craig

Atkins and Caridad aren't real important prospects, to my knowledge, but they lead the farm in innings, with 152 and 134. Last year Hart and Holliman were the only minor leaguers to reach 150. Not sure it means anything. Most likely just a function of guys who throw strikes and are reasonably consistent. Getting knocked out in the 2nd or 3rd innings hurts your innings, as does using a lot of pitches to get guys out, as often happens with Veal and happened a lot with Gallagher last year. For some reason i thought that was interesting that these guys are on top, and Atkins by so many innings.

Leverton good outing. He's already 22, another position-pitcher switcher. Has been an extreme groundball guy, too many walks, too few K's. Might be a project with a good groundball fastball who will take a few years to try to come up with a breaking ball.

Not real common to have an OBP .123 higher than your sllugging.

I'm really excited by Shafer having a good outing. He was good through is first three in the previous start, before giving up stuff in his 4th inning, the longest he'd gone since college. Might be wishful thinking, but I hope that he's only now getting his arm strength and command rebuilt, and what we got first-three previous start and during yesterday's start is the real thing, and it's good. Obviously it's early, but he'd been in my mind as a could-bust-fast guy. He'd looked lousy in the CWS, ping was unimpressed, most of the scouting reports had his existent velocity as very fringy, and he'd started very blah. So yesterday's clean outing is really encouraging that he may be a legit prospect worthy of 2nd round selection, with the control that makes winners, and hopefully enough stuff besides. Hope he can keep it up and emerge as a good-value draft pick and a legit big-league prospect. So cal, remind me of what we know about his velocity. You watched/listened to an early Boise outing by him, and he had fastball that was in low 90's? Do you know if that was regular (like his working fastball), or a deal where a guy is throwing mostly 86-89, but topped out at 91 a time or two? And you either saw or heard the announcers say that his curveball looked very professional? And if I've got it right, the draft reports had his spring fastball as upper 80's, occasional touch into the 90-92 range, but it had averaged a bit faster and touched 95 as a freshman?

Guzman himself said the slowness was real. Disappointing. We'll see how that goes as his appearances move beyond four. "Guzman was a bit disappointed in his fastball, which topped out around 90 miles per hour. 'Before my surgery I was getting mid-90's, but today it wasn't as fast," Guzman said. "I felt good, but sometimes that happens and you have to adjust and just play with what you have that day.'"

Thanks for the update. A poster at my other board attended the Guzman game the other day and commented on it, so I thought I'd pass that along too: "I saw Guzman pitch last night... From what I saw his velocity was 96-97-98 all night. He didnt throw any offspeed pitches worth a crap at all. I only saw 2 curveballs out of however many pitches he threw and oldfan could have hit them. I didnt see any signs of a changeup or slider." Obviously that's a mixed report. The absence of any breaking stuff, and the couple being apparently pretty ugly, is discouraging. But the velocity report I think is very encouraging as to Angel's health. An article posted earlier had mentioned him hitting 95, and had also mentioned that his first 13 pitches were all fastballs. But when an article mentions 95, I'd thought that might be his fastest tops-at-95 pitch, and that perhaps he was resting more in the 90-93 zone. Which might be less than he used to throw, and not fast enough to workin the majors without movement or offspeed stuff. But if he was at 95 by one report and routinely hitting at least that fast on tennessee's stadium gun, then it's apparent that he hasn't lost much if any of his former velocity. Which would suggest that, at least for the moment, he's healthy. If he's healthy and throwing mid 90's or better, he's a prospect again. And IIRC Az Phil says that he still has options for next year, so he can work on getting his offspeed stuff back during the remaining outings this summer, during winter leaguer perhaps, and then in the minors next spring.

I think I phrased that badly. By discipline, I meant plate discipline. Lake's K/BB ratio has been quite a bit worse than Castro's both this year and last. Last year especially, this year Castro's has deteriorated so that it's somewhat comparably bad to Lake's. On attitude, Phil has made several comments that I thought hinted at Lake being a hotdog and somewhat lazy. I recall a comment suggesting that Lake hadn't run hard on a batted ball; and that he acts like he holds the ball in the field so that he can show off his arm on defense. My recall may be off on this. But I got the distinct inference that Phil wasn't real impressed with Lake's attitude. I may be wrong or have overread. Even if it's true, that doesn't necessarily mean he might not be good; sometimes being talented enough to be cocky, or just being cocky in itself, can be a good thing for a player. I certainly am not aware of Lake pulling anything that evoked disciplinary action by the Cubs.

Wrong thread, but didn't want to start a new one and wasn't sure where to pop this in. I have been pretty critical of the Cubs effectiveness in Latin America. Other than Mateo, who's turned out a bust, Wellington Castillo is about the first Latin prospect that we've signed ourselves (as opposed to acquiring in trade, Ceda) that has been a meaningful prospect beyond A-ball in years. Cedeno, Marmol, Guzman, Pinto, those dudes were signed before the turn of the century, and Pie many years ago. So since Pie in 2000 or 2001, it's been my complaint that we've failed to sign/develop hardly any meaningful Latin prospects that have been meaningful even into full-season ball. And it's been my view that the involvement in Asia may be a reflection of the ineffectiveness of our Latin program. I know there have been Latin guys that Raisin and I have been hopeful about: Robert Hernandez, and Cabrera. But neither of them is looking too good now. All that negativity said, I'm somewhat encouraged that there are some new candidates who may turn the corner on this. Obviously they are at very low levels, and may be injured or flop a quickly as Hernandez and Cabrera have. But, maybe they'll be good. Mesa has six (at least) prospects of variable interest, and some of them I think have a chance to become pretty significant. *1 Suarez. He was a dollar signee, has already had arm issues, and has had attitude questions as well (Az Phil). But, he's pitched pretty well this year in very limited innings (1.11 WHIP). And he's still big, and young, and apparently reasonably fast. *2 Yohan Gonzalez. Three more clean innings yesterday. Big, fast, scouts liked him, he'll still be 18 when camp opens next spring, he's got a 1.11 WHIP in limited innings, and has been pretty consistent since his lousy first appearance (and some poor outings in XST). He was a dollar signee, too, so seems to have some things going for him. *3 Jeff Antigua. Barely 18, 2.90 ERA, he's been inconsistent, but when he's been good he's been quite effective. Decent arm and some interesting offspeed stuff, he's got a chance to be a pitcher. If his velocity grows, he could possibly become a very good prospect. *4 Starlin Castro. Hitting over .300 as an 18-year-old SS, that's interesting. At 6'1", he's perhaps not restricted to a tiny contact hitter, and I'm hoping that he has the size to develop into a good hitter. His power is up this year, although still limited: 29% of his hits this year for XB, last year it was only 15% in DSL. Was a DSL all-star last year (that's a deep league, so I thought the fact that he was selected was interesting last year.) Has played mostly SS, and doesn't have lots of errors. Plate discipline isn't good, but K/BB aren't real bad either, might end up being fine. *5 "Neifi" Perez. Already 20, and he's been slumping lately. But still, he's hitting .300, has shown serious power, and observers always report major power and a major outfield arm. So he's got at least some big-league tools. His K-rate is scary, but it's improved a lot. His BB-rate is scary, but that has improved also. I recall that he had only one walk until he was at or almost at 100 AB. Now his BB's are up to 8, so he's taken 7 walks in his last 60 AB or so. Maybe he's working on it. (Maybe at the expense of his slugging, I don't know.) Probably won't go anywhere, but he's got some tools, and if he does improve, he could emerge as a prospect. *6 Junior lake. Big arm, attitude problems, discipline problems, zillions of errors. But he's 18, 6'3" infielder, and has a big arm. Not likely, but it's possible that if he improves, he could turn into a prospect. Perez at Boise is not a total non-prospect. Some of the DSL guys may have some interest, probably Morelli and some of the pitchers. Wellington Castillo is obviously a significant guy. Carillo, not sure if he's really got big-league stuff, but he's probably the furthest-along Latin signee since Pie in that he's being used sometimes as a starter in AA. Caridad isn't really a normal Latin signee in that he was signed at 23 or 24 rather than 17. But he's got a good arm, and he's been very competitive since moving from A to AA. He's improved, and has been something of an innings eater. He's had more games with some K's recently, so I'm hopeful that his breaking ball is starting to be there a little more often than back in April and May. I wouldn't be surprised if he got buzzed up rather favorably when BA does their team top-30. Hopefully Caridad, Castillo, and perhaps even Carillo will turn into real prospects. Hopefully some of the Mesa guys will turn into serious prospects, top-10 type guys. And hopefully some of the DSL guys will have big-league talent and will emerge as genuine prospects down the line.

This is an excellent post. So we're basically at $140 just to hold status quo, and that's while letting our starting CFers (Edmonds and Johnson) go, and Blanco. Obviously we'll need to have a CFer, and I'd think if they can fund it, they'd like Johnson and possibly Edmonds back (both at greater cost), and Blanco too. May also want to pick up another relief arm from outside. As I see it, the only expiring contracts you'd definitely want to let walk are Howry, Lieber, and Ward. So if we were to keep Blanco, and resign Johnson and Edmonds, in addition of course to resigning Wood and Dempster, we're looking at $150 next season. That's pretty up there. This year the Yankees are the only team above $138.

Yeah, he's gotten very hot. Great to see. If he could sustain this for a while, the half-full view will be a guy who finished strong and whose overall numbers weren't really all that poor for a 22-year-old in AA. But it may not be a coincidence that his rebound coincides with dumping the walks. He may find the take-home lesson to be that he should hack, and the only time he can hit is when he hacks, that taking any walks doesn't work for him and he's proved it.

Thanks, Nate. That sounds encouraging. Obviously his future depends on both the offense and the defense. He's shown he's a strong contact guy, with barely a 10% K rate. If Wilken is correct in projecting him adding some meaningful muscle over the next few years, maybe he'll add at least a little more power to his otherwise nice numbers. If his defense ends up fine, that would make it a lot more realistic for him to become a useful major leaguer.

Nice to see Colvin and Pie salvaging their seasons. colvin has finally shot past that .243 line, and has pushed past the .700-OPS line, presumably for good. If he can stay hot for the stretch, he could perhaps push .260, and push towards 15 HR. For a 22-year-old in a tough pitchers league, that could end up being a disappointing but not a write-him-off season. Nice to see Rosa, who's got the tons of doubles and a solid average, starting to turn some into HR's. At age 20, maybe he will turn into a decent HR hitter down the road. Guyer's numbers are also working out pretty good. Entering today, he was hitting .300 and OPS'ing at .951 versus RHP, but was sub-.200 at .630-OPS versus LHP. Those splits wouldn't be that exceptional for a LH bat, but very unusual for a RH hitter.

Nate, if you get a chance to read this and respond, any thoughts on Samson's defense? I know he's made a ton of errors. Is he really that bad? Does he look professional, and does he have quickness/range, or a good arm? Just curious whether he has any chance to be a good shortstop at a higher level, or will need to switch to 2B soon enough. What do you think?

As Cal said, it's hard to tell. As Cal mentioned, a few years back if a guy was perceived as a very good prospect, he'd go straight to the states, and if he started in DSL you'd know he wasn't viewed that highly. Now with the policy of keeping guys in DSL for a year, it's harder to evaluate how the team views a guy. But as cal said, that makes harder to compare; we don't have any examples of guys with his balance of average/discipline/power; is that because he's better than any Latin we've signed? Or does it only mean that he's better than any Latin who wasn't perceived to be good enough to go straight to US? Most likely he's nothing special. 1. Normally somebody special starts when he's 17 or 16; Morelli is debuting at 18. If he was an obvious stud, he'd likely have been playing already last summer. 2. Second, usually if a guy is toolsy, he wouldn't be playing LF/DH. Many of the guys that eventually end up being corner guys eventually will still be used in center, right, or middle infield when they're 18. (For example, I remember Alou and Sammy as old, somewhat heavy and defensively limited LFers. But when they were 18-22, they were viewed as having tremendous speed and being CFers.) That Morelli is already a LFer suggests that tools-wise, he probably doesn't have much of an arm or much outfield speed. Seems to me the odds are that he'll live or die with his bat. At 6'3", and obviously with some filling out left, it's possible. Given his current patience, hackaway doesn't project to be a problem, and IsoD could be a big plus. His average has been good, and consistent. He's hit with some power. His K's are a little high to be a pure hitter (an Aram type K's very little.) To make it, he'll need to pan out as a good contact hitter with walks and with power and not too many K's. Possible yes. Likely, not very. But until he stops producing, I'll keep hoping that he's the guy who can.

Flaherty's hitting has been very refreshing lately. He looks like he has a chance to be a good professional hitter. How much power he'll show, time will tell. But for now, at least, it seems at least plausible to hope that he'll have end up with decent game power. His defense has been a big and disappointing surprise to me. 10 errors in 30 games? And that's for a guy who I understood to be short on range in the first place? My take had been that while he wasn't going to be a big-range guy, that they thought he could be a very skilled, reliable guy with what he could reach. But if his range is mediocre and he's an error-factory besides, that doesn't look positive at all. Hopefully that will turn around soon, or else they'll get him to 2B ASAP and he'll be better there. I admit when we drafted him, I immediately assumed he was foremost a 2B prospect. That would seem to be one of the two positions where we don't know who will be playing it beyond next year (2B and CF), and both of which they will want a lefty hitters. I'm not suggesting that Flaherty, in short-season SS today, has any likelihood to be in the majors at 2B in April 010. But that may be a position that will not have a long-term fixture. But he'll have to be able to field it.

IIRC, Atkins didn't throw the cutter till last year, he started working on that late in the year at Tennessee. So that might be critical value pitch for him. I recall when Rich Hill was coming up, when he turned things on his cutter was working. There were lengthy discussions: one side said he's just a two-pitch guy, big-leaguers will sit on his fastball-curve and it won't work, that's why it worked in minors and for a while didn't in majors. But the use of the cutter gave him variety on his fastball, so when his cutter was good, they couldn't really just sit and mash. Hart had been a journeyman with a decent arm and decent strike-control. But last year when he developed a cutter and had it working, he transformed into a good pitcher. This year when his cutter isn't working, he gets ripped pretty good. When it is, he's got a shot. Samardz, the splitter starts being used a lot, and suddenly he became hard to hit. That extra wrinkle (well, combined with perhaps also hiding the ball better) combined a guy who was easy to read or to sit on into a guy who you couldn't so easily guess/read what was coming, and he became hard to hit. Adding one extra pitch, one extra wrinkle, can keep guys off balance better. Perhaps if Atkins has regular fastball (2-seam plus perhaps also 4-seam?), cutter, and slider, none are exceptional and none have great velocity or movement on their own, probably all somewhat average. But if he's mixing 3 pitches that all come out somewhat looking the same, but the cutter and fastball and slider all have somewhat different speeds and somewhat different movement, maybe that's enough to work with. And with strikes, maybe he can get enough 2-strike counts to have them fishing and K his share on a day when the cutter and slider are moving pretty well?

And 13 walks to go along with those. I'm not worried about the strikeouts. If he keeps up his walk rate, he'll be fine. If he keeps up a .516 batting average when he doesn't whiff, I won't be too worried about the strikeouts. If he keeps up a .474 BABIP, I won't be too worried about the strikeouts. I have a sneaking suspicion that he won't keep those numbers up, and when those come back to normal his K problem will be a problem. I think getting the K-rate down is essential to any real chance that he has. Obviously the K issue is interlinked to the power question. If he hits 30 HR's a year, 180 K's may be acceptable. (Adam Dunn format). But a guy with 180 K's a year probably won't be acceptable if he's hitting 13 HR's.

At draft he was scouted as having a very good fastball, projection to be faster; he was scouted to have decent control and projected to have three or more good big-league pitches. None of those thing, or those things that were projected, have been realized. He's got decent velocity but nothing special. He doesn't have decent control. And none of the pitches that were projected to be pretty good are good. O well.

Cal, have we gotten any notes past from Az Phil or anybody on what kind of stuff/velocity Searle has?

Agreed. I don't think I can ever remember the Cubs going without a 3rd catcher in September, whether they were contending or not, whether that 3rd catcher was any good or had any potential or not. If they clinch with a week to go, they might be happy to let Soto get some extra rest. If Soto or Blanco get hurt (which thankfully and somewhat unusually has not happened thus far), they want to have somebody ready and in baseball shape. If they let Koyie go home first week of September, but then need him on September 15, he'll be out of shape. Plus, with extra pitchers called up, having an extra bullpen glove helps, too. Can call him up and deroster him again once the season is done. As for Fox, I think he's pretty likely to get derostered after the season. He's a PH/DH/1B guy who's 26, they've got him in AA rather than AAA, he's an undisciplined hacker, and he's hitting only .268 on the minor-league season. I don't think you hold 40-man spots for 26-year-old AA DH's who hit .268. That said, he has actually improved this year at Tenn. After only 2 walks in 117 AB at Iowa, they sent him down and he's maybe gotten the message: in AA he's got 28 walks/268 AB, which is uncharacteristic for him. His IsoP at AA is over .250, and on the season he's got 21 HR in only 385 AB's, which is pretty good bombing. But I assume his day has kind of passed in the organization, if they took him at all seriously they'd have probably kept him or returned him to Iowa.

Will be interesting. Several factors: 1. Clubhouse is small. Baker at least always fussed about it getting too crowded with extra guys around. Not sure how many they want if they aren't actually likely to contribute. 2. Fleita likes to use callups as a reward to players, even if they won't play much. Just a developmental thing, to see what the majors is like, get familiar with the coaches, etc. 3. Size of lead. Right now with a 1-game lead that's much shrunk and with the team having played sub-.500 over the last month, the assumption is that it will be nip-and-tuck. But in the event that they were to have a bigger lead entering September, and have at least the possibility of opening up some margin with time to spare, they might want to have some bodies just so that they can give more rest to the regulars in advance of the playoffs. I'd think a 3rd catcher (Hill), an outfielder (Pie), and Hart are the only safe callups.

Jackson is certainly interesting thus far. Not to equal extend, but another surprise draftee thus far is Dan McDaniel. Another couple of clean innings tonight for Boise. In 13.1 innings, he's 4H-5BB-22K. He'll be 20 when next season opens, so relative to the college-oriented draft, he's one of the younger ones. I didn't get many draft notes on him, but did read one article that said he'd pitched through a rib injury for most of the season to disappointing results, before doing well in playoffs. The article also suggested that pre-season, before his health-related mediocrity, that he'd been projected to be a high-round pick, higher than the 12th or 14th round where the Cubs picked him. That was a local paper, of course, and what they say about "high-round" might mean mean much. But have any of you Boise video-cast guys seen him? Does he look very good? Is he pretty fast, or projectible, or what?

Karen, thanks for you recall on Carillo. Your profile, a guy who can go out every time and eat some innings without getting killed, even if he never looks very impressive, that seems to have been his mode most of this season as well. Until lately, when somehow he's gotten some really good lines, even if he doesn't look that jazzy. As you say, guys can get better. I tend to anticipate improvement from tall lanky "projectible" guys, not from shorter guys. But short guys can get faster too (Gallagher isn't as short as Carillo, but he wasn't a "projectible", and he got a lot faster.) And obviously short guys can tighten their slider and get more consistent with their change as well, or sometimes more easily, than taller guys. So hopefully Carillo's stuff has improved, and really has a chance to be big-league. Obviously he was more steady innings-wise at Peoria than some of those wildmen because his control was better. And obviously kids with good control don't need as much stuff to get results. So hopefully he'll end up better than we think.

Cal or any of our Peoria friends who may have seen Carillo last year at Peoria, do we know anything about this guy's stuff? He's got an ERA below 3 and a WHIP below 1 as a 21-year-old in high-A. Does he possibly have big-league stuff, or is that just a sub-average stuff control pitcher letting A-ball hitters get themselves out? I know he's not tall, and I recall late two years ago Karen (I think) reported that his fastball wasn't too hot. Being a short kid, he's never seemed very projectible. And while his walks are low, his K's are low, and with a flyball orientation and a fair share of HR's-allowed, he doesn't exactly profile (tonight notwithstanding) as an anti-HR guy. Some luck may factor. For a guy who gives up his share of HR hits, and strikes out rather few, his hits-allowed this season suggest a very unusually low BABIP-against. Just curious if anybody knows much about his stuff or his future potential?

I can't ever recall a guy going past 100 AB with only one walk, but now he's barely starting his second 100 AB's and he's already gotten his second. (He was at 101 AB, I think.) May have been intentional? Two outs, man at 2nd, one-run game? His positive IsoD is probably secure for the season now.