Who is the Cubs #23 prospect?

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

Does anyone else still have hope for Juan Paniagua? I know he was horrible in his innings last year, but I still have him at 30 just because of all the Visa [expletive] he had to deal with, and maybe he'll be more comfortable this year.

[craig]

...

OK. He works in the low 90s, and occasionally touches higher is what i've read. Thats nice. But "throws hard" as your #1 draw isn't good enough to be ahead of some of these other guys who have, you know, had success.

 

wekim, I'm a ways off on Underwood, too. He's hit some high velocities, but speed without control doesn't get you too far. And he doesn't actually pitch very fast very often. Working in the low 90's and occasionally touching higher isn't that amazing.

 

Still, he's only 19 and only had one year. So maybe it will all be better this year. Hopefully he's going to start to find some control and find some pitches to get guys out with.

 

No indication that he has any notably good support pitches yet. 6K/9 isn't very good, especially against the lowly Northwest-league. If he had an OK breaking ball, I'd think he'd be K'ing more guys.

 

He's obviously wild thus far. 41 wild things/36K's (Wild things including HBP and WP).

[Guest]

Does anyone else still have hope for Juan Paniagua? I know he was horrible in his innings last year, but I still have him at 30 just because of all the Visa [expletive] he had to deal with, and maybe he'll be more comfortable this year.

 

I definitely do. The age part sucks, as does his performance last year, but the scouting reports were too glowing and he had too many decent excuses for the shitty numbers for me to knock him out of the top 30.

[wekim81]

Does anyone else still have hope for Juan Paniagua? I know he was horrible in his innings last year, but I still have him at 30 just because of all the Visa [expletive] he had to deal with, and maybe he'll be more comfortable this year.

 

I definitely do. The age part sucks, as does his performance last year, but the scouting reports were too glowing and he had too many decent excuses for the [expletive] numbers for me to knock him out of the top 30.

yeah i have him right at 30. he's a guy i'm really interested to see this year. What a wildcard. Could be 10th or not ranked in the top 50 next year and neither would surprise me.

[Guest]

Hopefully he can Rivero it and have things click and suddenly start to dominate after a crappy start.

[davell]

I definitely have hope on Paniagua. I keep him at 30 on my list too, based on everything already mentioned. No real info out on his struggles, just that he got in the habit of aiming the ball, from Keith Law.

[Guest]

I'm still going Contreras, Szczur and Hannemann for the nth time in a row.

[craig]

Paniagua is indeed a wildcard. I assume he was injured; but did we ever get any word on that? Obviously he was awful, wild, and there were reports of horribly slow velocity.

 

I think one possible explanation was that he was hurt. If so, I think there's a chance that if he's healthy, he might be a different guy. Of course, it's also possible that he was hurt and is still kinda hurt and will be as bad.

 

He was inactive for many weeks of the DSL season, then came back on a very cautious pitch count. Exactly like a rehab guy, but I suppose not dissimilar to a spring training buildup. Didn't seem like he pitched that much that he needed to be deactivated for that many months, but who knows.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Given his history, there's like a 0.1% chance that the guy pitching last year wasn't really him. So there's that.

[rawaction]

Looks like this is going to be a helluva runoff vote.