craig

cal, have you heard anything on Boise's Santana? He had 6 K's in his 2 otherwise ineffective innings yesterday. His performance has been spotty at times, but there have been days when his line looks pretty good. Is this a guy who's got a pretty good arm? If in some future year his performance was consistently good, is it possible that he's got a major-league arm if he were to end up with major-league control? Petty interesting to have Pawelek back, and to have a rare no-walk outing.

Thanks much, Cal. That's great news for AlAl, even if not for Huseby. OK, I'll add him to my real talent list, possible reliever or trade bait someday. His perfrormance lately has been more jazzy, 14 K's in his last two outings, 8 K's in 3 innings last time, even if he did allow 3 runs. So, you are vindicated that he has something. His Peoria output and Nathan's report certainly didn't reflect any 95 mph fastball. But, fortunately things change.

This is second hand news, but a friend from Bleacher Bums board attende all three of the recent Tenn games at WTenn, and gave some scouting information. he reports on I believe 7 pitchers, Veal, Mendez, Henderson, Johnson, Avery, Roquet, and Schappert. He reported that Schappert maxed out around 82. The other six were all almost the same in terms of velocity. Veal 90-93, touched 94 once, was down to 88-90 by last inning. Said Veal had both a sharp curve and slider that break into the dirt, but that he threw only maye one for a strike all game, most of them weren't even close. He said he mostly just threw high 4-seam fastballs. They either bashed them for hits, hard flyouts, foul balls, or eventually would strike out after long AB's with lots of fouloffs. He said that Veal just looked like a thrower. He thought Veal looked Ohman but with even less control. Said Mendez was 91-92. Said Henderson was 90-93, but that his slider wasn't too hot that night. (A different poster saw henderson recently at Tennessee, and said that he threw harder than anybody he's seen for Tennesse all year, including having watched Veal a couple of times and Gallagher and Hart.) Said Johnson was actually at 91-93 all inning, so apparently Johnson's arm isn't shot. Said he had a slider in the low 80's for strikes. I believe my friend got there for the second of a 2-inning outing by Johnson, I know the box score showed it as a 4-hit-3-run outing by Grant. Avery pitched the next inning, at 91-92 also with a low-80's breaking pitch. He thought Avery's breaking ball seemed to fool hitters better than Johnson's had. Roquet pitched the next inning and was 92-94, with what he referred to as a pretty good curve, and that he seemed to vary his fastball more, taking some off at 88-89. I know BA talked about Roquet having a slider; perhaps the fact that my friend called it more of a curve compared to Johnson's slider suggests that Roquet's has more break, I don't know.

Thanks, cal. Several thoughts for me: 1. I hadn't realized Harben was already derostered. 2. In my earlier post, Kroeger and long-shot Harvey were the only names that came to my mind. But Kevin Hart's outstanding start yesterday reminded me that he'd be a possible strong candidate as well. A third, oddly enough, would possibly be Justin Berg. Has the strong sinker, and I thought I'd read a report recently where he was at 95. Obviously not close to having the command, but he has made some progress. Sometimes Cubs protect guys like that.

Clevenger seems to be a genuine low-K contact line-drive guy. No K's, no HR's. This year he's pretty much not taken walks at all, either. My view on his future hinges on his defense. Yesterday or Saturday was his first game at daytona catching, after 10 as a 1B/DH. His boise time was split 50-50 between catching and 1B/DH. I would judge that as a DH/1B, the majors don't use too many no-HR guys. But if he could catch at a major-league level, I think their is excellent opportunity for a low-power high-average contact hitter, even if he doesn't walk or HR much. As a LH hitter, there is also obvious interest as a part-time player. But it really depends on the catching. If he's Fox-caliber catcher, not so bright future. If in time he can catch at a Koyie Hill level, I'd take him very seriously. The odds of that, probably, are slim, given that they DH/1B'd him 10 games before getting him in to catch for a game. If suddenly he was catching 3-4 days a week through August, I'd be really interested. I realize that he's barely 21, so some of those doubles might become HR's in time. But it doesn't appear that he's really going to be a HR hitter.

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.