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craig

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Everything posted by craig

  1. craig
    Are we confident that all of the deals have been reported? Obviously all the midnight attention is on the big guns. But are we certain that if Sam Howard or Tanner Kichler or some late-round guy had signed, that we'd know about it? The BA list doesn't have Lockhart showing, so the absence of listing for some guy who might have gotten $100-250 doesn't necessarily mean we mightn't have signed somebody else, maybe?
  2. craig
    Question: When is the deadline,actually. Midnight tomorrow, or 4 pm, or what? If it's midnight or 4, is that eastern time? I've had August 15 on my mental calendar for a while, but I'm wondering if it will all be determined and public by tomorrow evening, or what. And then how soon some of the info will get public. Dunston and Jacques are Tweeters supreme, and will cost dollars, so they'll tell us soon enough. But if David Ernst or Tanner Kischner sign, how will we find out and how soon?
  3. craig
    Any idea what's up with him? There was a time when he was a good college pitcher. He's not just a senior, he's going to turn 24 in a couple of weeks. Is he injured? On drugs? Or simply realistic that pro baseball isn't for him and he's going to med school or law school or something practical like that?
  4. craig
    http://m.tribune-democrat.com/TTD/db_265842/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=AwTXnwGz&detailindex=0&pn=0&ps=5 Austin Urban, 41st round RHP, turned 19 last month, says that he's signed. Why do I guess that he'll later announce that he got 4th round bonus and college coverage? His scouting report was that he was wild, had a bad delivery, but threw 90-92, has touched 94, and has a slider.
  5. craig
    A .450 OBP when you're hitting .393 isn't too hot in the patience department, either. The Cubs drafting a free swinger? Who'd have guessed? Seriously, though, I think we shouldn't be misled by the value-per-dollar. Just because we're paying everybody like a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th round pick (or higher, once we get our last guys signed) doesn't mean we're really going to get 20 of the best 150 guys in the draft. These guys have the leverage, and they're going to get well overpaid to get signed. Gretzky, Schlecht, Dunston if/when he signs, Maples, Shoulders for sure, Vogelbach, DeVoss, Zych, Taylor, I think all of these guys will be kind of overpaid. We've been wishing that the team would be willing to overpay to have a chance at guys. Certainly most of the guys getting paid won't work out, and perhaps none will. I just hope we don't spend the next five years complaining that the players aren't living up to their bonuses. But it's sure fun for now. And hopefully a lot funner by next Tuesday.
  6. craig
    I thought both Lindgren and Dugas sounded pretty interesting. Obviously Dugas didn't have superstar tools, but he's got a good shot to be a major league contributor. That's one of the things about this draft: to me, it looks like pretty much everybody is interesting, other than a few of the college picks. I like them all, I think, so anybody they do sign is interesting, and anybody they don't is something of a disappointment. But we'll see. Maybe dugas will still change his mind, who knows. The next ten days will be pretty interesting. I remain somewhat curious to see how quickly what signings occur on the 15th get public quickly. With tweeting dunston, and with a guy as high profile as Maples, if they sign it won't stay secret for long. But if George Asmas signs, I'm not sure Callis is going to be knowing that or posting that right away. My memory may be wrong, but I don't recall being immediately aware of either the Struck signing two Augusts ago, or for that matter Roderick last August.
  7. craig
    I'm hearing from a couple of sides that Dunston is telling Cubs and vandy that he's going to college. Too bad. O well, can't get them all, and it's pretty clear that is wasn't for lack of effort or a lack of dollars. If a kid decides he really wants to go to school, that's his choice.
  8. craig
    I think after the draft, in one of the articles Schlecht said teams had been telling him in the 5th-8th round range. May be a lie; might be only Cubs scouts telling him that; or might be three scouts from teams that like him and the other 27 teams aren't telling him they think he's a 35th round talent. So there are always questions about these kinds of comments from kids. But it may also be true. Always a range of opinions between different scouts.
  9. craig
    $125-200 has basically been slot for any HS/JC/sophomore type pick almost anywhere in the draft, seems to me. My understanding is that kurcz, Fitzgerald, Hartman, Beeler, all those kinds of guys get that. I understand perhaps the "listings" include college value, and they perhaps get less in actual dollars. Whereas Jensen sounds like he's claiming "actual" 4th round money, plus college besides. But I think $175 isn't that surprising. I admit I'm almost surprised he signed for that little. I'd probably overrated him, but to me his scouting reports had sounded considerably more promising that with Jaques.
  10. craig
    I read that Negrin was his staff ace back in cuba and won 11 games .... I believe he's 27. Here are the only stats I could find on Negrin: That comes from an interview with his advisor/agent. It also says that his fastball is consistently at 90, peaking at 94 and he throws a two-seamer, four-seamer, slider, curve, and change. ..... Sounds like a modestly interesting guy. Might be a minor-league roster filler, a guy who's a little overmatched in AAA, or a guy who might end up being a usable major leaguer. When was the 48th Cuban season, versus the "staff ace and won 11 games?" Agents tend to puff their clients, so if the agent says he throws 90 and has touched 94, that sounds like something of a soft-toss finesser. But if a guy was really throwing 90mph 2-seamers with command, obviously that could be an upgrade on the kind of junk rotation options we've got on the big-league team and in the minors. No idea what the parks or scoring is like in cuba. But certainly a soft-tossing finesse reliever with a 4.2-4.9 ERA's doesn't sound like an especially big-ticket pickup.
  11. craig
    A poster on a different board says that Taylor Scott has agreed to terms. A poster on a different board, who also seems to have some inside connections, has suggested that Scott was something of an ugly deal. They'd thought they had a pre-arrange, then after they drafted the agent double-crossed and demanded more. Unconfirmed as always, and general agreement is rather different from a complete signed-off or signed and approved. So reports of "agreement" and some lengthy delay before it's wrapped are compatible in my view.
  12. craig
    . Excellent news. I'm especially enthused about Jensen. Good numbers and 2.0 in the high-level California JUCO ranks is excellent, and that's as a highly-regarded guy entering the season (he was a pre-season JUCO all-American.) USC doesn't need to offer scholarships to guys who don't have reasonably good arms. I don't know anything, but I actually had both Jensen and Zimmer well ahead of Jacquez on my hope-we-sign wish list.
  13. craig
    I believe it is true, or will be true. The Urban one is pretty much beyond doubt based on his Twitter. A couple weeks ago somebody on PSD had suggested that Maples wasn't too far off, each side a couple hundred off of $2 But indicating that the Cubs were into it and were serious about paying major money. Dunston rumors have also been circulating, so that seems likely. But Dunston has apparently Tweeted that it's not true, and it's not done, although the phrasing seemed to me more to the effect that it's not completely finished rather than that it isn't going to get finished. Wow wow wow. It just gets better and better.
  14. craig
    Nice! (If true.) Urban is apparently really wild and has some delivery/mechanics problems. Having a poor summer.
  15. craig
    I'm inclined to agree with Truffle. I don't think anyone would care a whole lot if his name were Trevor Smith. He's a good athlete with legitimate power, but he needs a lot of work at the plate and in the field. That sort of thing would be intriguing for a catcher or shortstop, but for someone who seems ticketed for 1B, that's not exactly encouraging. Still, it's good to see he signed. If "anyone" means ESPN or the radio, that's true. But I can't remember many top-10 picks by the Cubs that people like us who check boards like this every day don't care about. A 3B/RF prospect with potential monster power, why wouldn't we care? We never heard of Vogelbach's name before, but we're all interested in him. We'd never heard Szczur's name or Wells name last year, but when there became talk that they had some genuine talent, we all got interested. I could care less if he's Gretzky. But a kid with big-time power potential and the chance to play 3B while doing so, hope springs eternal so I'm interested. Just like I'm hopeful that Rosario will have a rocket and end up hitting withpower. And that Schecht will sign and end up being a hitter. I don't see why Gretzky is any worse a risk than any of those other type guys.
  16. craig
    If Gretzky signed on Monday and it's Thursday today, I don't think the commish is sitting on that. But if Vogel is a million over, it's easy to imagine him holding that up. I can easily imagine Gretzky getting overslot, but I don't think he's going to exactly be a big-ticket Selig-stopper deal. Devoss was $500 for a $350 slot and he got through. I doubt Gretzky is more than $150 over his slot, if that. I'm not a huge Dunston fan, he's got some good peripheral tools if he can hit, but if he's not a really good hitter I don't think he'll be good for much. But I don't envision him being a super-duper superslot. Overslot to $500K, maybe. $700K, possible. But I don't think he's a 7-figures type prospect or anything like. Vogelbach might be a million over, but I don't think Dunston is going to be in that ballpark. I also wonder if some of the Vogelbach stuff is a little speculative. That the Cubs have reached an agreement, I can totally believe that might be true. But I think that rumor is quite different from the rumors as to precisely how much the agreement is for. For example, the rumor that the agreement is done might be true, but it would surprise me if it ended up $1.2 instead of $1.65.
  17. craig
    October probably, for fall Instrux? Seriously, Phil Rogers saying that he's heard rumors of Vogelbach signing is hardly proof that he really has. And for all we know, his report is simply a report that he first or second-hand heard that from Jim Callis, who heard it from who knows whom. I'm not doubting that he'll be signed. I'm just questioning whether in fact they have reached an agreement. And if they have, at the high price that is vaguely rumored, selig likely won't authorize that until August. If Vogelbach gets authorized on Aug 15, there won't be enough Mesa season left for him to show up, get oriented, do his physicals, and actually get into any meaningful game action. He might show up for a couple of games, maybe. But I sincerely think his Cub "career" will likely begin in the fall instructional stuff.
  18. craig
    Thanks for detailed observations, keener, that's really nice and appreciated. If his range is good, his defense is good, his arm is good, his speed is good, and his power is good, that's a lot of good stuff. As with many guys, it may end up coming down to the unlikely ability to react to breaking balls and the speed/movement of pro pitching. If he can hit, sounds like a winner. Kind of a likable situation. As a fan mostly checking box scores, I have no idea if a guy has no range, a rubber-band arm, and is a dizz-brain. But I can pretty easily track the box scores to see if he's getting hits, walks, K's, and power. So if we get good news on the non-hitting stuff, and then if a guy surprised and actually could hit besides, then I'd know he's a guy to watch.
  19. craig
    Keener, thanks. Would be interesting if he had some power, which I don't think he manifested in college. That's a good observation. Any thoughts from his 3 strikeouts? Look bad? overswinging? Fishing at junk? (I think he was a low-walk-high-K kid in college, so I assume he's a hacker who might not see breaking balls well...) Did it look like his knees buckled pretty easily on anything offspeed? Perhaps in a first game in full-season, he was swinging harder, both for the HR and the K's. We'll see how the K's go as the summer goes on.
  20. craig
    After such a hot start, it seems a little odd to me to promote Geiger after a stretch that has seen him go 0-9 with 5 K's. I know the sample size is small, but that's 1/3 of his K's for the season in the last 2 games. Good luck to him in Peoria, I look forward to seeing how he handles more advanced pitching. He and Easterling along with some of the recent pitching promotions make Peoria an interesting team to watch now. The promotion decisions only sometimes link tightly with recent performance. If anything, it seems the norm for the Cubs to promote guys who are in slumps, mini-slumps or perhaps larger. If it's based on player performance, I think the machinery of decision-making goes more slowly. Management notices a guy is hot, takes some time to think about promoting or processing that through and who else will move, and by the time they do it the guy has rolled off of his hot streak. (As happens to all hitters.) More importantly, during the draft-signing summer, it's new guys in who domino others. No need to move Geiger before. But with DeVoss at 2B, that dominoed Amaya to 3B last night and Geiger to 1B. I'd rather see Geiger playing 3rd at Peoria and continuing to work on 3B than to have .377 Amaya benched, or to have Geiger playing 1B at Mesa. So basically I think this is more about DeVoss than about Geiger.
  21. craig
    That's as slot or sub-slot as you can get for a teenager. Interesting. That's possibly good news to me in one weird sense: I'd wondered how it was that Rosario's signing had been authorized and announced, and few of the others. If he was a standard overslot, and DeVoss, and they had both been approved, that might have implied that we hadn't signed anybody else. But if Rosario was announced only because he's sub-slot, then perhaps they've signed 6 other guys to over-slot but those just haven't been announced/approved yet.
  22. craig
    That certainly doesn't inspire much motivation to spend very hard on him. There are plenty of other overslot/superslot draftees who would seem much more worthy of spending dollars than on him. If he's good for the $200K dollars, that's one thing. But that doesn't sound much like a guy you spend $500-750K for, if that's what he's expecting. A mostly low-90's fastball that doesn't have good movement or location, and a short dinky guy with limited projection, spend it elsewhere. Thing is, he's got to decide too. That doesn't sound like the kind of pitching that's going to make him a weekend starter at Texas. A farm system has lots of teams and lots of innings to give to lots of pitchers, so you don't need to be pitching great to get a chance to pitch and work things out. But a premier program like Texas has what, two weekend starters? If he's smart, he might consider whether it might not be better to go pro and get innings, rather than go college and watch. But I don't know what I'm talking about, really, and even if I am being objective it's not as easy for a teenage kid to be objective about his chances. Sometimes you're used to being viewed as good, and the prospect that at Texas there are going to be at least a couple of guys who are both as talented, more advanced, more established, and much more likely to get the weekend starts might not register.
  23. craig
    Thanks for note on Rosario signing. He's only 17, so he's got a lot of development time ahead of him. He's not tall, lists at 5'11", but my understanding is that the Cubs view him as having pretty good power potential as a hitter. BA had very little on him, I think since he's so young and as a Puerto Rican might not have been a showcase guy. But I think the cubs view him as having some power potential, in keeping with their prioritization on that this draft. Interesting that DeVoss got that much overslot. Any sophomore or HS/JC has leverageso some goes without saying. But I admit that surprised me some. Certainly he was one of the guys (well, he and Rosario) that seemed to produce the least enthusiasm on the board when they were taken. Hopefully they both work out. DeVoss walked like crazy as a sophomore. Hopefully the Cubs don't discourage that.
  24. craig
    A regular poster at other board went to the last couple of Smokies games. (Or maybe it was yesterday and Saturday?) Had some other interesting comments about the games and players, but two that I'll pass on: Said Dolis got up to 95, but totally wild. Said that Beeler maxed at 91 yesterday, but said he had a nice little breaking ball. Both disappointing and encouraging, I guess. I htought I'd heard talk about Beeler being faster, and being a big guy I'd hoped he was a really good fastball guy with a breaking ball undeveloped, but that if he later developed a good breaking ball he might be really good. But if he already has a pretty respectable breaking ball, that's good. But if he's really an 87-89 guy who tops out at 91 once in a while, that's perhaps not quite as promising. Poster also said that in the two games, Vitters has looked great and has smashed a couple of balls on the button in each game that went for outs. Also said he's even made a couple of really good plays at 3rd. This poster is not a Vitters ripper, he likes him a lot, so much so that he believes he'll hit enough to be a success at 1B. But in past he's been totally hopeless about his 3B defense, which is also why he's so strongly in favor of putting Vitters at 1B. But he liked some Vitters defense this weekend.
  25. craig
    Heh heh, at some point he'll want to have a K/BB ratio of quite a bit better than 9/9. But that's the game with teenagers. It's a projection game, and if we want to develop teenage talents, I can't let myself get impatient because a guy isn't developing right away and because I can't necessarily tell whether he ever will. I do admit I've been a little disappointed this summer. Last summer with Greathouse, Kurcz, Reed, Richardson, Hartman, Fitzgerald, I thought we had a whole crop of overslot type kids, all of whom had some low 90's capacity in HS/JC. With some natural development and maturation, who knew how hard they might be throwing or emerging? But a year later, other than Kurcz the other five all seem worse than they were last summer. Ackerman, different story, he has obviously gotten better. And Brian Smith, while he got killed this week, had shown some hints. Hopefully Reed is about ready to kick in and start to show some progress.
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