craig

Vitters was pinch-hit for in the 6th inning. Hope he's OK. But, he's in the lineup for game 2, so he must be OK. Maybe it was just a little celebration for having taken his 3rd walk. Most of the regulars are now up around 100 AB's, plus or minus. Vitters has 3 walks, Harrison 4, and Lake 5.

Thanks for the input, ping. I hadn't gotten that much info previously. He's not the first guy who's had weight problems, or been too irresponsible and short-sighted to maintain academic eligibility, or to prefer to play at a small school than pitch at a big school. None of that reflects good decision making, obviously, which doesn't bode so well; and it's easy to see why other teams would have crossed him off or dropped him well down on their draft boards. But, talent is king. And if some bad decision-making and personal baggage is what it took to enable the Cubs to get a possible major-league talent in the 24th round, that's a good thing.

That would make sense if it was about playing SS. Probably not about pitching; he pitched more innings in one freshman year at Mizzou than he did the following year at UIC. And if Mizzou-UIC was about playing time, that still leaves unanswered the question of why he didn't play as a junior. (Injury was not the reason, I believe he was either ineligible or else he quit or something.) Even if Mizzou-UIC was about PT, that's unusual to voluntarily take such a huge step down in competitive level when he had plenty of opportunity as a pitcher.

Good to see input, ping. Can you expand on any of these issues? What were the "circumstances" of his college years? I'm guessing there are indications of some baggage, but I'm not sure whether that's true or fair or just assuming there is problem because of unusual history. I'm seeing you as a source making reference to: a) weight issues; b) focus issues; c) I know he's a guy who left Missouri after only one year. Most guys don't voluntarily leave the powerful Big-12 after one successful season. Did he get kicked out (and why?), or did he choose to leave (and why?) d) I know that he played at UIC in 07, this time as a regular infielder, and again as a very effective relief pitcher. But just as it was one-and-done at Missouri, after playing at UIC in 07 he did not play in 08. Again, why? It's a very unusual college pathway.

Sounds good, Jose. I can't say I've seen a lot of these ability guys you've signed having much success. We've got one of the weakest Latin farm populations in the league, it seems. And given AzPhil's boxscores from Mesa, it doesn't appear we have any Latin position players who are likely to ever make A+ from that crop, either. You never know with a pitcher or two, so hopefully some pitcher will emerge. But this sounds like dopey talk given how unsuccessful whatever approach he takes has been.

Peoria up 6-0 in the 5th. In four innings Archer has put only 3 runners on by wildman (two walks and a HBP), and a couple of singles to go with 7 K's.

Freel: career OBP = .354 Macias: career OBP = .298 That's the difference. If you think that difference is meaningful, and that Freel's career OBP has any relevance to what he might possibly do from here out, then you'll be interested. If you don't think a 56-point superiority in OBP is meaningful, or you don't think his career OBP has any relevance to what he'll do now and that he'll probably produce Macias-type OBP's now, then the Macias analogy is apt. I, of course, am too dumb to know. But I do think that 56-points of OBP is meaningful. If freel can be a competitive on-base guy, .330 or better, then he's a useful pickup. If not, then not.

Last night I mentioned McDaniel and Barney as a couple of guys who have dramatically elevated their status in my view. (I followed them both last year, of course, and I knew the Cubs liked Barney as a Theriot-type defensive-infielder/utility-infielder candidate. And I knew that McDaniel did extremely well at boise.) But I didn't anticipate McDaniel starting, or skipping to A+, or excelling after having done so, or having a very intriguing sinker. And I didn't anticipate Barney cutting his K's down so well and hitting with as much line-drive contact as he's done thus far. One additional guy who has dramatically raised his stock in my view is Chris Carpenter. That's largely because I'd expected so little of him. I knew the hype, that he was big, that on occasion scouts had timed him or projected the chance to throw real fast. But he's old, he's had arm problems, and last year his numbers looked really ugly to me, too few K's to show actual or consistently dynamic stuff, and soooo sooo many walks, lots of hits allowed, etc.. All his numbers last year just smelled like an old and totally wild wildman who's stuff wasn't that great or was special only on rare occasion. But now this year 29K/11hits, that looks like stuff that is electric and hard to hit. There is no sign of current health problem, and the early report that he looked balanced and relatively controlled also helped. His control is still a huge concern: 11 walks/25 innings is lousy. And he's shown that his control can vanishin a heartbeat. So we'll see. But I'm seeing a guy now who seems healthy and strong, and who seems to have stuff that will be hard to hit whether he's in A- or AA. It depends on him. I also see a guy who's had a couple of bad innings, in which many of the walks and much of the damage has come out of the blue; but the vast majority of time he's been under control. (Unlike Veal, for example, who looked out of control even in innings when he didn't actually walk anybody.) Sometimes guys who are on the brink, they are good most of the time, but they still lose it for an inning here or there, with experience they become better able to avoid or limit or self-correct the damage. At which point they can sometimes accelerate very rapidly. (I'm old enough to remember early Maddux; I recall thinking prior to his Cy breakout that he was so good, but that so many times it was a single inning where his control would go and he'd give up most of the damage all at once. Then his Cy year he closed out those problem innings, and it was Cy's and Hall of Fame from there.) I'm not saying Carpenter will ever have enough control to win in the majors; or that his stuff is that good relative to big-leaguers; or that he'll stay healthy. But I'm WAY more optimistic and interested in his chances than I was back in February. One other is Gaub. Every time Hendry makes a trade, he tends to go for some overage A-ball pitcher with supposedly a good arm but bad control, that he or his scouts had liked back when the kid was in college years ago. I was optimistic but not confident that Gaub really had the control or the big-league stuff to be serious, given his 3+ ERA as a 23-year-old in low-A last year. But with 15K/8IP, it's pretty obvious that his stuff is for serious. When he can have his stuff working, AA guys can't touch him any better than the A- kids could, it wasn't a matter of finessing bad A- guys. I'm hoping that the stuff is perhaps even so good that even major-leaguers won't be able to hit it when he's got his good stuff going. So I look for his name in every AA boxscore now. Unfortunately the wild-man question remains pretty big.

Yes, very much. No, no chance. To my understanding, the defensive concerns are at three levels: 1. Seems to be making a number of throwing errors. My friend said he made a totally not-even-close Steve Sax-like throw at a game last week. 2. How good is he at actually catching grounders? Not sure if this is as large a concern. But m friend said that an easy grounder went right through his legs last week, the kind of error that you almost never see in the majors. 3. My recall is that scouts have said that he is still pretty awkward at turning double plays. In terms of center, he hasn't been scouted as a speedster. He's scouted as a smart baserunner and perhaps a quick starter towards 2B (but a slow starter out of the box). But his straight-line speed isn't scouted as much above average. So my guess is that if he doesn't make it at 2B, he'll go to left like Eric Patterson.

Man, other than Coleman's disappointing outing, that was one fun night for prospects. *McDaniel with another stellar game, but this being the first with lot of K's. If you have both strikeout stuff and sinker/groundout stuff, that's a nice arsenal. Could provide the flexibility to be a pitch-to-groundout-contact quick-inning pitch deep guy one day. But on another day when you need it, to pull out your strikeout stuff, that's pretty nice too. Sounds like he may have enough stuff so that he can compete even if one or the other of his sinker or his strikeout pitch (the slider, I assume) isn't best on a given day. *Great to see the big game for Jay Johnson. Earlier the report was that his control was missing and his fastball didn't have much gas. The control must be back. *Gaub, now has 15 K in 8.1 innings, wow. Cheers to the scouts. Last year he qualified as super wild, not exceptionally effective (3.4 ERA in A- isn't that special), and way old for his age. But now, having opened the season at age 23 in AA, AA hitters are having as much or more trouble hitting his stuff as A- hitters did. At least for the moment, I'd guess his stuff probably compares favorably with recent Loogies Ohman and Cotts. They both are limited by issues of control and consistency; Gaub has a ways to go to prove whether he'll be any better controlled or any more consistent than Ohman and Cotts. But I'm sure hoping. *Cales hasn't had any eye-popping K's, or K/BB, or GO/AO numbers. But he had another two shutout innings last night. For a kid who pitched very little in college, who was drafted in the 24th round, and who will still be only 21 for most of the season, his jump straight to A+ and the early success he's shown there are certainly unexpected. BA and UK/Ping have both said he's got some pretty good stuff. If scouts knew his stuff was interesting, I wonder how serious his baggage was that he slipped to the 24th round? *Clevenger with another good day at the plate, another double, another walk, 2/3. He's been very productive at the plate in his limited chances, that's for sure. Two of his issues past were utter lack of power, pure singles guy; but his XBH output is up some thus far, it seems. If he could sustain even a semi-decent IsoP, he's got a chance to be a pretty interesting hitter for a 2nd catcher. Who knows; maybe if he hits enough he'll end up as a 1st catcher sooner or later, whether with us or somebody else. *Thomas's hitting has really been a pleasant surprise. I have to admit I'd been pretty down on him. I'd thought his numbers might be kind of fluky, and certainly to some degree they are; but his BABIP is actually only .406. Obviously that isn't sustainable, but it's not like he's BABIP'ing at .500 or anything. Given how many XBH he's gotten, it would seem that he is hitting the ball really hard, and scouts have always talked about his nice stroke (even though they've never explained why such a nice stroke misses so many pitches and strikes out so abundantly). So guys with good strokes and who are hitting the ball hard, they tend to have high BABIP's. Of course his numbers will drop; I don't really expect him to be a 30+ HR guy (his current pace, were you to give him the 550AB that a big-league regular gets) or a .406 BABIPer. But it does look like something real is happening with him. It's also worth remembering that despite it being his 3rd year and his big-college background, he's still only 22 and will be for most of the year. So getting better and adding some strength, those are well reasonable within his age. *A growing Thomas concern, though, is his defense. He's got 7 errors already, including some bad throwing errors, and a flagrant through-the-wicket miss recently. Plus the play yesterday where he didn't cover 2nd on smith's throwaway. Fontenot had fielding questions, but has turned out to be pretty acceptable. But I'm getting scared that Thomas is going to be another Eric Patterson, a guy who low-minors people say looks good defensively but scouts say otherwise; a guy who some defensive metrics say looks good defensively but scouts and some people who start to watch more carefully say otherwise; and a guy who ends up fielding his way into the outfield. Speaking of which, what's up with Eric? He's in AAA for Oakland, and has played 5 of his 25 games at 2B, most in left, the rest at DH or CF. Hitting .280.

Dan McDaniel at Daytona. He's been the biggest positive surprise. And Darwin Barney has been a pleasant surprise. I know he has no power and won't steal. But smart, good defensive SS's who are excellent contact players (he has a very low K-rate, so doesn't need a crazy BABIP to sustain a good BA and OBP) can be useful major leaguers and also useful trade bait.

Poster on my other board has seen him a couple of times. He was faster than Mateo and Parker, considerably faster than Coleman, and way faster than Chen.

I agree that Samardz should go down and learn how to pitch. Last year he put together 3-6 good weeks before his recall, and then stayed effective for a couple of weeks before struggling in September. This year he was lousy in spring, lousy his first Iowa start, then after only two good outings he was up and now he's struggling again. I'd like to see him go back and put together months of success if possible. I admit I'd like to see Ascanio get several months to lock in that it's not just a sample-size fluke, but that he is really a good pitcher. I think it's possible; he just turned 24 on Saturday, and after some injuries and pitching relief he really hasn't thrown all that many pro innings. I wouldn't mind letting him lock into his success for 3 months and 100 innings instead of a few weeks and 25 innings. That's probably unrealistic and I suppose one of them needs to be up. To some degree I'd rather have Ascanio stay down; I think he'll be out of options after this season, so I want him to be able to lock in and show enough at Iowa so that when he comes up, he doesn't lose it all with one bad game or one week in which he doesn't get used. I want him to show so much at Iowa so that it will be hard to give him away. Again, maybe it is too hard to have them both down at Iowa. Some possibles: bring up Waddel or Stevens or Fox instead. Chad Fox has done pretty well, actually. And/or if Z can come back after only a few weeks, and if Wells does well in his window of opportunity, perhaps Wells could just stay.

There are five position prospects of interest on the team: in addition to the four Cal mentioned (catchers Castillo and Clevenger, 2B Thomas, CF Guyer) there is also SS Barney and outfielder Ty Wright. 3B Smith was also in BA's top 30. I've mentioned some observations one poster at my regular board made, and I'll pass on a couple of those. He's been two two (both?) Mateo games, including yesterday. He sat by the players from the two teams who do their speed guns, so his gun readings are not stadium weirdness. He said that Mateo was again in the 91-93 range (considerably faster than Coleman and much faster than Chen, and not that much slower than Perkins). Said he threw some hard sliders as high as 86, which both of the gun players said was nasty. He was surprised mateo didn't K more people. Obviously said he was wild. I asked him about Clevenger, and he said that he hasn't really noticed him defensively in any of the games he's seen: which is a good thing. Said he didn't appear to have any problem with Mateo's hard sliders. He said that Thomas had a grounder go right through his legs, not the kind of error you hardly ever see in the majors. Last game he said that Thomas threw a Steve Sax crazy wild throw to first. So he said he's seeing why scouts who would see some really bad errors like that question his defense. Said that thomas has looked very good at the plate, looks balanced and has hit hard stuff. I'd asked him about how he does versus breaking stuff, and he said it looked like he waits back pretty well, doesn't look bad, although he doesn't recall ever seeing him hit a breaking pitch out of the infield. In one of the games he said that Guyer went 0-3 but hit the ball hard several of those times. If you could, I'd be interested on your observations on: 1. Thomas: defense, and how he handles breaking pitches. 2. Barney: how does his arm look, how does his range look defensively. And how does his plate discipline look. 3. Ty Wright: do you think he could hit for any power? And does his OF arm look too weak for anything but LF? Or does it look basically OK? 4. Any impressions of Clevenger as a hitter? 5. Any impressions of Castillo, either as hitter or defensively? For pitchers, if you got a look at Gaub, Coleman, or Jackson that would be fun to get reports.

Wells throws 3 hitless innings, then gets removed for Matthes. Makes it pretty obvious he's lined up to take Z's start on Friday. Wells' ERA is 2.77 after this his 5th start, with decent peripherals. He's 26. Dolis carried a no-hitter into the 5th. Archer makes a throwing error and walks a couple of guys while allowing a run in the first. Then he's pulled after only two innings. That doesn't sound good.

Last year Ridling was 50K/8 BB in 165 Peoria AB, rather Harveyesque. Thus far he's a more acceptable 12K/9BB/54AB. Still pretty high K-rate for a guy in low-A who's almost 23. But it's progress.

I think if a guy is rated as the best prospect in the minors, or pretty close (Corey), "uber" probably wouldn't be hyperbole. Nice to see Jackson having a good game. Interesting what a new season can do, though. Last year he was 72K/50IP. Even today, when he's on, he still doesn't have K's going. He's got the fly-ball thing working for him today, though. Ty Wright started slow but he's been doing very well lately. Hit .300 last year, he's been around 1.000 OPS over the last 10 days. Overall OPS is still under .800, but he's got his average up to .284. I'm always interested in a guy who can have 8 K / 6 BB / 67 AB. If you K that little, it means you can hit the ball and won't need an inordinate BABIP or an inordinate number of HR's to sustain a decent BA. If you K that little, it also suggests to me that you don't have major holes in your swing, so you are less likely to get exposed by better pitching following a promotion. Without real HR power or a CFer's arm, it's hard to see him projecting as an impact starter, obviously. But its sometimes useful to have a Reed Johnson-type hitter available in case of injury or whatever.

Howard was up at age 24, hit 22 HR's in 348 AB at age 25. Nice to have good outings by Archer and Carpenter. Too bad for Coleman and Parker. Chad Fox is doing well for Iowa. I wonder if he might not be a guy to call up is Samardz isn't actually contributing, or if/when they dump Patton.

My friend wrote the following: "My mph numbers came from the gun of whoever was charting pitchers that night for the Smokies, so this wasn't a case of the slow gun at Pringles." He also added that Chen only managed to get it into the upper 80's a couple of times, most were mid-80's. Here are most of his notes from Coleman's game yesterday. You will note the higher velocities of the relievers and the opposing pitcher, so Coleman's modest velocity is relative to AA pitchers, not a product of a slow gun. Anyway: "The hitting star for the Smokies was Tony Thomas, and he really looked great tonight, going 3 for 5 with a homer and a steal. He had two solid opposite field singles on 92 mph pitches and then crushed a 91 mph fastball over the left field wall for a no doubter home run. ... Casey Coleman pitched a solid game for the Smokies. His fastball was 88-91, with a pretty decent mid 70's curve that he can throw for strikes and it looked like he flashed a low 80's slider on occasion. He seems to have good rhythm on the mound and works fairly quickly. I really don't have a good feel if his fastball has any kind of good sink to it. He got three very timely double plays tonight, and I think each of those came on a different pitch. He does seem to mix his fastball and offspeed pitches pretty well. His best inning came in the 6th where he struck out the side, mostly throwing his curve. Jayson Ruhlman pitched the 7th. He was also around 88-91 and mixed in a mid 70's breaking ball. The big surprise for me tonight was Vince Perkins, who was throwing gas. 93-95 mph fastball and a good mid 80's slider. He gave up a couple of scratch singles to start to load the bases with no outs, and then he struck out the next two guys, one on a 93 fastball and another on an 83 slider. A liner to Barney that ended the threat was on a 95 fastball. Blake Parker closed the game. His fastball was 91-93, and he threw a couple of 81-83 sliders. He struck out the first two without much of a problem and gave up a long fly to center to end the game. "

My friend went to the Tenn game yesterday to check out Chen, and was less impressed. Obviously it wasn't Chen at his best (he allowed 5 runs). Here is what he wrote: "craig convinced me to go check out Chen today, and he's really not anything special. His fastball was basically 84-87 most of the game, hitting 88 and 89 a couple of times. He's also got a good mid 70's curveball that got some guys fishing. His first two innings were pretty solid but he started losing the strike zone in the third inning, falling behind several hitters, and paying the price for it. The key hit in the third inning for the Jaxx was an 86 mph chest high hit me fastball that was nailed to the RF wall and doubled in two runs."

Hi, Nate, thanks for the feedback. Peoria looks like it could have a lot of really good prospects, potential major leaguers. Not sure how that will play out for W-L record, but it's probably fun to see guys with a chance to become big-leaguers. Question on Huseby: Huseby was a wildman last year, but in his first several outings he's got zero walks. And he's K'd 6 guys in his last 2 outings/3 innings. What can you say scouting-wise? 87-89 fastball with a nice curve that goes for the strikes? Or on the outings when he's getting guys out and K'ing people, does he touch up into the 90's? How about Archer? Any scouting thoughts on him?

I'd actually forgotten about huseby after the winter, given how hopelessly wild he was last summer. Now he's back, promoted, no walks in three outings, and 6 K's in his last two innings. I know the report on his first outing was that he was slow, 89 or so, and he wasn't good that game. Hopefully the better outings means he's letting it fly more comfortably and throwing a little harder. If we got some 91-92 reports, with a K-curve, and at age 21 still having some possible velocity projection left, it would be a fun story if he got back onto the prospect map. Sooner or later Shafer is likely to get promoted, if he keeps on pace. If Huseby keeps pitching well in relief,maybe he'd even get a rotation shot. IIRC, his scouting when signed was as: 1) a control pitcher 2) a curveball guy, and 3) the frame to possibly someday throw hard. He may be back to that, on his good days.

Cal, I think you jinxed all three of Chen, Carpenter, and Wells today! Nice to see Carpenter having some good innings, though. I don't recall really any very impressive outings last summer, and I admit I was worried that he was going to be a bust, a guy with good-stuff reputation but who was way too wild and whose stuff really wasn't all that great anyway. He had a mediocre K rate (25K/33IP isn't all that special in short-season), a horrible walk rate (23BB/33IP/25K is awful), and it wasn't like his ball was moving around so much that guys couldn't hit it: his hits-allowed rate was also more than one per inning. I thought he was the draft pick most likely to bust. But now at 18K/8H/14IP his K's look good and his stuff looks hard to hit. I get the impression now that when he's on, he's very good. But that perhaps he can fall out of his groove fairly quickly and lose it. 4 perfect innings, then two walks and a hit in the 5th. Last game it seemed like he had a couple of good innings, but lost his control in other innings. Hopefully he'll increasingly lock into the good control, be increasingly able to avoid losing it and/or become better able to get out of trouble, and will look like a great pick as the season progresses.

Whoever imagined Colvin with 11BB/7K/40AB and a .151 IsoD? Small sample, so he'll probably go 0-8 over the next couple of games. But this is the first time that he's combined good average (.300) with the walks. Kind of fun. He's 23, so he's not totally a fossil yet. If he were to show similar (or with better power) production at AA following a later promotion, who knows. Oft Would be nice if Marques Smith could sustain his current type of hitting for a while, and perhaps do so even after a promotion. Searle is an unusual no-K groundball guy. Must have a pretty good sinker. Often younger guys develop a breaking pitch over time. So if he's basically got a sinker that can get it done even when the hitters know it's coming, it's interesting to imagine who interesting he might become if over the next several years he were to come up with an average slider and an average change, such that he could get some K's. The way Russell is going at AA and Mateo at Daytona, I don't imagine Russell will hold that rotation spot for a lot longer. I wonder how Cashner is coming along? Might be fun in a week or two if Mateo could move up and get replaced directly by Cashner. Might also be that a Mateo promotion might link with Shafer moving up to Daytona.

Not sure I have this exactly right, but I believe Parker and Gaub each have 4.1 innings pitched. In their 8.2 innings, they've combined for 18 K. Both appear to have brought stuff to AA that is hard to hit. Lambert, by contrast, who was a strong K pitcher in past and whose curveball was supposedly quite good, has like 1 K in 9+ innings. Gaub is pretty raw and I have little confidence in his control, or consistency. But the way Cotts is going, if Gaub keeps going well and Cotts keeps struggling, Gaub could come up a lot sooner than I ever imagined.