Cubs sign Dave Bush; will report to AAA Iowa

[Guest]

I think you would have a hard time finding many farm systems worse off with starting pitching arms being ready. I mean, Jay Jackson should be the guy, but he's had a pretty tragic season. Outside of that, what is on the horizon? Struck? He hasn't fared well in his promotion.

 

Robert Whitenack was coming on really strong until he had to have TJ surgery. He hadn't pitched much in AA this year, but had been pretty dominant before his injury. The top end of farm took a hit when we traded Archer, called up Cashner (and he got hurt), moved Carpenter to the pen and with the implosions of Diamond, Jackson, and Chen. Coming into the year the latter three arms would have been expected to be, at worst, similar to what we've been running out there in the 5th spot this year and maybe better.

 

The strength of the pitching on the farm is in the lower minors, however, with guys like Ben Wells, Luis Liria, Austin Kirk, and others.

 

Whitenack would probably be in the big leagues by now if he had even kept up moderate success at AA. His injury was a big blow.

[questionmarkgrace]

I think you would have a hard time finding many farm systems worse off with starting pitching arms being ready. I mean, Jay Jackson should be the guy, but he's had a pretty tragic season. Outside of that, what is on the horizon? Struck? He hasn't fared well in his promotion.

 

Robert Whitenack was coming on really strong until he had to have TJ surgery. He hadn't pitched much in AA this year, but had been pretty dominant before his injury. The top end of farm took a hit when we traded Archer, called up Cashner (and he got hurt), moved Carpenter to the pen and with the implosions of Diamond, Jackson, and Chen. Coming into the year the latter three arms would have been expected to be, at worst, similar to what we've been running out there in the 5th spot this year and maybe better.

 

The strength of the pitching on the farm is in the lower minors, however, with guys like Ben Wells, Luis Liria, Austin Kirk, and others.

 

Whitenack was the biggest blow by far. McNutt not far behind but his numbers still arent that great at AA. But the top levels have been baren for a while. Outside of Cashner,Carpenter, and Smardzija who have we produced? On top of it any of our current pitchers who are worth looking at have been rushed up to make up for the lack of depth. So you have guys who are really young for their level, sometimes playing over their heads and possibly leading to injuries. Then you have guys like Coleman, Coello, Alberto Gonzalez, Bibbens-Dix, Diamond, Jackson etc. that they were depending upon as serviceable call ups but have turned out to be just brutal. A couple decent major league ready arms would go along way right now.

 

Lets hope a trade or two can get us back one or two decent pitchers who can help now. So we can continue to develop these guys. Otherwise, we may really be regretting not drafting college pitching in the early rounds of this draft.

[dew1679666265]

Whitenack was the biggest blow by far. McNutt not far behind but his numbers still arent that great at AA. But the top levels have been baren for a while. Outside of Cashner,Carpenter, and Smardzija who have we produced?

 

Mateo, Marmol, Wells, and Russell all in the past 2-3 years. We've not produced any top of the line pitching (other than Marmol), but we've gotten some nice production from recent AAA graduates. That's also part of the reason why there's not much depth at the AAA level, we've graduated our better pitchers to the majors in the past few years and then traded Archer. Even still, though, it was a good bet at the start of the year that at least one out of the group of Jackson/Diamond/Bibens-Dirx/Chen would be better than the rabble we've had in the 5th spot this year.

 

On top of it any of our current pitchers who are worth looking at have been rushed up to make up for the lack of depth. So you have guys who are really young for their level, sometimes playing over their heads and possibly leading to injuries. Then you have guys like Coleman, Coello, Alberto Gonzalez, Bibbens-Dix, Diamond, Jackson etc. that they were depending upon as serviceable call ups but have turned out to be just brutal. A couple decent major league ready arms would go along way right now.

 

Cabrera and Struck are the only two in Iowa who are way over their heads at the moment, I think. The rest of those guys, as I've said before, weren't expected to be world beaters but should have been much better at Iowa than they've been this year.

 

Lets hope a trade or two can get us back one or two decent pitchers who can help now. So we can continue to develop these guys. Otherwise, we may really be regretting not drafting college pitching in the early rounds of this draft.

 

Immediate pitching help wasn't nearly as important as some form of offensive power in this draft, I don't think. As immediate long term rotation options we have Garza, Wells (unless he's truly fallen apart), Cashner (if he can stay healthy), Whitenack, McNutt and further down the road the potential of Cabrera, Struck, and others in AA. The offensive power potential we had before the draft was Vitters and . . . .

 

We took Zych in the fourth (I think) round, a college pitcher who should fly through the system and then there's interesting FA options like CJ Wilson coming up this year and next. I think our pitching will be fine.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Mateo, Marmol, Wells, and Russell all in the past 2-3 years. We've not produced any top of the line pitching (other than Marmol), but we've gotten some nice production from recent AAA graduates.

 

Marmol is in his sixth season on the Cubs. Fifth full season.

[dew1679666265]

Mateo, Marmol, Wells, and Russell all in the past 2-3 years. We've not produced any top of the line pitching (other than Marmol), but we've gotten some nice production from recent AAA graduates.

 

Marmol is in his sixth season on the Cubs. Fifth full season.

 

You are correct. Going off memory I was thinking he had the early starting stint and then didn't come back up until either 08 or 09.