craig

Great. Have there actually been any scouting reports posted on him by people who have seen him this year? You can post one tomorrow! I really don't have a feel for what he is. Is he a big-time arm that doesn't have much breaking ball yet, but if he comes up with one he could be a big-time prospect? Or is this a guy with a decent but nothing-special fastball at present and very little breaking ball? A guy who'll need to come up with a breaking pitch and add 5 mph to become a #2 big-leaguer starter?

Robert Hernandez who pitched for Mesa today is only 17, doesn't turn 18 till October. It's rather rare for the Cubs to put guys on their Mesa team who are in their debut season and who will not turn 18 until after the season. I wonder if he might not ahead of the norm because he looks more promising than most of the Latin pitchers they've signed in recent years? Would be awesome if he's a real prospect.

I like Mark Reed as a prospect. But in terms of hack's question, Reed does not exactly profile as an impact hitter. The current Reed is hitting in the .290's, which seems nice, but that's boosted by a flukishly high .376 BABIP. His 23% K-rate befits a guy with Harvey-like power, not a guy with only 2 HR's and only 11 XBH in 233 AB. His .075 IsoP this year is less than Juan Pierre. I hope he develops well, that in time he looks like a good defensive catcher even relative to big-leaguers. And that his power boosts in time and his K's reduce. Given the very low hitting standards for big-league catchers, it's possible that he'll become an asset starter someday. But if so, that will be as a #7 or #8 hitter, maybe a #2 hitter, not a middle-of-the-order type impact bat. There just aren't that many impact hitters with K/HR ratios of 53/2. And who are low-walk hackers besides. It probably speaks to how poverty-stricken the Cubs are that a guy with a .708-OPS is the "impact hitting prospect" of our low-A. Again, I'm not saying he's not a good prospect. No team has 25 impact players, and good teams benefit a lot from having solid players Of the Peoria guys, Carter seems the guy who could become an impact hitter. He seems to have genuine power, and he has a chance to be patient. His 6HR/26K ratio is six times better than Reed's, and if his BABIP equalled Reed's, he'd be hitting .319. Obviusly his average is low. But his career and season has been so short that the sample size doesn't prove much.

A few of those guys might end up being potential DFEs. Wilken collected a lot of them along the way. Correct. Of the unsigned picks through pick 34, all but one are firm JC/CC commits who will be available for draft-and-follow screening next spring. The only exception through the first 34 picks is Keoni "Babe" Ruth at #17, a college 2B. I think the Cubs have signed him too, actually. There was a story where he is injured, and he was quoted as having the cubs telling him this and that about the rehab process. I got the impression it fit with him having been signed and going into their rehab program, although it's perhaps also possible that they said do this and that and we'll sign you later if you're doing well. I suppose also possible that he failed physical or something like that. But basically through at least the first 34 selections, Wilken didn't take *anybody* who didn't seem signable, either this summer or next spring. Hopefully we'll hit on a good DFE for a change. It's been a while since the Cubs have gotten anybody significant that way.

I'd also like a report, velocity included if possible, on Pina. We know that Pawelek is a wild lefty, we know that Muldowny is efficient but doesn't throw very hard. But Pna has been getting promoted, and has shown improvement early. Does he look like he's got big-league arm, and project to get better? Or just a guy with an ordinary fastball that NWL-hitters just tend to ground out on? Of the hitters, Joseph, Baez, Lansford, and Colvin are the four I'd be interested in hearing about. Joseph has done pretty well; does he look like he's got any promise? Colvin has been awful thus far; does he look that bad at the plate when you see him? Getting killed by breaking balls? Or what? Enjoy the games, and thanks in advance.

I would say the answer is basically no, we don't have any significant position prospects. Pie is likely to have a major league career, very possibly a pretty good one. But he's always been a high-K guy, and other than his brief AA season he's never projected a lot of power, and his base-stealing has struggled enough that it's wishful thinking to project him as a base-stealing difference maker. He's a good fielder, his hitting perhaps projects into a Jacque Jones someday if things go well for him? Fox is a bad fielding catcher, and those aren't too popular in the majors. Had 3 passed balls the other day! Barrett is considered a weak receiver, andhe averages what, about 8-10 passed balls a year? And following his promotion, Fox hasn't hit much either. Chance, yes. Probability to ever be an asset starting catcher, not more than 20% IMO. Eric Patterson is a high-K guy with little power. He's got a chance to play in the majors in some capacity, but again his probability of become an every-day 2B who's better than average is probably small, I'd guess 20% at best. I'd probably give Moore maybe a 5% chance of becoming an asset starter? Dopirak was horrendous at Daytona last year, with a .670 OPS (without factoring in the impact of his 20+ DP's-hit-into, plus his bad defense and baserunning). He's been even worse this year, with an empty .567 OPS, although of course he'll get a pass because he had an injury. But I think it's very, very unlikely that he'll ever translate his BP power into big-league game AB's. Daytona doesn't have any players. Probably the best probability for any of Daytona's players to become a decent big-league starter is Ryan Harvey.... as a pitcher. And given that he's never pitched a professional strike, that probably speaks to what an empty scene Daytona is for position players. Peoria, the players there are young enough so that it's harder to write them off. Reed and Yusuf Carter appear to be the two best prospects there. Boise doesn't really have anybody except Colvin, who's off to a horrible start. Mesa has no position prospects at all, yet. Obviously they are prospects, and things can change. Perhaps some long-shot will emerge as a real player. But it looks to me like this may be the worst collection of position prospects that the Cub farms have ever had during my 25 years of closely following the Cub farms. Hopefully Pie will figure something out in time and become a good player.

That would be great if he's good and the Cubs signed him. I always liked Tony Pena himself, I lived in Pittsburgh for a while when Pena was good. Catchers are a rare commodity. Given the Fox seems to be pretty bad defensively, Reed would appear to be the only guy in the system with a chance. And his arm/defense has had it's own questions, plus no power and an awful lot of K's for a no-power dude, it would be great if he turned into a good-fielding jason Kendall, but the odds that he'll ever be an asset starting catcher aren't real great. Go get Pena.

He's got talent but he's still also rather raw. I think that he's at Boise because any changes in his swing will be easier to implement there against lower talent than at say Peoria or Daytona. He'll probably have good production while there but I don't think we'll see any sort of vast improvement until the offseason where he can start working more seriously on changing his swing mechanics. This all may be true and good. Still, it seems rather odd to spend a high pick on a guy who lacks RF arm, CF speed, HR power, and plate patience, but who is drafted because he has a nice swing. If in fact his nice swing isn't actually very nice and needs to be reconstructed. If a guy's swing needs to be reconstructed anyway, then what was it that you draft him that high for? Hopefully you'll be right, they'll tune up his swing and he'll be a genuine hitter next year, or perhaps later this very summer. Still, not a very encouraging way to get going.

I believe I read somewhere, (no clue where), that Latin kids are not allowed in states for first year, have to spend their first season in one of the Latin summer leagues. I'd like to have the Cubs spend more on some Latin guys. The Latin pipeline has been totally try in recent years, really since Pie. It's a major reason why the cub farm system has been in freefall relative to the competition.

I don't think they have any intention of getting back into the Venezuelan league. I think they've said they like having all their Latin guys working together at one complex. And given that even by combining both their Dominican and Venezuelan guys, they still finish last in their Dominican league every year, if they don't have enough to compete with one team, splitting over two teams would just make them lose even more, I'd assume. Question: how did you get that Elvis Lara is a 2B? I haven't found out how to figure who's playing where. IN the Cubs Media Guide, they list him merely as an infielder. But since he lists at 6'5", 230 pounds, I'd assumed he was a 1B, with at best an outside shot to play 3rd. I can't really imagine a 6'5", 230-pound 19-year-old second baseman.... Still, a 6'5" 230-pounder with only 4 K's in 80 AB, there's a chance you might have a guy with the size for power but the contact skills for game-time power.

http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/pro_baseball/article/0,2820,TCP_24442_4815139,00.html I know this is the wrong topic, but I thought I'd post it on this board too because it is so surprising and significant. Huseby signs; you won't believe for how much. Wow wow wow wow.

http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/pro_baseball/article/0,2820,TCP_24442_4815139,00.html Stunning news, good news. Huseby signs. You won't believe for how much. Wow wow wow wow.

Probably the wrong thread, but I've been on vacation and out of the loop for a bit. But have any of the Prior or Lee or other promotions had any 40-man impact? Was Prior on the 60-day DL, or am I wrong about that? If so, who got bumped when he got called up? It was Rusch for the 25-man roster, I guess, but that wouldn't help with the 40-man. Or am I all crazy, and Prior was never on the 60-day, nor Lee either? If somebody needed bumping, I'd figure Jose "I'm-even-a-long-shot-to-blossom-into-Paul-Bako-hitter" Reyes would be the best candidate, although Jerome Williams or Theriot could be fair alternates as well. If Miller eventually does come back, that too will need to bump one of those guys, or maybe Dopirak could be another candidate.

I found three things noteworthy or surprising in that analysis. 1) That his DIPS was so as significantly worse than his ERA as it was. I'm not a DIPS Saber guy, so don't know the ins and outs. Obviously it's been a surprise all along that his ERA was so low given how pedestrian his WHIP has been. (Although perhaps not, given how groundball oriented he's been, thus few HR's and not too many XBH.) 2) That his DIPS is not more exceptional relative to his league or his age. 3.04 is obviously good, but when the league is 3.71 and other 20-year-olds are 3.5 or whatever, it's not as statistically superior as I'd expected. 3) What was really interesting to me was the pitch sequence data. Particularly the T/S rate. A guy who has hitters swinging at an unusually high percentage of his pitches, that's really nice to see. That would seem to be the sign of a guy who is keeping the ball around the plate, and might eventually be a low pitch-count guy. Combined with a significantly low contact percentage and the significantly high outside-the-zone swinging, that's really a nice collection of stats. Perhaps a guy who'se throwing strikes enough so that guys figure they may as well swing; perhaps a guy who has enough movement and deception so that hitters can't read where the pitch will end up. That's a very, very promising combination of numbers in that section. Perhaps a guy who can give or take a little bit in movement or speed, so that hitters think they recognize what's coming and commit the swing, but the real thing is mph-ing or curving or cutting or sliding a little bit differently from what they expected, enough to make it hard to make hard contact? We'll see how AA goes along.

Those were some nice recaps of the info available about these guys. I hadn't gotten much/any details on Camp or Huseby before. The reviews are naturally rather negative as regards Colvin, Lansford, and Clevenger, all of whom profile as guys who'll need to hit, since they don't have signature power/speed/arm to make it as a batless Bynum type. Question: I've seen several allusions to Clevenger playing 3B. Not fast/rangy enough for SS probably, but then the HR-limitations seem a concern at 3rd. As a hitter, he'd seem to profile a lot better at 2nd, and obviously the defensive norms at 2nd are not so high as at SS. Is it possible that the Cubs see him as having enough range/defense to make it at 2nd? And when they are drafting him, it isn't with the question being: can he hit with enough power to play 3rd, or can he still defend SS? But perhaps the hinge question is: Can he handle 2B? Not sure, but good enough chance, and if the answer is yes we've got a pretty nice value? Anyway, as to the hitting thing: I think in past the cubs have tended toward standout-tool guys, and hope they learn how to hit. Some of these players seem more like no-standout-tool, drafted because they look like they'll hit for average, but if they don't stick a fork in. I'm not sure that's so bad, especiallyin 6th/7th rounds. In part because I think game power, average, and eye are all connected. In particular, BP power doesn't hit many game HR's unless you can hit the ball on the nose. In my view, the majority of decent power-producers are hitters first. Clevenger I've got my doubts. But Lansford, I'd think that if he really does turn out to be a true-blue hitter, if he's hitting the ball on the nose all the time and has the balance/stroke to cover the whole strike zone etc., I'd guess that in time some HR's will come with the package. If he isn't that good a hitter to start with, probably HR's won't be there either. But if he turns out to be the kind of guy who could hit .280+ in the majors, my guess is that some of those on-the-nose contacts will go over the wall, and I'd guess he could have 15+ HR power. Not to belabor, but it isn't Sing or Harvey or Aram leading the organization in HR's, even though they have way, way more power. It's Jake Fox, who's hitting the ball on the nose pretty often. And some of them go out.

...I wonder if the Cubs woul offer arbitration to any of these players. The only one I would is to Todd Walker, and Cubs management can't stand him and might not do it.... Agree. I don't think the Cubs will offer arb to anybody. They've got money to keep anybody they want to keep. Anybody who isn't good enough for the lousy Cubs to want to keep isn't going to be a high-market free agent to whom you can safely offer arbitration to. I expect we'll be short picks again, as usual.

Any guesses how this will impact the A rotations? Promote one of Atkins or Veal? Whether Gallagher gets replaced by a Peoria rotation or not, will the new rotation pitcher added to one of the two teams be from the roster fill ranks (Billek or Weber or Estrada or some low-level guy like that?) From the young prospect ranks? (Pawelek could theoretically get promoted to Peoria to replace Atkins or Veal, although I know Fleita has said he planned Pawelek for Boise...). Or from the rehab ranks? (Dave Cash? Petrick? Blasko? Another shot for Hagerty? That ex-Phillies guy who was effective last year?...)

Negron is LH, turns 24 later this summer, has now lifted his season average up to .270, his OBP is up in the .320's, and I think his OPS is now bumped up over .700. Still pretty mediocre, but you never know.

Somebody (Texas?) noted that the pitchers drafted didn't seem as tall under the Wilken regime as in previous years. I went through and did a quick check on the 22 RHP's that I counted that we drafted (I did this fast, so may have miscounted somewhere...): >6'5" (tallest being 6'9"): five guys. Including the 1st college pitcher (Sam) and the 1st HS pitcher taken (Huseby, round 11; he was the 4th pitcher taken overall). 6'4"-6'5" four guys 6'3" four guys 6'2" four guys 6'1" five guy So 6'3" is about the median, with 8 selections at least 6'4" or taller, and the. Six picks that were 6'5" or taller. Last year, there were only two who were 6'5" or taller. In 2004 draft, there were 10 who were 6'5" or taller. I'm not sure any of this means anything! Just a little interesting, I thought.

This is what Randy himself says, in the Randy Wells journal thread on the top of the page: "I usually sit at 88 to 92, somewhere in that range. I throw a slider and a changeup. My changeup is my second-best pitch. I use it a lot more than the slider. I use the slider in fastball counts along with the changeup, the slider to put away righties and backdoor to lefties. I use my changeup any time and in any count when things are going good."

Clemson, thanks for your input. I think you make a good point that Colvin seems a tweener. Greene turned 23 four months after the draft. Colvin will still be 20 till this August. He's the age where many draftees are coming out of junior college, and where many college prospects are sophomores rather than juniors and seniors. Physically your comments ring with Wilken's, that Colvin still has perhaps significant physical projection ahead, which we routinely assume for HS drafts but not for college drafts. And obviously it's not only his physique that hs room for maturing, clearly his game is nowhere close to optimized yet and has lots of room for projecting maturation and improvement. When you draft a college hitter, I sometimes figure that what you see is what you get. But Colvin would seem a tweener where Wilken is still projecting a lot more than what's been seen thus far. As with all projection picks, we'll see whether much of that projected improvement ever occurs or not. And how much, and how fast.

I'm no scout, so I have no idea where he should really have been picked. He seems like a reach for me, given that: a) I doubt he'll end up with the speed/arm to play center, b) he shows signs that he might be a low-walk hacker, and c) he doesn't seem to project a lot of power. But if he ends up being a pure hitter, he sounds strong enough and projectible enough to hit 20-25 Hr's down the road. So if he hits .285 and 20-25 HR's while playing a good left field, that will be a draft steal, even if not a HOF MVP type. But I have no idea where he should have gone. I think the 140th pick stuff is based on a dated BA evaluation, and that after his red-hot May the Cubs weren't the only club to rate him much, much higher than that. BA talks to a few scouts, and scouts have their own opinions. Once a guy is on BA's list as a super-buzz prospect, I think they talk to a wider pool of sources and get more opinions. My guess is that for a guy like Colvin who didn't enter the year as a super-buzz guy, that BA probably had a hundred other guys that they were much more interested in asking sources about. And if none of the couple of guys they talked to early on were talking 1st/2nd round, then probably they didn't pursue asking other people their opinion, they perhaps assumed there was consensus that he wasn't a real high-round guy. Some of the post-draft BA comments have been interesting: "We were a little slow to react on him in our lists unfortunately." John Manual, night after day one. Seemed to admit that their ranking was in error. http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/askba/261494.html Callis draft stuff, including a lengthy response regarding Colvin to a friend of mine's question. Callis continues to personally believe that Colvin was a questionable and unwise choice, assuming that he was not sub-slot driven and taken so as to save cash for Sam. But he does say that another scouting source just told him he thought it was "an astute pick", tht several teams had Colvin as the highest college outfielder on their boards at the time that the Cubs picked (once their top guy Drew Stubbs was already taken); and that several other teams were considering him for selection late in the first round. Seemed pretty obvious that while he may or may not have gone in the 1st, that he certainly wasn't going to get through the 2nd. Which would make him no worse than top 70. Again, I'm not saying he was a good pick. Seems to have a limited ceiling while still having apretty low floor. Lots lot of bust-potential: he could easily end up being a guy who is LF/1B only, with no walks, no HR's, and no SB. He doesn't project to steal 50 bases or be Ricky Henderson leadoff, or Gold Glove CF, or Barry Bonds power, or a Brian Giles OBP machine, or any of that stuff. All I'm saying is that I don't know enough to accurately judge whether or not he was a reasonable pick, and I doubt you do either, or Jim Callis for that matter. But BA's recent stuff makes it pretty clear that there were a number of other clubs that saw him at least in the top-70 pool and a number in the top 40-range.

I am always interested in splits for LHP especially. Any LHP who fails to impress enough to get or keep a rotation spot automatically drops down to candidacy as lefty reliever. But any manager who has been or will be hired by Hendry is going to use a lefty reliever especially versus LH hitters. If a guy isn't very good against lefties, then he's going to fail as a lefty reliever. That means he either better be great enough to be valuable as a rotation starter, or else he's not going to be valuable at all.

Odds/Ends: *Thanks for the link to the Notre Dame/Sam inerviews. The coach also makes the claim that he hit 99 and was regularly at 93-94. That's a good arm. Interesting that they discuss this curve/splitter switch to slider/change, in such positive terms. Even though his season stats were worse. Obviously a long-term investment. The comment that he's comparable/better than Lidge and Heilman, that's very strong. Of course, this guy is obviously a gusher supreme, makes Hendry and Fleita look like understaters. *I got the impression from Sam's comments that while his college life has been football first (he was signed and recruited as a football player), I almost got the impression that he saw his pro career as more baseball first. He insisted on finishing the NOtre Dame career, but there were comments from everybody about being focusedn baseball,the advantage of not running off to spring football, etc. etc.. It may be that he will be a premier NFL draft choice, and that's he and coach are totally clueless about how much summer time NFL might demand. Or that he perhaps didn't intend to do football first next summer. That's the spin the coach had; go to combines, see what NFL draft did, but really go baseball from March on. I got a much better feeling about his seriousness about baseball and his likelihood of choosing baseball after reading that. *Sounds like he definitely intends to sign. The issue is not whether he will sign, I don't think; it's whether he'll ever focus and whether the Cubs will ever get any value out of him. *He talks about big games etc.. There are no big games in Boise, or Peoria, or Daytona, or WTenn. It may well be that after spending some time riding Boise buses, playing to small crowds, having another 15-hour busride, etc., that baseball will seem way too low-thrill to keep his attention? *Thanks for some of the input on what his NFL status is. His baseball commitments may not help his football draft either, by the way. If he's head and shoulder BPA, somebody will take him. But if he ends up in the bigger pool where teams see comparable prospects, any time they are choosing between Sam and some other comparable prospect, Sam's baseball distraction might cause them to choose the other guy. This could happen over and over and over, especially if he isn't viewed as elite. But time will tell how elite he looks once the fall season is in. *Jon, I don't see the link between Sam and Colvin. I predict that Colvin will sign for close to slot money. I don't recall a lot of big-talent-big-ticket bonus demand guys there. Maybe Drabek or somebody was, but I was under the impression that most of the guys BA was discussing would have been happy to go that high and sign for slot money. And even if there were a few that would have demanded superslot, I think there was a plenty big pool of guys who would have signed for slot, guys who BA had ranked higher and who would not have drawn all the aghast that Colvin has. Bottom line, I think Wilken probably picked Colvin over the other slot-signables because he thought he was the best prospect. He may be crazy, and as I said there may have been a couple of guys who removed themselves from consideration with outrageous superslot demands; but I think Wilken mostly made the pick based on his baseball/scouting judgement. Like I say, there is good reason to question that, but time will tell. I just don't see that selection being premised on drafting Sam in the 5th. For all he knew the Sox or Tigers or Yankees might draft Sam in the 2nd or 3rd or 4th, and he'd never even get the chance. I don't see Sam comanding all that much guaranteed or up-front money that they couldn't also pay at least full slot or more at #13. In 02, that they intended to pay 1st-round for Blasko and Hagerty and full slot to Clanton, Jones, Dopirak, Craig, Petrick, and Hill didn't cause them to overdraft rather than pay slot or superslot on Brownlie.... I think they had plenty of resouces to draft what they viewed as the BPA at #13 plus draft and sign Sam. Again, Cub judgments routinely prove faulty and time may well show that Wilken will be very wrong on Colvin. But I think it was a scouting decision, not a Sam-induced financial decision.

Well, I don't know.... Two of the first four pitchers taken were 6'6" or taller. (Sam. and Huseby...)