craig

Thanks lots for feedback, Chief. Hmm, we should put together some roster guesses. I'll be way wrong, I'm sure, but just for fun. Peoria: Rotation: Ceda Pawelek Muldowney Renshaw Huseby (very iffy, but I'm feeling hopeful...) Other candidates? Castillo, Santo, Pina, one of the Dominican kids Interesting arms that may show up, perhaps in relief: Castillo, Roquet, Dolis, Ruhlman, Mueller, Kopach, Infield: Canzler, Camp, Johnston, Lansford as the definite starters. Utility subs, who knows. I wonder if Sammy Baez still around? Catcher: Mercedes, Clevenger, and Canepa. Clevenger may be something of a wild guess, and I'm just being wishful thinking. The odds of a position-switch guy getting immediately put into regular game action in a full-season league may be a reach, maybe more likely that he'll stay back at extended spring. But as with Huseby, I'm hoping. OF: Joseph, Lewis, and Heredia I'll guess. More wishful thinking, that Rundle is ready. A possibility could be that Yusuf would return, but I don't expect that. Peoria OF is kind of tricky, because Colvin and Camp were two of Boise's primary OFers, and neither of them will be in Peoria's OF. Most likely some of the spots will be manned by some older more roster-fill prospects, rather than all the younger-we-hope-they-blossom-into-major-league prospects.

Thanks much. Interesting that speedy Heredia has moved to outfield. He's a very patient hitter and very fast. 19. Has not hit much yet, though, and no power, yet. "A young kid named Hernandez threw very well the last game I saw ...." I'm delighted to hear that. Did he look good in terms of velocity, or smoothness, or breaking ball? Hernandez is only 18, and went straight to mesa last year after signing, and pitched effectively at only 17. Cubs haven't had many pitchers who they sign and put straight in the U.S. at age 17, and who actually have success. I'm hoping he's a good one. Did you by chance see Julio Castillo or Rafael Dolis, a couple of guys I understand throw very hard? (But were very wild last year.) Infield: Was Lansford all at 3B? I'd heard he might have played some SS. Last year we wee high on Phelps, but he wasn't very healthy last year. Any idea if he's healthy this spring? Avery was great lat year. Have you heard anything to confirm that he'll still be in relief? For some reason I've wondered if he might not be an interesting rotation guy. From what you saw or heard, any idea of who'll actually open with Peoria? Rundle and Huseby and Anderson are three I'm curious about. Any guesses for rotation at this point?

Thanks, Cal. That had been my impression based on seeing a few game-stats this spring, that he was K'ing like crazy, even while facing some not-always-great nonconference teams. K'ing over 20% of AB, that's not a great sign. Interesting that his K rate has actually gotten worse each year. Overall it seems fairly high for a college hitter but not horrible. Not a perfect hitter, obviusly.

How uniform is the consensus that Wieters will be able to catch in the big-leagues right away or with only a little additional polish? And how uniform is the consensus that Wieters will be able to stay at catcher, even as some years pass? Sometimes guys get bigger after their 21st birthday and lose some of the quickness and/or flexibility required to catch. Is the view on his catching defense that it's OK enough to stick there, given his bat? Or is the view that he projects as a flat-out asset defender at catcher, regardless of his bat? Q3, is he a fairly high-K type hitter? Or is he such a perfect hitter (in college) that he hits for power and gets the walks but still doesn't K at all either? To me, plus power and plus walks can more than justify plenty of K's. But the perfect projection hitting prospect is the guy who can swing hard enough to hit HR's, who can be patient and selective enough to take walks, and who can do all those things without K'ing very much. High HR + low K = high average and slugging (Aram, Bonds, Pujols), and high average + high walks = high OBP (Bonds, Edmonds, Pujols). Perfect. So I guess I'm asking, is Wieters the perfect hitter (power + patience + contact all in one)? Or is more a case of a guy who K's plenty, but whose power and patience at present more than justify whatever K's he gets? (Sosa in prime?)

I agree with most of your post. There are similarities. And if Dopirak emerges into a big power hitter, well, there's value somehow. And obviously he's limited to 1B/DH/PH, it's not like he has defensive potential to move. (It's not clear whether he has defensive potential to be even adequate at 1B). And obviously it's not like he needs to hit like Howard. There is a level less than MVP-caliber that is still of value. But, the real question for Dopirak revolves around how much huge power he'll ever had. "Both have hit for huge power numbers in the minors..." doesn't really seem true to me. He had one good power season, in low-A. He's consistently hit for big power in batting practice. But only at Peoria (or was it Lansing then?) did he hit for meaningful power. His Daytona season he showed only minor effective power. Producing huge power is more than a matter of being strong and able to hit batting practice bombs. It requires that you can hit the pitches with the speed and movement that real pitchers throw when they are not trying to feed you bombables, but when they are trying to avoid throwing you bombables. Dope obviously has the physical power to do that. At present, it seems that Peoria is likely to be the production exception, and that against better pitchers he'll never be able to apply his power often enough to be a value power guy. It's also obvious that last year was injury. So basically he had one good year at Peoria, and one bad year at Daytona. If he stinks again this year, 3-years-ago Peoria will be further established as the irrelevant fluke. If he produces big this year, the fact that he stunk at Daytona for a year will appear to be the who-knows-why fluke. I see this as a make-or-break year for him. Most likely it will be a break, but too soon to know.l

http://wc4.worldcrossing.com/webx?14@@.1de17c84/2334 Additional notes from scout friend reported by DaveP, post 2309. After the gush in the earlier ones, these are some anti-gush.

It will be interesting to see how the spring plays out, and the draft. Again, I think analogies are helpful and paint a picture, but often there are fine points of difference. For a decade there were prospects who were analogized to Nolan Ryan or Tom Seaver. But few of the Nolan Ryans ended up with quite the durability or velocity or curveball that the real Ryan had. Few of the Tom Seaver comps ended up pitching like the real Tom. Brackman/Samardz is a nice analogy, with the height, the speed, the two-sport, and the as-yet-unfulfilled potential. Obviously however high-90's Brackman supposedly throws, and however good his secondary stuff supposedly already is, the fact that he's kind of struggling along to retire the college hitters thus far suggests that, at least for the moment, something is missing. Obviously the same held true for samardz last spring as well, but Wilken believed anyway, and the Cubs believed to the tun of $10 million. And now (almost) everybody who's seen Sam this spring can't gush enough. So it's well possible that Wilekn will see the same or greater potential in Brackman, and will be thrilled to use the high pick and tons of millions to reel him in. But it's also possible that while the framework of analogy is excellent, that the devil is in the detials and Wilken for whatever reason won't see as much in Brackman as he saw in Samardz. Maybe he doesn't see the ease of delivery. Maybe he doesn't see the same sink-and-tail. Maybe despite his athleticism he doesn't see the same good-for-pitcher athleticism. Maybe he doesn't see the same easy consistency of high velocity. Maybe he sees the high speed, but the same speed with NOvoa movement doesn't have the same appeal as Sam-speed with Sam-movement. Really hard for me to guess. Will certainly be no surprise if it's brackman. And if next spring he looks as great as Samardz supposedly looks now, nobody will care about a couple of struggle games this March. But neither would it be any surprise if despite the hype that Wilken prefers somebody else, even if that be a HS prospect. It will be fun to watch. But it would be more fun if all three of Brackman and Price and Wieters produced over the rest of the spring, so that performance as well as projection would make it a no-brainer that whoever lasts to us at #3 is a no-brainer choice.

abuck, you know we're all really eager to get your scouting reports on guys that you saw in camp.

A poster at bleacherbums has a friend who is a veteran Baltimore Orioles scout, and who has spent a lot of time scouting the Cubs. (He scouted Guzman in winter ball and said Baltimore liked him a lot and had made two firm offers, but Hendry wasn't shopping.) http://wc4.worldcrossing.com/webx?7@@.1de17c84/2317 Post 2292, author DaveP A lot of interesting stuff. But this scout really loves the Cubs farm, especially Samardzija. Dave said the scout raved about him for 15 minutes, and compared his promise to that of minor league Kerry Wood. Said his slider is unhittable, but that he telegraphs it, a problem he thinks is correctible. He was very enthused about Colvin and Veal. Positives about Ceda and Lansford and Cedeno. Scout believed that the pitch selectivity is being seriously emphasized, and scout believed that Hendry was pushing that. Anyway, very gush comments. "One interesting comment. The Cubs have as many prospects with star potential as they ever had in their hayday of a few years ago, and a much deeper pool to choose from. They went from a mediocre system at the beginning of the last year to an excellent one today, largely due to the addition of Samardja, Colvin, Ceda and Lansford."

Quote: Outfielder Ryan Harvey, who is expected to provide the Smokies power, along with first baseman Brian Dopirak and Fox, missed two weeks with a lingering leg problem. "He started off in our early camp (Feb. 23) and he had a hamstring problem he has had in years' past," Fleita said. "We thought we nipped it early, but he was real tight and we backed him off for two weeks." Fleita expects Harvey to be 100 percent and there is sufficient time for him to break camp with the Smokies.

Matt Matulia. Got drafted last year (not in the first 10 rounds, by memory I'm thinking somewhere in the round 20-25 area), signed, and played for Boise.

Phil also reported on Today's (Saturday) AA/AAA action. Gallagher superb for 4, Marshall really bad.

Do you think at some point that Prior will be moved to a 5-day schedule? Seems he's been pitching every 6th day: If I recall, he got kicked by KC on a Saturday, pitched a minor league game on a Friday, pitched yesterday on Thursday, next outing on Wednesday. Coincidence? Or mght he just stick on a 6-day routine for a while?

Thanks for notes, Karen. A poster at bleacherbums was at Fitch on Thursday and had some observations. He said that Veal, Pawelek, Huseby, Ceda, Atkins, Petrick, and Julio Castillo were all in the same pitching group, what he referred to as the "A" group. He observed that Huseby is huge and threw really hard, although he was wild and they were tinkering with his delivery. He said on the occassion where he threw one right, it looked like his fastball might have some good movement and natural sink/tail. He said that Castillo threw every bit as hard as Huseby. If Castillo throws that hard, I'm guessing he's a guy we should keep our eye on, whether he starts at Boise or Peoria or wherever this year. He observed that Pawelek kept the ball down well, and his delivery might have some deception.

I know it turned out deadly for the Cubs the last two years, last year when Cedeno didn't come close to his PECOTA, and two years ago when DuBois didn't come close to his PECOTA.

How close do you think the parallels are? I know they are both fast, tall (although big difference there), fast, and two-sport. Are there parallels beyond that? When Wilken was talking up samardz, he buzzed about four things: fastball movement, slider potential, control, and velocity. I'm not sure his past demonstrated very many of those projected virtues (certainly not the slider or plus-plus control that Wilken seemed to project for him, and I'm not sure the sink and run and movement on a couple of his fastball permutations.) From what you've read or seen, do you figure that Wilken will also scout/project Brackman was as an excellent control pitcher with a lot of sink/tail to his fastball? And if Brackman is essentially the same person, does he also scout as being a slider dude like Samardz? I can't remember. I know I recall reading one report about Brackman and a splitter, but I also recall talk about a different breaking pitch, but I can't recall whether that was slider (like Sam) or was a curve. I agree, by the way, that Brackman seems the most likely guy for the Cubs. Assuming Price is gone, I'd think the Cubs tend to prefer big-stuff pitchers, and I'm not sure Wieters really fits what the Cubs may prefer in position players, since he's going to be limited to catcher/corners and he K's a lot. So assuming Price is gone, I'd think Brackman might be the Cubs preferred choice over Wieters if they have that choice, and since it may well be that Price and Wieters will both be gone by the time they pick anyway.

Thanks. Ceda has been noted for arm strength, but not control. If he has value control, then he could become a serious prospect. There have been questions about his weight; to your recall, did he look like he was in shape for now? Or like a dude who may need to fight and fight and fight to keep his weight under control? Same for Suarez. There was some questin about whether he might have weight problems. He's obviously only HS-age now, so shouldn't look like a retired offensive lineman yet. But did he strike you as reasonably fit. Dolis is pretty young (just 19) but even more raw (he switched from SS to pitcher just last year). Is he pretty slender, as if he might fill out a lot more? Or is he already pretty well put together? I'm sure he probably looked wild, he was a walk-machine last year. But did he look pretty fast? I'm thinking he might have a pretty good arm, but will just need quite a while in hopes that he can someday control it.

Thanks bear, fun to read. Neat to hear that Blasko, Petrick, and Hagerty were fully involved in the drills. Would be kind of an unexpected treat if Petrick or Blasko showed up healthy and throwing well. The Guzman and Cherry stories are reminders that sometimes guys do come back as strong or stronger than ever, eventually. The AAA group prior to cutdowns was obviously roster-fill galore, other than Shaver and Mendez, basically. Positive impressions on Atkins, Carter, Rundle, and Anderson are encouraging. Atkins was awfully good last year, at age 20 in full-season, but hasn't been tabbed as a real high-level prospect yet. (I was somewhat disappointed that BA had Atkins and Scott Taylor only in the 25-30 range of the Cub prospects. But at 21, he's at an age where some guys plateau but others keep improving, sometimes significantly. His sinker last year was good enough/fast enough to be major league, his control wasn't bad, and while his breaking pitch was inconsistent and not big-league caliber, it may not have been that far off. If he's able to step everything up by some degree, an extra 1-2 mph of velocity, or a little better command/consistency, or perhaps a llittle better ability to avoid telegraphing the breaker and throw it with the same motion as the fastball, or just a little sharper cut and a little more consistent dive and less frequent hangers/flat breaking balls, it certainly wouldn't take much of an improvement chunk for him to become a serious value prospect. Let's hope so. Good to hear that Clevenger was at C and Camp 2B. We've heard that talk, but often the position-to-catcher guys end up being used as utility guys, and don't ever actually catch enough to get much game action there. I'm hoping he goes 100% committed there, and that they like him well enough so that they instruct manager to actually play him in games at catcher, even if during his first year he has a few more passed balls and allows more WP's than an experienced catcher. Camp at 2nd sounds interesting, too. Lots easier to make it as a contact/OBP guy at 2nd than as an outfielder. If either Rundle or Anderson could turn into something, that would be really fun, too. Any arms that surprised you, or stuck out in some way? Any of the Latin pitchers who seemed to have notable arm strength? Anyway, thanks for the notes. Fun to read.

I'm really looking forward to that, Bear.

The outfield scene is challenging to resolve. Floyd is still limping and hasn't played right field in many years. Soriano has never played right. Murton has never played right in the majors, not so much in the minors, and doesn't have the arm for it. Soriano may have problems in center. But will he have any fewer if you move him to right? We know we've got a defense-first-low-hit guy at SS. We may have a low-hit guy at 2nd, not sure yet. If you pop Pie into center, the offense doesn't look so strong as it does with Jones in left, Soriano center, and Murton/Floyd in left. The current configuration could be a really good-hitting team, with a good-hitting lineup and a good-hitting bench besides. And, it could be extremely bad defensively, with perhaps only Izturis and Lee as the only guys average-or-better relative to their respective position. I don't know how to balance those factors. I do think that Pie might play himself out of the picture by the time spring ends. It's early, lots of fastballs. When he starts facing more major-league pitchers with more breaking balls, the hits might be harder to find for him. Certainly my hope is that he rocks, but that Soriano shows himself to be pretty decent in center, and you've got a win-win choice. I'd certainly like to see Pie put up some asset numbers at Iowa for a while, and perhaps defer free agency for an extra year besides. Last factor is jones. So, I can understand the interest in trading him. But, the whole premise of the outfield thing is that maybe it's already too crowded. Are you going to trade Jones to relieve outfield glut, only to acquire an outfielder to replace him? The pitching staff is pretty cluttered. Do we really want to trade Jones for the fringey-caliber rotation pitcher that he could at best return, and have some fringey starter bump talented Guzman out of the running? And, what if Prior did progress enough so that managment ended up wanting to roster him? Outfielder doesn't make sense; a Jones-available rotation pitcher doesn't either. Reliever? With Eyre, Ohman, and Cotts, and Rapada at Iowa, I don't know that trading for another lefty reliever makes lots of sense. And with Dempster, Wood, Howry, Cherry, and hopefully Wuertz on the RH side, and possibly Prior or Guzman or Miller besides, I'm not sure trading Jones for a reliever makes all that much sense. Izturis is a lock at SS, and you aren't going to get a good starting middle infielder, 2B or SS, for Jones anyway. So just to get some bench infielder to bump Theriot to Iowa, I don't see much point there either. When it comes to cases, barring an ever less likely more complex multi-player deal, I think that if you did decide to trade Jones, the only realistic return I could see would be getting either some scrub big-league help that's no better than people we have now, and/or minor league prospects, probably AA or lower. Given the priority on winning now, I'm not sure Hendry is really in the mindset to trade Jones for prospect(s) whose contribution if any will be in the far rather than near future.

Thanks tons for the observations. Many of us fans appreciate any observations or comments, sometimes no matter how obscure. Keep them coming, and if some of you can add more from your visits, we'd love it. I like reading the impressions that different personalities make, etc..

Obviously Derosa got signed to start, and he has the salary, so anything close to a tie goes to DeRosa. That's how the season starts. (Not so unlike Prior/Guzman; unless Prior grossly underperforms relative to Guzman, Prior gets that spot. But in that case, it appears quite possible that Prior will underperform relative to Guzman....) But things change, pending performance. To my mind Theriot hasn't played or shown anything in RF (I'd like a Jacque platoon...), he's been unimpressive defensively at SS, and he's looked scatter-armed from 3B. I know he's supposed to be super-utility guy, and I know the Cubs have been watching lots of infield in camp that I don't know about from a couple of ex game plays. But I'm cautious that he can actually play any position acceptably other than 2B. (I know, I know, he played a bunch of minor-league SS. But playing a position in the minors doesn't prove that you can play it at a major-league caliber in the majors...) One of my questions with DeRosa is how his defense compares. Obviously he's shown more power. If Theriot was to take that job away from DeRosa at some point, I think it would be much more likely if Lou viewed Theriot's defense as superior to DeRosa. I have no idea whether or not that's the case.

Are you going on gut feel? Or off minor league track record? Personally, DeRosa strikes me as being equally likely of being exposed. I'm with Tim, I think both are similarly vulnerable to the "exposure" factor. And I don't care about the contracts. If anything, that DeRosa has more experience playing everywhere (including RF for possible Jacque platoon) makes him a better utility candidate, if in fact they were interchangeable at 2B. I'm not sure how to grade them defensively. Part of me thinks Theriot could be better, but I'm not confident. I think Theriot has a chance to be significantly better in terms of OBP. DeRosa K's a lot, which doesn't favor his batting average. I think Derosa has a chance to be significantly better in terms of OPS and slugging. He hit teens HR's last year and lots of doubles, IsoP. Theriot has always been a strictly singles guy, other than his tiny sample with the Cubs. To some degree, I think DeRosa might be exposed by regular playing time as much or more than Theriot. DeRosa has had strong lefty-righty splits. So I'm guessing that his past playing time has been stacked to his strength, versus LHP. If he's facing RHP day after day, that could really hurt. Theriot also has R/L splits, I think, but I don't think as extreme. And since he has negligible power either way, less likely to be as severe.

Thanks also for the camp report. Piniella seems to like Sean and his maturity a lot. That's neat. That Sean has found Rothschild helpful is also nice to hear. Baseball people always seem to think well of Rothschild, but given the Cub wildness and pitching problems last year and over previous years, some posters seem to doubt that Rothschild is actually very good. So I think it's nice to have insider reports that pitchers do in fact find him to be helpful. (Maddux also had a Rothschild compliment the other day.) Options note: I know that Guzman has an option year. I'm not sure whether he's at a stage where he needs to clear revocable waivers to get sent down, though. Revocable waivers are the ones where a team puts you on waivers, if you clear the team can send you down, if some other team claims you the team can pull you back off of waivers. Normally in spring GM's don't place claims on revocable waivers guys, just as a courtesy. So I think he'd clear fine, if it came to that. And, if St. Louis thinks they'd be hurting the Cubs by filing a claim on him, forcing the Cubs to keep him up might be doing us a big service.

O, sorry, Mendez.