craig

Not to argue the relative merits of these guys. I personally have Cashner ahead of Jackson, but the point of this point isn't to argue the relative merits. [i can certainly track the argument for putting jackson higher: the big-leagues are no different from A+ in that you usually put people away with the breaking ball. It appears that Jackson's slider is superior to any breaking ball that Cashner throws, as is manifested by his much stronger K-rate. it can also be reasoned that he has better control overall. If jackson goes through his career with better control and a much better breaking, he'll end up better. So I'm not really contesting your relative ranking.] My point is that your discussion of these two does not address a most important characteristic for them, or for any pitcher: the propensity to allow HR's. I don't have numbers, but I believe around half (perhaps more) of the run scored in the major leagues score via the HR. And in this regard I think Cashner and Jackson are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Cashner has allowed one HR this season, I believe in his first game; jackson has allowed 11. I understand that HR's come in small quantities, so it's possible that with such small samples that predicting future can be difficult. But it appears that Jackson is unusually HR-vulnerable, and Cashner is unusually HR-resistence. I don't claim to know why. Perhaps it's that Cashner's fastball is not only typically faster but it has more tail to it, so that minor leaguers just can't drive his fastball. Perhaps Jackson's is straighter, or less consistently fast. Very possibly it's a reflection of Jackson's personality, so that he sometimes loses focus and lays in some mashable strikes. More likely it's that that Cashner lives heavily on the fastball, whereas jackson throws a lot more breaking balls. That's great for strikeouts (some of the good ones are unhittable), But if he's throwing 15 more breaking balls per start than Cashner, that's 15 more opportunities to hang one and get it drilled. Scouts talk up the good breaking balls, but the same guy who throws 20 really beautiful deadly breaking pitches in a game can still throw 5 hangers, one or two of which get drilled. From this view, it's well possible that next year, when Carpenter starts the year healthy and is another year older and more accustomed to handling a workload, that they'll push him to throw more breaking balls; if so, perhaps his HR-rate will rise, too. Perhaps it's because jackson is more aggressive and willing to challenge hitters with strikes, and would rather challenge a guy with a fastball down the middle than walk him. That could jive with why his pitch-count-per-inning is better than Cashner's, and his walk-rate lower. But whatever the underlying cause, in general a guy's tendency to allow HR's is somewhat characteristic, and Cashner looks like he's plus-plus in that aspect, whereas jackson looks like he's no better than average and possibly something of a minus in that regard. When I ranked Cashner higher, that was part of my reasoning. (The better fastball, not only velocity-wise but action-wise also factored in, as did personality/character/commitment/coachability factors.)

Your take on the K's is different from mine. Your hope is that the strikeouts come from aggressiveness more so than from bad plate discipline. I don't get the impression that either of these is the source. My understanding is that he is very patient and extremely good plate discipline. I don't think that he's hacking too much, or hacking at junk. My hope is that some of the K's are exactly becuase he's as patient as he is. He gets called out on marginal 3rd strikes, because he's patient. He gets struck out on good 2-strike pitches, because he's patient enough to go deep in counts and allow himself to get into 2-strike counts not infrequently. Perhaps his inordinate success (probably unsustainable, but perhaps there's something real going on?) when he does contact the ball reflects that he's very disciplined, and swings selectively at strikes he can mash, but is willing to take some strikes if they aren't ones he can hit hard? My fear is that the K's are because he just can't hit pitches all that well. As Wilken termed it, that he's "a misser". He's not swinging at unhittable bad balls, he's not swinging too aggressively. There are just a lot of pitches that he should be swinging at, but that he misses. As you say, if that's the deal, there will be more and more hard-to-hit pitches as he moves up, and fewer and fewer easy-to-hit pitches. So if he's just a "misser", that could get exposed more fully in time. But I agree with the main points of your post. He's been a wonderful and unexpected surprise. Other than the scary K's, early feedback on all other questions has been uniformly fabulous. Does he really have any power? Favorable results. Is he really a CFer, or will he soon move to corner like so many other amateur CFers? Super favorable feedback. Will he be able to sustain any average with all the K's? So far so good. Will he still be able to be patient and walk in the pros? So far so good.

I think there has been tons of Huseby hype this year. Much more so than for any low-A Cub reliever since the internet was born. I do think the hype has been stronger from the stats side than the stuff side, though. Reports on his stuff have been good but not great. The only standout stuff report has been about his cutter. Scouting reports have confirmed what's obvious from his box scores, that his control has been good. The other somewhat positive scouting has been that perhaps his delivery is somewhat deceptive. Reports have had relatively average velocity. So at present the scouting would suggest that he's excelled in A- as a good-cutter finesse control pitcher. One good pitch, excellent control, and a not-bad fastball can produce a good career. So I'm very hopeful that he'll become an effective major leaguer. I agree with toonster, though, I won't have him in my top-ten unless/until I get some word that the Cubs plan to move him to rotation. The high bonus, that's years ago and that was an unusually high-uncertainty gamble then, I don't see that being particularly relevant anymore. He was projected to become a bigtime power pitcher then, and it hasn't happened, (at least not yet). And he was projected to possibly develop a big-time curveball, and that isn't reality either (although his plus cutter helps). Will be interesting to see how he progresses as a finesse/control pitcher. He's so big, sometimes it doesn't take too much to be off for the finesse/control to get out of whack (as was the case last year.) At 21, it's not inconceivable that he might still add a tick or more velocity-wise. If he was resting 90-94 and touching 97, instead of resting 86-91 and touching 93, that could help and it can happen with pitchers sometimes. I would love to see him get another crack at rotation. Starters who throw strikes, and have one good knockout pitch to put guys away when they get up in the count, that's a recipe for success. And sometimes guys who can throw strikes with fastball and cutter have less trouble working up a change or some other offspeed pitch than do guys who can't control any of their pitches. The rich get richer, typically, as regards the ability to control pitches. There are plenty of successful, invaluable starting pitchers who aren't overwhelmingly fast, so his limited velocity almost seems less limiting in rotation than relief. I hope they try that next season, and see where he goes.

4th OF on a good team. ....because he doesn't exhibit very good patience or power at the plate, he likely won't hit enough to be better than average as a corner OF.... I don't disagree with most of those thoughts. The "consensus" is probably 4th OF on a good team, and he likely won't hit enough to be an above average starter. Two points: First, we can underestimate the value of average. There are a lot of good corner OF's, so it's a lot easier to end up with an below-average awful situation in a corner (for example, Soriano/LF this year) than it is to be better than average there. Average for low pay, often teams wish they had that. I do question the statement that he doesn't exhibit very good power. His Tenn slugging is .528, which would make him the league leader if he had enough PA's to qualify for the list. Slugging .528 in AA at age 23 is not power-deficient, I don't think. Neither is 13HR/284 AB. Project that to the number of AB's a big-league regular gets and you've got a HR-hitter. He's not a big guy and he's never been scouted as a power hitter. But actually power hitting has been his best virtue as a pro. Often guys as slender as Colvin get stronger and more skilled at driving HR's. So one could optimistically hope that perhaps he will sustain and improve his power. And with the kind of power he's shown, combined with his this-year-solid K-rate, he'll hit for average too. The pessimistic side: scouts don't often miss out on potential power. If in fact his power output is fluke and not sustainable, then he's going to have a hard time. But I think he's got a chance to be a good player.

I agree with most of outshined's comments. Overall, I think the draft was largely conservative, at least in terms of spending. Raley was the one superslot, other than that I'm not sure of anything other than modest overslots. There were some overslots, and perhaps later on we'll find out that some are larger than I know now. (Who knows how much McNutt got, or Burruel.) But the indications are that the spending was pretty conservative, not far from slot other than Raley. It was reported I think that within the first ten rounds, the spending was only 27th. Not far above slot. As for the players: Jackson has been really good thus far, a huge and pleasant surprise. The K's and things are risk, but he appears to excel defensively and to project as a legit big-league defensive CFer; he appears to have some real HR power; he appears to have excellent walk patience; and he appears to have made some favorable adjustments mechanics-wise. The K's and contact issue remain a big risk, but thus far everything looks better than I could have hoped for initially. The early returns on Lemahieu have also been very favorable, other than the lack of power. From what I've heard he's looked very impressive defensively. The tools are limited, so it's doubtful that he'll have the tools for big-league SS, but even that may not be impossible. But sounds like at worst he'll be very smooth and coordinated and play an excellent 2B. He's clearly been a good hitter average-wise thus far, and while his BB/K hasn't been noteworthy, it isn't worrisome. He's been utterly powerless thus far, and other than Hendry there doesn't seem like anybody scouting-wise who sees power in his future. But he's young, and he's got some size. So it seems he's got a chance to be a high-average top-defensive 2B. May never hit many HR's, but if he could blossom into a double-figures HR guy, he could be very good. The lefty pitchers, none have shown much yet. Mincone looked good for an outing or two, but is disabled. Kirk and Raley have only pitched a couple of times, poorly but it's too soon to read much. Rusin has pitched enough to be rather disappointing, for an old polished low-velocity guy I thought he'd dominate short-season guys. Nobody has stood out after the top 2, other than perhaps McNutt and Burruel. Most of the later college pitchers have been lousy, and none of the college hitters after Lemahieu have showed much, either. Top 5-10: Jackson Lemahieu Raley Kirk Burruel Mincone Whitenack McNutt Most disappointing early: Rusin, Springfield. (And Kirk, but it's so early that it's probably premature to hold it against him.) I'd guess the keys, not surprisingly, are Jackson, Lemahieu, and Raley. Those are the guys who seem to theoretically have a chance to become good starters, rather than depth/pen/support players. Jackson could very easily strike out too much and miss too much to make it and be a bust, or he could end up being a quality starting CF. So I think it's fair to assume that the success or failure of the best prospects is the key. Whether or not Mcnutt or Whitenack or Rusin make it setup relievers, or Burruel as a backup catcher, that's interesting. But the real hinge in my mind is whether we get any or a couple of solid starters, and if so the most probable would be from Jackson/Lemahieu/Raley.

Comments on a couple of topics: 1. I think we are overrating many of our guys. Sure, other orgs can make weird decisions. But I don't think there's all that much to worry about having Papelbon or Dolis getting picked, and I'm not sure that .210BA-Castillo or .630-OPS Clevenger are that likely to get drafted or to stick. I think there's a fair chance that if we rostered not a single one of our guys, that Gaub might be the only one to both get picked and to stick. 2. Losing a player isn't necessarily a big deal. If we lose Papelbon, or Castillo, there's a chance that Papelbon will someday blossom into Mark Guthrie, or that Castillo will someday emerge as a decent backup catcher. But how likely is it that we'll ever greatly regret losing somebody who's likely ceiling is to be a fringy guy who's never likely to be among the best 20 guys on a big-league roster? 3. We've got tons of space. Anybody the Cubs half like they can keep. Not only do we have like 3 open spots, and Cotts and Chad Fox, and Harden and Grabow perhaps ready to leave, but the roster is jammed with expendable fringers like Atkins, Mateo, Berg,,, Blanco, Scales, Fuld, Hoffpauir, and then there's Stevens and Samardz.... Management may choose the wrong guy to protect and the guy they expose might be the one who emerges from the field. But if they keep Mateo and Berg and Atkins and Caridad and Scales and Blanco on and leave Clevenger or Papelbon or Maestri off, I think it indicates how modestly the Cubs view the guy they expose. 4. On Colvin and the "one hot month". I think that one hot month can greatly influence our perception on guys who don't have that extended a track record. It can give a glimpse of what a guy's ceiling is and what he might look like if he was to figure out how to more consistently use the physical talents that he has.

I haven't been tracking with this thread, or with the overall roster. So I'm probably rehashing or talking stupid. But I'd say: Gaub, Colvin, Parker Maestri Clevenger Castillo are the six to consider. Not sure they'll put all those guys on, and it wouldn't bother me if they didn't. In my experience, the most likely to go are pitchers, because a pitcher with good stuff who can improve a little bit ha the best chance of being able to get hidden or to justify big-league time. Colvin is a favorite whipping boy, and many in the thread have wanted to dismiss him, and it's been suggested that he'll be rostered for political/face-saving rather than baseball reasons. But the guy is slugging over .500 in AA at age 23 (at the moment), is hitting .295 at the moment, and has a K-rate <18% at AA, has a solid K/HR rate of 43/11, has an .835 OPS, and plays a pretty good RF. Most likely it's just a brief tease, and he won't sustain his current hotness or his overall AA numbers, much less continue to get better. But optimist that I am, I'm hoping that his overall AA numbers this year are not only sustainable, but that his recent hotness is more indicative of what he can do, and that at his age he still has improvement left. Optimist that I am, I also wonder whether he may not be approaching the point in his career where he kind of understands what he is as a hitter and settles into a balance, a compromise, an equilibrium. From this hopeful view, he hasn't been at equilibrium before because he was either coming back from the severe head collision, or coming back from the surgery, or playing last year with a shoulder that needed surgery, or trying to make adjustments so as to take more pitches and more walks (first half last year, first month this year), or trying to make counteradjustments to reduce his K's, etc.. I think between health issues and continual efforts to be counterbalancing some problem (too many K's, too few walks, etc.), he's never really settled into what works best for him. It's possible that he's kind of reaching the point for the first time where he's healthy and he's neither overswinging so badly that he's K'ing at all kinds of junk, nor taking so many pitches and cutting down on his swing so severely that he has no power.

No, those leagues typically have guys who aren't quite good enough to make Low-A teams. I live in Fargo-Moorhead, the home of Nic Jackson's team. There is a whole range of guys in those leagues for a whole range of reasons. On Fargo along, Nic Jackson bats 3rd (best player), ex-Cub Randall Simon bats 4th, and ex-Cub Alan Rick catches (4th rounder in the Brownlie/Dopirak draft). I think that's fairly typical, that there are some guys who touched the majors or got to high minors, mixed in with some AA/A journeymen. Chirinos could end up spending years there if he wants to. Pitchers don't have as many ex-major leaguers or almosts. But there are the usual group of pitchers who had surgery and are mucking along without the arms they once had. And there are a lot of guys who bumped around in low minors for a while. Sometimes with good arms but too wild; sometimes smart pitchers but just didn't have enough arm to stay in the way of younger prospects. And then the pitching staff often has some guys who just didn't throw hard enough to ever reach A-ball, but are still hanging around and sometimes having good success based on craftiness.

Thanks for the observations on Burke the fielder, Nate. The idea that he runs good routes and has an accurate arm is really helpful, and that his CF defense was fairly good relative to the level. If he played good enough CF so that he could function as a utility OF who could be a #2 CFer in the majors, that could help him. Obviously he's been on an incredible streak, with all the walks and lots of hits when he isn't walking. He's always been a high-K guy, but this year even that is down. In past, I've kind of assumed that a guy who was K'ing in the 25-29% range in short-season/low-A probably has holes in his swing that would only be more badly exposed by better pitching. And I've kind of figured that usually once a K-guy, always a K-guy, and if you're a big K-guy you better hit a lot of HR's to balance it out. But with so many walks this season, and as many doubles, even without tons of HR's the overall package is excellent. He has an awful lot of doubles relative to his modest number of HR's. You'd think he's physically strong enough to hit HR's eventually, if in fact he's got enough contact skill to be hitting .300. If he could maintain his present BB/K profile, and turn at least a few more of his doubles into HR's, he could be really serious guy. Will be interesting to see how he finishes out this year. He may be due for a a relapse.

"Significant" being a key word. If we signed Lambert for a $70K superslot, or Shephard for $120K-plus-scholarship superslot, those aren't necessarily notable enough to command BA's attention. When they've got plenty of higher-profile and higher-dollar prospects to focus on.

Good point. BA will know and report about 1st round guys or million-dollar high-profile midnight signings. And if the Cubs sign Whaley for $800K or something, maybe BA will hear and report. But most likely BA isn't tracking and reporting on every unsigned pick from rounds 11 and up. So there's a fair chance that even by end of tomorrow or Wednesday that we won't have heard any reports that we signed anybody today, and probably we won't have. But I'll still be hoping that somebody did sign and we just didn't hear about it.

What does anybody know about Craig Muschko? I know he was a late draft pick, and IIRC had had surgery or something in college. He's 23, so he's no kid at Daytona. And he's moved to rotation more by merit and necessity than I think because they had any big plans for him. But the guy has a 1.06 WHIP, an overall ERA of 3.3, and has had sub-ERA's in each of the last three months since moving into rotation. He's not a K-king, but a 65/15 K/BB ratio is rather favorable. Does give up too many HR's though, 8 already in only 86 innings. Just wondering whether he has any arm. When you've got command, you don't need to throw as hard as when your a Samardzija. Maybe he's one of these 88-92 mph strike-throwers who end up being Randy Wells types?

Just another thought - he could have meant Daley Cox as the "recently signed a sixth one." He was undrafted, so Wilken would have said "signed" rather than drafted. Cox was actually the first lefty signed, so he wouldn't be the "recently signed" guy. The "recently signed" needs to either be Raley or somebody else.

Wilken on Jackson and the draft: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/aug/13/scouting-director-says-cubs-drafted-well/ "We ended up taking four left-handed pitchers, five in our first 11 picks and we recently signed a sixth one," Wilken said. Craig note: I suspect this means that they've signed either Erickson or Lambert. Wilken's numbers are off by one, it's actually four LHP in the first 11 picks (Kirk/Rusin/Raley/Mincone). But I don't think the "recently signed a 6th one" is Raley, since then he'd be off by two rather than one, and since he seemed to be talking about high picks (four lefties should really be the three with Rusin the cheapest), five in first 11 should really be four, and then the other recent signing seems to be outside of the top 11 picks group. I'd hope it would be Erickson. Not a power arm, but he was very good for Miami. Lambert was a wildman, but at draft time seemed rather signable, so probably it's just Lambert.

i'm suspending judgment until i see if any of these guys turn out to be good players. True. Still, I'm awfully enthused about this signing and this trend. It's a rare case where the Cubs are leaders in something. They were never leaders in saber, or Latin America, or anything novel with prospect development. It's fun to be a leader and have a niche. Second, the early returns on the prospects seems to be very favorable in terms of scouting acumen out there. The feedback on Lee has been fabulous. The feedback on rhee pre-injury was really good. So I think there is reason to think that Weaver and Wilson might have fairly good eyes for talent. On the other hand, I do think the risk with Asian pitchers may be pretty high. Rhee, Jung, Chen, like Ryu before them, they have all shown up with arm problems not too long into their Cub careers. Given some of the reports on how many innings some of the Asian kids throw, perhaps that is not coincidental, and may be an ongoing risk when signing kids from over there. Anyway, it's great to have another potential good-talent big-ticket prospect added to the system. As always, I hope he's got more than speed. Speed is only good if you can hit, and without power even that is of limited value.

You probably know better than. But Daytona has a really feeble offense. Most managers, if there was a guy who could hit, he'd get a chance. My guess is that Jones the hitter looks pretty hopeless. Can't hit breaking balls, I assume? IIRC, Jones was viewed as a good prospect as a pitcher, and was thought to perhaps merit selection in the first 5-6 rounds as a pitcher. Hopefully he'll be willing to take a shot at pitching after the season. But as with harvey, if a guy doesn't want to pitch you can't make him.

Heh, BA now has Dail as unsigned again!

Good post, wrigley, very well articulated, makes sense. And I would guess that whether all posters have organized their analysis as well as you have, that this perspective is pretty representative. I think it's in good context with Flaherty discussion. Because by your layout, it's college players who will be most likely to be underappreciated. You note 21 as the Peoria age, and state that "if they are older than that age, that player needs a solid excuse ... for me to consider them a significant prospect." Essentially if a normal-age college pick doesn't skip to Daytona, then he wouldn't qualify as significant. Any 21-year-old draftee who doesn't skip Peoria will be 22 for most of his first full season, and thus will be too old for you. I think that's the niche where there may be some significant prospects who go underappreciated. Flaherty may be one such. But, on the other hand your policy would seem to work for almost all of our guys currently. Probably Flaherty isn't very significant. Bristow, he had something of a position switch, plus injuries, so he has excuse even in the event that he does eventually emerge. Josh Harrison was a young draftee, so he was only 21 most of this summer. Shafer and Carpenter started old at Peoria, but they both had surgery excuses. Leverton, Coleman, and Jackson all did skip up. LeMahieu and jackson are young, so even if they do come back to Peoria next April they'll still qualify at 21. Rusin had surgery, so he's excused regardless of where they put him. And your policy may also be something in the Cubs drafting mind. They've picked a lot of college guys, but many of the higher selections have been oriented toward either the young side or the excused-by-injury-or-position-switch deal. Off the quick top of my head, Flaherty almost seems like one of the rare guys who didn't fit under the young/injured/switch umbrella and still didn't skip up to Daytona. Guyer, he's probably not significant, but he had injury and two-sport issues. Barney and Ty Wright skipped straight to Daytona. Donaldson had switch issues. Thomas was both young and skipped. If Eric Patterson is the best recent example of a "significant" Peoria guy who wasn't young/injured/switch, maybe that does give a hint on how rare and limited the significance of guys like that at Peoria are. Hopefully Flaherty will bust out and become better than EPatt.

That was one of the reasons why when Brandan Harris hit 13 there (and then two more at AA after an August promote), at age 21 after skipping A-, I thought he might be a HR-prospect. Likewise Nic Jackson hit 19 as a 21-year-old skip-up. Not many more after that. I understand there are some hard-to-HR FSL parks, but I didn't get the impression that Daytona was one of them. Am I wrong?

Thanks, Nate. I don't think the age concern about Flaherty is just that he's 22. If he was hitting .400 like Kinsler or like Eric Patterson did, he'd be viewed differently that with the .258 average he really has. But I think your point is well taken, that if you draft college, normally guys will play A- their first full season, that's the way it is. I guess the concern is that if a guy is a really good prospect, then when placed in A- he could be pretty dominant at that age (Kinsler, Patterson, Ryan Gripp), and that .258 Flaherty has not been. So it follows that very likely he's not that great a hitter. I think it's also the reality that if you draft college guys, you probably aren't going to get as much buzz for top-prospect lists. It's the nature of the fan/BA type mindset that a "great" prospect is one who is not only very good, but does so while younger than his competition, with extra years of potential development and physical maturation ahead of him. When you draft college guys who are 22 by the time they reach full season, they will never get that extra credit. To retain any serious consideration on prospect lists it is expected that they perform; with high performance expectations fans are quick to be disappointed (.258 average) and hard to be pleasantly surprised (Gripp and Patterson both hit .333 with .940+ OPS and snazzy BB/K.) Second, I think his assignment to Peoria rather than Daytona in April was a disappointment and was interpreted to not reflect favorably on him. Most college picks will start their subsequent summer at A- and that means age 22, that's the norm. But most college picks aren't 1st round/sandwich, Flaherty was. And he was an "old" 22, not a young 22. And he wasn't a raw projection guy; his scouting reports suggested that he might be as pplished as a college junior could get. Son of a baseball coach; three-year starter in the best college conference in the world; beneficiary of a smart school with smart optimal coaching. If any college hitter seemed like he'd be ready to skip straight to daytona, Flaherty seemed to be the candidate. So I think the fact that he wasn't ready for Daytona raised some red flags from the start, and then still being a bottom-of-the-order guy behind no-contact people like Nelson Perez. http://www.minorleaguesplits.com/cgi-bin/pl.cgi Suggests otherwise, that he has hit in modestly bad luck. Site lists BABIP, GB%, LD%, FB%, and IF/F, so I assume they built that into their calculation of what luck/park adjusted numbers "should" be. Without having inlcuded yesterday's 3/5-with-HR day, his luck-adjusted numbers as follows: .294 BA, .333 BABIP, .354 OBP, .495 slugging, .849 OPS. If you enter yesterday's numbers, his "expected" slugging would reach .500 and his OPS over .850. If he was hitting .298 with 16 HR's, an .850+ OPS, a .350+ OBP, and non-alarming K-rate, I don't think we'd be viewing his season as a disappointment. I'd not view him as can't-miss, or as a top-5 guy. But given his draft status and the favorable adjustment/improvement that he's made over the course of the season, I'd think he might be in discussion as being among our top ten prospects. If he was somewhere in the 8-20 range on our top-prospect list, of course there would be questions, no can't-miss guys in that area. Questions I have: 1. Has he really figured something out, or is he basically the same hitter he's been, he just happens to be hot now. But the hots like the colds don't persist. Or is he really better in some sustainable way? 2. He hasn't made many errors, so he seems rather reliable defensively. But will he actually be good at 2B or 3B, or still no better than limited at either one? And does he have any chance of being acceptable at SS? A low-errors 20HR LH SS, you could put up with some less-than-goldglove-range... What are your thoughts about his defense at the various spots, nate? 3. What's up with his power? He hit only 2 and 4 HR's his first two years at Vandy, then 14, now he's at 16 in wood-bat pros. I don't recall the scouts being sold on his power pre-draft. Is this a guy who is just getting progressively stronger and who is going to be a 20+ HR guy, without needing to sell out totally and be overswinging constantly to get there? Or is this Brendan harris: at age 21, Harris hit 15 HR at Daytona/AA, and many of us thought that perhaps as a good contact hitter he was going to progress into a 20+ serious HR-hitting 2B. But the next year he hit 5, and he never did sustain his 21-year-old HR rate, or mature into more. Last year Guyer looked very intriguing HR-wise; this year he's hit just one. So if Flaherty's HR outcome real, something sustainable or something that may grow further? Or is it a deal where he'll never get any stronger than he is right now at age 23, but as the pitching gets better his HR's will decrease, not sustain or increase? HR's are great for batting average; they're all hits. It's great for slugging. It's great for OBP. It's great for defense (well, not really; but average defense is OK for a power hitter, not for a low-OPS guy.)

Any concern that Flaherty has been playing in leagues that last two seasons that he's a bit too old for? Obviously, of course, absolutely, many. There's a fair chance he'll get promoted and do fine; but a fair chance he'll get promoted, and not be any good. It's hardly that uncommon for college hitters to do a lot better in A- than once promoted from there, particularly if promoted to AA. Or to have their HR output drop off seriously. We saw Guyer lose his power and get waxed in AA this year. He didn't improve to the degree that the pitching did. Some names I remember from the past, Eric Patterson hit for huge average in A- as an old guy, but then was not special in AA. Ryan Gripp was a montster in A-, lot of HR's; but he never got any better and his numbers, HR's especially, fell off the table thereafter. And guys like EPatt and Gripp had much better A- batting averages than Flahrty has shown. There's a good likelihood that he won't improve enough as he moves up to make the grade, since the bar is a lot higher at higher levels. And many guys his age may not be that far from their ceiling already. But my perception is that he's commonly forgotten, written off as an afterthought, since he's currently a 23-year-old hitting .258 in low-A. I just think I'd tend to be a little more optimistic about him if he was hitting .295 with an .840 OPS. And if next year he's a 23-year-old who is able to sustain his present HR-pace, and hit with both better luck and better average in a higher league, whether A+ or perhaps even AA, he might get more discussion. He's not likely to work out. But he's got a chance.

Frankly, I think he'll be fine. He's good decent patience and very good power, plus he's played three positions this season without much trouble defensively. I believe the minorleague splits think that based on his K/BB/HR/line-drive rate etc., that with normal luck Flaherty should be hitting around .290 with an OPS well into the .800's. Which is more the kind of average I'd expect for a guy who had 15-17 HR's and a K-rate below 20%. There may be reasons why his actual average is lower. But I think there's a fair chance that he'll get promoted next year and do fine. I think it will be intersting to see how his HR-rate goes next year. Sometimes a guy his age gets stronger, better at HR', and further improves his HR rate. If so, he could potentially be a serious HR threat, enough to overbalance some weaknesses in other areas. But it's also true that sometimes a guy hits fewer HR's against better pitching, and if theother stuff stays about the same buthis HR's drop, we'll be really uninterested.

How would you judge Antigua's fastball, and the velocity of some of these guys? My guess, (please correct as appropriate): Cabrera > Archer > Bristow > Antigua, Beliveau >> Bibens-Dirkx, Shafer My guess is that Huseby and Buchter would both be in the Antigua area, a shafe faster than Biben-Dirkx and Shafer, but not as fast as Archer or probably even Bristow? I'm also guessing that perhaps many of these are really bunched; that Cabrera is noticably faster, and on occassion Archer, but that most of the rest are probably all in the usual 86-92 mph range most of the time? Obviously I'm only asking about pure velocity, I realize that Cabrera while faster is straight and wild and thus much more hittable, and that Bibens and Antigua thus far seem to be more effective because of location and/or movement.

Wow, so that's some real superslot. When is the deadline, anyway? 9th? 15th? I wonder if any of the others have signed and haven't hit the news yet? But clearly that's a major superslot. I hope he earns it. Glad to have him aboard.

Thanks. Given Logan's report and the caliber of Jackson's Twitter comments, it doesn't seem altogether surprising.