craig

With Cotts being so bad, and Samardz having some good outings, I could also see Samardz coming up to replace Cotts, with Marshall moving to pen.

I think Gathright was signed when Hendry wasn't sure if Fuku would be able to stay in lineup, either defensively or offensively. Low-grade insurance, so to speak. I may be misremembering, but I also think he signed before we'd gotten Bradley. Now with Bradley, and with Fuku looking like he's going to justify his spot, Gathright insurance is no longer as useful. He's the 6th outfielder. Five other guys have started at least twice out there, now that Hoffpauir has gotten a couple, and with both Fuku and Reed doing fine. So as the 6th OFer and the 3rd CFer, Gathright's contribution is limited. One of his roles is as a PH, at which of course he is not good. So I think the more settled circumstances in CF might make it easier for Lou to replace him with Fox. I wouldn't be surprised to see that happen. Especially with Miles doing so poorly as a PH. If he was hitting .300 like last year, it might look different. But with Gath and Miles as auto-outs, and Hill relatively unused because Lou is worried about Soto's health and the possible need to sub in for him, Lou is left with essentially only two PH weapons. He might welcome Fox.

4th or 5th guys in the rotations, not the best pitching night thus far. Dolis in Wildman mode, 4 walks and he's out after 3, although he allowed only one hit and one run. Hatley through 3, a run and 4 hits. Jackson not quite as awful as last time, but he's still getting hit hard. Two doubles and a triple, as well as a single and a couple of runs through 4, and 5FO/1GO. So he's not keeping the ball down or sinking his fastball and his signature slider isn't getting any groundouts. Hopefully we'll see the good Samardz tonight.

Yeah, that does sound awfully good. Will be interesting to see what jackson shows up tonight. But the Coleman case, and the good jackson before his bombardment last start, kind of remind me of how the drafting and development of pitchers is so unpredictable. Last year entering the draft, I recall the buzz being that the draft was way below average for pitchers. And often to read the draft board, if they draft many college players who aren't already great, their is complaint that they aren't taking any high-ceiling guys. As if a college pitcher who gets past round three must not have enough arm to be any good. But here we see guys like Coleman, McDaniel, and jackson being taken in the mid-teens or round 8 who end up looking like they do have enough arm after all.

From another bleacherbums poster who attended Ascanio's game at Albuquerque. This poster doesn't post often, so I don't have any filter whether he gushes up everybody or whether he disses anybody who isn't absolutely dominant. But this is what he said about Ascanio, regarding the game in which he had 4-3-0-0-1-4, 1 HBP, 54P-34strikes, and 7/1 GO/AO. (A line that I thought looked pretty impressive, especially in Albququerque which is often a homer heaven.) "Ascanio was getting hit pretty hard though. His FB was hitting 94 (on a slow gun), but the 'Topes weren't fooled. He threw some sort of offspeed pitch, but not very often and without much sucess. In my opinion, he won't survive in the bigs without a solid offspeed pitch. Think of Farnsworth." Not sure exactly what to make of that. It seems negative. But if I thought he had Farnsworth stuff, that isn't exactly a washout. Not sure two singles, a double, and one flyout sound like he was getting hit all that hard, either, but perhaps the groundouts were all rockets, too. The 94 on a slow gun sounds good, I think. Doesn't really seem to jive with the report that Ascanio, when he's good, has his slider as his signature pitch. Again, not to doubt the poster, but I think sometimes an amateur watcher can distinguish a slider from a fastball when the hitter lets it go; but sometimes slider is hard to distinguish from fastball, so sliders resulting in ground outs seem like they are just down fastballs; or sliders that don't break a lot just seem like somewhat low-velocity fastballs?

From a BleacherBums poster who watched Tennessee last night, and has watched tons of AA games over recent years; "Casey Coleman looked real strong last night... His fastball was 91-93 but he has a damn good slider that's 85-87." That sounds like legit stuff.

Good question. I went back and looked at his Gulf Coast website page for last year. It's true that he has played a lot of 2B/SS throughout his college career. But it's not like he hadn't pitched before. He was 1st-team all-state as a pitcher in HS (class 5A in Florida, whatever that means. But his school averages over 100 students per grade, so it's not total small-school competiton.) He pitched some as a closer as a Freshman, leading Gulf Coast in saves and with an ERA below 3. He pitched 70 IP as a junior, 62 as a soph; so it's not like he just started pitching. His ERA's were 4.34 and 4.11, or something like that. But he K'd more as a soph in fewer innings. So I'd guess he underperformed to some degree as a junior. So I think to some degree perhaps we got lucky and were able to draft him in a buy-low mode. It is interesting: he has about as many IP as a pro as he did as a junior (67pro, 70 junior). But his pro K/BB is 54K/15BB/67IP, versus junior 58K/35BB/70IP. His K-rate is about the same, but his walk rate is much reduced. Clearly a guy with 35BB/70IP in small conference college isn't likely to be getting in 7 innings on 74 pitches in AA the next year. Pretty remarkable. His walk rates were lower as fresh/soph than as junior, so that appeared to be a down spring for him control-wise. Or not: I think his school was not D1 fresh/soph, and they just joined D1 last year. So probably the worsened walk-rate reflected facing better opposition? In either case, he's gone within 12 months from a 35BB/70IP guy in small D1 conference (not impressive walk control) to a guy who's performing as a low-walk control pitcher. Several thoughts: 1. I think his low round may be significantly impacted by signability, not entirely by how scouts saw his stuff. I believe he said that he hadn't expected to sign and hadn't planned to sign with a less than $100K offer. Cal can probably detail that better. But I suspect the Cub scouts saw enough stuff to justify 5th/6th round kind of cash, to superslot. Perhaps others would have been taking him in rounds 7-10 if they'd expected him to sign for slot. 2. You know this much better. But college stats with aluminum bats and the sometimes extremely short outfield walls can sometimes be misleading. 3. He's young. He's 21 and will remain 21 for most of the season. A 21-year-old in AA, that's pretty good. And a lot of 21-year-olds would be juniors now. So if last year had been his sophomore year and he was elevating his game this year as a junior, that wouldn't be all that unusual. A little stronger, a little faster, a little more consistent, a little better control, that kind of improvement happens often. 4. I have the impression that his fastball is improved. In the scouting report at draft it mentioned him having touched 94, which looked promising; but the impression I had was that was a max, and he probably was more an 88-91 guy in normal mode. I seem to recall last summer a Peoria report that also suggested that he has mostly around 88-90. The impression I got from camp this spring was that he was more regularly resting 90 or better. I'd be surprised if that weren't true. I doubt they'd have bumped him up to AA if he looked like a finesse guy with a sub-par fastball. I don't think you zip through 12 innings in AA with as few pitches and walks as Coleman has used in these first two starts unless you've got a pretty usable fastball. 5. A lot of $100-K signing bonus type pitchers who have a chance: if they add several more mph; if their slider gets more consistent and sharper; if their fastball command gets better; if they can improve their change some. For most, some of those ifs don't come through. For the moment, it looks as if most of them might be coming true for Coleman. We'll see if they stay true. I agree, I'm rather a control prioritizer. Which is why I'm pretty interested in Coleman and Shafer, either though neither probably has exceptional stuff. It's rare for guys as wild as Archer to ever have the control needed to be consistent big-leaguer assets. But, it's equally true that there are plenty of good-stuff big-leaguers who have useful careers without all that special of control. Archer's stuff seems pretty hard to hit. He won't need the control that Coleman or Shafer will to get a shot. He's a teenager. If he can show that his stuff is very hard to hit, that he has legit big-league stuff, I'll remain hopeful for a while that in time he'll perhaps improve his control enough to become useful. Sometimes wild guys do end up learning to harness good stuff. Hopefully he'll be one of them.

Repeating/adding list of reasons why McD's K's would be down: 1. Starting, not throwing quite as hard. 2. Was throwing 50-50 fastballs/sliders, now he's adjusted that to 70-20-10 fastball-slider-change 3. A+ hitters put the fastball into play before he gets to the 2-strike K-counts. Inferior NWL hitters would miss or foul, leading to more 2-strike counts without which K's don't occur. 4. He's obviously gone heavily with the sinker. Last year he got a lot of his K's on 4-seam fastball. I would guess that both answers 4 and 2 are involved. You don't get K's on 2-seam sinkers, you get them on breaking balls and high fastballs. So if you cut back on both of those, you cut back on K's. And the obvious also factors in: you don't get strike 3 without getting strike 2 first. If the sinker is working so well that you can pound the strike-zone with effective 2-seamers that get groundouts, you may buzz through an inning without ever reaching a 2-strike count. The most common pitch that they push kids to work on is the change, since few kids begin with an excellent change and it's entirely normal for a young prospect to have a good fastball and a promising breaking pitch but to have never needed or developed a major-league changeup in amateur ball. That's almost certainly the case for McD. He was supposedly a 2-pitch guy, just fastball/slider. (Some call it slider, some curve, but it's not like he throws two different ones.) But maybe that was really 3 pitch: slider + 4-seam + 2-seam. Normally integrating a change results in more walks and higher pitch counts, not less. So adding the change certainly doesn't explain why he's throwing less pitches. And given that he has only one breaking pitch, it's certainly not that they are having him not throw it. reduce it possibly, but not shelve it for the year. Some guys had three breaking pitches (slider, and/or curve, and/or splitter), so they'd ask them to focus on one (Pawelek, Ryu, Sisco all come to mind.) In McD's case, I think it's more a case of adding (change) than reducing the range of pitches that he uses. Even if he's reducing the actual number of sliders.

Nathan, Shafer has had a couple of solid, strike-throwing starts. Do you have a sense for where he's at velocity-wise? Would you guess he's mostly in the 87-90 range fastball-wise? Or more 90-93 with perhaps a few faster than that?

Actually he was 11GO/3AO in the box score, so not many fly balls that were caught, at any rate. Thanks for the good report. Of course we've got to ask the scouting questions, to whatever degree you feel confident to answer. 1. Does Peoria show radar readings for velocity? If so, and if you remember, what kind of readings was Shafer getting? (And if you noticed, Huseby?) 2. The report on him last summer was that he had a good breaking ball (curveball), on good days. Did you notice some?

At least through the first four innings of his second start, Ascanio is also on a strike-throwing binge. 4 more shutout innings in thus far, at only 54 pitches. He got his first air-out of the season in the 4th. After Iowa and Albuquerque scored a million runs last night, tonight is 1-0 after 4. After working relief in camp well into March, I wonder what Ascanio's pitch countis up to? I doubt he'll go much longer than the 4 he's already pitched.

Shafer has also had a very nice day. Hopefully those 7 Ks weren't the result of smoke and mirrors. Shafer is throwing a lot of strikes to get in 7 innings under the mid-April pitch count, while getting some K's and allowing some baserunners. One walk in 12 innings thus far. Last summer, he was 5 walks/32IP at Boise. Pretty clear that he's a strike-thrower at this level. Whether the stuff is any good and will be playable versus better hitters, time will tell.

Ascanio: he looked great at times in camp, and was great in opening start. Can he sustain and do it again? Russell: was awful most of last year, and was at least as bad in opener. Probably a no-interest washout. If not, he needs to start putting some games together quickly. Mateo and Searle piggy-backed last time, so I expect Searle again. Both are interesting and significant. Both could get increasingly interesting if they could sustain some success. Shafer's interesting. Russell's the only obvious blah tonight.

Utility prospect Spears is playing SS tonight. And while his bat hasn't caught fire yet, he's batting 3rd in Iowa's lineup. Lots of ifs, but I'm hopeful that he might end up becoming a useful big-league utility guy someday. But he's got to hit for that to happen. Fox is 26, but he seems to be showing that he's an improved and improving player. Two years ago he was in AA. Last spring he started in AAA and stunk. What he did as summer progressed showed he was much better than last spring or the summer before. So even though a lot of propects have plateaued by his age, he seems to be turning out to be a real hitter. Too bad we don't have the DH in the NL. Fox and Hoffpauir might make a nice tandem if we did.

I was going to mention what you just did. Games 1 and 2 Flaherty SS/Lake 2B. Both games today reversed. And the game when Vitters was out on Saturday, Flaherty moved to 3B. Will be interesting to see whether they flip-flip Lake/Flaherty periodically, or have just kind of decided that flaherty isn't going to be a SS and why delay the inevitable. Perez already has 2BB/3K. If he maintains that kind of ratio, he could surprise. I still can't help but call him "Neifi" when I see N Perez. Lake, who profiled as a potential walk-hater, also seems to be taking a few. Kreier off to a good start thus far.

Fox getting a start in RF today. I may have missed it, but that might be his first OF start thus far. Jake has had an interesting and I think perhaps sustainable transformation as a hitter. Over his career he's had some back and forth between being a no-walk guy and a hints-of-possible-patience guy. Last year he started off at the bad extreme; 31/2 K/BB in 117 AB, and got sent down. After that, he got demoted to AA, and for the first time became a strong walk-taker, 46BB/388AB. Now he's off to a 4BB/3K/15AB start, pretty good for walks. Another interesting thing is that Spears is again playing 3rd. He's off to a poor start hitting-wise, and if he doesn't hit it will never matter. But I've though that if he was to hit like a decent major league bench guy, that he'd need a spot besides 2B where he could play. So I'm glad he's getting his chance to learn 3B and show whether or not he can handle it. Samardz labors through a 19-pitch 1st inning but escapes without any runs.

Hank Williamson has finally made an appearance for Daytona, in relief. Since he hadn't pitched for so long, I'd wondered if he was the last starter. Presumably not. Which is OK with me, since he's the oldest pitcher on the roster I think. Albuquerque remains unaccounted for. Check that. He's coming in for the 6th inning. Dolis makes the 4th guy to start, I assume Searle is the 5th when the time comes.

... i don't know much about mcdaniel, except that he had nice numbers (K-rate especially, and low BAA) as a reliever with boise. i guess the cubs must feel pretty good about him if they jumped him to daytona and put him in the rotation. his numbers are good so far tonight - 5.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 K. Here's what I remember, Truff: he was supposedly a candidate to be a high-round pick entering last year, but he had a lousy season in JC as a result of some non-arm injury that he pitched through. Came on strong in the JC playoffs. Was committed to I believe Oklahoma State and was expected to attend; I never heard what he got paid, but I've always assumed we must have paid him superslot. He's only 20, 6'3", so he's got plenty of time to develop and at 20 is pretty young for A+. My friend passed on a scouting report from his friend who is a longterm Baltimore scout. He said that McDaniel throws in 90's and has saw him at at least 94 this camp; but that his fastball has a sharp break in toward RH hitters, so that his fastball is better than you'd guess based on velocity alone. Said he has a hard excellent slider that breaks away, so it sounds like the movement on these two pitches might be complementary. Said his change is a work in progress.

All games in progress. Iowa 0-0 after 2, Tenn up 3-1 after 5, Daytona up 1-0 in 6th, Peoria 0-0 in 1st. Early results on the pitchers: *Caridad 3 K's and a single in the first 2 innings. *Coleman 6K/1BB 1 run in five. Not overmatched tonight! *McDaniel has allowed a single and a walk in his 6 shutout, GB-heavy innings. Not overmatched tonight! -I've gotta figure McDaniel and Coleman must have been throwing strikes to get that many innings in under their 85-pitch pitch counts. *Archer with some classic Archer through 3. He's got a no-hit shutout going. He walked the first three guys in the 3rd, then K'd the next couple and got a flyout. His pitch count will be exhausted soon if not already.

Great point. In the BA book, Caridad is the only one of the four listed, in the 20's, but the other 3 are talented and interesting enough to be listed but outside the top 30's. (Archer was the 1st RHP behind the listed ones on BA's chart.) These are all the kinds of guys who are on the radar, and who could indeed elevate their status and the system's status with good results. Especially with the kinds of jumps several have had (Caridad opened in Daytona; Coleman was in Boise; McD Boise also). Any of these could be serious fast-risers. And each seems to have enough fastball to be serious major leaguers and well-regarded prospects. I've been really happy with many of the early returns on the B/C prospects. Ascanio was not on BA's top 30; but he looked great at times in camp, and obviously had things working yesterday. If he can show consistency, I see no reason why he can't become a very effective major leaguer. Possibly even as a starter someday, if opportunity worked that way. Chen did not make top-30. But he's in AA now, throws strikes, and gets groundouts. He's a guy who could become a major league prospect if he can show some consistency and if he has enough fastball. (I'm not sure whether he does or doesn't.) Thomas is a fringy 20's-ish guy. If he hits, and reestablishes that his defense is actually good, he could rise. castro obviously vaulting to A+, and in two games looking like he can hit. BA projected him only for Boise. So if he can hit in A+ at 19, he could rise in status. And if Barney can show some hitting and OBP, with his defense he could look like a player. Spears could establish himself as a player. Carpenter and Shafer are obviously really volatile prospects, could get some solid respect or could fall off the map. Both started well. Mateo could become more serious. Two shutout innings are a nice start. Leverton and Searle both could rise a lot and become respected prospects. Searle had the groundball stuff going, then gave up a flurry of hits. Hopefully he'll show that as 19-year-old in A+, that he's a groundball and strike machine. Leverton allowed one hit and had 4 K's; he had the one three-walk inning, but hopefully will show that his arm is big-league and that his command and consistency will end up pretty interesting. I guess it's always that way, but it seems we've got so many guys who are on the bubble. And these last 5 or 7 days, finding out who goes where, and getting preliminary feedback on who can handle their promotions, it's really fun. I know that Truffle doesn't care about hardly anybody, but i've got dozens of guys I'm very interested in and think might become useful major leaguers or useful trade chips.

Outshined, thanks much for the report. Nice to hear that Carpenter looked reasonably good and reasonably controlled. I've kind of been assuming that he'll be a bust and a wildman. But yesterday's outing and your report sounds like his control issues might not be hopeless, and his breaking ball sounds promising. Any sense with his fastball whether it looks a little sinky, 2-seamer, versus 4-seamer? BA always talks Carpenter as if he's so exceptionally fast, 95's and touch 98 mph kind of talk; your report that he's fast but working more in the 92-93 kind of range puts it into better context. Disappointing that Huseby is that slow. But thanks for the info. Hatley and Perconte: how did Hatley come in velocity-wise? We've at times gotten reports that he could get pretty up into the 90's. Was that the case last night?

No air outs in his 4 innings, 4 K's, and 8 groundouts on only 55 pitches. Nice. I don't recall exactly, but I recall talk that in relief last year he only threw fastballs and sliders, and that his slider wasn't good like it had been when they'd scouted him. So I recall the idea was that they wanted him to get enough innings to at least rediscover his knockout slider. And perhaps work on his change as well.

His defense and his ability to stick at 3B have been questioned at time, and I think for a while in XST he was making more errors than he was getting hits. So "great hands" and "good range" are very nice qualities to read about, and encouraging that his defense at 3B will be just fine. The stuff about Ceda having a great spring, that's also great to read. Cal, thanks for all the info and research that you pass along. Nice to get so much stuff here without doing the work of finding it! Tangent question: was it you who said that Bristow and Suarez were the last trims from Peoria rotation? If so, do you know anything more about Bristow? As a 5th rounder, if I thought he was healthy I'd be interested. Maybe he's just fine and will emerge later, although if he's been 100% for ages it's perhaps interesting that 7 other guys, 5 of them drafted later than him, are getting rotation jobs while he's going to XST. Perhaps given his arm issues last summer they were unnecessarily but appropriately careful, and even though his arm is 100% they brought him along more slowly this camp? Which prompts a tangent thought. This has been a nice camp in terms of pitcher injuries. Often it's in spring when arm injuries manifest themselves, and guys I'd expected in a rotation show up with arm problems or need to be held back because of arm issues. for minors I usually assume there will be some openings as a result of arm problems. I know we've got Rhee with arm stuff, but we knew that going into camp. So when we come out of camp where the only minor league prospects with unanticipated arm issues are Marco Carillo and perhaps Robert Hernandez, that's an extremely healthy camp for arms. Very good news.

Obviously any of the surprise guys could do poorly. If they all do poorly, obviously the system rank won't elevate. Most of the surprise assignments were pitchers. The only surprising player assignments was Castro, and to a much lesser degree Guyer. (Guyer is 23, and played in a high-level college conference where a lot of pitchers throw breaking balls. So while I didn't expect it, I don't see his as a reprehensibly rash promotion.) So the real volume of surprises were the pitchers: Searle, McDaniel, Coleman, Jackson, and to a lesser degree Leverton (level) and Lambert (rotation not relief). I'm less concerned about those assignments than you are, for logic I've probably belabored before. IMO either a pitcher has the potential to end up with the arm and the stuff and the control to make it or not; and either he improves towards his potential or he doesn't. To a large degree I think progress towards his ceiling is largely independent of level. The plate is the same distance and shape in A-, A+, and AA. Example Coleman: My friend is an old friend of a Baltimore scout who scouted Cubs camp this spring. he said that Coleman is low-mid 90's, has a good slider, a developing change, has been very impressive this spring, is athletic, has a lot of talent, as much if not more than his father (1st round pick, two-time 20-game winner, all-star). If that talent eval is accurate and if his arm holds up, then if Coleman can optimize his mechanics and location he'll become a major leaguer. I have no idea whether the stuff this scout thought he saw in camp will really hold up over the season or over multiple seasons; by May his arm may be tired and he'll be 87-91mph for all I know. And I have no idea whether his command will ever improve, whether his change will ever evolve into a useful pitch, or whether he'll ever be able to fairly consistently pitch toward the higher end of his velocity range. But my point is that I don't think his progress toward those targets will matter much whether he's in A-, A+, or AA. If he's locating 90-94 fastballs and locating good sliders, he'll succeed at any of those levels. If he's not locating 89mph fastballs, his change is a throwaway pitch, and his slider is hanging or bouncing, he'll struggle regardless. I think some of the same applies to jackson and McDaniel. If Jackson's signature slider is commanded and diving down and away from RH hitters, and if he's locating a fastball that rests at 92 and touches 96 on rare occasion, he'll succeed at any of those levels. If his fastball devolves to 89 and loses it's life and location, and if he can't locate the slider, he'll be giving up HR's and runs in any of those leagues. McDaniel, somewhat similar. He scouts with a fastball that touches as high as 94 but is more notable for it's diving action in on RH; he has a decent slider that breaks down and away; and lacks a change but will try to work on one. If he can sharpen the slider and it's consistency and keep the life and action on his fastball, then if he has command and consistency you've got a good reliever. If both of those things were to happen and he were to invent an effective change, you'd have a serious prospect. Will his slider get more consistent? How consistently will he be able to locate his fastball and slider? He needs to get more consistent; but will his improvement in consistency be any faster at Peoria than it will be at Daytona? It's up to him. If he gets better, he gets better; if he doesn't, he doesn't. I don't think it matter too much whether he's facing Flaherty, Lake, and Burke in A- or Smith, Castro, and Rundle in A+. It's more about him than about the guys he's facing. Will all these guys continue to impress and improve? Most likely not. But I just think their progress will mostly be their progress, regardless of level. Any of these pitchers has the stuff to compete well at the level that they are assigned to. It's mostly a question of how consistently they locate their better stuff. Other rambles: obviously they don't all need to succeed. But Harden is on a terminal contract, and his health issues (combined with his ineffectiveness this camp and low velocity) make me wonder whether he'll be back next year. Lilly isn't young and is nearing the end of his contract. Marshall may become a mainstay, but it remains to be confirmed whether he has the durability or the excellence to be a long-term rotation building block. So their may well be rotation opportunities arising in the relatively near future. If Coleman and/or jackson and/or McDaniel and/or Searle pass the challenge this year, that might help impact longer-term planning. Do you need to sign a Marquis next winter? Or might you have answers coming up through the system? If Coleman and/or Jackson and McDaniel and/or Searle end up passing the test, that might also give you the ammo you might need in June to acquire a Peavy. At present, I'm not sure what we've got for high-leverage trade chips in pitching. Possibly Samardz is he pitches well this season, and if he doesn't maybe nobody. But if some of these new guys excel, then maybe you've got the value to acquire some Nowacrat help. Last, we know that most prospects fail, sooner or later. We'll have eight 2008 draftees pitching rotation; of course most of them will probably wash out. But we don't need to have them all click. If three of them eventually work out, that could still be a fantastic and organization-improving draft. I really like the relievers at AA. I certainly wouldn't want to replace any of them, other than perhaps Perkins, with roster-fillers like Reinhard or Estrada. So if we get somebody for Iowa that knocks off Reinhard or Estrada, I'd hope they get released rather than dominoing down to Tenn. For 3B, I've assumed that bobby Scales is the main guy. Fox 1B, Scales 3B (he's a switch, so he already would provide the RH 3B), Blanco SS, Spears 2B, Rivas/Matulia utility. Rivas and Scales are obviously career guys; I'd be more than pleased if we could pick up some other career guys who were better to replace them. I'd certainly like to see some 3B signed who might be a better option than Scales in case ARam gets injured. The other 3B consideration is that I like Spears as a player. But I think he needs to show he can play more than just 2B to be ready to serve a Cubs bench role. So I hope that they don't play just to win at Iowa, but play to develop Cubs. So I hope that somehow they work their infielders such that Spears plays a bunch of 3b, and perhaps even some SS, not just 2b.

Thanks cal. I'd really been hoping for that. I'd assumed he be at Peoria in relief. But before the roster news this week I'd hoped they'd start him at Peoria. That he's both skipping and starting, that's pretty interesting. That would leave one spot left, and I'll guess Albuquerque with Dolis in relief. Perhaps if Cashner returns sometime that might come at expense of AAl. So it's looking like we'll have 7 pitchers drafted last June in full-season starting rotations, and if/when Cashner gets back it will be 8: Coleman/Jackson AA, McDaniel/Leverton/(Cashner) A+, and Shafer/Carpenter/Belliveau A-. Not sure I can ever remember a deal like that. Hopefully that reflects a historically good draft. Probably it reflects the huge vacuum that we had in terms of rotation prospects. Certainly it reflects some shift back to a traditional philosophy of putting pitchers into rotation even if you expect them to end up as relievers. I think it also reflects how one good draft/signings can really transform a system. If a bunch of those 8 guys impress, the system could easily shoot up from 27th within a single year.