TruffleShuffle

he probably does have more upside than jackson. i don't think jackson's strength was really his upside but rather than he's a become a pretty good bet to become an above-average CF. but he's not as fast as szczur and he certainly is going to strike out more frequently, which will hold down his batting average.

iowa's pitching is comically bad. their team ERA will be just a shade under 7.00 after this game.

nice to see him pitch well, because he sucked last year, and a lot of our far east pitching signees have been flops.

yeah he's so much worse than all those guys who used steroids and never got caught or admitted it publicly. the shame about guys like bonds and a-rod was that they were already fantastic talents, the type of guy who comes along once or twice a generation. even without cheating they were no-brainer HoF choices and among the best ever at their respective positions. because of their PED use, (a) we can't really know whether they were the greatest ever in LF and SS/3B, and (b) morons act like they were good only because they cheated.

i really don't understand this. a difference of as little as 6 home runs is going to affect his batting average that much?

also it's who's not whose. i know you're not writing a dissertation here WSR, but please put in a little effort.

szczur has his 5th hr. austin kirk got knocked around in the third inning, allowing 6 runs. his line: 5 ip, 8 h, 6 er, 0 bb, 3 k. he allowed 7 singles and a double so at least they weren't teeing off long balls on him.

I remember reading that it was because he was from NJ and scouts were worried about the competition level, I think. Wasn't there some NJ-area flameout a year or two before? maybe billy rowell? orioles drafted him early in 2006 and he has been awful. off the top of my head, he's the only really high south jersey draft pick in the last 6 years besides trout.

mike trout has 10 hr, 8 triples and 9 hr and an ops just shy of 1.000 in AA as a 19 year old. i'd really like to know how he made it to #25 in that draft because his tools are fantastic and he's been amazing since the day he signed with the angels.

Yeah, I just missed him... I only keep up with the Cubs prospects on a very part time basis. Tell me about him & what is your list?!? i don't know that much about him except that he's very tough on lefties, strikes out opposing batters at a high rate and allows few hits. all of those things have strong correlation with future success in the majors. i'd have a really hard time coming up with a cubs list right now. obviously brett jackson, mcnutt and baez (assuming he signs) would appear toward the top, but the cubs just have a huge amount of guys who profile as average major league players if they reach their ceilings - generic middle relievers (beliveau, harman), average starters (whitenack, beeler, struck), average hitters (lemahieu, flaherty, etc). then there are young but raw guys throughout short season ball. i'll probably try to throw together a top 20/30 list after the signing period, because i don't feel like ranking someone like maples or dunston and then having them not sign at all. besides baez and vogelbach i'm not sure who would make my top 30... probably zych (like that pick as a guy who has a limited ceiling but could move quickly as a middle reliever).

i'm guessing you just forgot about beliveau, because it doesn't make a ton of sense to have batista and harman on your list for beating up on low A batters while beliveau is dominating AA.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/team/_/stat/batting/split/79/sort/OPS/order/true OPS by position. Half of the teams in mlb have left-field OPS of less than .710. Only two have LF OPS over .817 (Milwaukee and Cardinals, of course). Only five teams other than the Cubs have LF OPS above .790. Sixteen big-league teams have 1B-OPS of less than .780. Only nine teams have 1B-OPS higher than .832. I think it's within the range of plausibility that Vitters will improve his power or production so that he become an asset hitter relative to LF, perhaps even relative to 1B. Other positional notes: 2B: Only 5 teams with OPS over .760. 3B: Only 4 teams have ten 3B HR's. Only two have 3B OPS over .780. 21 Teams have 3B OPS below .720! 19 Teams have 5 or fewer 3B HR's. Given the poverty of 3B hitting and power, I think it's with the range of plausibility that Lemahieu could become an asset hitter relative to 3B, even if his HR power never evolves past 8-10 per year. Obviously what's plausible and what actually happens gor Vitters and Lemahieu may differ. But I don't think their hitting potential is unsuited to LF and 3B. those numbers are brought down by backups at those positions. obviously if you're hoping that vitters becomes a starting LF or 3B then he should be compared to the starters at those spots, not guys like felipe lopez who ops .600 while filling in for evan longoria.

everyone talks about his contact skills like he's uncanny, but really he hasn't been that great before this year. he struck out in 16.3% of his plate appearances coming into 2011 - compare that to guys like castro or lemahieu, who struck out in 11% of their minor league plate appearances. that's one area where vitters has actually shown a lot of progression this year - he's struck out in just 8.4% of his plate appearances, or about half the rate that he had in previous years. it's becoming pretty obvious that he's not going to walk much, so in order to be productive he's going to have to be a high-contact player who hits over .300 and also shows some pop. the fielding issues are another story, and if he can't stick at 3b then it's hard to see him being worth much.

i blame samardzija more for allowing 5 baserunners in 1.1 innings than i do grablow for giving up a hit.

considering that the yankees have left about 30 men on base in this game, the cubs are lucky to still have a chance.

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?sid=milb&t=g_box&gid=2011_06_18_danrok_dblrok_1 my favorite line of the year... 7 runs on 2 hits. (12 walks in the game) in cub-related news, vitters has an rbi double. beeler has given up 5 hits and 3 runs in 3 innings, but also has 5 k's and 0 bb. i like him quite a bit - nice late-round find by the cubs.

actually if mccarver were comparing it to a play from the past it would be duke snider throwing out wes covington or some [expletive] like that.

ok so you take dempster out before facing granderson but leave him in to face gardner, who's definitely worse against LHP. great work quade.

i feel like most of his information is really only interesting if you're at least 80 years old

hmmm maybe blake dewitt shouldn't be batting in the 3-hole

hey dempster it's not the NLDS, you can throw strikes.

=D>

i looked at last year's prospect draft - bukie picked julio teheran 14th, shelby miller 19th (then he somehow ended up on tim's team) and mike trout 46th. those are arguably the top two pitching prospects and the top hitting prospect in baseball. fantastic drafting. and he got anthony rizzo with the 78th pick; rizzo has already reached the majors and is playing 1b for san diego. the only bust was hector rondon, who blew out his elbow or something.

well by that logic i should deal mike trout for ryan theriot so i can be the clear winner of a trade.

penalver was 2-3 (both hits doubles) with a walk. 13 bb/5 k on the year... also had a CS and an error playing SS. candelario had a double in 3 AB. btw, is there a place we could sticky signings and bonus amounts? it's hard to remember who were the big bonus guys among the latin american guys, as well as how much the far east guys signed for, etc. right now the info is scattered about various threads.