craig

Interesting. My recall was that he supposedly had a promising arm when drafted, but was very wild. 4K/0BB/4IP is a change from a guy who walked 29 guys in 18 innings last year.

The Mesa roster shows a scad of guys have signed.

After 7, bonus babies Lee, Cerda, and Watkins have combined for 5 errors and 4 hits.

Glad you pointed that out. I saw the box, that he had only 2 AB, and was figuring he'd gotten injured. So ejection is good news.

Thanks, cal. Nice to know which way they are thinking with Raley. That they will "follow" is slightly disappointing, IMO. I'd hoped that they'd drafted him knowing what his bonus expectations were and knowing that they were willing to meet them. The idea about following him this summer suggests otherwise.

Will be interesting to see how they use the pitchers early, given the current roster. Suarez, Nagel, and Jung would seem pretty sure rotation guys. Antigua is the only active lefty other than Sontag. I assume he'll start, but it wouldn't totally shock me if he didn't. He's only 18 (turns 19 next week), the youngest guy on the staff. So he'll be on very limited pitch counts regardless of role. We'd like him to start, of course, because he'll be on regular schedule, we'll be able to look forward to checking his stats when he's scheduled to start, and if he does very well he'll get opportunity to show that he's good. Jung and Mitchell are both only a few months older than Antigua. I doubt Mitchell will start, but I hope he does. He's got a fast arm, and being as raw as he is I'd like to see him get innings. I'm more interested in him than somebody who's kind of stalled out with mediocre stuff like Hernandez. Keefe could go either way. An older college guy who's been starting this spring, he might be viewed as interesting enough to merit rotation, and he might be a better innings-eater in rotation than some of the lower-pitch-count kids. Or, perhaps after a full spring season of innings, they'd as soon have him limiting his innings and just doing relief. Nunez and Sierra I'd view as probable roster-fillers, although at 6'4"/6'5" perhaps they are just coming into their own and will surprise. But I'd guess they are guys who, if they don't do well early, will be the expendables if/when some draftees sign. I hope Rohan is capable enough defensively to be a major-league prospect in the event that he could hit like a major-leaguer. I hope he plays 1st, rather than Hoorelbeke who I assume is filler. Probably Rohan will never be more than filler either, and probably his defense makes him a Fox wannabe.

Hart is fast. In relief, his K/BB was very good; but he gave up a bunch of HR's. In rotation, he hasn't. It's also been my observation with him, as with Samardz, that they often aren't as sharp in their first inning. As a reliever, if you struggle in your first inning, you aren't good because you don't get your 2nd-5th innings to lock in and cruise. Also, Hart doesn't have a long history of having a good breaking ball. If the cutter isn't working well, he hangs a couple or hitters sit on the fastball and a couple that aren't located just well turn into HR's. Get innings in rotation, enough to find the cutter, and now you've got enough stuff to keep guys a bit more off balance and to lock in better so you aren't hanging many. I'm interested.

Some low-fame guys who have been doing well: Beliveau. His walks are way down over his last couple of games. A low-walks Beliveau, if he didn't need to sacrifice his K's to do that, interestng to dream what he could do. Dustin Sasser. Hasn't allowed an earned run over his last ten games/16 innings. Solid GB ratio, and K/BB ratios (although the K's aren't fabulous). Williamson, 23. His first non-cameo shot at full season, started slow. But he's been a workhorse with Daytona's short starters, and he's 26K/4BB/24IP over his last ten games, very nice. I'd be curious to get some scouting on him. Hart's streak has been pretty remakrable, too. I feared Cashner would be a wildman. I'm really pleased with how few walks he's had over his last five games.

Good point on Kemp, Cal. I thought he'd be a given. I recall him being injured late in XST. Maybe he's not ready? Interesting that all three Koreans, Lee included, will go. I wonder whether Lee will play regularly, or at all, or just DH? They will make the opening roster more interesting to track. Cerda, I hadn't been confident he'd go. So that's nice to see. Watkins not mentioned; because he's a 24th round draft pick that the boise writer didn't know got a big bonus and was meaningful? Or just not up there? (Perhaps don't want to have Watkins and Lee both on same team, splitting SS?) Other guys like Antigua, who we are interested in, may not merit mention by the Boise author.

Quezada would indeed be skipping, but he seemed to get good reports from Phil. He's already 23, so may be more likely to skip than the average Dominican. I'm guessing that Boise will be very fluid, as is always the case but especially this year with the draft so late. If they break camp from Mesa on Friday, that will be only 8 days after the draft was done. Not a whole lot of time to do any back-and-forth on any bonus offers, or to think about them much. Or, once agreed upon, to pack and travel and go through whatever days or weeks of orientation-to-professional-baseball training that the cubs do. I like your list very much, cal. Probably more like an August 15th roster than the June roster, though. Your list includes 13 draftees; I'll be surprised if even five of them are ready for the opener next week. Jackson will take a while, 1st always do. Lemahieu will take a while, he's still in the world series, and then as a soph it will take some time to negotiate. Usually the ones who sign fast are the 36th rounder types who have no leverage, are glad to get a chance, and who want to make an impression fast. One of the variables I wonder about is how they feel about breaking up the Koreans. Perhaps they'll either want to send at least two, or perhaps none at all. Certainly possible that if they all are friends at Mesa, and they already have a teacher lined up to help with English lessons etc., that they may just prefer to keep the whole gang at mesa.

Quezada would indeed be skipping, but he seemed to get good reports from Phil. He's already 23, so may be more likely to skip than the average Dominican. I'm guessing that Boise will be very fluid, as is always the case but especially this year with the draft so late. If they break camp from Mesa on Friday, that will be only 8 days after the draft was done. Not a whole lot of time to do any back-and-forth on any bonus offers, or to think about them much. Or, once agreed upon, to pack and travel and go through whatever days or weeks of orientation-to-professional-baseball training that the cubs do. I like your list very much, cal. Probably more like an August 15th roster than the June roster, though. Your list includes 13 draftees; I'll be surprised if even five of them are ready for the opener next week. Jackson will take a while, 1st always do. Lemahieu will take a while, he's still in the world series, and then as a soph it will take some time to negotiate. Usually the ones who sign fast are the 36th rounder types who have no leverage, are glad to get a chance, and who want to make an impression fast.

I think Andres Quezada is on the staff in some capacity. falcon, are you sure Dylan Johnston is going straight to Boise? I'd have thought he'd go to Mesa, which is more instructional. Would seem a new pitcher would benefit more from that. I think Lansford might also be there in relief. Am I wrong, or is this the shortest interval between the draft and short-season opener? I think it's going to take a while for draft picks to start to trickle in.

http://www.sltrib.com/sports/ci_12562115Does that mean the Cubs have to pay him 2nd-5th round slot money for him? Should the Cubs pay that for him? I would think so, absolutely. Some projections, of course, leaves a lot of range; if there were 10 projectors, and 8 of them had him as a 20th rounder, the local media will obviously mention the two possible high-round projections, even if they outliers. But, regardless of that, I think it's a given, that he'll require 2nd-5th round money. The question is, where in that very wide spectrum? Should we pay him 2nd round? Don't know. But certainly we should pay 5th round. We drafted a whole bunch of guys who I think we are prepared to offer 6th or 5th round money to. I think the question for many of them, for walker and Burundi Davis and Sergio Burruel and Fitzgerald and Esquivel and DeJiulio and probably others is whether 6th or 5th round money is enough. And if not, how much higher do we need to go, and then is it worth it? In Walker's case, I thought he had cornerback scholarship offers to half the major teams in the northwest. As a two-career guy, not much point in sacrificing both a possible NFL future and a possible high-dollar future baseball draft spot to take a 5-figure bonus now. He's certainly going to be a 6-figure guy, no question. It's just a matter of whether $.15-.20 will do it, or if we're talking more $0.4-.8 or something. Wrigley, thanks a ton for some of the comments on some of these picks, and some clues about where they are at signability-wise.

I'd be surprised if they didn't do their homework. They've got an army of 20 scouts prepping for the draft for months, guys fill out surveys, area scouts can talk to kids and their advisors and their families, and the teams can call guys up and ask them point blank. (For example, the HS kid who said the Cubs called him and said they'd pick him in the 2nd round if he'd sign; negative feedback; so they picked signable Lemahieu instead. Or the Sean Gallagher story, that we got him in the 12th round or whatever in part because he wasn't answering his phone when some other org called him in the 4th round.. .) Granted, I'm sure the dollar discussions aren't that detailed. I'm sure kids can change their minds. Teams probably assume that kids often will settle for less than they demanded pre-draft, so probably gamble accordingly.

So what's your guess, Cal? That the Cubs think that he's more top 50, worth a million, than a 2nd/3rd round bubble guy who's good but not top-60 good? Or that they've done enough calling and research to think that he'll sign for 2nd/3rd round bubble money rather than 1st round? Also, after re-reading the BA, PG, and mlb scouting reports, have the Cubs given any indication whether they envision him as a pitcher or as a leadoff CFer? I've been assuming LHP, but the reports seemed pretty uncertain about which way he'd go.

I'm surprised. I'm not all that up on the scouting, but from the reports posted in this thread I didn't get the impression he was viewed as either a 1st-round outfielder or as having a big-time 1st-round arm. The Cubs seem unlikely to spend a 6th round pick on him unless they think they can sign him. If they think they can sign him, either they think he won't demand 7 figures, or else that he's worth 7 figures. If they think he's worth a million, or even close, then they must view him much more enthusiastically than the scouting reports would suggest. If he's much better than the impression I got from the scouting reports, that's good news. I'd think they should have pretty thoroughly both scouted him as a player, and done due diligence in terms of his asking price. They should know what they think he's worth. (It's not like with Alex Wilson last year, where they needed to see him pitch in the summer to know what they might offer.)

I expect Lemahieu will sign. He's 2nd round, and as a 2B he'll need to add a lot of HR's to make 1st round million next year, whereas if he doesn't add many HR's he could easily drop enough so that he'll barely make 6 figures. It's definitely much smarter for him business-wise to take 2nd round money now. And I'm sure the Cubs have done enough research to know that they're willing to pay what it will take to sign him. Don't know whether we'll do any major superslots, ala Huseby, or even Rundle or Watkins. But I expect that there will be a lot of at least mild superslot offers going out to the players drafted in rounds 10-50. I think they will be making 6-figure offers to a huge number of them, plus college scholarship offer to the HS/JC picks. How many will bite, we'll see. Not sure how they budget for draft, but consider that we've had very high (Vitters) pick, or sandwich picks (Donaldson, Flaherty) each of last two years. Jackson won't cost much different from Flaherty. I would guess that jackson/Flaherty will cost no more than Flaherty/Shafer did. So basically it's like we have Cashner's bonus unspent. Compared to Vitters/Donaldson, we'll also have a couple million unspent. I have no reason to expect they have any intention to spend as much as they did the last two drafts. But if they have any availability of coming anywhere close, I think they could potentially have a lot of room to offer an awful lot of guys $200K superslot offers.

I'd wondered if they'd spend last night calling some signability guys who had slipped who might be somewhat signable after all, or might be summer draft-and-follow candidates. But as they enter round 37, five of the first six picks today have been college-age roster fillers, only one CC pick and no HSers yet today.

11/4/1986 If he throws 91-93 and tops at 94, would seem like a nice pick in the 9th round, much less the 26th. This is the area in the draft where the "unlikely a club will but him out" applies. I assume we'll offer him $0.1 or something, he'll decline, then we'll watch him pitch in another summer league, and decide whether he's worth any more than that. Would seem a classic case of a summer draft-and-follow, much like Erickson. (Although Grife would seem certain to be pitching in a summer league; whether Erickson is rehabbed enough to do so, I don't know.) Odd thing with Grife is that he'll turn 23 this fall. Seems odd that he'd be putting up won't-sign signals at that age. He's that eager to go back into the draft next year, when as an old 23-going-on-24-year old he'll have no leverage? Very strange. If the Cubs give him a decent offer, he'd be wise to sign now and get on with his career.

BA ranks him the 109th best prospect in California. Sounds like a guy drafted to pitch.

Was he projected to be drafted before the arm injury? If so how high? I suspect he must have been pretty well regarded. Miami is a huge program that can recruit selectively for real talent, and given the talent they have you don't make the rotation as a freshman unless you've got some talent too. He was a rotation guy right off the bat as a freshman, 13 starts 2.5 ERA, 9-1, 63K/16BB. I'm guessing he's a guy who'll plan to go back to Miami, pitch next spring, and get fairly high-round draft and money next year. And I assume the Cubs will watch him this summer, see if they think his arm is sound, and then make him an offer, as with Alex Wilson last year. Probably won't sign, because whatever we offer he'll probably figure he can make more a year from now.

Through 12, the Cubs have drafted only two players older than 20. The Citadel DH and the Kentucky pitcher who turns 23 later this year.

Signability is standard research scouting. And often they call guys with signability questions before they pick them, to confirm their leanings. So I assume that unless somebody has Alex Wilson-style ceiling and cost expectation, that the others are guys they expect to be signable at whatever slot or superslot the Cubs anticipate being willing to pay. In terms of superslot, it seems the cubs haven't superslotted a lot with top-10 picks. They did with Cerda last year, of course, and were willing to with Wilson. And obviously big-time with Logan Watkins in the 20's. But more often it's seemed like they've gone with mild superslots with most of their teens picks. Acosta, Russell, Gallagher, Coleman, McDaniel, it seems like their norm is to be willing to pay teens picks with the kinds of bonuses that are more typical for 4th-9th rounders.

Thanks, cal. The comment on catching depth being a strength is surprising; seems within the month he's been quoted as saying that catching is one of the weaknesses.

Sure, I think it's safe to say that he runs well, and of course 8 non-error times no 1B is small sample. By "con", I didn't mean to imply he has below-average speed, just that he wasn't a burner, by which I meant a guy where base-stealing is one of the virtues that defines his game and gets him promoted. Reed Johnson/Fukudome/Fontenot/Scales, they run fine. One other little symptoms, several of the other guys have attempted multiple stolen bases in a game. I think there are at least five guys who have have run at least twice, and at least one who has attempted three in a game. Somebody like that, might be a burner.