TruffleShuffle

rashad crawford and jeffrey baez seem to have the walking and stealing bases thing down pretty well. hopefully one or both of them learns how to hit.

cubs win, cardinals lose, castro and rizzo each on base three times. good day.

paniagua pitched for azl cubs: 3 ip, 2 h, 0 r, 0 bb, 4 k. vitters is playing third base (0-for-1 with a walk)

ian stewart got revenge on the i-cubs with a home run.

if tom tunney and the rooftop people don't like it, then it's probably good.

article about almora. and the best news, it's not written by phil rogers! http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/cubs/post/_/id/18378/almoras-instincts-leadership-set-him-apart

almora 2-2 with a double.

Oh man, Pena's excitement is really what makes that awesome. that catcher is a fatso

They sign 2014 contracts actually. Unless they're older, like Mejia. They may get a taste of EXST over the offseason and its possible if they're advanced enough, they could start out in Arizona. Highly doubtful though. More than one year in the Dominican League for those 2 would be a big disappointment. FWIW, Jimenez and Torres will both show up on BA's top 30. Likely in the late teens to mid 20 range. Parks said he'll consider both for his Cubs top 15. Generally a couple of the top 16-year olds start off in the complex leagues the year after they sign (for example, Baretto is in the GCL this year), but I feel like the Cubs under Theo seem are willing to go slower. Off the top of my head, Larry Suarez, Carlos Zambrano and Felix Pie are the only 16-year olds who signed and jumped to the AZL in their first year in the Cubs system. ETA: Forgot Felix Pie. Has there ever been a team that through an extremely talented 16 or 17 year old in Single or Double A? Is there any rare talents like that who had great success in the minors at 16, 17..? http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=628711 also it's not exactly what you asked for, but felix hernandez utterly dominated the top hitter's league in baseball (california league, high A ball) and then another hitter's league (texas league, AA) at age 18.

mitch williams said something utterly moronic on baseball tonight, or whatever the [expletive] show he's on: which led to mccarthy and a bunch of his twitter followers making a series of jokes ridiculing mitch williams.

i'm not that concerned about the walks; i'm just saying that he's 19 years old and has played less than half a year at low A, so i don't really see the need to push him to daytona yet. especially since they play like twice a week.

those 5'10" white kids shouting back at him sure do look tough.

he's 19, has a BB/K ratio of 7/21 and has played less than half a season of full season ball. let's relax.

underwood has been pretty bad this year.

comeback fell just short.

3 run homer for alcantara (13th of the year).

leave him in, who gives a [expletive] really

i knew that nomar trade would come back to bite us in the ass!!!

maybe we should've signed pujols after all; he still looks awesome playing in wrigley. :x

luis liria and dillon maples: bad.

huh i had no idea that hank conger was asian.

well this escalated quickly.

so we need rizzo to be as good as the two best first basemen in baseball this year? jeez no pressure there.

well, a lot of those guys suck. blake parker has been trying to hold down a spot in the cubs' bullpen for five years now (and that's not an exaggeration; he's been pitching for iowa since 2008). strop's command tends to vary between below average and abysmal. guerrier was dumped by a team that wanted to replace him with marmol. russell was already here, so i have no idea why you included him. gregg - well, we already know his history, and he's likely to be gone in the next few weeks. still, they've added a couple of live arms. and they're only 8 games below .500 with a bullpen that has been pathetic; even with an average bullpen they're a .500 team. that's why people say they can see the cubs contending next year; just put together a reasonable bullpen, hopefully castro goes from terrible to at least good (like he used to be), rizzo improves, maybe sign a free agent outfielder, sign a starting pitcher (feldman-ish), and hey they're not far off.

i think wells got one out in the top of the 7th but also allowed a walk and a hbp; del valle came in and imploded so wells got tagged with 2 earned runs and a no decision. still, good outing.