able to spend more in spurts but once the ownership thought they were in contention the budget would be restrictive. Towards the end the purse strings opened up a bit (Soriano etc) but that was because they were trying to sell the club and needed to show something to up the price. Baez was a great pick andhis skills would have gotten him to the majors under the old regime as well. I don't have any fears that he will fall short due to make-up or lack of defensive usefulness like Vitters. And Vitters can still be a major leaguer. He just needs to show he can hit at the top level and someone will stick him in LF.

[jersey cubs fan]

Javier Baez will be proof that Jim Hendry wasn't a total imbecile.

It wasn't the Hendry picks I had a problem with, it was the development of those picks. Under Hendry, Baez would have gone all Vittersery.

I think most of Hendry's problems stemmed from the Tribune Co's tight draft and minor league development budgets.

 

Please, no. Stop. Jim Hendry was Jim Hendry's biggest problem.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I think most of Hendry's problems stemmed from the Tribune Co's tight draft and minor league development budgets.

 

 

No, no, no, no, no. I know it's probably too late, but I do not want this to become a thing like "Greg Maddux threw 88 MPH" and "The league screwed the Cubs out of a home game in the 1984 NLCS."

[Guest]

I think most of Hendry's problems stemmed from the Tribune Co's tight draft and minor league development budgets.

 

 

No, no, no, no, no. I know it's probably too late, but I do not want this to become a thing like "Greg Maddux threw 88 MPH" and "The league screwed the Cubs out of a home game in the 1984 NLCS."

 

It already has on PSD.

 

You won't believe how much resistance I faced when I talked about how awful and backwards Hendry's FO was. Then they "blamed" Zell for the stuff he made him do that arguably made the Cubs the most successful they'd been in his tenure.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I can think of like two cheap first-rounders under Hendry/Tribune.

[KingCubsFan]

I can think of like two cheap first-rounders under Hendry/Tribune.

Does Vitters count? Because apparently Wilken wanted Wieters. Plus there's Colvin and Simpson.

[The-Kris-Bryant]

I can think of like two cheap first-rounders under Hendry/Tribune.

Does Vitters count? Because apparently Wilken wanted Wieters. Plus there's Colvin and Simpson.

Hard to throw Colvin as one with Shark. I'm also pretty sure Simpson was their guy and he wouldn't have slipped to the cubs 3rd or 4th rounder. We had a huge split between picks that year. Makes rational sense if you don't buy into the conspiracy theories.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I can think of like two cheap first-rounders under Hendry/Tribune.

Does Vitters count? Because apparently Wilken wanted Wieters. Plus there's Colvin and Simpson.

 

Vitters definitely does not count. $3.2m for the top HS bat at the No. 3 overall pick was easily market price at the time.

 

Colvin counts, but seeing as how we used part of the savings to give Jeff Samadrzija one of the 10 biggest contracts in draft history, I don't think we can call them cheap that year.

 

Simpson didn't come under the Tribune, it came under Ricketts.

[Guest]

I can think of like two cheap first-rounders under Hendry/Tribune.

Does Vitters count? Because apparently Wilken wanted Wieters. Plus there's Colvin and Simpson.

 

Vitters got slot.

[KingCubsFan]

I can think of like two cheap first-rounders under Hendry/Tribune.

Does Vitters count? Because apparently Wilken wanted Wieters. Plus there's Colvin and Simpson.

 

Vitters got slot.

Yeah, I know, but I guess it all depends on what you define as "cheap." Given the Cubs' resources, I think prohibiting anything overslot at the time would have been pretty cheap. Regardless, I don't think it matters much as I don't think the Hendry regime had the ability to consistently develop major league hitters.

[SouthSideRyan]

Simpson was evidence of the overwhelming arrogance of the hendry front office

[Clem Fandango]

Simpson was evidence of the overwhelming arrogance of the hendry front office

 

The list of players taken after Simpson that year is depressing as [expletive].

 

Kaleb Cowart

Michael Foltynewicz

Christian Yelich

Aaron Sanchez

Noah Syndergaard

Anthony Ranaudo

Taijuan Walker

Nick Castellanos

Mike Olt (heh)

Jedd Gyorko

Drew Smyly

Andrelton Simmons

Justin Nicolino

Addison Reed

A.J. Cole

Nick Kingham

James Paxton

Garin Cecchini

 

Barf.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Yeah, I know, but I guess it all depends on what you define as "cheap." Given the Cubs' resources, I think prohibiting anything overslot at the time would have been pretty cheap. Regardless, I don't think it matters much as I don't think the Hendry regime had the ability to consistently develop major league hitters.

 

Not paying Wieters $2m more than Vitters looks bad now, but it's not like they were averse to paying overslot as a rule in the Tribune-Hendry years. They overslotted a lot.

[davell]

They were generally good for one overslot a year, usually less than a mill. They were middle of the road, at best, when it came to draft spending.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

They were generally good for one overslot a year, usually less than a mill. They were middle of the road, at best, when it came to draft spending.

 

They also had a lot of high first-round picks, which are where the bulk of draft spending happens.

[davell]

They were generally good for one overslot a year, usually less than a mill. They were middle of the road, at best, when it came to draft spending.

 

They also had a lot of high first-round picks, which are where the bulk of draft spending happens.

True, but I'm not sure that's a feather in their cap for spending, since the first rounder was usually just slot value. Which any fan of any team should at least expect that to be spent.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Regardless, I don't think there's anyway they can accurately be described as cheap in the draft. They didn't go balls-to-the-wall overslotting every single year, but they weren't cheap.

[craig]

They were clearly not cheap. Around the turn of the century they were huge spenders (Bobby Hill draft, Prior draft and then following pup that mega-spend on a significant overslot on Sisco; Patterson was an expensive sign; Brownlie draft where they just kept spending and spending and spending; they went repeatedly with HS expensive high picks (Harvey, Vitters….). The massive Samardzija draft, and then they spent a massive overslot on Huseby, and had some other big tickets.

 

It's also fair to say that they didn't overslot/superslot as much as might have been desired in a couple of drafts. Brett Jackson draft, they didn't. As noted, Wilkens has suggested that he'd have preferred to pay millions superslot on Wieters rather than slot Vitters.

 

If "cheap" means having had a couple of drafts where they mostly paid slot with a million or less of superslots, rather than superslotting by multiple millions every draft, then by that somewhat unusual definition a couple drafts were "cheap". If "cheap" means sub-slotting, they were *never* ever cheap overall.

 

Simpson I'm still convinced was totally a scouting pick by Wilken. He said so, at any rate, the account seemed quite proud of that selection. And they did then subsequently do a while bunch of overslots subsequently (Sczcur; Golden; Wells; then a whole bunch of HS/JC overslots from rounds 8 on), so that that draft wasn't overall cheap either.

 

Could they have spend more in some drafts? Sure. But they were never cheap, they often spent like crazy, and the failures of the draft were absolutely never for lack of dollars.

[Bilbo161]

I think most of Hendry's problems stemmed from the Tribune Co's tight draft and minor league development budgets.

 

 

No, no, no, no, no. I know it's probably too late, but I do not want this to become a thing like "Greg Maddux threw 88 MPH" and "The league screwed the Cubs out of a home game in the 1984 NLCS."

 

I can see myself being wrong on Hendry's spending on the draft (development not so much) but what does that have to do with the time we got screwed out of home field advantage in that SD series. That was very true. Yea I know Leon let that ball through his legs but thats not the point. We did get screwed.

[Guest]

I think most of Hendry's problems stemmed from the Tribune Co's tight draft and minor league development budgets.

 

 

No, no, no, no, no. I know it's probably too late, but I do not want this to become a thing like "Greg Maddux threw 88 MPH" and "The league screwed the Cubs out of a home game in the 1984 NLCS."

 

I can see myself being wrong on Hendry's spending on the draft (development not so much) but what does that have to do with the time we got screwed out of home field advantage in that SD series. That was very true. Yea I know Leon let that ball through his legs but thats not the point. We did get screwed.

No, no, NO! This is completely false. In the 1980s, MLB rotated home field between East and West for the LCS. In 1983, the East had home field; before the LCS were expanded to best-of-seven in 1985, they were played in 2-3 format. As you can see at that link, the West Champion Dodgers had the first two games at home, then the Phillies were home for games 3 and 4, and would have had game 5 at home, but they won the series in four.

 

The N.L. West champions were always scheduled to have home field advantage in 1984; the fact that the Cubs didn't had nothing to do with their lack of lights. The Cubs would have lost home field in the World Series had they made it; as you can see here, the American League had home-field advantage in the 2-3-2 format 1983 World Series and the National League was scheduled, in the same alternating format, to have home field in 1984. As it turned out, the Cubs lost nothing that year, except the NLCS.

 

http://www.bleedcubbieblue.com/2013/4/13/4219958/cubs-1984-playoff-myth-dallas-green

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I can see myself being wrong on Hendry's spending on the draft (development not so much) but what does that have to do with the time we got screwed out of home field advantage in that SD series. That was very true. Yea I know Leon let that ball through his legs but thats not the point. We did get screwed.

 

It never happened. The 1984 NLCS was always going to be two games at the NL East team and then three games at the NL West team. That's the way they rotated it back then.

 

There was talk at a few points around there of the Cubs potentially losing a WS home game or losing home games in future playoffs, and over the years that's become conflated and created a myth that the Cubs lost a home game in the 1984 NLCS, but they didn't.

[Bilbo161]

I think most of Hendry's problems stemmed from the Tribune Co's tight draft and minor league development budgets.

 

 

No, no, no, no, no. I know it's probably too late, but I do not want this to become a thing like "Greg Maddux threw 88 MPH" and "The league screwed the Cubs out of a home game in the 1984 NLCS."

 

I can see myself being wrong on Hendry's spending on the draft (development not so much) but what does that have to do with the time we got screwed out of home field advantage in that SD series. That was very true. Yea I know Leon let that ball through his legs but thats not the point. We did get screwed.

No, no, NO! This is completely false. In the 1980s, MLB rotated home field between East and West for the LCS. In 1983, the East had home field; before the LCS were expanded to best-of-seven in 1985, they were played in 2-3 format. As you can see at that link, the West Champion Dodgers had the first two games at home, then the Phillies were home for games 3 and 4, and would have had game 5 at home, but they won the series in four.

 

The N.L. West champions were always scheduled to have home field advantage in 1984; the fact that the Cubs didn't had nothing to do with their lack of lights. The Cubs would have lost home field in the World Series had they made it; as you can see here, the American League had home-field advantage in the 2-3-2 format 1983 World Series and the National League was scheduled, in the same alternating format, to have home field in 1984. As it turned out, the Cubs lost nothing that year, except the NLCS.

 

http://www.bleedcubbieblue.com/2013/4/13/4219958/cubs-1984-playoff-myth-dallas-green

 

Guess I'll trust you on that one but I thought the home field was alternated only in the WS and that win loss record was what decided home field everywhere else. Hell it was so long and so many beers and brain cells ago. Thanks to both you and Kyle for correcting me anyway.

[Guest]

Kris Bryant fluff piece: http://mweb.cbssports.com/mlb/writer/jon-heyman/24472155/legend-of-kris-bryant-grows-one-nl-executive-sees-50-homer-power