craig

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...)

I like Wilken's policy. From somewhere in the 20's on, it's been pure D/F. I know a couple of the HS guys around the 20th round were already JC commits. A bunch of the picks since have been JC/CC players, so it's pretty safe that they'll return for another year and be eligible next spring. And of those, as noted by somebody, tons have been RHP. If you want a guy to blossom into a worthy D/F sign that your scouts will recognize, have it be a pitcher. If he's throwing 85-89 now, and suddenly next spring he's pounding 93-94 time after time, scout can find out easily enough, check him out, and pursue next spring. If a hitter improves some, harder to tell against the so-so level of JC competition. So I think it makes good sense to pack the second half of the draft with projectible D/F pitchers. Draft 20 of those guys, and hope a couple of them do develop and are worth high-round money next spring.

This two-sport thing is obviously short-term. Ifhe signs this summer to a back-loaded deal, he can pitch for a few weeks for Cubs, then do fall football. After that, different story. NFL is pretty summer consumptive. With mini-camps and regular camp etc, there isn't that much time away from football for a guy who is making football camps a higher priority. Plus, if he's doing all the combines and trying to get drafted as high as possible, he probably won't have much baseball attention even in the spring. So sure, he can pitch for the Cubs for a few weeks, then go on his merry way with a football career, maybe ala Elway. Or, the reverse, he can enter the NFL draft, see how things shake out, and decide he didn't get drafted high enough. Presumably they could structure a back-loaded contract so that if he stays baseball, he ends up getting 1st-round money. And if he quits next spring, or not too long thereafter, the Cubs aren't out very much and it's just a wasted pick rather than wasted millions. If we're lucky, some girlfriend will tell him she'd rather have him play baseball, without the injury risk.

Rowell sounds interesting and all that. But I'm pretty leary of guys who want to be hitters who stand 6'5". Tall guys with big-time batting-practice power are common. But tall guys who can actually shorten their swing enough to get around on 95-mph inside fastballs and handle the movement and breaking balls of big-league pitchers are really rare. Just pretty tough to keep 6'5" arms from giving you a long swing. Draft a 6'5" guy and odds are a lot higher that he has the contact/K-problems of harvey, Sing, Kieschick, roberson, and mongo-BP-power-but-useless-in-games-power than that you end up with McGwire or Strawberry or Galus. And as much success as those tall dudes have had, they still all whiffed a ton with their long arms, they just hit enough HR's so that 150 K's/year was acceptable. If we draft a hitter, I kinda hope he's 6'3" or less. Obviously the scouting directors know this stuff too. So my point is probably kinda dumb, if the scouting directors think a guy is worth a top-15 pick despite the height that will make contact problematic, they probably think the reward is potentially high enough to justify it.

I think his ceiling defensively at 3B is below average. If he doesn't reach his ceiling, he'll remain bad. So I think if he stays at 3rd, he'll end up somewhere between bad and below average. But I think average is beyond reach. Sometimes a guy can improve his footwork and his throwing accuracy, and sometimes with better footwork hands that don't look very good now can improve towards average. But if your range is below average, hard to expect that to ever improve.

Dusty has tried every one of the unready prospects that were available. He had two shots with Wuertz, and he didn't produce. He had Guzman, he wasn't ready. Hill had his shots. Ryu's had a couple. Williams, of course. The choice was one of those guys who have already failed or give Marmol a fresh shot. Not sure he's any more likely to have the control needed to be effective, but whatever. And being scheduled tonight, he's ready to give them innings if they need them tomorrow.

Cubs have signed Luther Murphy and Cody Gilbert.

So, what is the scouting report on Wells, anyway? What's his second pitch, slider or curve? I'm think slider, but I'm not so sure... How fast is he? Is he still your standard 88-93 guy? He was something of a flyball guy last year; still true? For having his own diary thing and whatnot, and despite how good has stats have been, I've gotten very little scouting info on him. I was pretty interested in him back at Peoria (or was it Lansing?) two years ago. I recall two game reports, one said he was mostly 88-90 for velocity and didn't show anything very attention-getting; the other said he threw some 90-92. I seem to have some idea from Daytona getting a report of 89-93 for velocity, but other than a couple of references to what nice mechanics he had and how aggressive he was, I didn't get much else.

Actually, I'm not sure I follow. I think the Cubs have made some judgments on Craig: 1. That he's not a major-league prospect. He's an organizational player. 2. That he's not defensively qualified to play 3B, or anyplace other than 1B/DH 3. That he wasn't qualified to play much for Iowa. Brandon Sing made more sense to play for Iowa than did Craig. With Sing as the starter, Craig would have been just a bench/DH type at Iowa. 4. That Craig wasn't qualified to play much for WTenn either. Dopirak made more sense to play 1B there, because he is still viewed as a possible major-league prospect. So again, Craig would be a DH/bench guy there. Basically, if the premise is that Craig couldn't play anywhere other than 1B/DH, and that Sing and Dopirak were better prospects to get the AAA/AA 1B jobs, Craig was left out with Daytona being a place where he could play.

A friend who subscribes to BA said that DePoy was listes by BA as like the 86th best prospect in Texas, or something like that. Ware scored as the 73rd best in Florida. Outshined, here is a list of the D+F candidates and comments that I posted several weeks ago on April 17. The stats are oviously pretty old, so while Ware's season was about done already, obviously some dudes from other schools, their seasons may have just begun. The one D+F I know we signed was 1B Luther Ware, a really, really raw dude who had like three XBH this spring or something. Draft and Follow Candidates: 20. Leonardo Ware, OF, 3/18/1987, 5’10”, 185, Atlanta --Okaloosa-Walton (FL) CC http://owcc-r-06.owcc.net/raider/baseball/statistics.htm Doing great, hitting .352, starting every game, 20/21 in SB/CS, tops in SB, 2nd in HR, 2nd in slugging. 31 Brad DePoy rhp 9/14/1984 6-1, 205 San Jacinto (Texas) JC TX no link 32 Colby Wark RHP 8/12/1986 6-3, 215 Lower Columbia (Wash.) JC WA http://www.lcc.ctc.edu/athletics/baseball/mens/ Wark doesn’t appear to be on the team. 33. Ben Ferguson, RHP, 10/10/1986, 6’7”, 210, Salt Lake (UT) CC. http://www.slcc.edu/athletics/athletics/BSBOverall.htm Having a dominant spring. 7-2, 0.70 ERA, average ERA is 3.3. 34 Cody Gilbert 3B 8/21/1985 6-3, 185 Lincoln Trail (Ill.) JC IL http://www.njcaa.org/schmain.cfm?sid=7&divid=0&gender=m&slid=3&menu=11&cid=1580&seasonselect=321&schmenu=4&teamid=47654 not doing anything much. Some power. .208 after about 9 games or so. 35 Drew O'Connell rhp 5/11/1986 6-3, 195 John A. Logan (Ill.) JC IL http://www.njcaa.org/schmain.cfm?sid=7&divid=0&gender=m&slid=3&menu=11&cid=1574&seasonselect=321&schmenu=4&teamid=47650 Pitching very little, only 10 innings or so. Other guys pushing 50, so he’s definitely not one of the starters. 41. Chris Rollins, RHP, P 9/16/1986, 6’4”, 190, New Jersey, Potomac State (W.VA) JC. no link 42. Josh Garza, RHP, 10/9/1986, 6’0”, 190, Burleson Texas North Central (TX) CC. no link 46. Luther Murphy, 1B, 3/15/1986, 6’4”, 225, Florida, Palm Beach (FL) CC. no link 47. Mario Williams, C, 7/4/1987, 6’2, 220, Tampa Fl, Lake City (FL) CC. http://www.lakecitycc.edu/departments/athletics/baseball/stats.htm Having a strong spring. >42% CS/SB rate, hitting .319, 3rd highest OPS (.860) on team. Very low walks,though.

Thanks. That doesn't sound career ending!