craig

Good point. Assuming Vitters is promoted to Daytona, if Daytona is not in an August playoff race and is not going to be in September playoffs, but Tennessee is, I think it's not only possible but probable that Vitters would go up to Tennessee. They routinely promote interesting prospects in August to teams that are experiencing a playoff race or that will be experiencing extra playoff games and playoff pressure. I think that's a good move. Prospects get more games in which to play, they get exposed to teammates and coaches that they'll work with before and during the ensuing season, and they get exposed to playing under a little more pressure. Win-win-win.

I agree with your post, but to my knowledge they signed Pie for very little. I thought is was $50,000. Do I have that wrong? I would love to see them throw a lot of money at Sano. Of course, I don't know what the budget is and why... I think there have been mixed accounts regarding Pie. One spun it as a low-cost scouting sign, all Serra. A poster on BBF has a scout friend with Baltimore, who said that Pie was certainly well known to them and others before he signed, but that the Cubs spent aggressively to get him. My recall was that he thought (rightly or wrongly) that it was somewhere in the $125-250K range. I never got a real reconciliation between the two versions. One might be that Serra "found him" at 14 or whatever, but by signing time at 16 he was well known, so perhaps both perspectives are true. May also be that an American writing a story likes a story with the poor shoeless kid and the kind and clever scout, it makes a neat story, and perhaps rightly or wrongly there was a bit of embellishment or some other facts were left out that don't fit the romance of the story quite as well. And then it's also possible that Serra might perhaps embellish his own story a bit, the resourceful, clever, hard-working scout finding talent for nothing from the jungle.

Hart has 25K/6BB in 20 innings, normally we'd be gung-ho about a guy with those peripherals. Add in a 2.3 GO/AO ratio and we'd normally love it. He's given up a very high BABIP (unlucky?), and despite the GO/AO ratio, he's given up too many HR's (3 in 20 innings). I wouldn't be surprised if he puts together a nice run, and some of his bad luck bounces back with some good luck. Or maybe his stuff is such that he just can't get any popups or routine flyballs, that either it's a groundball or else a rocket. Yesterday's game reminds me that I'm still interested.

Is that picture Dolis?

Drafting as late as they are in rounds 1 and 2 (sandwich pick area for their 1st...), I'm sure they need to go totally BPA. It will be hard enough to get an excellent player, so take the best guy you can. But I wonder if need doesn't impact how they scout and who they take in rounds 5-15. There are so many players of roughly similar overall talent in that area, it takes a lot of time to scout them all and to separate who's best. I think teams may sometimes focus extra scouting time on players who fit their needs. Last year, pitching was clearly ID'd as a need area, despite what was touted as a weak draft for pitchers. But the Cubs seemed to do a good job drafting jackson, Coleman, McDaniel. It wasn't too long ago that SS/middle infield had been ID'd as a need area. Now with Castro, Lake, Lee, watkins, and also Flaherty, Thomas, Kemp, Harrison, and Cerda, it seems there are plenty of candidates to play SS/2B, with some of them looking like they might be able to stick at SS rather than outgrow it. So I wouldn't expect SS to be a major target need. One area that I recall either Fleita or Wilken mentioning as an area lacking in system depth coming out of camp was outfield. Sori, Bradley, Fuku, Johnson are all in the 30's, and with Pie, Guyer, Rundle, and probably Colvin all disappointing, I think they will really be looking for outfielders wherever they can. Again, 1st round you have to go BPA for sure, but I'd guess that BPA being equal, an outfielder will get the benefit of the doubt. And hopefully especially one with some power potential. Another is obviously LHP.

I think they forgot the season started in April...

I don't know, he was working out a lot with the Daytona squad in the spring. That might suggest he'd be in line for a quicker promotion. Interesting point, and possible for sure. He may get promoted. Or, he might not! (Profound, eh?? He will or he won't, I'll be right for sure!) I guess I'm just saying that I won't be surprised if he's still at Peoria on August 1, even if he's still hitting in the .310-.350 range, with an OPS in the .850-.950 range. My thinking partly expects that his current average is high following a hot two days in which he's produced 1/3 of his power, but that his average will probably not remain over .350. My guess is that when he leaves Peoria, his overall average will be lower than .352, not higher. (Although it wouldn't at all surprise me if his OPS was as high or higher than his current .926). I can certainly make the opposite argument, though. Here is a talented hitter getting his first taste of full-season. He hit .302 in April, with little power (.726 OPS). But in May he's hitting .407 with 4 HR's (should be 5), a .678 slugging percentage, and a 1.104 OPS. Perhaps May is a better predictor than April; he's adjusted, and hitters typically do better in warmer weather upcoming. So perhaps his production from here is more likely to approach the 1.104-OPS May guy than the .726-OPS April guy. So if he continues as a 1.000+ guy for future weeks, then it's increasingly likely that he'll get promoted. Another factor may involve the Cubs view on his maturity and his developmental situation. Is he a personality who is best when he's comfortable and confident and experiencing success; is that the best environment for maximal development? Or is he a personality who might not listen to instruction if he sustains this kind of success? Might getting promoted and perhaps humbled a bit put him in a better frame of mind to listen or make needed adjustments? I have no idea. (Although there are zero indications that motivation or listening is an issue for him.) Another factor may or may not involve long-term Cub big-league needs. Lee's big contract expires after 010. Perhaps they'd like to push Vitters to see whether he might not be ready as soon as 2011. If he could handle Daytona well this summer, and then excel at AA next summer, he could then be available for a corner spot in 011. But I have no idea whether Fleita or Hendry allow themselves to let such considerations impact their development maneuvers. Personally I hope they don't. He's 33 games into full-season, and they've allowed him to get his feet wet with a 3 walk-133 AB ratio. Horrible. As ping has noted, he's likely to fill out considerably, eventually. I expect he will need to go through some non-trivial changes, both in terms of his pitch selection and approach, as well as physically, before he approaches the hitter or reliable fielder I hope he becomes. I'd rather they gave him plenty of time.

I have Vitters-Thomas 1-2. :D However, Castro is probably #3 after that. I'd really like to know more about him before jumping onto his bandwagon head-first. It's a bit of a pain to find any decent scouting reports out there on him. Namely, I'd like to know whether he's still growing into his body, whether he's been hitting the ball into play with authority or punch and Judy style, and whether he is working long at bats or swinging away early in the count. With Thomas, there's a lot more information out there about him. I feel more comfortable saying that his success this season is sustainable than I do with Castro. The scouting has Castro as a SS with the tools to excel there defensively. So I think his defense projects higher than Thomas's does. Although with 12 errors already, having tools and being able to actually execute are different. (Cedeno was viewed as this wonderful defender prospect back in A-ball, too, but he never outgrew the errors.) I've read some stuff on Castro suggesting that he doesn't project to get a lot bigger; so unclear whether he projects to hit 6 or 16 or 24 HR's. He obviously doesn't work the count at this point; if you want to work counts in A ball, you can take more than 2 walks per month. He's a total non-walker now. But Thomas has always and remains a high-K guy; Castro is a low-K guy. Often guys with the gift of pitch recognition don't K much, and when they eventually set their mind to it have the capacity to work the count. So I'd think that as a potentially good-fielding SS who can hit, I'd rather trade Thomas than Castro at this point. (We've got about six 2B prospects in the system; not so many SS's.) On Vitters, they have typically tried to keep a lot of guys with the same team all year during their first season in full-season ball. I wouldn't be surprised if he stays at Peoria all year, at into August at least. Guyer didn't really hit for much average at Peoria last year. The notion was that he'd improved, as evidenced by Mesa action. But it appears that he hans't improved all that much. Hard to take him very seriously now.

Talented wildman night, with Mateo, Dolis, and Archer.

Unfortunately he actually has 12 errors, not 7.

I don't really agree with the comfort that "since his history indicates that his control has been fine, I have a tendency not to panic". I am much more concerned about his control than you. His history is limited, but IIRC his history in junior college was quite wild; his best controlled period of his career was at TCU last year, and he still walked 27 in 54 innings, with a bunch of wild pitches (7), and I don't know how many HBP. So his best period of proven control was still rather wild, and that was a small sample size. Since then, he bounced back with 23 walks in 20 pro innings last summer. (Usually they aren't tinkering during the draft summer, they do that afterwards.) So basically in his career year (to date) last year, he had 50 walks in 74 innings, plus many additional wildman wild pitches and HBP. So even in his best control year, he still was around one wild-event per inning. And now he's bouncing back again with an average of at least one wild-event per inning. So yes, I have to admit I'm pretty concerned about it. Control is crucial. The fact that he's shown none since signing is a major worry to me. I appreciate that it doesn't mean he won't improve. But he had a slider in college. So the concept of using throwing the fastball and the slider, those aren't novel for him. The fact that he can't get them over is not routine and normal for highly successful prospects, that's a worry. That he can't get his newer change over, that's more understandable. Another angle on this: Cashner is pretty much always wild. This is different somewhat from a guy like Carpenter, who goes wild in streaks but also shows streaks where he is around the plate and can throw strikes. If a guy is like Carpenter, who can throw four pretty controlled innings and then go completely haywire in the fifth, I think it's more plausible that with time he'll be able to lock into the good and diagnose/correct what happens when he goes totally haywire. But Cashner seems more consistently wild almost all the time, and that's a lot harder to correct. Hopefully I'm being paranoid, and over the next couple of starts we'll see some 6K/1BB, 7K/2BB games where he is able to start getting through 4 and 5 innings, and start to have the wildman stuff become more the exception than the rule.

I don't really agree with the comfort that "since his history indicates that his control has been fine, I have a tendency not to panic". I am much more concerned about his control than you. His history is limited, but IIRC his history in junior college was quite wild; his best controlled period of his career was at TCU last year, and he still walked 27 in 54 innings, with a bunch of wild pitches (7), and I don't know how many HBP. So his best period of proven control was still rather wild, and that was a small sample size. Since then, he bounced back with 23 walks in 20 pro innings last summer. (Usually they aren't tinkering during the draft summer, they do that afterwards.) So basically in his career year (to date) last year, he had 50 walks in 74 innings, plus many additional wildman wild pitches and HBP. So even in his best control year, he still was around one wild-event per inning. And now he's bouncing back again with an average of at least one wild-event per inning. So yes, I have to admit I'm pretty concerned about it. Control is crucial. The fact that he's shown none since signing is a major worry to me. I appreciate that it doesn't mean he won't improve. But he had a slider in college. So the concept of using throwing the fastball and the slider, those aren't novel for him. The fact that he can't get them over is not routine and normal for highly successful prospects.

Hopefully all of this year. He needs to work on those secondary pitches and also work on his control. And I haven't given up hope that he might stick as a starter though he's eventually going to have to get into the 4th inning for that to happen.. Cashner is really wild. Last year he walked more a batter per inning (as a pro; he hadn't been equally wild in college). This year he's still really wild; I don't know where they record how many guys he's hit, but when you sum up walks, wild pitches, and HBP, he's averaging more than a wild-event per inning. And the extraordinary wildness is also why he's exhausting his pitch count within 2 or 3 innings. That kind of wildness doesn't play in either rotation or relief. He's in a minor-league rotation to pitch and try to get a hint of control. How much control he develops will dictate how far he goes and in what role he pitches, if he ever gets enough to pitch productively in the majors.

Cal, question for you regarding your scouting info. I read a gaub interview from April 1. He said last season early he was 88-90, by late season he was 91-92, and supposedly was clocked at 94 once or twice late last season. he said he hoped to get back up to his pre-surg 95 again, but as of April 1 that didn't seem to be reality. Recently you made a post regarding Gaub in which you alluded to 95 mph fastball, IIRC. Have you gotten some info that he's been throwing that hard this year? Or is that from wilken or something? Or is that basically the same touched-94-late-last-year info that I read? I'd love to hear that he really is popping 94-95, and more than once a month, and that he's comfortably working in the 91-94 range now.

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.