craig

Maybe, but I wouldn't hold out much hope, especially since he has multiple superior options keeping him from that role in our system, in Pie and Patterson. Fuld isn't going to be a first-choice starter. But, I don't see Patterson being a factor here. He hasn't played hardly any CF yet. I think it's premature to count on him as even an adequate defensive CF, much less an excellent one. And his offense isn't that great that he'll be a primo CF if his defense isn't good. To some degree Fuld's situation is perhaps somewhat like Theriot. Theriot has no power. and isn't very toolsy. Cedeno has more defensive tools and has more hitting power, and has had much superior AAA OPS thanks to that power. But when it's come to actual games, Cedeno makes more mistakes, and whatever power superiority cedeno has, ithasn't manifested itself often enough at the bigs to make that an overriding decision maker. EPatt could be like that, a guy with a Cedeno-like power advantage, but might HR's so infrequently early in his career that he won't be given a job based on HR's. I suppose that it's also possible that Fuld could be to Pie what Theriot was to cedeno. Much less scouting love, many fewer tools. But if the not-so-polished talent comes up, gets flustered, goes into a slump, hacks somewhat indiscriminately, and looks auto-out, the manager sometimes turns to somebody less toolsy but more able to give consistently competitive AB's. It's not beyond possible that if Pie is struggling to reach the .280 OBP line, that a Fuld who was hitting .285 with a .335 OBP and playing a spirited CF might end up playing. I'm not saying it's probable. But it's not beyond plausible.

Cal, do you know if McGehee has played only 3B this winter? I'd really hoped he be working on his catching. As a catcher, his hitting looks pretty interesting. A guy who can hit .270 with a .750-type OPS, a lot of big-league starting catchers don't do that, and most backups don't. (As we saw for Koyie and Bowen this summer). I have a contact who said that he thought McGehee looked pretty comfortable at catcher his summer. Casey has normally been reported to be an intense, baseball-smart kind of guy, perhaps the guy who isn't the best talent but who might be a smart game-caller and good handler of pitchers. Don't know how his defense is. I assume it's lousy, even if my contact thought it looked pretty good. Maybe it's worse than Barrett, perhaps even worse than Fox. Beats me. But if it could be big-league fine, I'd much prefer him catching than playing 3B. And if he could get there, but only with more practice, I'd rather he was practicing that than his 3B. I think he's somewhat interesting especially considering the cub catching scene. With Soto in, I assume Kendall will go elsewhere. If that assumption is correct, we're left with Soto, Blanco, and little else. Ritchie, McGehee, and whatever we snag as a minor-league free agent. (Possibly Koyie Hill again?) Given how often catchers get hurt, and how often they rest, I think the next option after Blanco has a good likelihood to play a number of games for us next year. Blanco is old, and his injury has been serious. I guess his winter-ball play reassures that he can physically go behind the plate, even if his .172 slugging average thus far is less than inspiring. But I wonder if he's going to be healthy all year. Soto, I doubt he's ever caught much more than 110 games in a season thus far, if that. I don't think it's a good idea to try to put him out there for 130. So the sub catcher(s) are likely going to need to play a fair bit. If it turned out that McGehee was acceptable defensively for that role, I wouldn't be surprised if his hitting wasn't as/more desirable than Ritchie or Blanco or Koyie types. If he could evolve into a satisfactory long-term backup catcher, who could also do a little 3B or 1B if necessary, and might possibly even hit well enough to pinch hit occassionally, that could be a useful thing. If you could count on a backup catcher hitting in the .700's, it makes it lots easier to give the starter the rest that's really best.

Berg is somewhat interesting. I suspect he's a guy whose arm/stuff is better than his results. And could be a candidate to surprise at some point? I'm sure he doesn't throw super hard, normally. But I thought I'd read a note during the season where he was clocked (legitimately, I believe) at 95 or 97 or something like that. So if he can be working at 90-92 on a semi-regular basis, that's not bad for arm. Especially when that fastball is a groundball anti-HR pitch. This year he gave up 4 HR in 140 innings, last year 4 HR in 115 innings. That's really exceptional, and appears to be no fluke. He's consistently had strong GB/FB ratios too; I assume his fastball must have some action on it that makes it hard to elevate for HR's. It may be especially surprising since my understanding is that his control is lousy and his breaking ball isn't too hot either. There are lots of sinker-ball types who give up HR's when the pitch isn't located and gets up a bit in the zone. And a lot of GB types who don't have a great or consistent breaking ball (Berg certainly doesn't), who give up HR's on hanging curves or sliders. So I think the combo of a good arm, seemingly good fastball movement, and anti-HR profile are three components of a potentially good pitcher. Obviously he hasn't been good to date. He had a 4.95 ERA in the pitcher-oriented SL this season, with a 1.61 WHIP. Awful. In 06 he was 4.38 with a 1.56 WHIP. Nothing to get excited about there. And he's got no K's, 69 K's in 140 innings is pretty bad. 69K/69walks, yikes. Still, at 23 he's not exactly a fossil, and he'll be 23 for a good hunk of next year. So if he has the capacity to learn an improved breaking ball or better control (both doubtful, but not impossible...), it's not like his clock has expired. Not sure where he played his baseball, but I know he was born in small-town Wisconsin, not much high-level baseball going on there. And he's only had two full-season seasons. An interesting thing is that the Cubs have pushed him. After getting him from the Yankees late 2005 in short-season ball, he pitched only 6 innings at Peoria, yet they jumped him up to Daytona to open 2006. That seems the kind of thing they'd do with somebody they think has a big-league arm. Then after his blah Daytona, I figured he'd repeat. But no, they pushed him up again. So my guess is they see him as a big-league arm, if he can only put things together. Probable? No. But if he does start to string together some actual success, I'd think we can take him seriously. Not just view him as a no-stuff guy. I don't have his season splits, but my impression was that during the last two months that he was pitching somewhat better, a little more consistent. Maybe that's a reflection of some progress? My hope is that they repeat him in AA this year. He'll be 23, so hardly too old for the league. I sometimes like to see repeats; that way you can be sure whether a guy is progressing or not. If he goes to AAA and has a 5.1 ERA, we might say that league considered, that he's progressing. But if he repeats at AA and we see him at 3.4 in June, we'll know that he's improved. He's at 351 career innings now; sometimes when a raw guy is hitting the 300-400 range, sometimes that's a time when some things start to settle in. Maybe a breaking ball starts to be semi-consistent. Maybe they reach the point where they quit experimenting with a pitch that just isn't going to work, and settle on the 2 or 3 that they're going to live or die with. That they sent him to AFL, after 140 innings already, is also unusual. That may also jive with a guy they want to get as much coaching as possible. Or perhaps get an additional chance to scout themselves. I'm thinking he'll be Rule 5 eligible, is that right? If they knew they weren't going to roster him, probably dumb to send him to AFL, where if he does impress lots of scouts will see it. So I think that if Berg is Rule 5 eligible, there is a reasonable chance that despite his lousy stats, that he's a guy who might show up on the 40-man. In some ways he may have some Samardz analogy, groundball no-K poor-stats guy who the scouts like anyway. Obviously the draft and $$$ are totally opposite, extremes.

I don't imagine Eric will have enough trade value to make a trade likely. If you trade Pie, you might get somebody back who might make a difference. Eric, I don't think so. But I suppose he might be included as a fillin to try to level an otherwise imbalanced trade.

badnews, I think your point is well taken. There are always a crop of guys who haven't failed yet, or might project to get faster later, or whatever. Mostly they don't, and down the road we look back at them as nothign. I agree, there were times when Phelps looked very intersting, etc. I don't think this is a great pool. I don't think this compares to the glory era when we had Justin Jones/Petrick/Felix Sanchez all at mesa, with Sisco at Boise. Or when Boise (or was it Eugene?) had Guzman-Dontrelle-Krawiec-Wellemeyer-Leicester, all of whom seemed to have pretty high ceiling. But in Rhee-Suarez-Hernandez-Huseby-Acosta-Cabrera-Ceda I think that's a better collection of teenagers than we've had since Jones-Petrick-Sanchez-Sisco. And after years of following DSL, other than last year (Cabrera-Acosta-Tolentino-Martinez looked very intriguing), I think this is the most interesting DLS crop I've ever seen the Cubs flash. (Based only on age,size, and numbers, and results). I think the Maestri-Ruhlman-Russell-Redmond-etc. types, they are more like the usual warm bodies that you always have. What's different since the Guzman-Ryu-Sanchez era is a return to having some meaningful contribution of internationals. Most teams have that, but the Cubs have really been weak there since Ryu and Pie. We now konw that Suarez and Rhee got some money. And indications are that the Latin action has gotten a bit better lately, for whatever reason. I don't think the position talent is looking good at all. I hope that the scouts are right and vitters works out. But early returns suggest he can't field, can't run, and can't hit. Thomas and Donaldson types, they are college guys, and both seem to have some real question marks. Other than Vitters and Castillo, not really much for teenage players to get excited about. [/code]

That is what it was for but w/ Fuld being on the cusp already and EPatt showing up late, I think the Cubs went ahead and made the decision now itself. Fuld *could* be a big league leadoff hitter and starting CF but I think he's more of a fourth OF and I think the Cubs view him as such. I'd be concerned about his lengthy injury history too. I think a full year of training in CF would help EPatt supplant Fuld but I also don't think EPatt will be in the system next year. Cal, you mention you "don't think EPatt will be in the system next year." Why is that? I'd certainly be open to trading him. Unless he can play 2B or a premium CF, I don't think his bat looks too hot in LF or as a not-great CF. So if trading him got something valuable, fine. But I'm also thinking that if other teams see him as an outfielder without great CF defense, I'm not sure why anybody would give much of anything for him. My hope would be that he'd do a Soto/Pie with a return to Iowa. Both Soto and Pie were pretty mediocre at Iowa in 2006. But repeating last year both hit much better. If Eric bumped to .330 with fewer K's and more HR's, he might build some value. Fuld is a good outfielder. As a hitter, he's kind of a Theriot. Gets a lot of singles, never K's, decent OBP guy. But with so little power, it's kind of hard.

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/cs-071014alcsbits,1,5793899.story?coll=cs-cubs-headlines Kuroda. http://www.japanesebaseball.com/players/player.jsp?PlayerID=986 wasn't nearly as good this year as last, ERA-wise. HR's were up.

I read a note somewhere that said one of the pitchers the Cubs discussed last winter will be an unrestricted free agent this year, and that the Cubs and Seattle were listed as the teams most interested. The 31 or 32-year old guy who had the great control but didn't have the big arm.

I'm somewhat encouraged about some of the developments in the low minors. It seems we are now sitting with some stock of pitchers. None are remarkable prospects, at least not yet. But there seems to be some volume of guys who may be interesting. The favorable news on Huseby is great. I'd like great stuff, but control is the name of the game. And he's got some stuff projection. If he can pitch with balance and control three pitches, a guy with good movement/sink on a low 90's fastball can win a lot of games. Acosta sounds pretty interesting. If he can throw in the 90-93 range, and has the makings of good balance and good promise on three pitches, again that's a very nice package. Obviously not a strapping 6'5" first rounder type, but he sounds pretty interesting. Rhee and Hernandez both seem pretty interesting. Again, neither projects to throw 98 like Ceda or like when Wood/Cruz/Farnsworth/Z were rising prospects. But both Rhee and hernandez sound like they've got a chance to be pretty good. We'll see, of course. Lots of teens get hurt, and lots get slower rather than faster (Pawelek, apparently). But sometimes the scouts are pretty sharp at anticipating that a guy like Guzman will throw harder in time. (Even if his arm hasn't been able to sustain that...). I'm not sure that any of these guys have the "WOW" factor that high-90's guys like Kerry/Kyle/Cruz/Z had in low minors. But the early impression is that they can all find the strike zone. I like that, a lot. Obviously Ceda is the other extreme, his velocity is exceptional and his breaking ball seems really knockout. He's the "Wow" stuff guy. Obviously there are a batch of other guys, with varying levels of interest. James Russell: Again doesn't appear to have Wow stuff, and the scouting reports on his arm strength are variable. But his Texas results were pretty good, and his brief debut this summer in the pros was also impressive. I'm hopeful that he's going to be pretty good. Maybe Sean Marshall without all the injuries is what I'm hoping. Maestri, Ruhlman, Lambert, Siegfried, each of these showed some good stuff. Maybe one or two of them will turn out to be real relief prospects? I found AzPhil's comment that Siegfried might be tried as a starter both surprising and rather interesting. It's seemed that when Siegfried is on, he's on. By report he throws reasonably hard and has a breaking ball that can K people. But what was most remarkable was an extreme G/F ratio. Might seem like a guy who, if he could be consistent with his delivery and command, that he'd have the stuff and the sinker to be an ideal starter. But, both his college and his early pro results have suggested that he's pretty inconsistent, and can be a wildman sometimes. I guess we'll see. Pawelek, Redmond, Hatley, Hempy, Chen, Ashwood, seems there are some other guys with a chance to be pretty interesting, too. And then there is the harder-to-guess Latin prospects. Cabrera, Tolentino, who knows if they'll be healthy or have control. But prior to injuries, Cabrera sounded very interesting. And then there is a large pool of DSL pitchers. The Cubs DSL team almost never has any hitting, although this year it wasn't as below-average as usual. But after a slow start, that team really won a lot of games during the last 2/3 of the season, and had a lot of pitchers putting up interesting games. With almost no scouting information, hard to know who's who in terms of prospect-hood. But my guess is that this may be as good a crop of Latin pitchers since back in the 90's when they were signing Cruz and Z and Beltran and Felix Sanchez and Pinto within a few years of each other. Would really help if we could come up with a Rhee as a good pitcher form Asia, have Hernandez be a good pitcher from Venez, and have a couple of the Dominican kids prove to be serious besides. Anyway, I'm hopeful that we may be in the process of rebuilding a strong pool of pitchers from the bottom up.

It's interesting to see what Oneri is actually quoted as saying. it's not much. It isn't Oneri who says Pawelek is relatively likely to turn the corner, it's the author of the article. It's the author who says Fleita's optimism is off the charts, but that's just Oneri. What did Fleita really say? 1) Pawelek is smiling 2) Pawelek is lefty 3) We think he has a delivery he can repeat. 4) Something about dots. There are lots of 86 mph wild lefties who don't turn out much. And there are lots of guys with smiles that don't work out. That Fleita doesn't know how dots get connected probably means that pawelek hasn't put anything together yet, but still could. Really the only thing of substance that Fleita said that the author chose to quote was that Fleita thinks Mark is perhaps starting to repeat his delivery. Hopefully it's true and it will pay off. Often a prospect isn't going to make the majors doing what worked in high school. In those cases, I think it's entirely appropriate to make corrections so that eventually a guy can succeed in the majors and stay healthy besided. If so, having a struggle period during adaptation is neither surprising nor something to mock. But, whether Fleita and the staff know what's best, of course, that is not so clear. The "starting to repeat his delivery" gush is also somewhat too reminiscent of what Fleita gushed about Veal shortly before he got off to his horrible start this season.

Astonishing that a guy would jump his slugging by .286 points, and his IsoD by .196 points. Almost doubled his slugging (.366 to .652). Almost tripled the IsoP (.103 to .299). Normally that kind of change causes skeptics to almost automatically speculate HGH. Remarkable that in Soto's case, the freakish improvement correlates a loss rather than gain in weight. Still, such an abrupt jump naturally sets off anomoly/fluke warnings, and suggests some regression toward the career norm id likely. Nevertheless, his numbers were so good that assuming regression, he still profiles very favorably as a hitting catcher. And he sure looked like a hitter in September.

Thanks, Cal. Great to hear that Rhee is 18 rather than 21. Interesting that Phil again mentioned Martinez and Antigua. I wonder what he sees in Martinez, if Martinez is hurt (I assumed so after he dropped out of summer league), and why he likes Antigua. Just logical interest, since Antigua is very young (turned 17 in June), is lefty, and started all summer with good results for DSL? The same things that would interest you or me from the DSL stats? Or whether he has actually heard some scouting talk about Antigua that is favorable? anyway, thanks a ton for providing these links, they are really fun to read.

Thanks for posting this one, Ping. This is interesting, because my understanding was that Castillo was our one real position prospect. Obviously Conger was a high-list catcher based on his bat. This answer tells us something on Castillo's status. Ramos was close but didn't make the cut; that tells us Castillo missed by more. Not sure why, actually. Castillo and Ramos are about the same age, and about the same size. They're saying they maybe prefer Castillo defensively, that obviously means they don't like him as well offensively. Actually I'm not sure why. Castillo actually had more HR's than Ramos, and his 2nd-half numbers were pretty good.

There are 14 teams sharing the top-20. So aveage team has only one guy on top-20 there. Peoria wasn't all that talented this year, so having one is not very surprising. The next two that I like who didn't make it are Welington Castillo and Robert Hernandez, in that order. Perhaps Nathan might chime in on this, too. Without injury, I think Rafael Dolis might have been a guy. Lansford has some talent, but obviously with his injury and with no power or walks, his hitting stats were pretty weak. A 23-year-old corner guy with a .650's OPS isn't going to get a lot of zing. the strength of that team was probably the bullpen, with not only Ceda but Maestri, Ruhlman, and Papelbon. But relievers don't make top-20's unless, like Ceda, they can throw near 100 mph, which obviously does not apply for Maestri and the lefties.

BA Transactions reports that Cubs have signed an OF named Hae-Seong Kook. I don't know anything about him, where, how old, etc. He didn't show up in BBCube, so I'm assuming he's a new guy. Anybody know? This is stuff that Cal posted in the Instructional League thread, but it confirmed that they did sign the Korean pitcher, Rhee. He had supposedly been an $0.8 signing. Cal via AZ Phil also reports that Cubs signed three Mexican pitchers from the Tijuana team.

Thanks for the info, cal. Keep em coming, fun. Vitters seems to continue to be one of the lesser hitters. But mostly interesting postive stuff. That they really did sign Rhee is great news. The notes on Suarez having the big stuff but looking sullen and smile-free, that's interesting too. That may be bad, sullen people who don't enjoy their work have a harder time with everything. But, serious guys can be very successful, has Lilly ever cracked a smile? hasn't hurt his season. If Z was a little less zany and a little more serious, that might be fine. the notes on Castillo's throwing, I liked those. Other things I liked: *Clevenger catching, Reed not catching. (Although why Reed is there at all, I dunno. I suppose you need lots of catchers when you're training lots of pitchers, but I'd like to see him released, myself, to get out of the way for major-league prospects.) *The three Mexican kids. *With Rhee from Korea, Chen and his Taiwan friend, that Australian kid, Maestri from Italy, the recent Dutch kid, now the several Mexicans, nice to see the cubs broadening their scope from just Venez and DR. Was a long 5 haul where Venez and DR were pretty much our only international spot. *The favorable comments about Huseby's progress were also really encouraging.

Yes. Obviously yes, if the Cubs don't roster him. But I think the Cubs have the right to place him on the 40-man roster first, in which case he wouldn't be eligible for minor-league free agency. Not so? I don't know whether they like him well enough to burn a 40-man roster spot on him. But I'd think it's at least possible.

No, it's primarily been fielding. He's gotten negatives on almost every aspect. Some throwing problems. The previous post about poor range. His problems turning the DP have been mentioned more than once. Didn't BA's prospect book refer to something positive last book, though? Was it soft hands, maybe? On Kroeger, I think he might have a shot at a 40-man roster spot. But not certain they'll spend one on him. I don't think there's any chance he'll be starting regularly for a major-league team next season, barring several injuries. Well, at least not in the spring. I think he'd need to put together a real good stretch at AAA to get a shot. Maybe pull a Soto or something like that. Not sure a .275-type average will get it done, though. But if he could do in AAA comparable to what he did in AA, who knows. But I think he'll need to prove it/earn it again.

I'd expect Soto and Colvin to be on BA's list. As raw noted, there are lots of outfielders who make it every year. For a 21-year old to hit around .300 in A+/AA with 16 HR, projection, and good tools (arm, speed, defense), I think BA routinely includes guys like that. As Lord K said, perhaps as high as 75. Soto they've got to include, and his success with the Cubs may force them to reevaluate their previously tepid interest. Hard to not include a guy who's got an open door to a big-league job, who's had a really good big-league debut in his small window, and who hit for power, average, and walks in AAA. gallagher I'd think could be in there, although it wouldn't shock me if he wasn't. He's young and has had good minor-league success. Stuff isn't "Wow", but BA's been aware of him for a while now. Possibly another back-of-top-100 guy. Samardz, might be in there. There are still scouts BA talks to who seem to like his talent considerably, and their Cub sources are still very favorable. Plus he's a story guy, a good discussion guy for them. Put him in somewhere in the back, at 90 or whatever. If he busts, nothing rare about that at the back of your top-100. But if he blossoms, you can say that you were listing him as a guy to watch all along. Can't lose. I'd be rather surprised to see Patterson in there, on BA's list. Prospectus, different story, since their assessment of defense is very different from the average human scout. Patterson is a jumble of puzzles. I don't really know what he is. As a good defensive 2B, I'd view him as well worthy of Top-100 rank. But not as a bad defensive 2B, or a bad defensive CFer, or a utility outfielder with a below-average arm. My understanding is that by some statistical measures, there are indicators that his 2B defense isn't too bad, may actually be fairly good. But I don't think the BA boys read those, and based on past reports the human scouts they've talked to have been pretty negative about Eric's 2B defense. I know Fleita will say he moved him to outfield to make him more flexible and more useful as a bench player, and that is logical. But I also wonder whether that move isn't really a reflection that they don't see him as a big-league caliber defensive 2B. Can't lose for the pro-Patterson posters. If he makes it big, they're smart, win. If he doesn't, just use that to prove the Cubs are idiots to have moved him, if they'd kept him at 2nd he'd be great, Cubs ruined him, Cubs are dumb, win again! Win win! I'll be shocked if BA loves his defense enough to include him in top-100.

I think kc's analogy of Colvin to Jacque is perhaps quite apt. I've often thought that Jones was also an excellent optimistic comp for Pie as a hitter. I still think Pie's got a shot to be a good-fielding version of Jacque, perhaps without Jacque's former power? Obviously that comment is intended to be critical, since Jacque doesn't generally have a favorable rep. But I'm not sure that's really such a bad outcome. Jacque's been in the majors for approaching ten years, and will end up making oer $30 mill for his career. That's not necessarily such a bad career for a guy. And it's not necessarily such a bad payoff for an organization to get somebody like that with a teens pick in a weak draft. I also think it's a reasonable comp, but not necessarily representative of the best outcome imaginable. Colvin might hit more HR's. He might be a better CFer. Colvin played the season at 21, so I think it's premature to assume we know what he'll be when he's 26 or 32. Ditto for Pie. Colvin his 16 HR's in 125 AB's in two tough leagues at age 21. A lot of guys who end up as 30-HR guys at age 28 playing 162-game big-league seasons weren't necessarily hitting 20 in shorter minor-league seasons at age 21. Scouting may suggest differently, and often scouting knows things. But I'd think his XB/HR output this year might look very promising for his power future. I think the Jacque analogy depends in part on the defense. Jaque's in his 30's and is playing CF. I'm too dumb to tell. Some observers criticize his defense as being way sub-par; others who I respect seem to think it's actually pretty average for a CF. If Colvin was enough better to be unambiguously acceptable in CF, combined with a much better arm, a Jacque bat in center would be decent. Career .782 OPS, not sure that's below average for a CF, is it? I thought most years there are only a handful of .800+ CFers. Obviously the walks is the big red flag. He's not a perfect prospect, that's for sure, and we know it takes only one deadly flaw to keep a guy from being overall valuable. But as was noted, if he could reduce that problem from horrific to merely bad, you'd have a shot to have a useful major leaguer. And obviously the defense is a huge factor. A .780 platoon CFer is one thing; a .780-platoon RFer, that's another. I think it's also true that some of the optomism may be self-contradictory. I want him to be a good enough defender to play CF. But I also want him to gain strength and become a serious HR hitter. Those two wishes may well be incompatible. Buildup for power may perhaps work against CF mobility. Unfortunately apart from the defense issue, I think many of the same comps and concerns for Colvin also apply to Pie.

I think this is a helpful perspective. I think it's clear that hernandez has a chance to be a very, very substantial prospect. Not to be negative, but there are several obvious distinctions between hernandez and Carlos's Class A seasons. 1. Z did *not* spend a full season in full-A. He listed at only *17* for much of that year. According to his list birthday, he didn't turn 18 until June of his Peoria-equivalent season. 2. I have always suspected that the Cubs didn't really think Carlos was only 17. I've always tended to assume they figured his age was somewhat falsified. That was pre-age-gate. So while Z may have listed younger, it's possible that Hernandez actually is younger than was Carlos. Not that looks tell all, but from his face nothing to make you question that Hernandez really is 18, he looks quite young. 3. By late that season, I recall a report on Z throwing 98 in the 9th inning of a complete game. The scouting on him clearly showed a monster power pitcher. Hernandez scouts really really well, but not that well. 4. Z was an extreme groundball guy in those days, which goes with the low K's. hernandez is a definite fly-ball guy at this point. 5. Carlos in A- was one thing; but he jumped straight up to AA the next spring, at age 18, and dominated his way up to Iowa, shortly after his 19th birthday if not before. Doing well as Hernandez has done at age 18 in A- is one thing; to carry a 1.34 ERA in AA at age 18 as Z did in spring of 2000, that's another. Not dissing Hernandez, I'm really interested in him. And I believe when Tim had people rank prospects last winter, I think I was one of if not the only contributor who included him in my top-40. But Z's production-per-age pre-Iowa was really remarkable. Even if he didn't have much of a breaking ball or much control then, such that there were doubts whether he was strictly relief or could make it as a rotation guy. And even if Juan Cruz's breaking ball and thus overall package often got even more enthusiastic evals. Ceda, that guy's been pretty incredible. Will be interesting to see how his control improves in future, and if his arm can hold together. But his combo of fastball (velocity and movement) and breaking ball is obviously pretty dominant relative to A-. he walks a guy most innings, will be interesting to see how that goes in future. If he can get even respectable control, he could be a pretty scary relief pitcher.

Shoulder, elbow, or manager is just tired of his ineffective pitching and wants to start somebody who gives the Chiefs a chance to win? How has Siegfried and Lambert looked? Both have had some really nice box-score nights, and some others that aren't good. If Siegfried's control comes around a little bit, does he have a shot to be a good big-league reliever? One more Q on those two: Is Siegried a normal delivery, or does he throw some sidearm? Same for Lambert.

cal, in yesterday's thread you mentioned Hughes being in there for quite a while. Can you share any information or insights on prospects or the way the Cubs handle prospects from stuff he said? Or impressions on Hughes the guy, in terms of how smart or dumb or competent or incompetent he sounded? Thanks in advance.

thanks for the defensive breakdowns, cal. Perez and Castillo looking pretty good on the CS/SB angle. And Soto with low PB and low errors. Mark Reed has been a high draft and they've liked him. So perhaps Fleita and those guys have been reluctant to give up on him. But I'd think that if they liked Clevenger defensively, he'd be 20 times the prospect that Mark "Cesar Izturis" Reed is. If he can't beat out Reed for playing time, perhaps that speaks to how little they think of his defense. But, hopefully that's changing and Reed has kind of gotten that action on basis of tenure and past hype.

So, no other last-minute Cub draftees who signed? Or wouldn't we know? I think all this "slot" stuff and the Bud ripping is silly. The best interests of the league would obiously be to have a firm slot system, ala NBA and NFL. If the majority of the teams agree on that, and try to work more-or-less within that, that's their prerogative. Those that do know that the Yankees may not, the Cubs may not, etc.. And they all know that their is no enforcement possible. How could there be? The clubs and the agents all know that their isn't really any possibility of enforcement. If the majority of clubs establish majority consensus slot guidelines, the majority of players are happy to sign within those guidelines. Bud and the majority of teams aren't in the wrong to try to work together to that effect. Obviously there will be a minority of players who will not follow those, whether that be Porcello or Wieters or Samardzija or James Russell or Rundle or Brackman or Huseby, and teams can decide how many of those they are willing to pay. I just hope it's us doing it again, more, next year.