craig

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.

A followup question on Fox. He turns 25 in a couple months. He's had a bashing spring, this weekend, off Wuertz and Prior and dudes like that with nothing fastballs in BP. Questions: 1. Does he have defensive upside as a 2nd-string catcher, or only as a 3rd-string catcher? 2. If he basically a fastball hitter, so his success in spring and against Howry/Prior type slowballs is consistent with his known strenghts? 3. Or is it possible that his hitting this spring reflects continued improvement as a hitter, and that he's just continued to get stronger and better? 4. In terms of utility positions for him, Obviously he's too slow and old and unathletic to pick up 3rd. How slow is he, and would he be as below-average defensively in LF and RF as he is at catcher, even if he did practice there a lot? I guess I'm asking, is there a chance that down the road, he might be a utility LF/RF/PH/DH/3rd catcher/3rd 1B? (I assume he's too short and too unathletic to be a very appealing defensive 1B). 5. For him to make it as a utility man, presumably he'd be kind of Todd Walker-like: a defensive liability at an position you'd consider playing him (probably much worse liability than Walker...). Is there any chance that his hitting will become *THAT* good that he could make it anyway? Is there a chance that he'll blossom into a guy who'd be the best DH option on the Cubs someday? Or such a good hitter that you'd *want* him backing up LF, defense and all? 6. Obviously his arm from outfield should be fine. How slow is he, really? Or is he not all that totally slow, and he might well be able to blossom into a merely poor but not horrible LF/RFer in time?

On one of the televised games last week, a friend said he saw Anderson Mejia and that he threw *very* hard. Didn't have gun numbers, but his read was that he looked to be throwing as hard or harder than Kerry Wood. His take was that while he threw very hard, his fastball was also *very* straight. But that he did K a guy on a sharp little slider. These observations are not inconsistent with what little I know, but that's not much. But I'd like any info that some of you might have, scouting or impressions or otherwise. What I know: He's already 25, pitched almost all of last year at Daytona, had really good numbers but in small reliever sample (2.03 ERA, 71 IP, 78/21 K/BB, 4 HR, 1.06 WHIP). He only first began pitching in 2003, at age 21, and has less than 250 total innings. I can't recall, but I believe he was a position switch guy, and may have played a year in outfield or catcher or something before switching to pitching. Earlier, it seemed the Cubs were rushing him along, and repeatedly trying him in closer-type role, with limited success. (He had a 4.6 career ERA entering last season). I do seem to recall reading a comment at Peoria that he threw pretty hard, and at Daytona back in 2005 (I think, when he had a 6.7 ERA there) that he'd gunned at 98 or something. So, I'm hoping that he's a guy who, despite his age, has a big arm. My friend's observation was straight, straight, straight, so that's not too promising. But I'm hoping that his improvement last year is a step on the road to quality, that the slider is a pitch coming into it's own for him, that his control has improved a lot, and that having allowed 4 HR/71 IP, that the fastball maybe isn't quite so straight or at least isn't total HR-fodder. Anyway, if anybody can fill in some info on him, I'd love to hear it. Hopefully he'll be next year's Cherry.

Another guy was at yesterday's game, and said that Cherry was throwing very hard. Another friend is friends with a Baltimore scout, who has actually spent about ten days at the Cub camp. They had lunch on Saturday, and my friend passed along a lot of interesting comments that the scout had to say. But he said that Cherry has been consistently throwing in the 90's (92-93, I think), and he'd seen him top at 95. He said he'd been told that he's topped at 97, although I'm not sure whether that was this spring or based on last summer. Cherry has always had pretty reasonable walk-control. I believe Baseball America and Vineline both said that the Cubs people had ID'd Cherry's slider as the best in their system. So it would seem to me that if he's combining a fastball that is consistently in the 90's and is topping up at 95 or even more, with a slider that's very good, and he has reasonable control, then it looks like we've got a guy with a big-league arm and big-league stuff. Not a case of a fringe-stuff guy who'll necessarily be exposed once he faces real big-leaguers.

I fully support and endorse this nomination! I'd take him over Cedeno at this point. If we go to an 11-man pitching staff, I can see Coats and Pagan getting those last two spots. I think Cedeno would be the lead candidate if they go with only 11 pitchers. A lot of posters may act like defense doesn't count, but Piniella is pretty big on defense. And he apparently is unhappy with both Theriot and DeRosa at SS. If they carry an extra bench guy, it will likely be a SS, probably Cedeno or else Perez.

I agree with this. Prior is a name guy with a history and a non-trivial contract. Keeping his at Iowa for four months is not quite like keeping Mateo at Iowa for the summer. There are pressures and expectations to have him up. Certainly the Cubs would prefer that Prior would elevate his game to Guzman's level by spring, or be no a trajectory to be serious. As you say, a lot easier to keep Guzman on reserve at Iowa, on the grounds that he's young, he's unproven, and he's waiting for an opportunity. Than to keep Prior down there, as if he's just an AAAA guy waiting for a break. But, I also think that there's a time to try to win. Obviously all ties go to Prior. But, that Prior will be even close to equal with Guzman by April 1 seems improbable to me. At some point, his name and status and contract has to lose out to performance. It will be interesting to see how things develop, and how those factors balance.

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Pie's "improvement" as a base-stealer seems to involve giving up the practice. He doesn't try to steal much anymore. Picking your spots and stealing only against really bad catchers or really obvious, bad-delivery pitchers is smarter than trying to run and getting gunned a lot. But his improvement seems to simply be being really selective, and only stealing a little bit when he's got a good shot

I don't agree, actually. If you give up nothing but groundballs and don't walk anybody, you'll be very good even if you don't K anybody. To me, I see three simple variables: walks, K's, and HR's. If you're below average for K's, but above average for walks and HR's, you can still be an average or better pitcher. And even if you're high for K's, if that's correlated with high walks and HR's (which often seems to happen), you can easily be a below average pitcher. Obviously Sam's tiny sample size last summer didn't establish himself as a K guy, not as an anti-walk guy (3.6/9), or as an anti-HR guy (2 HR/30 IP), or as an extreme groundball guy (I believe 1.3 G/F?). But I am suggesting that the subjective scouting reports on the type of stuff he apparently has at present or projects to have down the road, to me it projects as a guy who's more likely to profile as a groundball/anti-K/anti-walk guy than as a K-specialist. Yes, that's projection, not based on Notre Dame or his 30 innings at Boise/Peoria. I also understand the concept that if a guy's stuff is so lame or so predictable that he can never make guys swing and miss, then if they are always hitting his stuff, probably a fair share of that contact will end up over the wall. So it's perhaps less than probable that a guy with no swing-and-miss stuff will actually end up with an anti-HR profile. But I think that the ability to record K's is not the end-all. It needs to be considered in the context of HR's allowed and walks allowed. And also the groundball factor. There may be as high or higher a BABIP on groundballs, but most groundball hits are singles. (Obviously the error rate is also higher for groundballs, which is not in their favor, even though the ERA doesn't reflect this.) (Just a cheesy stats speculation: Suppose a pitcher pitched to contact and got nothing but groundballs. No K's, not walks, no HR's. And, he got contact so fast that he was a 9-inning complete-game type guy. Suppose he gave up a .308 BABIP, somewhat higher than league norm overall, but perhaps not above average for grounders. On an average day, he'd get 27 groundouts and allow 12 ground hits. Probably on average, 10 or those 12 would be ground singles, perhaps two down the lines for doubles. So, using that average, pitcher would have a 1.33 WHIP, allow a .308 BA, allow a .308 OBP, allow a .359 slugging, and allow a .667 OPS. That hypothetical nothing-but-groundballs hyperbole pitcher would not "suck"; he'd basically reduce the opposition to Neifi/Izturis/Macias-level of production....) K's are primarily a function of: a) strategy (do I nibble for the K or am I willing to throw a strike that result in anything worse than a groundball?) b) breaking stuff (2-seam sinkers rarely score K's, most K's come on breaking pitches or high fastballs), c) fastball (you can't get a K without getting to 2 strikes. Frequent arrival at 2-strike count requires that you have a pitch you can routinely throw for strikes and aren't afraid to throw for strikes early in count) Control of both the breaking stuff and the fastball is incorporated in "b" and "c". At present, I'd judge that Sam doesn't currently profile as a K-guy on the basis of both "a" and "b". I think he profiles favorably and projects favorably in terms of "c". His hard stuff seems to have the speed and movement so that he'll often be able to attack the strike zone, and could often end up with 2-strike counts. I think "a" is easily adjustable. In A-ball Guzman and Z threw sinkers for groundouts. Later on they elected to pitch for K's, work longer counts, use more breaking pitches, nibble around more. I think it's very easy to adjust the strategy like that. It's just a matter of deciding or being told to do that. And of course it's interwoven with factor "b". No point in pitching for K's if you don't have a punchout pitch. If Sam's breaking pitch and change improve, he'll have more "b". Wilken thinks he'll end up with a plus slider. We'll see. I imagine part of the question will be how good his breaking pitch and change will need to get in order to have at least a passable K-rate. He may not need to have a Veal-esque K-rate. But I agree that he'll either need to raise it from 5/9 or else he'll need to become really anti-walk/anti-HR to be really good.

I'd consider that to be negative. K's are a huge asset. But K's need to be factored relative to HR's and walks. You don't need many K's if you pitch sinking/sliding stuff to contact, the contact doesn't go over the wall, and you don't walk a lot of guys. Sam seems to profile in that direction, as a groundball guy. And, what a guy is now and what he will be, that can change. Z didn't K people when he was in A-ball, but he increased his K's in time. Ditto for Guzman, who was a no-K guy for a while. Obviously it's too soon to know. But I'm curious what Samardz is really throwing. It's very tough for many observers to distinguish 4-seam from 2-seam from hard slider. So one observer might say he threw nothing but fastballs. But it may be that actually he's mixing 2-seam sinkers with 4-seamers, or that he's actually throwing groundball sliders. We'll see. But certainly in my view, I'd clearly value Sam ahead of any of the less-than-Gallagher/Veal guys. I certainly don't perceive him as a guy who has no breaking ball and has nothing more than a straight no-control 92-93 fastball.

I just thought I'd revisit this thread. When the Cubs signed Samardzija, there was a ton of skepticism. Peoria thought expecting more than 92-93 was frothing. Mephtisopheles didn't think he should rank higher than Pawelek, Huseby, or I believe Ryu. There was much comment about his low-K Notre Dame stats, his rawness, his flawed delivery, his age that didn't allow as much development time as an equally raw HSer, etc.. etc.. Just another Novoa. A lot of negativity, as I recall. The assumption seemed to be that it was another dumb move by the Cubs, don't get too interested. I think at this point in spring, after only a couple of spring appearances and just subjective buzz, it appears that the Cubs maybe weren't all that dumb. It does appear that he can throw harder than 92-93, and whatever mechanics flaws he may have had when he was throwing 89-92, those seem to have already diminished. His shoulder might bust next week, obviously. But at this point, I don't have any doubt but that if I had to lose somebody, I'd rather lose Pawelek or Huseby or Ryu (already gone) or Rapada than Samardzija. At this point, I think Guzman, Gallagher, and Veal are the only prospect pitchers I'd value as much or more than Samardz. Maybe the Cubs weren't that dumb after all.