craig

One guy that I'm hoping gets into the rotation is Graham Hicks. I thought he was the most intriguing asset that we got from the Nats in the Gorzelanny deal. He had a solid year in Low A in the Nationals system. It's possible the kid could still grow some more, but as of now, low 90's with a decent slider/change combination. That said, a lot of arms battling for spots. Antigua/Simpson/Beeler/Kirk seem like locks for piggyback duty. I'd imagine Lopez would be, but considering the reports this spring have been so spotty, it wouldn't stun me if he was used in the pen. That said, I anticipate he'll be a part of the piggybacking rotational duty. Not much intrigue on the positional front overall, although it could be a decent lineup for Low A. That said, the one thing I am curious about is whether or not Alcantara can take the next step and become a solid middle infield prospect. AzPhil sure talks up his defensive ability (and as an aside, that could be an excellent defensive positional grouping). It will be really interesting to see who and how many piggy-back. Almost any or all of them could. Probably Bryce Schafer and Yohan Gonzalez are almost the only guys who seem automatic relief. And actually I'd be pretty interestes to see how Yohan did given starter innings, he throws strikes, he's big, he's 20, he doesn't allow HR's, and he had a sub-3 ERA at peoria last year. Sometimes big guys at age 20 grow into more velocity, so even if he was an 88-92 guy before, for all I know he's ready to go Cabrera and be throwing 92-98 this year. That's the thing with A-, they are all so young that anybody might project into new and serious velocity, even if they didn't have it before. I'd guess that Greathouse, Antigua, Kirk, Simpson, Beeler, and Lopez are all strongly probable for piggy-back. I assume Simpson will be on a very limited pitch count early. Hatley, Hicks, Jokisch, Serrano, even Figuroa, who knows? Any of those might be a surprise rotation/piggy. Will be fun to see how it plays out. Hitting is always hard to predict, and Peoria is unlikely to have much power. (Jones is the only guy with big power, I think.) But few A-ball teams hit with tons of power, so I don't think that's the big question in A-. We don't know who will or won't, but often minor-league offense is a function of the prospects and the roster fillers. Rohan isn't a jazzy prospect, but he might be a pretty productive A- hitter. Jones might be solid. Szczur and Silva might be very productive average-and-extra-base-hits guys. Alcantara has some talent, if he emerged some he could be pretty solid too. And for A-, I wouldn't be surprised if the LSU catcher was able to support a decent OPS, too. Fitzgerald might be a pretty productive OPS guy, even if not much of a prospect. Wouldn't surprise me at all if that team ended up in the top 3rd of the league in both offense as well as pitching. Nor if they finished in the bottom third in both!

Yes, I thought it was curious that a kind of soft-tossing 26-year-old guy with control problems like Coello would get moved into rotation. Just roster-filling? They think he can use the innings? They really think he's got a chance to make it as a big-league starter? He'll just fill in rotation for a while until Rusin or McNutt or Cabrera earn a promotion? He's 26 and has only like 13 pro starts. That was rather surprising, I must say.

So, the missing/injured: Welington Castillo AJ Morris (I thought he was the best prospect in the Gorz trade) Harman, the Clemson lefty Jung J Jackson, as already mentioned Are there other noteworthies that are missing that I've overlooked? (I assume so...)

Yeah, it could struggle. But who knows, it could be pretty good, too. Silva and Szczur might be good. (A- should seem relatively low compared to the Cuban league that Silva played in as a younger guy). rohan and Fitzgerald might be pretty good repeat A- hitters, even if they aren't much of prospects. Not sure it's a real star-studded lineup, but in A- Rohan, Fitz, LePage, Jones, and Gibbs might end up being reasonably productive, and if the more talented prospects Silva, Szczur, and Alcantara can hit, it might be a reasonably productive offense relative to the league.

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?t=t_ros&cid=443 Looks like it might be the real thing for Peoria. Will be interesting to see who starts/piggy-backs of those pitchers. Simpson/Greathouse/Kirk/Antigua/Beeler/Lopez seem the most interesting. Jeffry Antigua P L 6' 1" 170 6/23/90 Cameron Greathouse P L 6' 2" 230 7/29/90 Austin Kirk P L 6' 1" 200 5/22/90 Hayden Simpson P R 6' 0" 170 5/20/89 Dallas Beeler P R 6' 5" 205 6/12/89 Robinson Lopez P R 6' 2" 190 3/2/91 Eduardo Figueroa P R 6' 1" 185 11/30/88 Yohan Gonzalez P R 6' 4" 210 4/15/90 Marcus Hatley P R 6' 5" 220 3/26/88 Graham Hicks P L 6' 5" 170 2/9/90 Eric Jokisch P L 6' 2" 185 7/29/89 Juan Yasser Serrano P R 5' 10" 220 3/3/88 Bryce Shafer P R 6' 0" 180 11/14/88 Name Pos Bat Ht Wt DOB Sergio Burruel C L 5' 11" 210 7/22/91 Micah Gibbs C S 5' 11" 223 7/27/88 Arismendy Alcantara SS S 5' 10" 160 10/29/91 Richard Jones 1B L 6' 0" 215 1/31/88 Pierre LePage 2B R 5' 8" 168 2/23/89 Elliot Soto SS R 5' 9" 160 8/21/89 Smaily Borges OF R 6' 3" 210 1/28/84 D.J. Fitzgerald LF R 6' 0" 190 12/20/88 Anthony Giansanti OF R 5' 10" 190 9/28/88 Greg Rohan OF R 6' 0" 205 5/11/86 Rubi Silva OF L 5' 11" 180 6/25/89 Matthew Szczur OF R 6' 1" 195 7/20/89

Tenn speculation, by me: McNutt-Cabrera-Raley-Rusin-Dolis. Are there any questions about that? I suppose injury could be possible. I know some of you want Carpenter starting. And I suppose either or Rusin or Dolis could be reallocated to the pen, perhaps even Cabrera, in preparation for a major-league role. But that seems as safe of a minor-league rotation to predict as is almost ever possible. (Now watch me miss on two of them.) That's also a very interesting batch, IMO. I'll be curious to see how Flaherty gets used this spring. I'm assuming Lem-Gonzalez-Vitters are the primary 2B/SS/3B. Will Flaherty play mostly 1B? OF? Or will he just rotate through each of the positions as guys get days off or DH rather than field?

Dave, it wouldn't shock if Ebinger was starting, that's a point. He'll turn 23 soon, so seems more likely to be a reliever. But they've got four lefties on the roster (Ebinger, Rosscup, Belliveau, and Lorick), so perhaps they want to have a lefty start or piggyback. For righty rotation guys, I see Kurcz, Whitenack, Struck, Wallach, Rhee, and Searle all as possibilities. But who knows how they'll actually use them. And early when the pitch counts are so short they might be piggy-backing 8-10 guys, and sort that out as April goes on. I think Whitenack is really the only guys who's 100% sure to be rotation. Kurcz probably, since he was starting and getting stretched yesterday (even if ineffectively). But it's not like Wallach, or 30-something round Struck, or 30-something-round Ebinger, or soft-tossing Rhee, One other surprise I wanted to mention: I'm pretty surprised that Harman, the 22-year old lefty from Clemson, didn't make Daytona. Perhaps they figured Daytona is fairly packed with who-knows-if-they've-got-much-but-we'll-give-them-innings prospects, and that getting him 100+ innings will be easier starting at Peoria?

Belliveau is the only surprise. That's one weak lineup, but the rotation might be interesting. We'd already heard that Burgess was going down, so that wasn't too surprising. In Phil's report from last Fri or whenever, Burgess K'd every AB. Rhee wasn't very good last year, so he certainly wouldn't have merited a promotion, and I think Tenn with Raley-Rusin-Cabrera-McNutt-Dolis has a very nice rotation. Rhee would just be a reliever had he been promoted. Hopefully his arm will be a lot better this year. Whitenack-Kurcz-Struck-Wallach, that could be an interesting front four. Could end up being not very good at all, but any of those four could emerge as pretty interesting. And if Rhee has improved some, he might get 5th spot and might be a prospect too.

Thanks, that might make more sense. My guess is that neither his fastball nor his slider are very big-league ready yet, he doesn't seem to have very good command of either of them, and I'm not sure how consistently he's been able to throw hard. I've never been a huge Carpenter guy, since he's never been especially effective, his control isn't good, and he's not much of a K-guy either. I'd also prefer to see him starting, just to get in more work. But ultimately I think that his career will depend less on his changeup than on his fastball/slider. His command is too shaky for me to even dream of him someday controlling all three pitches. But if he could command his main two, or at least one of those two, that might be enough to give a useful career in relief.

That's a relatively uninteresting Iowa roster, if in fact those are the 30 names from which the actual roster will be selected. Sometimes these reports form Phil aren't exactly accurate, so I won't be surprised if Carpenter is actually back with Iowa after all. His alleged send-down was the biggest surprise to me. If that roster is correct, basically Campana would be the only guy who made it up from AA last year. The other 29 guys were either already on Iowa last year (Coleman, Jackson), or else are just journeymen. It may be that they want to mostly keep Iowa for journeymen AAA- types, and keep the younger rising guys at AA. Or maybe they figure to try to collect a lot of good prospects at AA, make that a very competitive team, and perhaps some of the teammates and friends from that team will be able to stay together in the majors for a long time as well, rather than spending all year with Scales and Chris Robinson and JR MAtthes and the like. Peoria and Daytona are really, really thin on OFers, seems to me. Wilken would do well to find some OFers in this draft. AA looks like the jazzy team. If Carpenter is there, I still figure he'll pitch relief. Rotation would have who, Rusin, Raley, Dolis, McNutt, and Cabrera? That's the most gifted and intriguing of the rotations. Vitters, Lemahieu, Flaherty, and Jackson would seem to give it the most interesting collection of position players, too. I suppose they could have kept the whole lot there at AA, but perhaps wanted to move Jackson into CF, and to leave Campana there would have been a CF pinch, so they moved Campana up for that reason?

The Ha thing is pretty interesting. But I agree, I'll still be shocked big-time if he starts at Tenn. Almost certain to be on the drop-down-at-the-end shuttle. I was surprised by the pitchers, too. "RHPs Kevin Rhoderick and Dustin Fitzgerald and LHPs Eric Jokisch and Brent Ebinger..." But I think Greathouse is a very different story, in that he's a much higher class, more important prospect, and he's a rotation prospect. Relievers, it's a different deal. If Daytona's staff is short, and Peoria's is kind of deep on who-knows-what-they'll-be piggy-backers and arms, it might make sense to push some guys up to Daytona just to fill out Daytona's bullpen and to clear some Peoria logjam. With the college experience that Rhoderick and Jokisch have, it probably makes sense to challenge them in relief at Daytona and if they fail, write them off pretty quick. toonster, on Gibbs I don't think the Flores factor is real big. I don't have much hope for flores, so maybe I'm jaded. But Flores regardless, I think Fleita rarely has guys catch much more than half the games. Even if they liked both Flores and Gibbs a lot, I think it would still be pretty Cub-normal to give them each half of the starts. Gibbs is almost 23, so I'd think he ought to be able to handle Daytona. On Burke, I'm really glad he switched, It's a shame that he had the good year at Peoria two seasons ago because I think that cost him two years of development as a pitcher, I'd hoped he'd switch a long time ago. Hopefully he'll make it. When you switch at 23 or whatever, I think relief is the hope. To have a stronger crack to become a rotation guy, I'd think you'd need to switch sooner.

The Cubs will roster him, I don't think that's much of a question. And I don't think it's that problematic, given that he'll get four options years. So the Cubs still have control over him for five more seasons, and if he's not ready by then, nobody will mind his options running out. I think the disadvantage is that he (and Wells) may likely be wasting two 40-man spots for a while. Probably not much of a problem, if a Justin Berg or whomever gets bumped off a little sooner, or a Kyle Smit doesn't get put on quite so quickly. I think it might be more risky in future, though. I believe the farm is getting deeper, and younger. For the last five years, getting the guys who are any good rostered was not a problem. But with a deeper farm, I think there will be more qualified prospects coming along. Plus, the farm is bringing in a lot more young players, who may not be very far along yet when they begin to become Rule 5 eligible. Still, compared to ten years ago it's a lot easier to know who's a factor and who isn't, given the extra year before prospects become Rule 5 eligible. So it shouldn't be that big of a problem for Szczur to bump your 40th-guy off the protected roster into 41st place.

Keith Law had some Cub prospect notes, 2nd hand so don't have link to original. Said Jay Jackson was horrible, gunning it at 87 first inning but basically 85 afterwards, and got destroyed. Hopefully just dead arm, but Law thought so much loss hinted injury. Had the usual negative eval on Lake offensively, bad/raw approach and long swing that he expects to get exposed. Had some excellent info on Rusin, command of three pitches, tremendous movement on 87/88 2-seamer, and a 4-seamer that touched 91, although he noted that his command needs to be good and one pitch got hammered.

Thanks, toonster. That sounds pretty good. If a projectible 21-year-old is working a 2-seamer in low 90's, that sounds like he'd have a chance for a pretty useful fastball if he got any stronger and faster. That doesn't sound like a guy who's necessarily limited by a sub-par fastball.

That's really great to hear. I had Whitenack at #19 on my prospect list, I think higher than anybody else and probably the only nut to put him into their top-30 until now with Phil. I don't know how hard he throws. But I think he's got a chance to become pretty valuable and useful. He's got a chance to be excellent in two of the signatures for a good pitcher: low HR and low walks. I'm not sure how hard he threw last spring, or how hard he will throw. But my understanding is that while he's skinny at the waist, that he's got the pretty broad shoulders that suggest he might perhaps project into more velocity and power future than he had last spring. I don't know anything, but I'm ignorantly optimistic that perhaps he'll end up with a fastball that is more than just "back of rotation" fast and more than just "back of the rotation" effective. You can have an asset fastball even if the velocity is average, if the location/movement is above average. Second, my understanding was that he was largely a pitch-to-contact fastball guy for much of last season. I'm hopeful that this reflects a fastball that was already pretty effective, by whatever combo of velocity/movement/command. And may get better as he fills out and get faster as expected. The best way to be a good rotation pitcher is to have a fastball that you can throw a lot, for strikes, without needing to be tricking people all the time. If you can throw a fastball even when they're guessing fastball and still get a nice groundout, that helps. My hope is that's why he's allowed so many hits and so few walks: he was throwing an effective fastball for strikes and for non-HR contact. Some go through, many get caught, but few go over the wall and few guys get walked. Third, if he's got a fastball or projects as much, then if as Phil suggests his splitter is emerging as a killer pitch, that could change everything. He's been a very low-walk guy. So if he can throw strikes/fastballs early and get ahead in the count, and now has a putaway pitch (or the threat thereof), then suddenly the K's could jump. Perhaps even get guys scared to go to 2-strike counts, so they start fishing more even earlier. "Killer breaking pitches" can come and go, though. Phil sees a tiny sample in camp and gets buzzed. But that might not be at all consistent or sustainable. So let's wait and see. I'm hopeful, yes. But that's a whole different thing from being even remotely sure or expectant. Fourth, there were signs last year, statistically. His stuff had no problem stepping from Peoria to Daytona, where he had a 2.04 ERA and a 1.1 WHIP. It wasn't just there, either. He'd been a ERA=2 guy for his last couple of months at Peoria as well. So I believe that over his last 3-4 months, his ERA was terrific. Plus, the K-thing evolved to some degree as well. At Daytona, he was 28K/39IP. Not wow, but a 3K:1BB with low-HR guy is going to be successful. Whether that's a 6K/2BB/9IP blend or a 9K/3BB/9IP blend. As for listing in Phil's top ten, I don't think that's necessarily so crazy. After the Garza trade, of course, we don't really have ten guys with Cy Young/MVP tools. Top ten is of those in the system. Some guys who may not have ace or 5-tool MVP tools are going to be there. Anyway, fun to read some enthusiasm for a guy I've been hoping might emerge as a low-walk-low-HR effective guy.

Disappointing on Golden, although I hadn't heard any of your good character stuff. As Rammy said, I'd thought there was some prima donna talk, and Phil had suggested that he looked unreceptive to coaching in Instrux. Hopefully you're right on the good character stuff, and this will be a good prompt spring to get him on a favorable path. On Burgess, I think he'll be able to extend his minor league career if he can play some 1B, so I can see that making sense. That's probably the easiest position at which to get AB's in our farm. I guess I hadn't taken him seriously as a prospect, so that didn't surprise me that much.

Smith, Moore, Darvill, and McGehee each have some things in common and some differences. In common, of course, is playing 3B for Cubs, and none of them moving up as highly valued guys. (Well, Moore was once, but that was past by the time he got to us.). Moore vs Smith: Moore has more BP power and is much more athletic and has resultingly superior defensive tools. Smith has simply been better as a hitter. But if you hit well enough, that can overcome everything else. A commonality is that they both K a lot, reflecting holes in swing and the probably inability to hit breaking balls. McGehee is very different in that he's always been a contact hitter, and the power came late and unexpectedly. He's a nice comp in that any 3B who isn't scouted as promising enough to justify a 40-man roster spot, but still has a chance to hit his way into the majors, can use him as a model. That works for Smith, if he hits enough. But I think otherwise their actual profiles are pretty different. McGehee was always smart, motivated, and hit for contact. He never K'd or had the hitting holes like Smith, and he was never the type to come in fat. Darvill shares with Moore origins in middle infield, which might suggest he has better pure defensive tools than McGehee or Smith. But I think he shares McGehee's early nature as a good-contact hitter who has power questions. This is why I think Darvill's ceiling is high. If he's a contact hitter who doesn't have Moore-like holes; if he's got good plate disciipline; and if he's got solid defensive tools; then if he can grow into power he's got a chance to be very very good. So I think his McGehee-like pure hitting skills give him a better chance that Smith or Moore to grow into a McGehee type big-league career, with better speed and perhaps better defensive range. Tangent, Toonster, did you notice that Lemahieu hit a long HR yesterday? As I've wished before, I hope he's added enough strength so that he can now increase his range of places where he can get hits. If he's now strong enough where he can productively add both his pull field, and the over-the-wall HR area (where OFers never catch the ball!), then all of his offensive numbers could benefit accordingly. boost his average with over-the-wall hits, and so that it now makes sense for him to use the whole field, including his pull direction, and more than the whole field, including the over-the-wall balls that OFers never catch.

I don't think Smith is much of a factor. Guys who are viewed as significant starter-material tend to get 40-man rostered, especially when there was as much space and as many expendibles as we had this winter. And guys who are viewed as significant starter-material tend to get valued by at least one of the 30-teams in the majors. But not a single one picked him in Rule 5. A contact is pretty connected with a bunch of the AA people. He was told that the Cubs were going to cut Smith last spring, but he survived the cuts because somebody got hurt. Keith Law on Marquez Smith: >I've received a lot of questions about Cubs infielder Marquez Smith, who was Rule 5 eligible but went unselected despite his .314/.374/.584 line in about 300 plate appearances in Class AAA last year. It's just one game, but I can guess why he didn't garner much interest or a 40-man spot from Chicago. He took some awful hacks against breaking balls, including one on a 72 mph Little League curveball for a strikeout in his first at bat. He's a below-average runner, and struggled to make a throw from third base on a soft grounder. That's not to say he has zero value, but it's a long list of flaws to steer teams away from him.<< If a guy hits enough and with enough power, he can be below average in the other three tools and still get a career. Hopefully that will be Smith. But I suspect that he's pretty low on the Cubs internal ladder, and that there is little consideration for him as a long-term solution to the 3B situation.

I think I counted up ten teenagers who were drafted and got 6-figure bonuses. And not counting Silva and Cabeza, who are in their 20's, the eleven 6-figure Internationals means they added 21 teenage 6-figure signees. That is a load of new young prospects. I can't ever remember adding that many teenagers who were interesting. It could be a different world in Mesa/Boise over the next few years.

So $4.16 + $1.75 = $5.91. I'd think if $4.16 is already 7th, than another $1.75 would pass some more and would put us in the top four or so. Awfully nice to see. Thanks a ton for your info, links, price tabulations, and scouting capsules. Really, really encouraging. The combo of thirteen six-figure international signees, all but the two Cubans being young teenagers, in addition to how many teenage overslot guys we picked up in the draft, suddenly the Cubs farm system has a volume of young teenage talent like I can't ever remember. Often with a lot of these $150-500 guys, they don't work out. But there would seem to be a lot of kids who might have a chance.

I think Wilken's approach has been good and balanced. 1. Three of his five first rounders have been players, two pitchers, IIRC. Well, I suppose if we include Flaherty and Donaldson, the sandwich guys, then it's five of seven. 2. For each of the last four conventions, he's mentioned that he'd like/prefer to draft a hitter if there was a good enough one The mild all-else-being-equal-I'd-take-a-position-guy thing may just be a response to the Cubs imbalanced system rather than a fundamental draft philosophy, I don't know. But it seems he appreciates the value of high-draft position guys. 3. Whatever mild or context-prompted preference that may be, he hasn't at all forced it, given that two of the five first have been pitchers. 4. If I look at his picks over the first three rounds with the Cubs, it's hitters 9, pitchers 5. Again, a modest but not extreme lean towards players. I think his combination of being a good scout, of going BPA, and of leaning a little bit towards players without going to extreme has helped improve the system. I hope he doesn't make a strong shift towards pitchers.

If any of those guys are BPA, the Cubs should just select accordingly. Jackson could flame out or be used as trade bait or whatever. It's nice to have some diversity in the system (I'm going to be hammering home this HS position player thing for the foreseeable future), but I think it would be a mistake for the Cubs to pass on someone just because they have Brett Jackson. If the Cubs legitimately believe that guy could be as good as Jackson, if not better, then why not take him? Agree. If they are BPA and worth a top-10 pick, great. Given his K-contact problems, I'm not sure whether Jackson will be able to handle the movement and breaking stuff of the best pitchers in the world. But if he can hit enough to keep his average, OBP, and HR's strong, terrific. If successful, he could be a good power, good OBP, good speed, good corner defense guy, and perhaps for a while a respectable CF defender. I'll take another one of those for sure if I believe the guy's really going to be all that. Obviously a guy who profiles like Jackson, in terms of so much contact problems and so many K's, and actually not all that many HR's yet, that wouldn't seem like a real great risk at #9. Jackson seemed like a real high-risk pick when we took him, at 31(?). The fact that he's done well so far doesn't change the fact that he was a pretty high-risk pick at the time, and that to take another contact-challenged hitter would again be pretty risky. BPA of course. I think it's harder when there is no singular BPA. Every prospect has projected possibilities for good, and projected possibilities of what might prevent high success. Risk-reward on every guy. So if their is a tier of equivalent overall risk-reward guys, my preferences would be: 1. Player > pitcher. I think Wilken expressed this at the Convention. Maybe I'm cheating a bit, because the risks and rewards differ. So maybe I'm really just reasoning that the pitcher isn't really an equivalent risk-reward value but is actually more risky. But I think the injury risk and arm-deterioration factor for pitchers is so substantial. Often pitchers are viewed as lesser risks: a college pitcher is already fast and already has a good breaking pitch, there is little projection risk, you can see that he will succeed in the majors soon. The risk of slow progress, unfulfilled projection, and non-arrival seems minimal. So I think the risk-reward analysis can often miscalculate the risk. But the reward of having a long-term success is reduced, too. Five years after the draft how many of the power arms are throwing exceptionally fast? Between true injury and just wear, most pitchers don't have the stuff they had even five years into their pro careers. If you pick a player and he works out to be solid, you can have a solid player for a more extended period. It's not normal for players to just naturally and probably deteriorate five years into their careers. 2. OF > IF (in terms of projected position.) We've got some volume of infielders, and castro in hand. Else equal, I'd rather take an OFer. Obviously to be valued equally, an OFer would be expected to hit better. 3. HS > College. A college guy is closer to mlb, and requires far less projection. Those are two substantial advantages; therefore if a HS player is overall evaluated as a comparable BPA/risk-reward value, the HS player must have some other advantages to get to the same overall value level. The HS player probably has essentially no evident flaws, but there's always the risk that flaws will be exposed in time. But if you have no evident flaws now and none show up, you could have an almost perfect player. For a college player, everything is more certain, but I don't think he lasts even till 9 without having some already evident flaws.

Springer is also really old. He'll turn 22 next summer, I think.

I'd like to get some premium hitters with power. And I hope that there are some available that Wilken can grab, and that work out. Good hitters last and are hard to find. 1. I don't really have a fault with the drafting approach, though. I think that the drafting has been quite good for the last several years, extremely good. I do hope that they find some position guys, for sure. 2. I think the philosophy of taking the best prospect available, BPA, is the way to go. When Cashner, or Carpenter, or Golden, or Simpson, or Jackson, are the BPA's on your board (BPA's of those you can sign, obviously), take that guy. If your BPA happens to be a pitcher when I wish the BPA was a power hitter, take the BPA pitcher. If the BPA guy happens to be Cerda, rather than a taller more power-oriented guy, take Cerda. I think they've been pretty good about balancing pros and cons for each individual player. 3. I think they have been case-by-case perceptions of BPA. I don't see any rigid "philosophy" that defines what kind of guy they take. Vitters, Cashner, Jackson, Colvin, Simpson, etc., seems like plenty of variety to me. 4. I don't think I share the view that the draft approach has avoided corners, power, or ceiling. It's not what you played in HS or college, it's what you project to play and be in the majors that's involved in the ceiling. Projection. Colvin, Vitters, Donaldson, Flaherty, Lemahieu, Golden, I don't believe that any of these was taken with the anticipation that they'd play SS or CF in the majors, and probably not 2B either. Colvin is a corner with serious power. In retrospect I'd think he looks like a very high ceiling pick, with the true power that he has. The fact that he doesn't walk or hit breaking balls enough to support a higher BA/OBP/contact-rate is why he's shy of the ceiling. But given his power and stroke, which I think Wilken foresaw, his ceiling must have looked limitless. Vitters was totally taken as a high-ceiling hitter, contact plus power possibilities, with no speed or SS to speak of. Donaldson for his power potential, as a catcher that gave him a very high ceiling. Flaherty I'm sure they projected that he'd get a lot bigger, I don't think they had any expectation that he'd play SS in the majors. But he seemed to have quite a high ceiling, it's just turned out that despite his size and BP power, to date he just can't quite hit the ball or get the lift necessary to turn his size into HR's. When you draft for ceiling, obviously most guys don't reach their perceived ceiling. High risk-high reward, not often you're going to catch the max reward. Lemahieu, they knew he'd not be a SS, he was maybe 2B/probably corner pick. But again, they knew he was young and skinny, and had lots of strength to add which might ceiling to power. Golden a corner power guy. In the Lemahieu draft, they would have drafted some other HS outfielder if he'd indicated he'd be signable. Jackson was perceived as a high risk-reward, high-ceiling pick, plenty of power ceiling, and likely to spend most of his career in a corner. He'll likely whiff to much to ever live at his ceiling, but with his power potential I think his ceiling was plenty high. 5. I'm very desirous of some productive-power middle-lineup guys. But I do think that being a good hitter is essential to having productive power. If I think a prospect doesn't have the bat speed or the gift to make some contact, I don't care how far he hits batting practice or HS HR's. I think if a good scout sees that a Harvey just doesn't have the tools to hit, I don't care how much raw power he has. I would prioritize the "hitting" tool over the "power tool", because the latter is worthless without the former. And the number of HR's is a function of frequency of solid contact as well as of raw power when the contact is made. All that being said, I certainly agree that I wish we had more position prospects. I hope Golden is golden, but I'd sure love to see a pick (or multiple such) in which a guy has a chance to have both the hitting tool and the power tool combined.

I'm pretty enthused about Silva. I think the Cubs have some good scouts. And having been shopping around for a while, I think they've had a chance to see him play. So, I don't really think they'd shell out $1.2 if he didn't have some genuine good potential. And I don't think they'd shell out $1.2 if there wasn't realistically somebody else who might shell out $0.8-1.0. Second, these are young players. Looking at statistics from two years ago, they were teenagers then. I don't know enough about Cuban baseball, but my understanding is that there are some good players in their top league. The numbers aren't great in themselves, but if a favorably tools-scouted player put up numbers like that as a teenager in Daytona or AA, we'd be really excited. I think because we don't know the league, we can't easily contextualize how good or bad those numbers are. But I suspect they might be better than we think.