craig

K's are outs. Outs are bad. Eric makes too many outs in the minors for a guy without plus power or gold-glove defense. That's why I don't think he's a plus prospect. He's a prospect; there's a chance something could change so that he's not such an outmaker. But unless something unusual does change, guys who are outmakers at age 23 in AA usually are outmakers in the major leagues. Eric does not project to be one of them. A guy who projects an 0.060-type IsoD, that's not going to make it. If his IsoD is .360, then he could live on walks alone. But with an IsoD of 0.060 (his current approximate and my projection for him at the big-league level), he'll still need to come up with another .280-.300 to be a solid/asset starter. Walks are not the only way to get on base. Hits also matter. Eric isn't getting enough of them. His BABIP is .320, which is relatively high; there is no reason to think it's been a matter of bad luck that he's gotten so few hits. To become a useful major leaguer, he'll need to reach base more often and make outs less consistently. Either he'll need to take more walks, or he'll need to get more hits. Status quo = limited future. IsoD is important, it's huge. But it's not the only factor for offense! The ability to get hits is important. And it's not pure random luck who gets more hits. Agree. Eric has a semblance of a clue at the plate. If he fails, it's not for lack of a clue. However, even with the clue he has, he's still an outmaker in AA. Again, IsoD is important. But IsoD isn't the only predictor of future success or of future improvement. If it was, Brandon Sing would have wonderfully replaced DL'd Lee. Jon Mark Sprowl would be a big-league all-star. Matt Mauch would have never failed and gone to college football. Nomar Garciapara would be a career minor-leaguer. Hinske would be more than a fringe guy. Bellhorn would be able to count his organizations on one hand. Having plate discipline is not sufficient; you need to be able to hit the strikes that you recognize. Nomar does, Sing and Mauck and Sprowl can't. I don't think batting average is all that unpredictable. For the reasons you detail following. It seems to me that different players show BABIP patterns. And that when they deviate from reasonable, I expect them in future to move back toward the normal. The year before the Cubs got Barrett, he had a BABIP of like .202. Duh, that's anomolous. So I expected that his average would rise once his BABIP did. Bingo! Early this year when Reed had a .480 BABIP, duh, that's anomolous. Guess what? It returned toward normal, and his composite batting average reflects that. Last year, Eric had an exceptionally high BABIP, so I anticipated that would drop a lot this year and it has. Right now his BABIP is like .320, which if pretty good, and is probably more or less what one should expect for a hitter like him. So I think his batting average is right about where it belongs. This is why I think it's problematic to project his outmaking to decrease a lot, if his peripherals don't change much. .320 BABIP is already quite high; you may find BA hard to predict. But I feel pretty comfortable predicting that Eric's BABIP next season will not exceed .350. And I certainly feel comfortable predicting that over the remainder of his professinal career, that Eric will not be able to sustain a .350 BABIP. You can probably count on two hands the guys in history of the game who have done that for over 500 AB's... This goes right to my point. You should not expect a guy to live on an extraordinary BABIP. If you are projecting Eric to be a success, but to do so will require a .350 BABIP, then you are almost certain to be disappointed. What we need to do is to assume a reasonable BABIP. Can a guy be a useful offensive contributor with a plausible BABIP? If Harvey needs to hit .400 BABIP to be useful, forget it. If Eric needs a .350 BABIP, you'll be disappointed. If a .280 BABIP is good enough, then feel very confident. In my mind, I figure that it's reasonable to project/hope that a good hitter will be able to BABIP in the .300-.330 range, depending on speed and power and line-drive aptitude, etc. And that's relatively optimistic, since the league norms, as youve noted, are in the .280's. A second note: their are career, characteristic BABIP levels for hitters. It's not true that all hitters come back to the same tight BABIP-against norm that pitchers do. If a pitcher has a season with a .260 BABIP-against, extremely low, there is no reason to expect his BABIP-against to remain exceptional in future years. But there are many hitters who repeatedly, predictably have low BABIP's, and many hitters who repeatedly, predictably have high BABIP's. The range in hitter BABIP's is way, way higher than for pitcher BABIP=against. I agree that his plate disciplne is fine. But a 0.060 OBP won't suffice. He'll need to get some hits besides to support a .330+ OBP. And in order to get enough hits for a 0.060 IsoD/.330+ OBP, he'll need to BABIP at .330+. That is an unrealistic expectation, even if does have good pich recognition and a good line-drive swing. Less than 0.5% of the hitters in baseball history have sustained a .330+ BABIP over their careers. It's unlikely that Eric will join them. Essentially, I see your argument being that since he hits line drives and has good pitch recognition, that you expect him to support a .330+ BABIP. I think that's unlikely. The above "expectation"/"requirement" is predicated on him sustaining his current K/HR BABNIP. If his K/HR profile improves, that relaxes the BABIP expectations. Which is why I'd like his HR/K numbers to improve, even a little bit. Such that a .320 or .315 BABIP (which would not require him to be a HOF-caliber hitter) could support a good career. That wouldn't necessarily need to be a large change. Add an extra 5 HR's (to the benefit of OBP), turn 10 K's into batted balls (3 of which might drop in for hits), and now you no longer need such an extraordinary BABIP to support a .330-.345 OBP. Summary: To project a guy, decide what a plausible BABIP might be for the player to figure how many hits and outs he'll likely make on balls in play. Consider how many non-batted outs he'll make via K. Consider how many non-catchable hits he'll get via HR. Sum the hits via HR + the reasonably likely hits on balls in play, divide by the total number of AB's, and you come up with a reasonable batting average projection. Add the reasonable IsoD and you have a reasonable OBP projection. IT'S EASY!!

I disagree, on several points. 1. Eric is 23 and short. How likely is it that he's going to "fill out" and become a power hitter? It's not like Rundle or Colvin or something. And I'm a believer that scouting helps to picture a guy. No scouts have talked up or projected much increase in power for Eric. 2. There are twenty 75%/40SB guys in AA for every one in the majors. Catchers are better. Guys do get a little heavier and slow down. (In fact, filling out for power and staying fast for SB are routinely contradictory.) Guys who batted leadoff in minors often bat 7th or 8th in majors where they don't run as much. 3. OK, the main point is the K's. K's are not meaningless. They are, as you stated, another out. Outs are bad for OBP and for batting average, which is the primary component of OBP. Lets assume that Eric is able to sustain a 0.060 IsoD, which is about in line with present. (Most guys IsoD's drop in majors versus AA, but lets assume he can hold that.) If he bats .300, he's an elite .360 OBP guy, a premium leadoff, might make Furcal money. If he bats .280, at .340 OBP with decent speed/defense/power he's a nice, solid starting 2B. Might bat 2nd, or 7th, maybe even leadoff on some teams. Good support player. If he hits .260, a .320 OBP makes him a sub, or an AAAA guy, or at best a liability starter. BA depends on BABIP (hits and outs in play) and BABNIP (batting average on balls not in play), which consists of K's and HR's. Eric's BABNIP is currently sub-.100, so his composite BA is much depressed from his BABIP. Supose he improves his BABNIP to .100, and it comprises 20% of his AB. With a very good BABIP of .310, he's still only a .260 hitter (this year's situation). If he htis a knockout .330 BABIP, then he'd hit .280, a decent starter. To be a premium .300/.360OBP guy, he'll need to hit a HOF-ish .350 BABIP. (A coupple of players in history have sustained that, but not many). So, seems to me having such a bad BABNIP is a real problem for him. There are two ways to solve the BABNIP problem. K less, or HR more, or both! A lot of good hitter have plenty of K's. That's not a problem... when the guy hits HR's. Take a dude like Harvey. If he K's 160 times, that's not necessarily a problem.... if he hits 40 HR's. Then his BABNIP would be .200. If his BABIP is .310, his composite average could be .273, which wouldn't be bad for a top-fielding 40-HR hitter. (Especially if he had a decent IsoD, which of course isn't going to happen). But if you K 160 times and HR only 10 times, then a .310 BABIP gets you only to .238. So, I think Eric's K-rate is not a problem, if either you can count on him BABIPing in the .330-.350 range (good luck) or if he can hit 15-25 HR's (not likely, IMO). .But if he can't BABIP that high or HR that often, he's either not a very good prospect, or else he should reduce his K-rate. A lousy BABNIP doesn't depress the composite average as much if you are BABNIP'ing 10% of your AB rather than 20%, for example. (That's why Pierre can sustain a decent average despite a lousy BABNIP; the BABNIP volume is just too small). One other personal view on K's: I don't mind K's at the big-league level, if the guy has already shown he has enoughproduction during his non-K AB's. If his average and power and OBP are fine with the K's included, then the guy is fine. But, more minor leaguers, I feel differently. I think K's routinely get worse in majors versus minors. And that high K-rates are a scouting red-flag, for holes in the swing (in the strike zone) or bad pitch recognition (swinging at bad balls). Those holes are worse exposed by big-league pitchers. I think you are looking at line-drive percentage to get a read on quality of swing; I think high K's is also an indicator of swing quality, and a negative one. So, I think Eric's K's in the absence of HR power are a serious BA/OBP-depresser, plus a scouting red flag for his ability to handle even better pitching.

*Harvey: Long shot. Very rare for a guy with such extreme K/BB problems to ever solve that. Usually is a manifestation of some fundamental, uncorrectable problem. Very unlikely that he ever turns the corner and becomes good. Still, recent hitting is refreshing, and very rare things sometimes happen. (Rich Hill, Sammy sosa, and Ronny Cedeno are all Cub cases of very rare career profiles.) Harvey has shown enough recently that I'll at least keep my eye on him for a while longer. He missed some games to injury (back, I think), that's why his AB aren't higher. I suppose it's also possible that they justtook hiim out for a while to try to clear his slump, or to make some changes in his swing, I don't know. *Patterson: Unlikely to see him before 2008, if ever. He wouldn't need Rule 5 protection until *after* next year, so bringing him up next year would start him early and would unnecessarily require a 40-man spot. I see Patterson as a prospect, but pretty much an average one. If he improves, he's got a chance to be a major-leaguer, perhaps even a low-level support starter. If he doesn't improve a lot, he can be a career minor leaguer or a fringe guy. Time will tell. Not much power, defense doesn't project much better than big-league average, so to make it he needs to make it as an OBP guy. That's going to be tough without a higher batting average, and for that to happen, either he'll need to hit a lot more HR's (doubtful) or cut back on his K's a lot (difficult to do without also compromising your walks), and elevate his BABIP. Possible, so he's a prospect; but improbable. He has made some progress in reducing the K's. His 19% is still rotten for a table-setter, but it's not as bad as it was. *Fox: His hitting looks great. But he's not much of a prospect because he's a DH masquerading as a catcher. Barrett is viewed as a lousy receiver, and he averges about 9 passed balls per *season*. Fox has gotten that many in 30 games at WTenn! (Or maybe less, if he's actually DH'd or pinch hit in some of his games...). Hard to take him very seriously without a big-league position.

heh heh, Hendry is actually a huge moneyball philosopher! If kc is correct, then by not pursuing overvalued OBP and by instead pursuing undervalued speed, defense, and young pitching, Hendry is being super smart! Whaddya think? Rather than being way behind the game, clever hendry is really way ahead of the game?

I am too poor to pay for any of the dollar stuff, so I'm not up on everything. But I found this statement surprising. I haven't tracked WARP, but I have tracked VORP for a while. And I see VORP giving a different picture. VORP consistently has the high end weighted by position players. of the top 20 or so VORP guys per year, typically a shade under 40% are pitchers.. I did a check for guys with VORP's over 60 in the 2000's (player:pitcher): 2005: 13:8 2004 17:8 2003 13:9 2002 18:9 2001 24:10 2000 26:8 For this year, VORP over 50: 11:3 For the real high-end VORP's: This millenium, Pedro (116.7, 2000) and Randy Johnson (90.8, 2001) are the only pitchers to VORP over 90. Over that same span, 17 hitter seasons have. Over the last four years, the average high for a pitcher has been 83; for a hitter 94. So, again, at the very top end, VORP favors hitters. In terms of winning during the season. Your point that a top pitcher is more useful during the playoffs than during the season is well taken. One other VORP observation in skimming these seasons. I observe much consistency in the players who are annual VORP studs han with pitchers. Pujols, Bonds, Giles, ARod, Manny Ramirez, during the early 2000's Sammy.... there is a lot of repetition. In the pitchers, there are also regulars. But there are a lot who pop in, than fall off the earth. Chan Park, Joe Mays, Esteban Loiza (he was the leader one year!), Mark Prior, Livan Hernandez. Again, it's the injury thing, I think. Again, this is why I think that if you draft a hitter who VORP's at 65 at age 24, he'll likely be a big VORP asset when he's 27, 31, and 33. Whereas if you draft a pitcher who flashes a 65 VORP at age 24, the odds that he's still a VORP ace at 27 is modest, and very small that he'll still be a VORP ace at 31 and 33. I think your point is also well taken that pitching is a flexible commodity. There is *always* market for pitching. The cost for pitching is always excessive. If you somewhat accumulate a surplus of pitching, you can always trade it. I'm not sure that premium players are traded anymore often than are premium pitchers, and on both sides it's mostly money. Marlins won 1st with all outside pitchers picked up. marlins won 2nd with Willis, Pavano, Redmon all outside guys, only Beckett drafted. Braves had Smoltz and maddux as outside pickups. Twins Viola and Blyleven, outside. Buehrle was the only system Sox guy, I think. If anything, I think that pitchers are so much more unpredictable that they are easier to pick up. Phillies picked up schiling on his 3rd or 4th org. Randy Johnson moved teams. Pedro got traded. Dontrelle got traded. Cris Carpenter comes off the scrap pile. etc.. But since everybody uses so many pitchers, if you have them to spare, you can find a buyer. If you have a surplus 1B, there may be only one or three teams with an appetite. How many teams need a 3B at any point in time? Since each team needs only one, the market is normally small. Pitchers, always a broad market. That said, MacP has often espoused your theory: go after pitchers, get surplus, trade for players. I would suggest that in the Cub case, it hasn't really functioned. Pierre is the only real player that they've acquired for value pitching. Aram, Bobby Hill was the key prospect. Lee, Choi. Only the pierre pickup has come at the price of young pitching. Sure, we've traded pitching (Dontrelle) for pitching (Clement, Alf), or Garland for Karchner. I'm not saying it can't or shouldn't work. Just that it hasn't. Because pitching prospects are so fragile! If Brownlie and Sisco and hagerty and Clanton and Petrick and Blasko and Johnson and Ryu and Krawiec and Jones had all stayed healthy, we'd have had enough surplus of pitching so that we could trade for guys who profiled better than Burnitz or Hollandsworth or Hairston or Jones. But we didn't. Instead we've still been pitching short, and have chosen to go outside for Dempster, Howry, Eyre, Maddux, Estes, hawkins, and Remlinger. I'm not saying the Cubs won't or shouldn't take Price. Only that if they do, the odds that he'll probably deteriorate sooner or later, and probably not all that many years later. But, it's a matter of what alternatives there are. A HS hitter brings tons of concerns, too, especially in the Cub system. Obviously if Price or some other fragile pitcher looks great, the only way they'll choose a player is if he too looks great. If the premise is that a hitter will bust (cubs wills crew him up or mis-scout him) while the pitcher will be an immediate stud, well, OK! Not much to discuss there. But if there is a top-flight player, who you scout smart and who ends up being a top-flight player, that would pay huge dividends for the Cubs. Probably longer than a smart-scouted top-flight pitcher. But it may be that it just isn't possible to have the same scouting confidence about a hitter that you do for the pitcher. In which case I can well understand the logic in taking the can't-miss pitcher, and ride him for however long his stuff stays exceptional. I'm just saying that if undesirably you are unable to draft Price, and instead are forced to take a super talented but not-quite-so-certain player, and ***IF**** he turns out to be a top-flight guy, then in the long run you probably won't regret it.

By the way, I'm not saying it's just luck, or that it's not worth getting excited about certain players or getting one's heart set on one or another. It's fun. And there is a lot of good analysis that can and must enter in. I do admit (despite my denials that I was arguing against drafting a premium pitcher) that normally, the odds of hitting on a good player with a top-five pick are better than the odds of hitting on a good pitcher who stays good for very long. And that the odds of getting a good guy who is still good 5+ years out is definitely higher with player than pitcher. I also admit that I hope that, when it comes down to cases, the best player available is a position player. I'd prefer that, because if a player scouts well enough to be viewed as BPA at #3 or #4 in a strong, deep draft, that player will be a big talent. If it's a pick that works, he could pay off for 10+ years. Heh, it would also be my preference that the BPA player would have already proved himself in college, with not a flaw in sight. But I also realize full well that every year is different. The best player may not be nearly as attractive as the best pitcher. And if the pitcher is good enough, I'll be plenty excited and hopeful. [/img]

I knew it would sound like that, but that isn't what I meant to say. My argument is that pitchers' stuff usually deteriorates. Whether that's reason to not draft them is a separate question. It's a consideration that impacts risk; hitters have their own considerations that impact their risks. What I *am* saying is that the majority of high-pick pitchers have their stuff deteriorate, substantially, within a limited number of years. Many before they ever achieve any big-league success, many more within a few years in the majors. When you draft a pitcher with exceptional stuff really high, the odds are small that he'll be able to sustain the exceptional stuff over an extended number of years. That's just the way it is with pitchers. If you get it right with both a hitter and a pitcher, I think it's much more common for the player to be able to sustain success over an extended period than for the pitcher. You may scout smart and strike gold with your pitcher, as the Cubs did with Wood and Prior. But even the golden pitcher's stuff is likely to deteriorate. You may scout dumb and not recognize fatal flaws with a player (Corey, harvey, Montanez), plenty of risk. But if you do scout smart and draft a player who's golden, it's much more likely that he'll be able to sustain success over a long period of years. (Heh, no Cub examples, because the Cubs haven't scouted smart with a 1st-round hitter since Palmeiro.... It isn't easy.) I'm not arguing that it may not be worth it to spend a high pick on a pitcher who gives you 3-4 years of excellence. If Wood, Prior, or Mulder never post another winning or sub-4 season, it might be argued that they should be retroviewed as success picks, not disappointment picks. 3-4 years of outstanding service is more than you get out of most picks, even top-5 picks. If you knew you'd get 4 years of excellence from Price, and after that he'd deteriorate to a #3-4 starter or worse, would that mean you'd pass? Not necessarily. Even if the odds are large that a guy's stuff will deteriorate, as I'm claiming, sometimes you hit on a Roger Clemens or Randy Johnson whose stuff doesn't. Perhaps it's worth spending your pick on the outside chance that Price or whomever is the guy whose stuff holds up for years? (Just don't blame luck or curses or scouting director or pitching coaches if the guy's stuff does deteriorate, as was probable from the beginning...) Drafting players has high risks, too. They are just different sorts of risks. Hitters are much harder to scout/project. In a single scouting session you can see that 95 mph is 95 mph; a curve can be seen as sharp in one HS game or one bullpen demo, you dont need to face a big-league hitter to show that. But it's much harder to project how a hitter will handle bigleague sliders and moving fastballs and strike/ball recognition based on how he does against a coach in batting practice, or against HS pitching, or in a small sample of AB's. Recognizing/projecting exceptional hitters is much harder than recognizing/projecting pitchers with exceptional stuff. Projecting a player's future defense is also much tougher than scouting a pitcher. A player's speed and defensive range and flexibility will routinely deteriorate in time. Five or eight years out, will Wieters still be a catcher, or will he have deteriorated to a LF? 3B? 1B? Or DH? Rundle is playing CF right now for Mesa, and at present (6'4", 180) he's got good range. But at present, he doesn't have much power either. By age 25, will he put on muscle so that he's 220 instead of 180? Perhaps so, and perhaps by then he'll be a plus power hitter. But what will that building up do to his legs and to his arm? Will he still be a CF? Will his arm get stronger and he'll be fine for RF? Or by then will be strictly a LF/DH/1B? Who knows.

Sure, but the end is not in how a guy looks at draft time. It's how he looks three, five, seven years later. A lot of hitters look as good or better. Most pitcher look a lot worse. You get drafted on your arm. Pretty unusual for a top-five pitcher to have an arm that does not deteriorate substantially over the five-seven years following his draft summer. It's fun to hope Price still looks good next draft, that we get him, and that he's the freak who never loses the arm. But make no mistake, if we draft him with average velocity of 94 or something, we should expect that once he's established in the league, he probably won't be throwing that hard, or his breaking pitch won't be as sharp as it is now.

I'm not faulting the Browlie selection. It was an excellent risk at the place he was taken. It's just an example where a guy looked great the summer before the draft, but never looked as exciting again. And injury is routinely the reason. (If anything, it almost seems as if guys who pitch long college season, then pitch for summer national teams maybe get fried more than normal. Especially if their coach uses them on short rest during the summer, as happened with Brownlie...) Here are the first pitchers taken in the drafts since 1990 (guys taken in first 5 picks): Alex Fernandez and Kurt Miller; Fernandez was good for a while, then got hurt. 91: Brien Talor, James Hendrson. Great prospect, till injuries... 92: Paul Shuey, Billy Wallace 93: Darren Dreifort, Brian Anderson, Wayne Gomes, Jeff Granger. Dreifort could have been great, minus injuries... 94: Paul Wilson, Dustin Hermandson. Wilson could have been great, minus injuries.... He was written up like the greatest thing ever... 95: Kerry Wood, Ariel Prieto. Wood could have been great, minus injuries.... 96: Kris Benson, Braden Looper, Billy Koch, John Patterson. Benson was written up like the greatest thing ever, and mght have been great, minus the injuries.... 97: Matt Anderson, Jason Grilli. Anderson had arm problems, I think, and never got control... 98: mark Mulder, Jeff Austen. Mulder had a good run. But after the first four years and 800 innings, he no longer had the arm he had as a draft prospect. Just an average talent trying to get by on smart now. 99: Josh Beckett. He's been pretty special at times. But he's battled a list of injuries. 00: Adam Johnson, Mike Stolka, Justin Wayne. By his second pro year, Johnson had a 15th rounder's arm, not the arm that made him the #2 pick. 01: Prior, Brazelton, Floyd. Prior projected as the greatest pitching prospect in history. But a series of injuries and his arm doesn't look that special anymore, and he's compiled only one really elite season. 02: Bryan Bullington, Gruler, Loewen, Evets. Bullington has had arm problems. 03: Sleeth, Stauffer. Both had arm problems 04: Verlander, Humber, Niemann, Rogers. Verlander is incredible. He's the exception to the had-arm-problems, not what he was. Of course, this is his first year. Who knows how long he'll hold up. 05: No pitchers taken in top 5, Romero first pitcher taken at #6. Let me be very clear: I am *not* arguing that the Cubs shouldn't take Price, or a pitcher. That's beyond my scope. I am arguing that it's the rule, rather than the exception, that no matter how good a pitcher's arm looks when it's the summer before his draft year, that it's very, very unlikely that his arm still looks really special when he's 25 or 27. The attrition rate is really incredible. And even for many who do come up as successes (Wood, Prior, Mulder), the odds that they are still front-line pitchers beyond their arbitration years doesn't look that great. All I'm saying is, if we're set on Price but we end up forced to settle on some really good position prospect instead, we might not mind as much in 2012 or 2014 as we do in 2007. But, if we get a top pitcher and he turns in Verlander or Prior or Wood or Mulder or Beckett, and mysteriously dodges the injury bullets, who hoo.

Promotions are often impacted by playoff situations. The Cubs like to have their farm teams get into the playoffs, and if possible have their better prospects participate in minor league playoffs. If Daytona is in anyways, that would raise Veal's shot at staying and trying to win playoffs with the guys he's been playiing with. But if Daytona is out, and Wtenn is likely to be in, that owuld increase the likelihood that he'd get promoted. IMO.

Things are often pretty fluid. I wouldn't get too obsessed over needing to get Price and being disappoined if not. Brownlie looked awfully special the summer before his draft, too, and how good has he looked since? Prior was priority; would we mind exchanging him for Mauer or Teix now? The good thing is that there promises to be a lot of good talent, and whether we hold at 3rd, slip to 4th, or fall to 5th or perhaps even 6th, it still looks like the pool will be way stronger than the harvey/Montanez drafts. And while I'd love a great pitcher, I admit that given the injury risk (and the "not enough control to be true ace" risk) that goes with pitchers, I don't think I'd mind too much if it just happens to turn out that the best player available happens to be a position player. Seems pretty exceptional for a guy who is supposed to be the top pitcher actually has both the health and the control to get to the majors and remain effective there for an extended period, much less function as an ace. Despite his injuries Beckett has been very good. After that, who are the best successes?

I don't think he's viewed as serious. Serious guys they tend to avoid rushing, and they intend to get plenty of action. Roster-fill guys they put on rosters where there is a need. When the season opened, Johnston was perceived as the more serious prospect. But Mota was also placed on Peoria's roster, and played very little early on when the starters were healthy and Johnston looked exciting. We know they were serious about Johnston; if they were also serios about Mota they'd have likely kept one of them back, or used the other at 2B. When a roster hole at Daytona came open, up went Mota. To fill the roster. Given how bad Daytona's infield has been, and how decent Mota has done, he's ended up getting a lot of action. Sometimes young players improve a lot, especially when they have the latent talent. So if we knew that Mota was a scout's favorite, the club liked him and saw a lot of projection there, his respectable results/age would have me very hopeful. But since I'm pretty sure that he isn't a scout's favorite, and that the club doesn't really see a lot of latent untapped potential, or see a lot of projection there, I think he's just a roster filler.

Dusty's Cubs have, for the moment, scrapped their way into a tie with Tampa for 27th place. They are two wins up on Cleveland, 4 on Washington, and 5 on Baltimore. I believe the draft rules is that in case of tie, the the team that was worse the previous year gets first choice? If so, the Cubs would lose tiebreakers to KC, Pittsburgh, Tampa, and Baltimore, and as it stands would draft 4th. It would probably nice if they could hold somewhere in the 3-5 range. Heh, I associate that with guys like Corey, Wood, and Mike Harkey, serious talents in their day. In the 6-10 range I associate that with Harvey, Garland, Earl Cunningham, Ty Griffin, Derrick May, not on the same plane. Nice to know that it's going to be a deep draft. Both the Montanez and Harvey drafts were not viewed as very good at the time, and I don't think retrospect has changed that. I'd expect to lose our 2nd and/or 3rd round picks, although you never know. The Cubs are obviously very talent-deficient from the big-league club down through the greatly thinned farm system. Hendry obviously will have substantial moneys to spend this winter, and obvious priorities will be an outfielder and a rotation pitcher. While it's possible one or both will be acquired via trade, you can't trade for talent without giving talent, and Hendry has no surplus of that. So if he could address both spots via FA, that would have advantages. I'd be surprised if he addressed both via trade, we just don't have enough prospects for that. This year they largely made up for lost picks by creative spending. Assuming they pick somewhere between 3 and 8 next summer, though, that will be a big-ticket sign. So not clear that they will feel any priority to do some creative spending later. On the other hand, if they wanted to a deep draft might be just the time to do that. If a guy is worth and knows he's worth 2nd round money and won't sign for less, in a thin year a 2nd round talent will likely to in the 2nd round and be unavailable in the 5th or 9th or 11th. But in a deep year, some guys with first round talent will depress, some 2nd round talents will get knocked out. That may result in a much larger pool of signability guys following the 2nd and 3rd rounds.

Yeah, Veal should score pretty well in both leagues. I don't think he'll score as high as Cruz did, though. Cruz threw harder, with regular reports of hitting 97-98, and doing so late in the sesaon and late in games. Veal is fast, but I don't think that exceptional. Cruz's fastball movement was also exceptional (as we've since found out, since he could never control it.) I believe he was viewed as having at least 3 and possibly four pitches that were projected as possible plus pitches. I'm not sure if he threw both slider and curve, or whether one observer might call it a slider one day and somebody else call it a curve the next, plus BA was pretty gaga about the potential of his change. Veal obviously looks nice, but I don't think he's quite in the "Potential to be Next Pedro" class that Cruz had back then. Plus, Cruz was 19 then, Veal is 21 and turns 22 before the big-league season is over. Well, obviously Cruz wasn't really 19 then, since his age was bogus; but when the scouts saw him as supposedly 19, it seemed that he had lots of time to improve his control, and that he was young enough so that his skinny frame might fill out. In retrospect, we know that Cruz was several years older, that he never filled out or got any stronger, that he never mastered control of any pitch much less 3 or 4 of them, that he never became the next Pedro. But back then, he really looked like one of the most exciting prospects in baseball. Veal is good and very promising, no doubt about that. And he will score well on the league rankings, no doubt about that either. But I don't think he's really close to being in the same class of perceived prospect that Cruz was perceived to be back then.

Click me Fleita likes the swing of 17 y/o Marwin Gonzalez. He's hitting .190/.264/.266. Also Robert Hernandez is 17 and should develop into a hard thrower. He's got a sub 2 ERA, but lack of Ks. Thanks a ton, kc. That's the kind of info I was hoping to get, and likewise the content I was hoping to hear. That site seems like it would be great, but awfully expensive. Did Fleita mention any of the other Latin or undrafted prospects? I'd guessed that Dolis, Hernandez, and Gonzalez were the three best Latin prospects, based on age, usage, and Dolis's K's. The other two Latins at Mesa of most interest to me were Carrillo, given his control and low ERA, and Bernard, given his alleged velocity. Carrillo is 19, so perhaps no projection. I'm guessing since you did'nt' mention him, Fleita had nothing to say or at least no enthusiastic scouting projections for Carrillo? Anything on Bernard, or Castillo, or any of the others? Again, thanks much.

Rafael Dolis is 18, 1/10/88, RHP, 6'3". He played infield last season for DSL, hitting .259, 4th on the team with 1 HR, 20 errors, and by Cub DSL standards a respectable .322 OBP. He had a couple of frightenngly bad appearances earlier, but as Cal said his last two games have had dominant K/BB's. Even so, he had like 11 K/8 IP even before the good ones. He's really turned it around these last two game, and at 6'3" and only 18, I've gotta figure he's got something going. They could easily have kept him at infield (they have plenty of horrible infielders on the DSL squad, and his numbers for a 17-year-old weren't too bad, actually), or kept him in DSL for his first year pitching. So I agree, he's interesting. And Tim, I agree completely, this is the first year in a while that the Rookie Team has had some interesting stuff, and particularly Latin kids. Does anybody have a height-weight on Marco Carrillo? He's Mexican and 19, but he was good in DSL last year and while he doesn't have the knockout K's, his control and results have been excellent. Robert Hernandez (?) at 17 has also been very interesting.

Sorry to start a separate thread, but I didn't want to get this specific topic buried in the 55-going-on-90-page Maddux trade thread. Has anybody heard what gives with the cash? I've seen reference to Cubs picking up most of Maddux's remaining salary this year, plus others referring to the Cubs giving the Dodgers $1 (some accounts) or $2 (other). I'm guessing the Cubs picking up part of Maddux's contract and the $2 payoff are the same thing? The Cubs are sending over $2, because that is the salary differential for the rest of this year? And then Hendry is fully responsible for Izzy's contract next year and beyond?

Jon, Ceta sounds more talented than I expected for Walker. His DSL numbers, 83K/29BB/38H/60IP at age 18 were very, very good. And the reports on his rookie league numbers are also interesting. Overall at 5.09 in 23 IP, but the reports suggested 2.00 in his last 18 IP. So that means he gave up 9 runs during his first five innings in the U.S., but since then has pitched 18 IP with 4 earned runs and only 13 hits, and presumably a bundle of K's. That sounds perfectly fine to me. Thanks for your research. The minorleaguebaseball.com has him at 6'4", 205, which seems long, lean, and projectible. If the Peoria roster has him listed at 240, I'd tend to believe that. mlb stuff routinely lists guys according to what they were when they signed. Usually, if there is a discrepancy and to the high side, wouldn't it be best to assume the guy has subsequently added weight? Anybody who is 240 pounds at age 19, you've gotta think that's a lot of bad weight and isn't likely to be all muscle. Perhaps a young Sidney Ponson, and perhaps that factored into SD's willingness to deal him? Still, guys who throw mid 90's and have been clocked as high as 99, guys like that have a chance. Sooner or later, maybe it will be the Cubs turn to get lucky with one of these kind of deals.

Yeah, it will be really interesting to see what happens. Unfortunately I fear some of the questions may circle in Hill's head too. (Will I fail again? What happens if I do? Can my Iowa stuff work up there, or do I need to change my fastballs somehow?) I thought Quade's comments were kind of discouraging, awfully lukewarm. I expected the Iowa manager who's seen him thrive to say: "I know he's got the stuff, if he can just relax and throw his Iowa stuff at the NL, he'll do just fine." But pretty tepid.

Thanks. I checked the game log. Kid Hernandez had perfect innings in 3 of his 5 inning, had a strong 10/3 GB/FB ratio, his only hit allowed was an infield job, and he didn't strike out a soul until the last two outs of his day.

I agree with that logic. But the "if" depends on the premise, that there was nothing wrong other than big-league adjustment, so that nothing could be gained in the minors. Wasted time. The other hypothesis is that there was some other "whatever was wrong". Which manifested itself in 20HR/123 IP last year, and which manifested itself in less consistent work in his first five starts. (He's been 1.30 ERA in his last ten; he was 2.93 ERA during the five starts surrounding his big-league callup). It may be that he's solved something during his last ten starts. If so, not wasted time. To me, the playoffs have been out of reach for some time. So what's best for Hill's development, whether that was in minors or majors, is the more important issue. It's not obvious that the last ten starts have been developmentally worthless. Indeed, to large degree it may be that ten starts with Alan Dunn is a lot more developmentally beneficial than ten starts with Baker and Rothschild! Just to add another sunny side, in the dream world. Suppose I dream that Hill emerges as a big-time value starter, a guy who next year and beyond is a 16-8, 3.20-ERA workhorse. If so, this time at Iowa rather than under Dusty's guidance will have move free agency back a year and may perhaps even defer arbitraton by a year! That might end up being good news. Add-on: I think it's imperitive that Hill get starts from here on out. If he looks solid, that will greatly impact the winter planning. If Hill, Marshall, and Marmol have all established themselves as competitive major league starters, then Hendry doesn't necessarily need to spend $24/3 on some 4.25-ERA rotation guy. Or, he'll have three valuable young pitchers to show in trade. Hill's trade value could be way higher with two solid months in the majors than all the WHIP's in PCL. Or, if Hill looks good, Hendry could afford to trade marshall, or Marmol, and use them as centerpieces for getting a good 2B or OF or 3rd starter. As a Cub fan, of coursre I can imagine worst case: With Marshall now hurt, Hendry decides not to trade Maddux. (If you trade Maddux and Marshall does *not* come back, Dusty is stuck with not only Hill but also Rusch or Ryu/Guzman in rotation. Dusty would prefer to hold Maddux...) Then, Hill gets two or three starts, does not dominate, and in two weeks marshall returns. Oops! No room for Hill anymore, send him back to Iowa, or park him deep in long relief. That kind of scenario would again put Hill on the temporary pressure seat: you've got one 15-day DL to prove yourself, you better put up a 14K/1walk game or you're back at Iowa again. I'm not sure that kind of mindset is ideal!

Two things I've liked about Colvin: *After his HR binge last week, he didn't go into a K-hole over the weekend. So often a guy gets some HR's, it's like a drug, he starts swinging for the fences and immediately goes into a slump and starting whiffing a lot. Didn't happen for Colvin, that's great. *In general he's really clamped down on the K's. He's at like 95 AB now, with 17 K's. I can't find the exact breakdown, but I know he was at 14K after 52 AB. So it's been 3 K in 42 AB since. That is quite a turnaround. Obviously he's not going to stay as hot as his last 42 AB forever, but if he can basically equilibrate as a low-K guy, that would be really nice. Over his hot 43 AB or whatever, Colvin has basically had about as many HR as K! Guys who hit some HR's without a lot of K's tend to dominate the batting average leaders.

Rich Hill has gotten four big-league starts this year, and four last year. I don't think it's really fair to say the Cubs haven't given him a good opportunity. 8 big-league starts is basically a quarter of what a healthy rotation guy gets in a full year. It's a good window of opportunity, really. So I think those of us who are still pro-Hill need to maybe back off on faulting fans (and management) who have their doubts. 8 starts is not an insignificant sample size, IMO. At the same time, 8 starts is not a huge sample either. To write the dude off based on the observations of 8 starts is premature. So I think those who are anti-Hill need to maybe back off on faulting the pro-Hill supporters. One mistake I do perceive as sometimes coming from the pro-Hill is the view that Hill has been nothing but great for two years now in the minors. That he's been a steady-state success, that the Cubs are idiots for having him spend time in the minors, that he's had nothing to learn, etc.. I think that's wrong for 2 reasons: 1) Not a persuasive argument to the anti-Hill's. If nothing has changed, why should we believe the NL outcome will change? 2) Contrary to fact. a) His WHIP is 20% lower. That's not a teensy difference. I believe the same magnitude of difference between his last two months and early this season. b) His ERA is way lower; last year 3.5, this year 1.8, and over recent 10 starts or whatever 1.1 or something? That's not a small improvement. c) Scouting suggests that his change is now a useful pitch. It wasn't last year, early this year, nor in any of his three Cub audutions (last year, camp this year, 4-start window this year). d) I don't have numbers, but it's my impression and I believe some scouting supports that he's gotten a lot more groundouts since going back to Iowa. e) Many of these items suggest that his stuff and his location has improved, considerably, since last year, and since earlier in his high-minors sample. f) After he flopped earlier with the Cubs, he got pasted his first start back with Iowa. One view is that he pitches the same all the time, but the same stuff that works in Iowa doesn't in NL and he'll never succeed. A flip argument based on this one-game bombout is that when he pitches like he did for Cubs, that stuff gets pasted in PCL just as it did in NL. But that he doesn't pitch the same all the time; and it's a change in his pitching, not just a change in venue, that has resulted in his subsequent turnaround. g) The biggest change in comparing his minor-league work this year from last is that his HR's are way, way, way down. Last year in 123 IP,he allowed 20 HR; this year in 100 he's allowed 3! It's the removal of those extra HR's that almost completely explains the reduction in WHIP and the reduction in ERA. So, is the reduction in HR's just a fluke, small sample size? Or does it reflect a significant improvement in Hill as a pitcher? That something in his stuff/command has improved..... A LOT?? Again, I think that kind of reduction jives with the scouting: integration of the change, better location of fastball, more consistency with curve (fewer hangers), perhaps better mixing of cutter with regular fastball? This speaks perhaps against some arguments I've seen from both sides. *Against the anti-Hill: he has gotten better, lots. So he still does have a chance to be pretty good. And although he may be 26, it's not like his level has been flat and he's had no space for improvement. Even at 26, he had room to grow, and has done so. *Against the pro-Hill-Cubs-are-idiots: Maybe the Cubs haven't been so idiotic after all? Perhaps having him spend time at Iowa has not been idiotic, not been time wasted? Perhaps it's been just the venue he needed, to work on the change, to better blend his cutter/regular fastball, to improve his fastball location? Obviously the Cubs-are-always-idiots view will say all of those same improvements would have happened as fast in the bigs. But it is possible that if in fact he's really improved a ton, in terms of command and consistency and repertoire, perhaps we might say that perhaps it hasn't been totally idiotic and a waste of time after all?

Agreed. He can play all three OF positions, atleast moderately well. Has some pop, and that also seems to help. I mean if Terrance Long can keep a job at the major league level, then I'm sure Nic Jackson will find a job soon, too. I don't see that at all. he was always fringey for CF and arm so-so for right. After having shoulder problems, I'd think his ability to play either of those positions has gotten perhaps much worse. And while his CF seemed to be feasible for minors, it was always questionable for majors. He's got 6 HR's this year. Minor leaguer left fielders in their late 20's with 6-HR power, not that much demand. Terrence Long was hitting 18 HR's in the majors at age 24, and over a 4-year stretch his 12-18 every year, and could play CF. Nic seems to have little chance of that kind of production.

The Mesa game box score has apparently been corrected from what you guys were discussing earlier. 5 innings for Carillo, with 2 K's, rather than 9 innings and 10 K's! Makes a lot more sense. Carillo has actually pitched pretty competitively in his innings thus far, and he was actually pretty respectable in the DSL last year too (2.81 ERA in 58 innings). The guy who scored the K's was Rafael Dolis, 8 K's in 3 innings, along with a couple of hits (one a HR), a walk, and a HBP. That performance dropped his ERA into the 11's! He entered the game with a WHIP of 3.2 in 8+ innings. Wildman supreme, now with 11.1 innings, he's got 12 walks..... and 19 K's. Whatever he throws he's obviously got no control, but whatever it is the batters can't always hit it. (Although he's given up 18 hits in 11 innings, so they can hit it at least sometimes!) Dolis is an interesting story. *RHP, 6'3", born 1/10/88. *Played last year in DSL ... as an infielder. (His .259 average at age 17 with .322 OBP and 1 HR actually looked fairly good relative to a team that batted .233 and had a grand total of 12 HR in 68 games! So unlike some guys who have switched because they were awful hitters, perhaps he switched because he's got an obviously good arm? *Dolis played last year under the name Rafael Jose. Whether he had a fraudulent name or it was just recorded incorrectly, who knows. Anyway, he might have interesting stuff, and if he's got a big arm but just switched to pitching, perhaps some of his wildness is more understandable? We can hope. The other nice thing in the Mesa game was that Rundle had 5 AB... and didn't K a single time. Got two hits. Probably feels good for him. And the last nice thing in the game was that Marwin Gonzalez got 3 hits and a walk. Gonzalez lists as a switch-hitting 3b, 6'1 187. And he turned 17 only this March. He's gotten around 60 AB already, so they've played him quite a bit even though he was hitting .127 entering today's game. They don't bring many kids over at 17. Gonzalez and Robert hernandez are the only ones. I usually assume there is some possible talent in the kid's toolbox.