Minor League Discussion & Boxes 5-22-10

[davell]

By the way, Antigua has had a couple of bad outings in a row. Hope he gets it going soon. I had hopes of him reaching Daytona this season.

 

Juan Yasser Serrano made his EXST debut today, pitching a 1-2-3 inning. AZPhil thinks once he builds his arm strength up, he'll head to Daytona.

[17 Seconds]

it would be so cubs to move cashner to the pen this season

 

it's possibilities like this that make me hope the cubs just tank so they take away the temptation from hendry to do more stupid things

[toonsterwu]

Mike Wellman has something up about the I-Cubs game over at TCR. Short of it, very friendly hitting conditions, Cashner was at or below the knees with a mid-90's fastball most of the game.

[StarlinOnYou]

What do you do with Cashner?

 

leave him in AAA to keep building up his arm strength by going deep into ballgames.

 

I agree, but this is the Cubs we are talking about. I find it hard to believe he's going to stick down there with the way he's dealing.

[davell]

As much as I DO NOT want to see the Cubs put Cashner in the pen, Toonster just made a great point. How many innings are the Cubs going to give Cashner this year? He pitched 100 last year and unless I'm mistaken, he's never hit that many before. (Since high school anyway). He's at 55 innings right now.

 

Maybe the optimal thing to do is let him pitch through July in the rotation at Iowa, possibly getting him up to the 100-110 inning range, maybe even a tad higher than that. Then, bring him to the majors in the pen, to where we keep his innings at a manageable level? Maybe he winds up the year at 150 or so that way? I'm not sure how much over that, I'd feel comfortable with, although his pitch counts have been very reasonable to date.....

 

Like I said, I want him in the rotation. But, how many innings do we feel comfortable putting on his arm this year? I normally wouldn't be THIS cautious with someone, but considering his max has been 100, I figure it's a topic we could discuss.

[toonsterwu]

we should probably add 19.2 innings onto it, the number of innings he had in AFL. So, around 120 innings last year. I forget what the "equation" was on innings, but I'd venture to guess that a reasonable number for this year would probably be somewhere at 150, with 175 really, significantly stretching it, imo.

[Cubswin11]

we should probably add 19.2 innings onto it, the number of innings he had in AFL. So, around 120 innings last year. I forget what the "equation" was on innings, but I'd venture to guess that a reasonable number for this year would probably be somewhere at 150, with 175 really, significantly stretching it, imo.

I think they say usually no more than 25-35 inning increases per year.

[JonJayCutler]

Great outing for Cashner, but please keep him in the rotation. We seem to be grooming a potential top of the line starter and we don't need to slow his progress by moving him to the pen at any level.

 

Attended the Peoria/QC game tonight. Antigua's start was nothing special and Hak-Ju Lee seems to be a stud defensively. He made a couple of nice plays and rather smoothly. He had three hits as well, but at least two of them were just ground balls that found holes. Not sure how he's going to pan out offensively.

 

This Peoria team doesn't appear to be too good, which was to be expected after the good crop of guys from last year moved up. Might be attending either tomorrow or Monday's game as well. I'll recap it if I go.

[CubsWin]

i don't want cashner up, but ...

 

if the cubs are still hanging around in late June/early July, and Cashner is nearing 100 innings at that point (say, 6 more starts at 6 innings each, which is close to what he's averaged), and the setup work still isn't solid, it's going to be, imo, awful tough for the Cubs to not ponder it, even if they ideally don't want it. I mean, Cashner would have approximately, what, 30-50 innings left without really having a huge jump in workload (he worked what, 100.1 innings reg season last year, and a few in AFL, so a target of 150 seems fairly reasonable). Would they really try pushing a lot more innings on him?

 

Certainly, maybe they push it to 150 or so and call him up in August or September, but I think there's a decent chance we'll see Cashner in the bigs this year.

Excellent point.

[CubsWin]

it would be so cubs to move cashner to the pen this season

 

it's possibilities like this that make me hope the cubs just tank so they take away the temptation from hendry to do more stupid things

See above.

[Little Slide Rooter]

Due to us having a pretty good farm syetem, Aaron Shafer keeps getting lost in the shuffle. This guy seems to own the High A circuit, and I think its time to send him to Tennessee, or even all the way to Iowa.

[ctcf]

Any chance we see Jackson go up to Tennessee soon?

[bannor10]

Bring Cashner up now...He isn't a china doll...Have him gain some experience at the major league level...Don't burn the kid out but he can definately help the team out this year...At a Certain point AAA doesn't mean much and a guy cannot learn anymore...Not sure if thats true for Cashner or not yet...Does he have 3 pitches he can control?

[CUBZ99]

Mike Wellman has something up about the I-Cubs game over at TCR. Short of it, very friendly hitting conditions, Cashner was at or below the knees with a mid-90's fastball most of the game.

 

I was at the game last night and lucked out getting to see Cashner. Got some pics that I will try to upload later. There is no doubt that he pitched a good game, but I have to question the scouting report from TCR. It is possible that Wellman brought a radar gun to the game or sat behind a scout with a radar gun, but according to the scoreboard radar gun Cashner wasn't pitching in the mid-90's.

 

The first inning Cashner was throwing from 86-89 with his FB and off speed pitches of about 79-82mph. His velocity did start to increase during the game and in the 4th inning he was working in the 88-91 range. I saw a couple of 92's and he topped out at 94 with one pitch toward the end of his outing.

 

He appeared to be throwing two different off speed pitches. Slider and perhaps the change up that he has been working on? A lot of check swing strikes on the off speed stuff. There were only 3 or so well struck balls, two of which Adducci made terrific plays on. The first one just missed leaving the yard and Aducci held the hitter to a single. The second one, Adducci went into the wall and made a spectacular catch to save a run.

 

As far as position players go, Barney looked solid at SS. He showed some range and had a better arm than I expected. Adducci had a very solid game at the plate and in the field. I was impressed with his speed and the ground he covered in the OF.

[Outshined_One]

Mike Wellman has something up about the I-Cubs game over at TCR. Short of it, very friendly hitting conditions, Cashner was at or below the knees with a mid-90's fastball most of the game.

 

I was at the game last night and lucked out getting to see Cashner. Got some pics that I will try to upload later. There is no doubt that he pitched a good game, but I have to question the scouting report from TCR. It is possible that Wellman brought a radar gun to the game or sat behind a scout with a radar gun, but according to the scoreboard radar gun Cashner wasn't pitching in the mid-90's.

 

Do you happen to remember whether anyone else pitched above 94 last night? Minor League Ballparks are notorious for having inaccurate radar guns, so I'm curious as to whether it was a few ticks off.

[CUBZ99]

Mike Wellman has something up about the I-Cubs game over at TCR. Short of it, very friendly hitting conditions, Cashner was at or below the knees with a mid-90's fastball most of the game.

 

I was at the game last night and lucked out getting to see Cashner. Got some pics that I will try to upload later. There is no doubt that he pitched a good game, but I have to question the scouting report from TCR. It is possible that Wellman brought a radar gun to the game or sat behind a scout with a radar gun, but according to the scoreboard radar gun Cashner wasn't pitching in the mid-90's.

 

Do you happen to remember whether anyone else pitched above 94 last night? Minor League Ballparks are notorious for having inaccurate radar guns, so I'm curious as to whether it was a few ticks off.

 

I think it is likely that it was a bit slow, but not sure how much. Schlitter was throwing in the 90's when he came in but nobody else touched 94. And like I said, Cashner only hit 94 on one pitch.

[mul21]

I've been in the leave Cashner in Iowa camp, but toonster does make a great point. Maybe leave him there until he hits a little over 100 innings and then bring him up to the big league pen where he'll throw another 30 innings or so to get him to 150ish. It saves his arm a bit and probably helps stabilize the late innings when they have a lead. If that's the way they go with the plan to build more arm strength and get to 180 or so next year, I'm fine with that. So long as they don't do the yoyo thing.

[toonsterwu]

hey cubz, first off, hope you had a great time. that actually sounds a bit more realistic to me. A few games back, the report was that Cashner was in the 92-94 range, occasionally able to get it up a notch higher, but that's where he sat more comfortably. The mid-90's stuff seems high. Schlitter in the low 90's sounds about right, albeit a tad on the low side from what I remember. Maybe the scoreboard is behind a tick, with Wellman up a tick. Dunno.