craig

Not likely. If Cubs offered him a good contract, he'd probably stay. They'd probably be scared to offer him arb unless they wanted him to stay, or unless he finished pretty strong. If he finished the year at .235, with creaky knees and age climbing, I think teams wouldn't offer him what an arbitrator would. That being the case, Cubs would either sign him under their own negotiated terms, or let him walk without taking the arb-and-lose risk, or the risk that they acquire an expensive replacement only to have Dye accept arb and stick them $10 million overbudget with a guy they have no use for. And in any such case, the risk/reward factors whether he's an A or a B. Dye is hitting .235, so I doubt he'll make a Class A free agent after the season. An A gets you a top-40 pick plus another high pick, possibly even a top-30 pick. A B gets you a single pick in the 40-60 range. Not sure management would see that as valuable enough to justify offering arb.

Carroll, I don't think this means much. Cubs are a money contender, so you here there names with big values. Griffey? Dunn? Johan Santana? Torii Hunter? Dontrelle? Teix? I imagine Carroll has heard a few big names with talk about whether the Cubs might not be a fit. And then, whenever Cubs name comes up, inevitably Pie's name has to enter the conversation. Nobody's going to trade a big name (other than perhaps old Griffey) to Cubs without Pie being involved. That wouldn't mean the Cubs are "shopping" Pie. Just that his name tends to come up. Simply because you can't discuss Cubs trading for a big gun without considering Pie's inclusion. Take Pie out of the discussion, and write the Cubs off in terms of any big name pickups that are less than 38 years old.

Dope has been very hot, and as you note since the break he's actually taken 10 walks in 139 AB, huge progress relative to his hacking norm. He's even dropped his K-rate over that small sample to a hair under 30%, which for him is also progress, horrific as it remains. His overall season OBP is now up to .293. (inlcuding his AA stats), and he's jumped his Daytona OBP up over .300, he's up to .308 now. So, it's progress, and it's true that he won't turn 24 till after the season. This is already his 2nd options year. It may well be that one way or another, Kroeger will be the only guy worth adding. Perhaps there will be a spot, Kendall's spot or maybe Harben's rehab isn't looking that great and he'll get bumped, obviously Miller. So if we only have one guy to add, maybe Dopirak won't even get any pressure. But, I think it's a long-shot that teams will be jumping over themselves to draft an almost 24-year-old DH who's a 30% K-guy in A-ball and is a fringe .300-OBP guy in A-ball. I think it would be a good thing for Dope and the Cubs, actually, if they did de-roster him this winter. That way, if he did come back and make serious progress next year, they could then return him to the 40-man roster for 2009 and have options to bring him up if/when Lee gets hurt, or to control him for another year to track whether he really has turned some kind of corner. If they keep him on for next year, what happens if he goes to AA, hits .280 with 22 HR's and a .315 OBP and an .830 OPS? He'd be out of options after that. As a DH/1B type, that probably wouldn't be enough to command a 2009 roster spot, but it might be good enough so that after you had to waive him, some other team might possibly pick him up. But if you deroster him this winter, assuming he'd clear, that would effectively give you two full years to let him develop before you'd need to decide whether to fish or cut bait. Pretty unlikely given his current problems to envision that he's going to turn into any great shakes in less than that time, if ever.

No, it's not idiotic for two reasons. 1. A guy's health impacts his future value. You can check if the guy is healthy or not during a 3-game observation. You don't want to trade for a guy only to find that his arm is shot, or something. Just common sense to make sure his health is as expected. 2. There are many pickups that are extremely short-term in purpose. Dunn, that wouldn't be the case. But in dealing with a Gary Gaetti or Jason Kendall type pickup, or many of the end-of-contract pitchers you might be considering, it makes sense to get a feel for whether they look to be hot or look all messed up. You may get a feel for that in a 3-game scout. I think it's common to have watched a guy over his career, and then to have seen him look different during a slump period. (Eyre this year? Jacque in April/May? Kendall in April/May?) If you know his stats have rebounded from the slump, and you watch him for a couple of days and he looks like the career guy again, not the slump guy, maybe you're more likely to gamble a fringe prospect to pick the guy up?

I strongly disagree. A really good middle reliever is invaluable. Since the Cubs turned the season around, Marmol's stabilization of the middle relief has been a major factor. In this pitch-count and long-count age, it's also not that common to get 7 full innings even when you're winning. Having reliable relievers helps prevent your manager from going Dusty and having Prior pitch 130 pitches rather than take chances with an unreliable bullpen.

I believe that rule change, giving both college and HS guys an extra year, went into effect last draft already. Not sure we'll have a lot of trouble. Most of the guys who are worth anything are already on the roster, since we've called everybody up already this year. With the extra year, Veal won't need protection yet. So Gallagher, Soto, Coats, Moore, Mateo, all those guys are already on. Rapada, Cherry, Guzman, etc.. With the new rule, I don't think Eric Patterson will even be eligible. Obviously Roquet won't. Not even Grant Johnson will. Basically I can't think of much of anybody outside of kroeger who's unprotected now who'll need protection then. Drop Wade Miller and Dopirak, and call it a day. Would this be Harvey's year to get protected? I suppose it's remotely possible the Cubs will still want to protect him. Or maybe they'll decide Jim Hamilton or somebody like that. Perhaps a larger problem to the 40 isn't taking minor-leaguers and putting them back on; it may be taking 60-day DL's and putting them on. I don't think the 60-day applies in winter, so your 40 needs to include those guys, right? If you still want to keep harben, I'd think that could get tight. Practical, from my POV, is that we don't need to be much motivated to trade away prospects in order to avoid 40-man pressure.

Why would Acosta's contract need to be waiting on commissioner's approval? Just standard, it takes a week or two for every one of them and the article just happened to be while it was in standard line? The guy who signs them is on vacation? Or is there something unusual here? Superslot money or something? (I'm hoping...) Or what?

I think the Cubs are in kind of a good spot and kind of a bad spot in terms of trade chips. Obviously a "chip" that good for getting Kendall or Stairs is different from a chip for wigginton which is in a different world from the kind of chips to get Linebrink or Greinke or Johan Santana or Teix or Dunn or Griffey. The Cubs have a lot of value variety, and a fair quantity of guys who you could include in a Wigginton-scale trade without missing much. Gallagher, Mateo, Petrick, Roquet, Veal, Cherry, Rapada, Cotts, and even Hart or Holliman could have varying degrees of value. None of those are guys we couldn't live without, if we got somebody useful in exchange. Obviousy Cotts, Hart, and Holliman are pretty long shots to ever help us. But Gallagher, Mateo, Petrick, Roquet Veal, and Cherry are all guys who could become useful for us if we keep them and they progress, perhaps extremely useful. If somebody wants an arm or two, we have at least some to offer, and it's not the end of the world. I think Roquet might be of surprising value. BA talked him up as throwing pretty hard. Not sure if it's really true. But his results this year are really good, and not inconsistent with him throwing hard enough to be a potential 8th inning guy. Miniscule ERA, high K's, zero HR's, strong GB/FB ratio. A reliever who keeps the ball in the park and K's a lot of guys, lots to like there. Walks could be lower, but they aren't unacceptable. Being an unfamiliar name who we didn't draft, I doubt Hendry would cry about losing him or get attacked by fans the way he might if he traded Veal or Gallagher. For players, Pie, Murton, Cedeno, Soto, Patterson, Kroeger, Moore, Fox, those are all guys who have varying potential to become major leaguers. The odds of some of them ever becoming solid big-league regular starters varies a lot, but there is some range of guys you could use depending on how good the guy you were trading for was. Part of the problem is that several of them are of value to us. Most of the better ones are essentially unblocked, and we may need them ourselves to fill our own holes long-term. A trade could reverse that, of course; if you trade for an established starting shortstop or catcher, than you could include Cedeno or Soto because they'd immediately be blocked. Or if you get a solid starting outfielder, then Murton is immediately blocked and becomes expendable. Sometimes those kinds of trades are the ones that work best, actually. Non-contender trades their proven but salaried catcher for your Soto; they have an immediate replacement. But a lot of those guys I don't really want to trade because I think they might well be useful starters for us next year and beyond. To me, I'd be leary of including any of Pie, Murton, Cedeno, or Soto. Any one of them could be starting for us next April. Or, frankly, perhaps even this October. Patterson, Moore, Kroeger, Fox, those guys seem unlikely to me to ever be asset starters. If you can get somebody for Eric that's useful, hopefully now and next year too, I wouldn't mind a lot. We've already got DeRosa, Fontenot, and Theriot all clogging up 2B. Patterson might someday be better, but that's iffy, and if he is, it may not be by much. Kroeger I wonder about. He's new to us, and obviously was a castoff this winter. Is this a guy who might actually be a big-league starting outfielder? Based on this year only, I'd think why not? But given his history, I wonder if he has much trade value if any?

Right on, that's the worst flaw in the whole rumor. No way a GM is giving a player updates on deals.

Soft-tossing finesse lefty. Not as fast as Mark Guthrie or Scott Eyre, but as fast or faster than Moyer.

Not sure. But I don't think this has many implications. Whether it's Soto or Hill or neither (if Hil is moved and doesn't end up in iowa...), I don't think Soto-Richie-Robinson would be too much. May also be that Robinson will go back down, too; if Hill needs to clear waivers, doesn't that sometimes take a couple of days and don't the cubs often let the guy have a couple days off to deal with the disappointment and get their head back ready for minor-league action? I think the move comes primarily from the bottom end. Not enough AB's for donaldson, Mercedes, and Clevenger. Both Clev and donaldson are meaningful prospects and need catching practice. But, Castillo (?) at Peoria is also a meaningful prospect and needs all the practice he can get. So, Daytona is the place for Clevenger to go He can get plenty of action there. If he keeps hitting there, and shows anything defensively, you've got yourself a prospect. But, Rick is a dutiful organization guy, so he needed to clear out, and up. that would clutter AA too much, so Robinson bumps up. Soto does a lot of DH and 1B anyway and doesn't need thta much catching practice. Could work out pretty well. Or, maybe it's as somebody suggested, Soto will stay up, and Hlll will wind up in Louisville or Nashville or something.

Thanks for the D report, cal. Doesn't sound prohibitively bad, yet.

Wow, interesting! Question for anybody who has listened or watched Boise or has any inside dope: any indications how Clevenger is doing defensively at Boise? The way he's been hitting the ball, I'd love to see him able to catch well.

On Donaldson, anybody who's watched or listened or closely followed the box scores have any perspective on how he's doing defensively? On the spectrum of Pudge to Koyie Hill to Barrett to Jake Fox, where would donaldson seem to fit currently, and project to fit once optimized? Even worse than Fox? At least better than Fox, but no Michael Barrett? Just fine, actually rather good, better than Barrett and at east as good as Koyie? I'm hoping that he'll end up better than Barrett, hopefully as good or better than Koyie. I'm somewhat worried that he may be even worse than Barrett, and may end up down somewhere in the forget-it area of Jake Fox.

I think he's kinda figured it out. He's 24 and has a strong outfield arm, so I don't think he's a guy who's lack of arm, lack of defense, and lack of speed is going to prevent any big-league action. I think that if his bat can get him to the majors, his other stuff won't kill him. And I'm hopeful that he really has figured something out with his bat. Over the last couple of seasons when he's gotten whipped by AAA pitching, he's been a high-K guy, 23% K-rate. And last year with an awful walk-rate besides (104K/23 walks in 441 AB). This year his K/BB is 48/38, incredible improvement, the K-rate is <16%, and it hasn't gotten any worse in AAA. Dropping a K-rate is one thing; lots of Corey/Dopirak types do that by swinging early, so they can less often even get to a 2-strike K count. But that solution reduces walks and often reduces power. soemthing different has happened with kroeger, because everything has happened simultaneous for good: auto-out K's are way down, OBP-building walks are way up, and HR's and power are up too. He's doing about as well in AAA as in AA, so obviously whatever happened, it's not just a matter of succeeding in low leaue. I have no idea what's changed, or how long it will stay corrected. But for the moment, I don't see anything in his defense or his age that belies the positive story the hitting is telling. I think he's going to appear in the major leagues at some point.

wow thats quite a jump! any one have a report on him, and how he projects down the road? Rea was 18th rounder, and is 23, little guy at 5'8". No power, decent eye. Lacks SS ability. He projects as a minor league 2B/CF utility guy, may try to add LF and 3B to his utility bag. Best case would be to end up as a Theriot/Fuld type, no power, no HR's, but walks a lot and rarely K's, so that he can be a decent OBP guy based on BABIP and walks. Often a low-tools performance guy gets promoted like this, to a place where they need somebody. If he can't handle it, fine, nothing lost. If he can, and can sustain his anti-walk good-OBP ways against better pitching (which isn't always unusual for small contact guys). If so, who knows.

Thanks for Wood outing, nice to see him actually healthy enough to pitch to hitters. And thanks for the Boise/Fleita article. I found three parts interesting: *The view that they don't want to promote a guy who might react negatively to failure. That may perhaps speak to how they feel about Colvin? *The preference to keep guys where they are. *The concept that skipping a level is not a problem. I really agree with that. Wright is probably a guy you'd want at Daytona next year. Does it matter whether he plays August in Boise or in Peoria? Probably not. He'll likely be equally able or equally challenged by Daytona next spring. Several of the Boise boys have a shot to skip to Daytona next spring, I'd think. But barring challenges in getting people game action, I doubt it matters whether they finish in Peoria or Boise.

I don't know if or when it will happen. I was ready to move Harvey to the mound a year ago. But I'd kind of like to give Harvey and Johnston a crack at pitching. Strong guys with strong arms. It's easier to pitch a fast baseball when you can think about which pitch you're going to throw and decide the action yourself. Rather than to throw a fast moving baseball and need to decide in a matter of microseconds whether or not to swing, where it's going to be by the time it reaches the plate, and how to lay the swing out so as to hit a moving ball. Johnston still has plenty of time to develop as a pitcher. I know Fleita prefers more patience, but I don't expect that Johnston is going to make it as a player. Leon Johnson, what a start that guy has had. Wyatt has a zillion walks and K's very rarely, just as was true in college. A theory: K-prone power hitters have more problems adjusting to better pitching or to wooden bats. Contact hitters with good eye, good walk rates, low K rates, but short on power, I think those guys are much less likely to flop against improved pitching. Fuld, Wyatt, Barney, no-power low-K guys like that never hit HR's anyway. So going pro doesn't cost them aluminum-bat HR's anyway. If you're living off of BABIP and walks for your OBP, you can often promote with limited change in your HR's or K's.

Thanks for the super news, guys! If he's getting into the 91-95 range, at his age, that's very encouraging. Cal, you mentioned Antigua, the DSL lefty. What have you heard about him, and if I may ask, where do you get info about DSL guys? I follow the stats, check the age/size info, and check the games fairly often. But it would be fun to know which if any guys the Cubs paid money for, or think have good potential, versus the guys that don't have anything now but who knows, maybe they'll add 8 mph over the next five years. One name that I've been interested in is Junior Lake. He turned 17 only in March, so like Antigua he's very young. He lists at 6'3", pretty tall for a SS and probably won't stick there, but 6'3" is tall enough to perhaps project some power. In fact, he's already hit 3 HR's, hardly a ton, but it's been years since I recall a DSL Cub getting even 6 HR's. His HR/XBH ratio has been pretty good. His K/walk ratio is weak but not awful. I don't actually recall any actual 17-year-olds in DSL who have hit with any authority there. Would be cool if Lake would actually be a prospect.

Cal, I can't find it right off, but a few weeks a go I read a linked article about huseby, perhaps from that Boise paper. Had some stuff info from Huseby himself. Often to here guys tell it, they throw harder than they often do, of course. They cite the one pitch that clocked 6 mph above their normal velocity and all that, so from hering guys tell you'd think they were all power pitcher possibilities. So, if anything maybe huseby was inflating his stuff, that's the norm. But, his personal report was much less than 91-95. He claimed that he was back to his sophomore velocity. Said he was happy to be back up working in the upper 80's. And said that he'd touched 90-91 a couple of times. So, for now it would appear that Huseby is something of a soft-tosser. He'll need to have special location, special breaking stuff, special movement. But for now, it would appear that 91-95 is projection hope, not current reality. Kind of like when Sisco was supposedly 91-94, but projected to perhaps throw 100 someday and perhaps project into Randy Johnson type. Huseby's only 19, of course, and like any 19-year-old who's tall, there's the chance that he'll throw significantly harder down the road. But for now, it appears that he's gotten slower, not faster, compared to last spring. Which might also help to explain why he's been pretty hittable in XST and Boise. I'm not trying to rip on the kid. Hope he works out well. But for now, it would appear that both special control, special stuff, and special velocity are all projected possibilities rather than present realities, even relative to his level. Hopefully all those projection hopes will become reality in due time, even if they aren't yet. Often that happens.

Thanks for the link, even if those two kids and Simon Lee aren't much in the way of prospects, it's nice to see the Cubs starting to get involved in Taiwan and South Korea. Best part of your link is the link to the story saying the Cubs signed Dae-Eun Lee to an $800,000 bonus. Thanks a ton for the reseach and link, 1954. Cal, not sure if you tracked way down in that link, but it has some info on Chen and Wen. If I'm reading it right, Wen is just a flyer, $2,500 plus some college money. Says Wen was a pitcher in HS. But, I believe it claimed that Chen was $200K. Barney was $220, I think, so $200 would be 4th round cash equiv. It may be that in Asia, you'll always need to overpay a bit, thanks to free market, so maybe paying 4th round money is what it takes to get a 6th round talent or whatever. But, 4th round money means the guy should be viewed as a genuine possibility. Interesting. And, $800K for Lee, that's more than Donaldson, that's sandwich money. Did you guys dig deep enough to figure if Lee was a pitcher or a hitter? I assume a pitcher, but I didn't get that far. Anyway, great to see Wilson working and signing people. Lee never signed more than one per year, Wilson's already signed at least 5. Kind of fun. Hope one of these guys turns into somebody real. I think after some of the talk about the college draft picks and the cost-savings there, I've been worried that perhaps a lot of budget areas might be frozen, and that perhaps international spending might be frozen till the Trib sells or whatever. But if Wilson has spent a million on Chen and Lee, hopefully the Latin guys are still allowed to spend too, and hopefully the international talent pipe will have a good year.

Oops! Thanks, Jeff. Wake up, me! Bowen's pre-Cub splits actually were much better versus RHP, I think?

We'll see what happens, if Soto is really up. I'm with I think the majority view: Soto up would not be tied to Izturis being moved. Not much point in having three catchers. If you did bring Soto up, and replace one of the existing catchers, the prevailing view has been that Hill would go. I wonder. Lou has been a humungous lefty-right guy. Hill hits lefty. Soto for now, and Blanco if/when he comes back, also hit righty. I could see Lou preferring to keep the LH-hitting Hill. (It may be a factor in why Hill was called up rather than Soto in the first place, I don't know.) Also, IMO Hill has looked better defensively than Bowen. Hard to see Hendry having the nerve to dump Bowen weeks after getting him. But that might almost make more sense. A related question, assuming soto really was called up, woulc be whether they intended to use him extensively. Or whether he'd be a #2 catcher, and would be optioned as soon as Blanco came back, if in fact that does happen. In other words, if Blanco returns shortly, a month from now will we be looking at Blanco and Soto, with neither Bowen nor Hill around? Or will whoever gets dropped for Soto be just getting a jump on dropping that same guy anyway if Blanco returns. And the guy who might survive now would still survive when Blanco was activated, with Soto just going back? Heh, I suppose performance might factor in on that. If Soto hits like Fontenot, he might stay in the mix. If Soto hits like Pie or Bowen, his out-of-career-character Iowa hot streak might be forgotten quickly enough.

Cal, could you expand a bit on your interest in Al Alb? Entering today's game, he had a 6.38 ERA on the year with a WHIP near 2, split over Peoria and Boise. He's a short little guy, RH at that, and my recall was that Nate described his velocity as average if that, high-80's to 90 or something was the impression I got. He's had years of arm trouble. So I'd figured that a small guy, kinda old, doesn't throw hard, doesn't have good control, has had arm trouble, and isn't getting anybody out, that he's yesterday's news. Out with the old, let's take a look at somebody else. But, you seem to be very interested in him and think he's got some potential. Is this still based on the super season he had 3-5 years ago in the DSL, before surgery? Or have you gotten some post-surgery reports to suggest that he's got something to work with that makes him a prospect? Personally, I'd have thought Hempy is much more interesting. He's been an effective pitcher for South Carolina, and he's done that not too long after TJ surgery. He's a really big guy. Were he to recover a lot more velocity than he had this spring, which is not uncommon for tall guys or post-TJ guys, you might have a major-league arm. So I'm more interested to see Hempy having a good start tonight than AlAlb doing well in relief. But, I do appreciate that AlAlb does have quite a few K's. So maybe he's got more to work with than I appreciated or recalled from Nate's writeup on him?

I don't have BA subscription, so can't do careful comparison. Cal, would it be fair to say that thus far the first day picks seem like straight slot, and if anything hardman and Johnson are mild superslots? But that 6-8 are extreme sub-slot senior signs? Will be interesting to see what Thomas got, whether he was straight slot, or perhaps even mild superslot. I'll be surprised if he's very seriously sub-slot, given that it took him a while to sign. I'm actually somewhat encouraged that other than the 2nd-day senior signs, that the rest seem slot. Would suggest that other than 6-8, the Cubs weren't drafting for signability, but were drafting on their perception of merit relative to the large pool of slot-avaiilable guys at any given point in the draft. I'm still curious about the impact budget had on their selections, and by whom or why the budget limit was imposed. No idea how the draft budget gets assigned, how flexible it is, or what the beginning/end of it is. For example: a) Is it possible that Samardz, signed this calendar year, might count against the 2007 draft budget? Could it be a January-December budget? b) Is it possible that all the draft-and-follow signings (weren't there like 6 of them?) might perhaps come out of the 2007 draft budget? For example, might Wilken have to either not sign Hatley or Jovan or Latham or Redmond or whomever, or else perhaps have to squeeze some of those dollars away from his budget for otherwise signing 2007 draftees? I have no idea, pure speculation. But perhaps if he'd spent $200 or more on D+F, he knew he'd need to go $200 subslot in the draft, and that's where Lambert-Wright-Smith came in? c) Maybe once it's all said and done, we'll find that the 6-7-8 will all get spent on 2007 superslots, a little extra for Leon Johnson here, an extra pinch to somebody else there... Lambert, by the way, is off to a fast start. 19K/4BB/12or13 innings. Maybe someday Lambert will be the LH equivalent of Wuertz, a breaking ball artist reliever.