craig

Another walk? Is the apocalypse upon us? Heh, of the big four position prospects, Vitters is one of the better walkers! With two walks in only 44 AB, his 4+% walk rate is much better than Castro (1 walk/38 AB) or Lee (1 walk/39 AB). Watkins has only two. Will be interesting to see whether Lee does take some walks. Would be nice to see these singles-hitting no-power middle infielders do something to add to their offense, rather than just live on their BABIP. Obviously 40 AB is a small sample, so anomalies of any kind can appear. Chen is off to a good start. By most accounts his fastball is doubtful for mlb, and he doesn't throw K's. So not sure what he's winning with or how sustainable it will be. By recall he started well last year too, before some negative stuff evaluations came in. But IIRC, over his last fifteen starts last year he had about thirteen of them where he'd allow 2 runs or less, so other than an occasional really bad game, he was somehow getting a lot of guys out. His July-Aug-Sept WHIP's were 1.18, 1.35, and 0.75. Seems to be picking up. I'm surprised Raley's been so good. The scouting reports had confused me somewhat; they liked him, but never suggested he had any exceptional pitch or stuff. They described him somewhat as a developmental guy, always mentioning the split focus and only a sophomore; but also somewhat contradictorily spun him in other ways as somewhat advanced as regards control. I'm guessing all of those can be harmonized. Developmental guy physically, could get stronger (he's college but he's only 21) and without working out to be a speedy CFer, maybe he can rebuild his body somewhat to optimize his fastball. Two-year guy with fastball control and offspeed stuff. Perhaps with focus the command of each of those could be sharpened a bit? Whatever, I'm very encouraged. I wasn't sure he'd be A+ ready vs A-, and all the peripherals (K/BB, GB/FB) have been very attractive. I'd thought he'd be more in the Coleman/Chen style of stats (modest K's). So the K's thus far are really nice.

Thanks, cal. Phil actually has had a whole string of reports this week. I was struck by how un-enthused his reports were. He didn't really have many guys with more than one or two tools, none that profiled real well as hitters, and none that appeared to combine both hitting and potential power. Maybe Darvill. Obviously these are pretty young and inexperienced guys, so improved hitting and strength is possible in future. But it seemed that for a lot of them, it's bad approach; or whiffs a ton; or a no-power waterbug. The two best reports, other than 36th round DH/1B May, seemed to be for "ton Campana" Na, and for "waterbug" Alcantara (?). Also not many young Latins, the Dominicans seem largely in their 20's. I suppose that fits with Hendry's low commitment their. I suppose if a Dominican was 17 or 18 and had any size and polish, he'd be costing beyond our budget. Pitching: he mentioned one Latin pitcher, Luis Liria who he said had a very nice changeup, a low-90's fastball, and not much of a breaking ball. 20, 6'2", has already spent two years in DSL. Said carmona 92-94 and heavy fastball, but he didn't seem very enthused, didn't project as good enough to be real late inning stuff guy. Earlier he'd buzzed on Mincone, but in the game this week he was very ineffective. He was pretty positive about Kirk, although his box score wasn't notably good. Other than

agreed. his command still needs a little work, but by next season i think he can be a solid middle of the rotation starter. I wonder if he might not be a good guy to trade. I'm always cautious when prospect pitchers give up so many HR's.

Cashner at 84 pitches through 6 innings, I assume he's done. About as perfect as you can get. No hits, no walks, 10 K, of the 8 in-play outs 5 are groundouts. And he's 2-for-2 as a hitter besides! Flaherty has a couple of hits, he's now well up into the .100's.

Yes, my feeling too.

Thanks for info, Nathan. Nice to know how things line up and who to expect, some of us had wondered if Morla or anybody else might be also piggy-backing. Nice to confirm that Struck is in rotation and just doing a "side session". Good to see their offense get off to a good start and score some runs, getting any offense in April is often pretty tough. Kopitzke said that Whitenack pitched better than his line, of the seven hits two were seeing-eye and two others were infield. So three "real" hits and no walks in five innings, that's just fine.

cashner has more movement on his fastball (and better velocity out of the pen) plus his slider is way better than any breaking pitch that samardzija is throwing. the write-ups on him in the offseason made it sound like he's very likely to be a good reliever; starting potential is what is questionable. I have two questions with Cashner. 1. Does he or will he ever have the control to be good? (Command, consistency, control...) 2. If so, will he have the durability to be good as a starter? I think the question of whether he'll ever have the consistent command to be good at anything is more important and a larger question than the question of whether he'll be a good reliever or a good starter. I want both for sure. But it's no given that he's going to be a good reliever. Samardz was apparently a poor example of a good-arm-bad-control-bad-reliever. But I think there are plenty of guys with Cashner-caliber arms who failed as relievers due to control problems. So I think it's more than just starter-potential that is questionable.

I don't think Rhee or Struck pitching relief means much this first week. If you aren't going to start until Monday or Tuesday, and you broke camp last weekend, they may want to just get you some work. You've just been trying to get things rolling in camp, to then take an 8-day layoff isn't necessarily ideal. Wonderful to see Dolis have a dynamic start. No walks, and only one air out, that's fabulous. As cal had mentioned, I was surprised he's starting Daytona rather than Tenn, which made me worry that some of the buzz was baloney and that he'd been a wildman all spring and the alleged great velocity was overstated. Great to see Cashner put together some control and some K's for a couple of innings. Too bad to see him unable to sustain it for another inning. I think for him what we know is excellent is the arm. But whether he'll ever be much more than a Smardzija depends entirely on control. He was awfully wild in camp. I suspect having some modicum of command consistently could remain a challenge. On Rhee, I could easily see him being a regular piggy-back guy. He's young, and he's not that strong. I think at this point it's arguable whether he's one of the five best rotation prospects on that roster anyway. Archer, Raley, Cabrera, Rusin, Searle, those aren't junk prospects. For Rhee as a rehab guy whose post-operation health, velocity, durability, and command are all unknown at this point, I can well understand why they'd put some of the more advanced and better-now and possible better-later guys into the rotation. That he's at Daytona rather than Peoria may be more a matter of putting him in a safer warm weather team than that he really deserves to be getting rotation work ahead of the other strong prospects.

Thanks for link toon. I wonder when the last Cubs last had a full-season lineup with a sequence of players as unlikely to hit a HR as Valdez-Lee-Watkins-Cerda batting 9-3? Or with as much speed as Valdez-Lee-Watkins back-to-back-to-back? I hope the couple of players in the 4-7 spots do provide at least some power. That could be an exceptionally exciting lineup to watch offensively, with lots of contact hitters and make-things-happen speed. Could be a pretty low-pop low-scoring operation too, though.

http://wc4.worldcrossing.com/webx?14@@.1deace69 Poster does not link his source. But says that Peoria will ahve Antigua, McNutt, Jun, Nagle, and Struck in rotation, with McNutt/Jung piggy-backing. We already know that Whitenack is in. I'm thrilled that they like Struck enough to be starting him. The one guy I thought might be in the mix who isn't listed is Ronny Morla. That he wasn't mentioned doesn't preclude that they'll actually end up piggy-backing him. But they may just see him better suited for a relief role. typical rotation usage for Peoria in April is sometimes very confusing, since sometimes half the Midwest-league games seem to get called for rain, snow, or cold!

http://peoriachiefs.mlblogs.com/ Take a look at nate's picture of Whitenack. That guy is a stick! Pencil arms.

My perception is that we don't actually have much speed in the system. Am I missing somebody? I see five players in the system with notable speed: 1. Valdez 2. Lee 3. Campana 4. One of the new Koreans, the short one. I doubt BA considered him, since he hadn't appeared in the US. 5. Watkins I know Watkins is fast, but he successfully stole only 14 bases last year, despite having 91 walks/singles. I'd expect a super speedster would be both more successful and more daring in short-season. So he's not really in the mix for "fastest". So I'd guess that it's really Valdez, Lee, and Campana at this point. Peoria watchers should have a better idea of how Lee and Valdez compare.

Thanks for the note on that. I was out of the loop I think when Struck signed, I knew little about him other than that he's short and 39th round. So today is fun to dig up some of the info on him. An unusually thorough hometown article after he was signed, including comments from both the kid and the scout. Scout (Al Geddes) makes reference to “He throws four pitches for strikes and they’re all good pitches… He’s got a quick arm and a good move to first base.... He’s a good kid, and the family’s very nice too.” Struck "says his fastball was clocked consistently at 89 to 92 miles per hour" during the summer league, and that “...they have one or two minor things they want to change in my delivery — add a couple of miles an hour to my fastball.” If he's actually 89-92 with potential to add a couple more, that could certainly put him into "real prospect" territory. Of course, every kid signed they think might add some mph; and sometimes self-reports on velocity are a bit deceptive, too! Still, for a strike-thrower, that could be fun. This part was funny too: “The final signing day they made me an offer and I said, ‘Could you go a little higher?’ They called me back and said they could, and I asked, ‘Can you go higher?’ And they said they could go considerably higher.” “I’m not allowed to reveal the amount, but — including school — it’s six figures,” Struck said. Did we ever get any info on how much it actually was? I don't think any HS/JC picks ever sign for less than 6-figures unless they are academically ineligible for college. So I wonder whether perhaps he was starting at 6 figures, and it's not just the standard $100K but is $150K or more by the end? Anybody ever find out? http://www.clackamasreview.com/sports/story.php?story_id=125131681593128000 Nathan has some struck info in his blog: http://peoriachiefs.mlblogs.com/

Very happy Flaherty is getting 2nd base time, but a bit curious why he's batting 8th. ..... I still think the Cubs should just put Jeremy Papelbon in the pen. I know he takes time to warm up and isn't really suited to fill a short role out of the pen, but that's his likely future, IMO. 1. Carpenter with shoulder, yuck. OK, remove him from my top ten. Hey, did anybody ever mention that it wasn't so smart to bring him back to the mound after a 45-minute rain delay last summer? Aachh. 2. Flaherty 8th: he's stepped up two levels, and he didn't hit for especially high average last year (.276 average, .814 OPS). Wright, Lalli, Chirinos, Canzler, Guyer, they have all played extensively in AA and shown some production in AA or A+ already. Hopefully it doesn't reflect that Flaherty has looked blah this spring. I do recall last spring being surprised when he not only failed to make Daytona, but started out batting 6th or 7th, behind such Peoria luminaries as N Perez and scrubs like that. Maybe he's a slow starter? 3. Papelbon: hadn't heard the slow warmup thing, that's not good for a fringer whose only decent big-league hope is as a reliever. I think he fills the token lefty role that they want in every rotation (Mathes at Iowa). He was effective in rotation, so a manager who wants to win, I can see that. Frankly, his present in rotation I think may reflect the poverty of alternatives. On the Tenn staff, Carillo is the only alternative, and he's not too exciting, nor LH. With Cal, I wish Dolis had been great in camp and earned an AA spot; evidently not. Actually for Papelbon, he's probably lucky to have the rotation spot; he certainly wouldn't beat out Sasser or Buchter for either of the LH relief spots. I'd definitely keep many the Tenn relievers (Buckter, Sasser, Cales, Maestri, Mateo) over Papelbon. He'd need to beat out either Carrillo or Muyco to make it in relief, I'd think.

Thanks much, toon. If Muschko actually can **routinely** throw in the low 90's (as opposed to touching 91 once every other game...), then I'd think he's in play. As with most guys, the command, movement, deception, and consistency mean a lot more than one or two mph on the fastball.

That Tenn report is good, Flaherty is still at 2nd after all, which is a big relief to me. (I'd thought a move to 3rd might reflect that they were disappointed with his 2B defensive progress. And obviously his bat is more likely to be an asset as a 2B than a 3B.) Surprised that Canzler is opening day 3B! We'll see, Darcy also talking Samson/Opitz/Chirinos for 3B, so obviously that's kind of a committee spot. I'd think Tony Thomas might maybe get into that mix too. Nice to see Muschko confirmed for rotation. I have no idea what his stuff is, how he got so many guys out so consistently 2nd half last year, whether his stuff has any chance to play in the majors, and whether his Daytona success has any chance to sustain. But I'm glad it apparently carried over well enough to sustain a rotation spot this spring, and I'll hope that he does sustain his success in AA.

Fun threat idea. Peoria 1. Lee 2. Antigua 3. Watkins 4. McNutt 5. Su-Min Jung 6. Nick Struck 7. Morla 8. Beliveau 9. Latham 10. Whitenack 11. Morelli 12. Rohan 13. Cerda 14. Jones 15. Bour Daytona 1. Vitters 2. B. Jackson 3. Burke 4. Dae-Eun Rhee 5. Raley 6. Dolis 7. Lemahieu 8. Archer 9. Cabrerra 10. Rusin 11. Huseby 12. Searle 13. Lake Tennessee 1. Castro 2. Cashner 3. Flaherty 4. Carpenter (hard to guess without knowing the injury) 5. Chirinos 6. Cales 7. Muschko 8. Sasser 9. Buchter 10. Guyer 11. Mateo 12. Clevenger 13. Wright 14. Maestri 15. Samson 16. Chen 17. Bibens Iowa 1. J. Jackson 2. Coleman 3. Diamond 4. Gaub 5. Castillo 6. Fuld 7. Gray 8. Barney 9. Parker 10. Schlitter 11. Stevens 13. Adduci Going through these, I find myself listing more pitchers. Seems I think a lot of pitchers could end up being useful. Control improves, velocity somehow gets better, consistency gets adjusted, they figure out what does and doesn't work. Lots of guys have a chance to blossom into useful relievers or perhaps starting pitchers, if they improve, or if they show that their success at lower level is sustainable at higher. But a lot of the position guys, you know some of their limits and you know those won't go away. I'm not sure Dustin Sasser is as talented a pitcher as Tony Thomas, for example, is as a hitter. But Sasser has a much better chance of becoming a useful pitcher.

Tennessee Roster: http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?t=t_ros&cid=553&stn=true&sid=t553 24 players listed (12 pitchers) DL: Lambert, carpenter, Spencer. Patton not listed, but he's also DL. Cut: Blackford Daytona Roster: http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?t=t_ros&cid=450&stn=true&sid=t450 25 players listed (13 pitchers) Gone: Leverton, McDaniel, James Peoria Roster: http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?t=t_ros&cid=443&sid=milb 24 players listed (12 pitchers) Other than the lefty reliever added to get Peoria to the standard 13 relievers, these seem like the real rosters. Very few DL listings, that's good. I can recall spring rosters 6 or 10 years ago where they would be littered with name pitchers who were hurt. (Justin Jones, Ryu, Petrick, Blasko, Clanton....)

Tenn pitching: with Siegfried and Sommer down to Daytona, by my count that leaves 13 pitchers, assuming that Leverton wasn't promoted up. So probably one more cut or DL to make. I'll guess one of Carillo, Blackford, or Muyco.

Even if Raley does stick at Daytona, that's not much of a surprise for a big-college control pitcher. Flaherty skipped, but he's old, fairly mature personally, and with Vitters and Lemahieau playing 3B/2B at Daytona, that was a glut anyway. Not much of a surprise if any. My biggest surprise is Rhee. I wonder if that's just to keep him in a warm weather climate to avoid freezing his arm in Peoria; or if it reflects that he's been impressive in Mesa and has actually earned that surprisingly high start? He's hardly pitched at all as a pro; his full-season pitching was not only brief but it was two years ago; and his actual effectiveness in short-season last summer and in instrux last fall was not very good (even if there were some instrux reports that he was looking closer to his former promise.) Would be really exciting if he's 100% back physically, and if he's pitching well already besides.

OK, rotation guesses (pending the Raley decision): Iowa: Diamond, Coleman, Jackson, Mathes (token lefty), and either Atkins or Parisi. Tenn: Cashner, Muschko, Bibens, Chen, and Papelbon (token lefty). Daytona: Archer, Cabrera, Dolis, Rusin (lefty), Rhee and Searle. I'll guess Raley gets bumped. I'll guess that some kind of piggy-back is used (or two if they end up keeping Raley, or perhaps even three or four if they still think Shafer or Martinez or Leverton would benefit!) They may have plenty of piggy-back candidates. Archer and Dolis are too wild to average more than 8 innings between them per piggy-back start. Rhee is young, is coming off surgery, and has never pitched a full summer. He might benefit from a controlled number of pitches/innings.Raley hasn't pitched a full spring-and-summer before either; perhaps he'd be on a controlled pitches/innings count as well? Peoria: Without Raley, Antigua (lefty), McNutt, Struck, Jung, Morla, Whitenack, Nagel. That's seven, Raley would add an 8th. One or more may not be in the rotation/piggy-back schedule. Struck? Morla?

With Marques Smith having gotten traded up to Iowa with Thomas returning to Tennessee, I'm afraid that might unfortunately mean that Flaherty will play mostly 3B, with journeyman roster-fillers Samson, Thomas, and Opitz sharing 2b. I'd have preferred for Flaherty to spend all his time at 2b, in hopes that he can eventually play acceptable 2B defense. His bat is a lot more likely to be a big-league asset as a regular 2B than regular 3B.

thanks, that's really interesting. Great to hear that Mincone has impressed. I was really interested at first, but then he hurt his arm and I wondered if he was cooked already. That he's pitching, and well enough to impress, is tremendously encouraging to me. I'm disappointed that rusin got bumped down. Tenn doesn't seem too crowded rotation wise, with him gone and with both patton and Carpenter on DL. The Rusin drop-down does really clutter Daytona, though. Not sure I quite get Phil's note that Peoria will either get Raley or Mincone. At present, each roster has at least one lefty rotation candidate: Mathes, Papelbon, Raley/Rusin, and Antigua. For lefty relievers, neither A-squad has more than one, if I'm reading it right (Beliveau, Leverton, Buchter/Siegfried/sommer/Sasses, Gaube/Maine). If Raley goes down, I would hope he'd be used in rotation, so that would still leave Peoria with only one lefty reliever. Perhaps they just try to have at least 3 lefties regardless? So if they drop Raley to Peoria Peoria would have three; then if they dropped one of the Siegfried/Sommer/Sasser/Buchter bunch, Daytona would repalce Rusin as their 3rd lefty?

Yeah, I think there's a huge difference between what's interesting to us as Cubs fans versus what is interesting to Peoria winning. Rohan, Bour, Jones, Rosa, those guys could contribute a lot to a winning Peoria team, without seeming strongly likely to ever contribute to a winning Cubs team. Always hard to predict. The pitching staff is the bigger question. That extra pitcher could be at either end; if it's Rhee or Raley getting sent back from Daytona, that could be the best pitcher and biggest name on the staff. More likely it's somebody for the back of the bullpen who won't change the landscape that much. My guesses for relief versus rotation: Sure relief: Jordan Latham
 Jeffrey Beliveau
 Steve Grife
 Corey Martin
 
 Andres Quezada Sure rotation: Jeffry Antigua
 Trey McNutt
 Five other rotation candidates: Nick Struck
 Su-Min Jung
 Ronny Morla Robert Whitenack Jon Nagel
 Nagel being older and not having shown that well, I'd prefer he was just a roster filler. Struck being a superslot novelty, I hope he's shown enough that he's a rotation guy and a good one. I'd rather have the new unknown come in looking good than look at Nagel. Jung, Morla, and Whitenack, any of them might start and perhaps be pretty good, with some improvement. And I imagine any of them could be relegated to bullpen if they haven't shown some improvement. Nowhere does status change faster than Peoria. Nobody is in their rotation without the perceived chance to blossom into something good. But I have hopes for all of them in March, when we have very little scouting; by end of May it's usually evident that some don't have the stuff.

Agree, it does reflect stronger pitching I think. Agree also that Dolis doing a Daytona repeat, that doesn't reflect well on him having actually shown any improved command. May reflect a wildman that had one or two good outing in instrux, but more fluke than actual sign of the future. Especially since Tenn isn't crawling with what I perceive as serious big-league rotation guys. Yes, disappointing. Still, his was one of the surprising high-placements last year too. Given his age, his very limited experience, and his lack of command, Daytona is probably more fitting. I think he maybe got Daytona last year because Peoria seemed deep and Daytona thin last spring, or one or two good camp days? Rusin at AA is both more and less surprising than Coleman and Jackson last year. They had both gotten in some effective games in A and A+, so while I was really surprised it wasn't a double jump. But he's older and more experienced from big-conference college. But that would be an interesting small-sample semi-pattern of a fairly accelerated promotion rate for college-experienced pitchers who have some control. To have three guys starting right out in AA during their first full season, that's pretty amazing. If Raley really does stick at Daytona (which is not at all certain), that would be another example of a pretty accelerated schedule for college strike-throwers. Raley's an interesting case, since much of the spin was that he's only got two years and his focus was mixed by outfielding; but at the same time control was his foremost scouting virtue even so. I assume Leverton will be relief. I think relief has always been his likely long-term role, a lefty reliever. Possibly something along the lines of a berg, not very sophisticated but just throw the sinker and hope they ground it to an infielder. Searle will be interesting; I thought he might move up a level, but given his age and his mediocre results (relative to the league), I think Daytona return is good. I assume he will start, but I suppose in his case too he could be moved to relief or used in some piggy-back kind of deal. If he does start, it will be a good chance to see whether he is improved. Ditto with Dolis. When a guy promotes, you can always assume improvement and that the numbers are unimproved simply because competition is harder, and you can always say "good relative to his age". But often guys don't improve. It will be easy to tell with Searle, Dolis, and McDaniel. My recall is that they have done the piggy-back thing more at Peoria than Daytona, but perhaps that was because a lot of Peoria pitchers, you don't know who's step up and who'll weed themselves out. So a volume thing. Perhaps with more volume of rotation-possible guys at Daytona, they'll do more piggy-backing there too? When looking at the rosters, it looks like Daytona is the most jazzy one. Lemahieu, Vitters, Lake, Jackson, Burke, that's the deepest crop of position prospects. And while Archer/Dolis could be the front of a wildman good-future-potential-but-not-that-great-now rotation, Archer-Dolis-Cabrera-Searle-Raley-Rhee-McNutt could be a really interesting every-day-interesting rotation. (Obviously depending on which if any of the Raley-Rhee-McNutt trio stick. If Shafer or Martinez somehow get into the rotation, it will not quite be so every-day-interesting.) Five of those seven were already listed in top 22, Cabrera was 31, and Searle probably not that far off behind. Each and every one of those 7 has the potential be a top-20 guy at least by next year, if things go well. I'm really surprised that McNutt still lists with Daytona. I strongly assume he'll end up at Peoria. But if he's at Daytona, that might reflect that his stuff really is pretty good and is not all hype; and that his control is not quite as desparately wild as with Archer or Dolis last year.