craig

O'Malley is not on the roster at this point either.

Thanks. So, past history indicates that it is strictly record of the drafting team. The inclusion of sandwich guys for Class B guys is totally new. It might be that all A's and B's are sandwiched together, in which case we could get pick #31. However, I asked a friend about this and he thought he'd heard that the sandwich picks for A's will go first before the B's. So, if we get the first B but follow the sandwich A's, that should probably be where, low 40's or so?

Maybe the notion that he doesn't have a position is playing a part. Perhaps he'll be thrown in a trade to an AL team. Don't see how one can judge that based on an injury-plagued year. This is trade low, I wouldn't trade Dopirak right now at all. ..... His .663-OPS year at WTenn was injury-impacted. I don't think his .670-OPS year at Daytona was injury-plagued, though.

Roster is pretty full, and the cast of prospects this year is really weak. That Cherry was rostered probably is good news in terms of how they view his health. That Campusano was not rostered is not good news in terms of how they view his health. That Fox was not rostered is as expected, but probably also is not good news in terms of how they view his defense. I'm assuming that they haven't and won't deroster anybody for a while still, since Soriano hasn't actually signed yet, and who knows if FA's like Aram, Wood, or DeRosa have actually signed. If Hendry doesn't get around to siging them formally for a while, perhaps that gives him a little extra time to see whether some of the projected roster fullness might be alleviated via a quantity-for-more-quality trade.

I didn't know how to find finesse rules like this, but I did go back to the 2002 draft. Here is the sequence, with has the sandwich team, the team's 2001 wins and post-season success, and the player being compensated for. Dodgers 86 Park Cubs 88 Weathers Indians 91 Juan Gonzalez (lost 1st round playoffs) Braves 88 Karsay (lost 2nd round playoffs) A's 102 Giambi (lost 2nd round playoffs) Cubs (Rondell White) A's Isrinhausen Cub's Van Poppel A's Damon Giambi was clearly more highly rated than Weathers. So the sequence was not based simply on player rating. It appears that for playoff teams, the farther you got the later you drafted. So post-season survival trumps regular-season record. (That's why the INdians, who lost in first round, drafted ahead of the Braves, even though Cleveland had a better regular-season record.) If you didn't make the playoffs, the sequence most likely is based on record rather than player ranking. (The Dodgers had a worse record than Cubs.) I may be misreading this. Or, perhaps the rules have changed. But, it looks to me like the first pick would go to the non-playoff team with the worst record. Regardless of how good the lost FA being compensated for is. If so, unless I'm overlooking some A/B FA from Tampa, Pittsburgh, or KC, the Cubs are the beneficiaries. This could put the Cubs as the first pick of the sandwich round. The prospect of going 4th and 31st, that's pretty appealing. Way to go Pierre! Again, given how long the sandwich round is likely to be, the positioning within that round is pretty important, especially in what projects as a premium draft. Cubs could get somebody very talented at 31.

With Pierre signing and Soriano signed, the Cubs pick up a sandwich and lose their 2nd round pick. Unless I'm mistaken, the only other A player I've heard associated with the Cubs is Jason Schmidt? Or are their other names that are semi-possible? With all A's and B's generating sandwich picks this time, and with their no longer being any draft-pick disincentive from signing B's, I expect that more B's will sign pre-arb day, and that the sandwich round could be very large. The sandwichs may not be done that much sooner than the 2nd round in some years? I'm guessing there could easily be 30 or more; in past there have rarely been more than 15. Question: what determines the sequence of sandwich picks? I don't remember the details, since the last time it mattered was the disastrous Hagerty/Blasko/Clanton year. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm seeming to recall that a) the sequence is based on W-L record of the sandwich-pick teams, rather than by quality of the players compensated for. b) no sandwich pickers get their second sandwich pick until all sandwich pickers get their first. In other words, even though Pierre might not seem a great guy for which to be compensated, I think the Cubs might get one of the first sandwich selections. Will KC or Pittsburgh or Tampa have any comp FA's? I'm not sure they have anybody who's even a B who will get signed. If so, then the Cubs might actually be going 1st in the sandwich round. 31st pick could be really nice. Especially if the pick they lose for Soriano is only in the 60's or 70's, and when other teams getting sandwich picks are going in the 40's and 50's. kc, do you know how it schedules? Am I correct about this?

I'm enthused about the Soriano signing. Although it's less exotic with Hendry and Piniella talking RF rather than center. Still, an extra 40 HR's at leadoff is an extra 40 HR's, and HR's are an efficient way to score. I haven't read the 140 pages on this, maybe only a dozen or so. But it seems the board is mostly negative about the move, and n large part based on money and length. I wonder whether the deal isn't as bad as it appears? I'm guessing there are some options or contingencies involved in the 7th and 8th years. For example, if it's $96/6 with two $20 option years, each with $2 buyout options, that could be agentized as $136/8, but really is more like $96/6. Would that seem high and long? Sure. But that's the way it goes when you want the most coveted FA, even if it's a weak year. I think Soriano is a valuable player. The Cubs lacked HR power last year. Soriano will upgrade in OF, Lee could upgrade 1B, and DeRosa could upgrade the 2B HR output. Soriano's OBP was quite a bit higher than Pierre's this year, and relatively high relative to leadoff men. If (big if) he can sustain that kind of OBP, I think he'll be pretty interesting. If it ends up that the deal is basically $96/6 plus options, I'll consider that a pretty good deal relative to the market. And be pretty pleased that Hendry did it fast. The fast action simplifies his landscape. he knows what to focus on now. And, it jazzes up the public perception. Ten days ago, Schmidt for example might look at Cubs and say "Hmm, 27th place team, not my first choice." Now, if you talk to Schmidt about the Cubs, his impression is probably very different and he might be much more excited about signing here. Fast action also gives Hendry time to focus on his other situations. Do we have a shot at schmidt, or not? Are they in on Igawa, or not? What kind of interest can he find for Jacque? He's had plenty of different ways to fill out his roster. Having gotten ARam back, locking up Soriano, and going with DeRosa (like it or not), he can focus back on who he'll get for CF, wat he can trade Jacque and prospects for, and who will fill the two rotation spots. Still plenty of ways to go. But I suspect lots easier knowing what's up with Aram, Soriano, and DeRosa.

Rapada and Cherry.

mg, I don't follow where you are coming from. Yesterday, I noted that: 1. Rapada and Pigs weren't in the plans for this year. Thus it would be a problem to trade Ohman or Eyre. 2. By adding Cotts, it opened the option to trade Ohman, who has value and might help us get something useful. I thought this was an advantage of the Cotts pickup. Then, you wrote and implied that was dopey because Rapada was obviously ready and Pigs might be soon. So, I responded that Rapada and Pigs are very unlikely to be ready, and that the Cubs certainly don't assume that they are. Prior to adding Cotts, a trade of Ohman would have been a problem and would not have been considered very seriously, since doing so would make Rapada the 2nd lefty and Hendry wouldn't like that. So, I think you and I are in the same place now. Having acquired Cotts, we have three big-league lefties. Hendry can trade one of them, no problem. When we had two, Hendry couldn't trade one of them, it would have been a problem. But I think Rapada is a non-factor in this. He would not have been considered satisfactory as the 2nd lefty. As the 4th lefty, hanging out at Iowa, or in the event of a trade if he becomes the 3rd lefty, again hanging out at Iowa, that's just fine. Hopefully he'll do really well at Iowa. If Ohman does get traded, Rapada will then be an injury away from getting called up. Hopefully he'll rock at Iowa, and when his window of opportunity does open, whenever that might be, he'll be ready.

why not? rapada is obviously ready and even if pignatello starts off the year in iowa, whose to say he wont get a call to the bigs sometime in 07? they also have campusano as a lefty bullpen guy. Why not? Big market teams that are trying to contend don't often plan their team around AA prospects who don't have exceptional arms and who haven't proven themselves in AAA yet. The Cubs are no different, and they most certainly are *not* counting on these guys as being big-league ready. "Rapada is obviously ready..." Obvious to who? His AAA coach said he has potential, but suggested that his location was far from optimal or what it might be future. Perhaps that pitching coach (and now the coordinator of their minor league pitching) can't see the obious, and perhaps having watched him pitch for amonth or two has clouded the obvious. Rapada's WHIP in AAA was 1.8. That's not all that obviously good. It's pretty shaky, in fact. Seems to me the Cubs are not acting any differently from what every org does: for prospects with unexceptional stuff, a guy often needs to produce in AAA for a while before his window of opportunity opens. Might it happen? Sure. But trading Ohman and writing Rapada into the big-league roster, that seems undesirable at this point. Pigs? He pitched all of 6 innings in AAA this year, with a WHIP of 1.4. The year before that, he pitched 47 innings in AAA, with a 5.51 ERA and a WHIP over 1.5. Is there a shot that these guys will be ready, perhaps sometimes this season, perhaps even right from the start? Possible. But assuming as much when they haven't done anything at AAA yet, most teams don't assume that, and I don't blame the Cubs for taking that approach. I do like Rapada quite a bit, and I think his sidearm stuff is unusual enough that it will probably be tough on big-league hitters too... if he can control it. But I think it makes sense to ask him to show he can locate it consistently in AAA for a while before the big shot.

i could also look like z hill meche/iwaga westbrook/lilly miller although he's not a lock to have a great year in the pen, i think it's much more likely that he does as opposed to being an effective starter. I agree with both of these posts. Most likely Cotts is not going to be in the rotation. Hopefully that will be because somebody from the wildcard pool emerges as satisfactory for the #5 spot. Whether that be Prior, or Miller, or Marshall, or Guzman, or whomever. But, I think it would be awfully risky to go into the season with Z+Hill + two other pickups, and assume Prior/Miller/kids can satisfactorily staff the 5th spot. What if nobody does emerge, as is hopefully not probable but certainly possible? Or, what happens the minute Z has a bad back, or Hill or one of the other pickups has an oblique strain or whatever? The miscellaneous pool might need to cover not only #5 but also one of the 1-4 spots for some period of time. Cotts adds some additional option that Aardsma, who is strictly a short/late guy, does not. Again, hopefully there would be no need to even think about it, because not only one but 2 or 3 of the miscellaneous pool are doing well. Plus, the Cubs are sold on having two lefties, and whatever posters might say, Rapada and Pigs are not in the picture for this year. But, Ohman is cheap, interesting, and under club control for years. Some really jazzy peripherals. He's got real trade value, I'd think. Hendry's not dealing him if it leaves him with Pigs as his 2nd lefty. But, now Ohman can be involved in a trade. And I think he could be a significant chip, more so than Aardsma could have been. I'm not suggesting that Ohman is going to get you Jason Jennings or something like that. But Ohman plus some other prospects and maybe you can getg somewhere. I also think having Cotts perceived as a possible depth option might reduce Hendry's urgency to sign an overpriced FA to that role. He might have been so concerned about the wildcard pool that he'd spend zillions not only on Padilla and Lilly but also on Marquis, or something like that. Perhaps acquiring Cotts might eliminate the urgency to pick up that 3rd free agent, and save a bundle of dollars that can be profitably spent elsewhere.

I'm not very enthused about Westbrook. So I can't give the strong endorsement or the real enthusiasm. But, I'd like to have him, because I think he's above average, somewhat, and is likely to remain so. With the Padilla/Lilly/Meche/Marquis FA's the Cubs are talking about, there is less likelihood of being even average. Westbrook has been better than average in two of the last three years, using *ERA+. Dominant, no. But by keeping HR's and walks managable, he's probably a pretty consistent innings eater. I think there is value in that. As a groundball guy, I think the Cub infield would convert some of the hits that get by Peralta etc. in Cleveland into outs. (I expect that Izturis and Lee could both be excellent defensively, and DeRosa OK...). So I think his WHIP would be a little lower. I also think that he could be a non-dominant guy who might win a lot of games if the Cubs do get Soriano and put him in center. I think a Soriano, Murton, Jones, Aram, Lee, Barrett lineup could be quite strong offensively and score a lot of runs. And I think with a little bullpen luck, there's a chance the pen will be pretty good too. (Not certain, obviously...) For a team with a good offense and a good infield defense and a good bullpen, a non-dominant groundball pitcher who doesn't walk a lot and doesn't allow many HR's can throw a lot of forgettable 6IP/3R, 7IP/3R, 6IP/2R type games. Not at all dominant. But the kind of "quality start" that while it excides nobody, enables the team to win pretty often if it has a good offense and a good bullpen.

Thing is, Bruno, since they rushed Dopirak onto the roster last winter (for reasons I didn't understand, since I didn't think anybody would touch him then after the horrible season he had at Daytona...), a team could snag him and would *NOT* need to put him on the 25-manroster. If the Cubs deroster him, anybody can pick him up for their *40 man* roster, not for their *25 man* roster. And just keep him in AA where he belongs anyway. However, if you don't bother to protect Rapada or Fox or one of the new eligibles, then a team *would* need to keep him on 25-man or offer him back. So, all things being equal, if you're going to have somebody available, it's preferable to have it be somebody who they'd need to put on their 25-man. For example, if Fox were 40-man available, I think somebody might take him, and figure that 2-3 years out maybe he'll develop into a passable catcher. But the odds that somebody will be excited enough about him to waste a 25-man spot for a full year for a guy who nobody would want to let catch in a big-league game they wanted to win, and who isn't exactly Mike Piazza offensively, those odds are remotely small.

Rapada, Fox, Pigs, McGehee, Holdzkom, Wells, Cherry, Campy are 8 guys who might perhaps be considered for rostering. Coats, Dopey, Harben, Negron, O'Malley, and Reyes are six who might be candidates for derostering in order to make space. Seems to me any of those six could be exposed without much pain. That's a pool of 14 names total. Not sure which I'd value the most or which I'd mind losing the most. I suppose Dopirak is the biggest name, and would be the name most embarrassing to expose. IN any case, I don't think there's likely to be a lot of pain with whomever is exposed. Or, much likelihood of being taken, whether from the 8 who would need protection or from those six who might possibly be deprotected,

This is jumping into a 2-week old discussion, but I'd never read it then and found it interesting now. The discussion, I think, dealt with Marshall mostly, and Hill. Should he be given a spot? How do you balance some good games versus some not-so-good games? Who fills the "other" spot if we add only one outside starter? My views (obviously!): 1. Hill/Marshall. Yes, I view Hill as a rotation lock. His body of work last season was good enough, and his minor-league stuff has also been excellent. He had some goods and bads, but more goods, and more goods toward the end. So, using "what-have-you-done-for-me-lately", he's definitely in the rotation. What he does there, that's less of a lock. he could be very, very good. I wouldn't be shocked if he pitched a lot of deep games and ended up with an ERA of 3.80 or less. But, I wouldn't be shocked if he mixes some bads with goods next year too, and has some good's that don't end up all that good because of the HR's allowed. I'm pretty optimistic, and think he's a rotation lock to start with, but how good he is, well, he'll have to show that. Every pitcher mixes some good games with some poor games. What ratio he actually shows next year will determine his ERA. 2. marshall: I definitely do *not* think he should be written in as an April rotation lock. His collective season was pretty poor, and as noted he wasnt looking too hot before the injury, so to dismiss it all as injury-related, I don't think that's accurate. His ratio of goods to bads wasn't good enough, last year. But, that doesn't mean it might not be this year, if he improves his curveball and his fastball control. The one stat that really bothered me for Marshall was his horrendous HR-allowed profile. 20HR/125 innings, that's really bad. Especially for a low/modest K-pitcher who's supposed to be a groundball-keep-it-down guy. I think if he could keep the ball down more consistently and keep the ball in the park, his results could improve quite sharply. Do I assume he'll be a lot better? No. But he'd be one of several candidates that I'd have in my "see who looks best" pool. Of Marshall, Marmol, Guzman, and Mateo, I'd probably think Marshall has a better chance of being consistently competent next year than the others. Even if Guzman's and Marmol's upsides are higher. 3. If we add one rotation pitcher: Unless Hendry has gotten way better news on Prior than the scant news reports indicate, I think it is totally implausible that hendry will add only one rotation starter. I think it's a lock that he'll add two, or at least try really hard. I do *not* expect the lesser of those two to be very good. More from somewhere in the Tedd Lilly/Jon Lieber/Miguel Batista/pre-2006-Glendon Rusch pool of candidates. Little chance to be more than average, and real chance to be well below. 4. What I expect: The first three will be Zambrano, pitcher-to-be-acquired, and Hill. The back two will be the mediocre pitcher to be acquired, and whoever wins the open spot from the internal pool. The internal pool for the open spot: Prior, Wade Miller, Marshall, Guzman, Marmol, and Mateo. It's well possible that you won't get one average starter out of the open-spot-pool. But there's at least a reasonable chance that somebody from that pool will emerge. Hard to guess which. Will Prior surprise us and show up healthy? Will Miller show up with and extra 3-4 mph? will Guzman's control be a lot more consistent, and might he show up with either a sinker or a breaking pitcher that he didn't throw with any success last year? Will Marshall be healthy, able to keep the ball down/sinking more consistently, and perhaps have his curveball more consistent for some reason? Will Mateo's slider be a little more effective? Will Marmol have enough more control to put his stuff to good use? None of them is in itself probable, and I can't know now which will turn out if any. But there is a large enough pool of guys who don't need to improve that much to be good, so that I think it's a fair gamble to hope that at least one of them does, enough to cover one rotation spot. If you're lucky, two of them will, and you wouldn't even need the rotation-filler starter. But, I sure wouldn't count on that now. Unless I had a lot more good-news-on-Prior than is available to me now.

Wells makes a lot of sense for the Cubs. He's a really, really good CF both defensively and offensively. The cubs have money and can pay. Wilken drafted wells, loves wells, and he's the best player he's ever drafted, probably. But, the Cubs make no sense to Toronto, I don't think. Toronto has a chance to contend, now, a better chance than we do. They've spent a lot recently. They don't want to trade Wells for minor leaguers , and our pool isn't that great in the first place. Other than relief pitchers and iffy young rotation prospects, what besides minor-leaguers do we have to offer? Barrett? We don't want to trade him. And if Toronto was shopping Wells due to impending free agency, why on earth would they want to take on an impending free agent? It's nice to think we'd like Wells, and we'll make an offer. It's hard to imagine constructing an offer that Toronto would take seriously. I like Wells a lot. He's been consistent around .200 IsoP and .050 IsoD, and has normally been up near 30 HR's. At this point in his career, I'd expect him to be consistently above .800 OPS, I'd probably anticipate .850 being more normal, and figure he's got a chance if he improves or if this past was no fluke to push .900 OPS at times. That's pretty good output for a good-fielding CF. He is now basically what Pie might dream of becoming, although it's doubtful that Pie's HR's will be as high, his K's as modest, or his batting average quite as high. Even if Pie reaches that someday (which I hope), it's going to take quite a while. Most likely even in his prime, Pie won't match Wells's better seasons. I would trade Pie for Wells straight up in a second, even with Wells contract and impending free agency.

I'm not a Hendry apologist by any means. But, I think some of the alleged goals would make a ton of sense. Soriano for CF and Schmidt for rotation as the two big-time signings, and then pursue Kuroda (sp?) as the lesser guy. Soriano in center would elevate the team HR output by about 35 relative to Pierre. Schmidt isn't young, has had injuries, and isn't the superstar he was a few years ago. But he still wasn't much worse than Zambrano last year, and might still be capaable of 3.5-type ERA if things worked. If healthy, Z-Schmidt might provide a very nice 1-2 punch. If things worked out, Hill and Kuroda as 3-4, and then take your chances with Prior/Marshall/Miller/Guzman/Mateo/Marmol at 5. It might turn out bad. But you might easily end up with a really good rotation, and in the odd event that Prior ended up being useful, you might have a super rotation. The other thing I can imagine with a Soriano signing would be that he could play center for a while, but wouldn't need to stay there forever. Unlike Jones or Murton, he has a right-fielder's arm. Play him in center for this year and next, bring up Pie as a 4th outfielder next year, and then if Pie is progressing Pie can move into center between Soriano and Murton, once Jacque is gone. The Schmidt/Soriano/Fukoda plan might easily be a fiasco. Soriano stinks in center, Schmidt has bum arm and is no better than Maddux, etc.. But to me it seems like an ambitious, creative, and potentially hugely effective plan. Hendry is much reviled for last winter too. But I think the original plan, sign Furcal and fix the bullpen, that was a good plan too. And he came very close to landing Furcal. Making Furcal first target made tons of sense. The only problem was that Hendry wasn't able to make it happen. But in terms of a plan, in retrospect I think it was a good one. Soriano/Schmidt/Fukoda is even less likely to be actualized, probably. But I think it's a pretty intriguing plan.

Don't the decent mocks usually include underclassmen who are good enough to compete for 1st round? So that mocks with Sam late 1st or early 2nd are already assuming these guys are in the draft?

I wouldn't be surprised if his baseball situation might not depress his draft position a bit, even if not necessarily his likelihood of getting good money or actually committing to football. But while Hendry was fine with no commitment, I'm not sure how many NFL teams would be as cool with a guy who isn't necessarily totally committed. Or, might not attend some of the many non-mandatory-but-still-expected camps. If I had two kids on my draft board who were pretty close, I might opt for the guy who I knew was going to be committed to football and would be certain to attend every non-mandatory camp that he could in order to prepare himself for rookie season.

Thanks for the notes. Clevenger and McGehee at catcher? That's interesting. Disappointing, in a sense, if it reflects that Clevenger looked bad at 2B. As a college SS, I'd hoped he'd be fine at 2B. I was pretty interested in clevenger as a good-hitting, good-OBP 2B. But if his defense there is poor, real problem. He knows how to hit the ball and he has good plate discipline/OBP potential, even though his power looks negligible. As a catcher, his bat could look pretty good. Very good. So, would be really cool if he could make the switch. Of course, I've thought that about a lot of other prospects, none of whom have ever made the switch successfully. I think McGehee with around 40 games at catcher maybe (??) got more actual game catching action than any other catcher-convert I can remember. Well, I guess there is always a first. Maybe Clev will be that first. Odd that McGehee would be fiddling around at C again, after trying and dropping it before. Wonder if that's at his request or the Cubs? Perhaps he realizes that he's not quite going to make it at 3B, and that if he could make it at catcher, his bat would be good enough for majors? More likely it's an attempt to refresh enough to maybe get a spring training invite. Or to pad the resume. Teams almost never use 3rd catcher/emergency catcher. But managers often like to have them. If McGehee can sell that, it might help break a tie and help him crack a big-league roster some day as some team's 25th man. When sifting between end-of-bench candidates, a manager might well prefer the guy that had the emergency catcher tag.

I just looked around some recently updated mock drafts for 2007, and Samardizja is going between 20 and 30 in the 3-4 I've looked in. No higher than 20, and he's always been in the first round. Of course, that could still change a great deal-and his baseball chances could impact his football stock substantially. He hasn't raised his draft status this year, but he hasn't hurt it significantly either. Thanks, Colt. Given how much easier it is to slip down in the draft then to move up from how high he was projected back in June, that sounds like somewhat bad news for the Cubs that he's still consensus first round.

Re Samardizja, given that the college football season is well along, how does Sam's draft status look? Has he confirmed that he's solid first round stuff? Or has he slipped or been passed by rising speedy underclassmen so that he might slip out of the first round or lower? Or, in simpler terms, has his chance of concentrating on baseball gone up or down or stayed about as fringey as it was?

Low-K is one thing. Fuld, Izturis, Pierre, those are real low-K players, guys who can K at 10% or less. High-K is another. It took a late rush by Patterson to get his K-rate down towards 19%, and for first 1.5 years, he was well over 20%. Something in the 13-15% range, that's more intermediate. If Eric isn't cut out to be able to get his K-rate down towards the 13-15% range, then he's presumably not cut out to be a big-league starter. Because from what I've heard, he's not cut out to be a 20-HR type hitter. If you're whiffing 20% of your AB and HR's only 2% of your AB (per 500 AB, 100 K and 10 HR), you're not going to be much of an offensive value. Then you're looking at maybe a .250-.265 type batting average. Even with a solid IsoD, that's not going to make it happen for him. I don't think it's real complicated. He's gotta either hit a bunch of HR's, get the K's to a reasonable level in or below the mid teens % rather than 20% area, or evolve into a gold-glove type fielder. But I don't think either his defense, his HR power, or his IsoD project to make him a big value if he's hitting .260. Hitting .280-.290 won't be easy unless he either pushes 20 HR's or gets his K-rate down to a manageable level.

Cali, doesn't the Rule 5 clock depend on when you play, rather than when you are drafted? In Fuld's case, he may have been drafted in 2004, but his first season was 2005. Wrigley, in terms of protection, my peferences depend heaviliy on health. Obviously Cherry's status depends on his health, and ditto for Campusano. But I'd rank my first 7 like this: 1. Holdzkom 2. Edward Campusano 3. Rocky Cherry 4. Clay Rapada 5. Jake Fox 6. Randy Wells 7. Billy Petrick Campusano and Cherry, depends heavily on their health status. If both are expected to be 100% in spring and uncompromised by injury, a lefty who throws with Campy's stuff and velocity has a chance to be a solid situational reliever. And a guy who throws as hard as cherry supposedly did, and has some control, those guys have a chance to be big-leaguers. Wells obviously is a finesse guy, not as much arm. If I thought Fox could catch defensively, I'd like him better.

Nice to see Patterson hitting well, and getting some doubles. I've never been on the Eric Patterson bandwagon. At Peoria I thought he struck out too much without enough HR's to sustain his average at higher levels. And in my experience often guys walk less when they are facing better pitchers or are struggling with K's or batting average, so I feared that his walk rate as well as his average would slip. I also feared that his SB--virtue at Peoria would not be sustainable at higher levels. Some of those fears were realized at WTenn: his average slipped as expected, and his K-rate remained high. But late in the season, his K-rate really dropped. And did so without coming at the expense of either walks or power. Now he's sustaining that reduced K-rate thus far in AFL, small sample size and tough-on-breaking-balls as it may be. His walk rate has held up well. His SB-success has actually improved, at least in terms of efficiency. If in fact he's able to sustain a drastically reduced K rate, without in any way compromising his power or BABIP or IsoD in the process, then he's got a chance to be a pretty good offensive player. With a 13% K-rate, 10HR/500 AB, and a .310 BABIP, I'd be looking at a .284/.349-OBP guy. With a .150 IsoP, we're up around .780 in OPS. If he was a good basestealer and went 35SB/13CS, his SB/CS adjusted OPS could be around .800. That could be pretty good for a 2B.