craig

Nate, I have a Phelps-related question. In the report BA wrote up about Phelps for the draft, it suggested that his changeup might be his best pitch. In the recent VineLine magazine, it says about Phelps that this past summer the Cubs had him *not* use his changeup, but that he would utilize that again if they decide to use him as a rotation pitcher this summer. Do you know anything about this changeup business? Or anybody else do you know anything about this? In the past, it seems BA has sometimes claimed some pitch was good or promising or somebody's best pitch (Sisco and his splitter), but the Cubs have supposedly told them not to use it. I think sometimes that may be true, and for good reason. BA might not be accurate in hyping a particular pitch, or the Cubs may see it as a delivery that will lead to injury. Or in other cases I think perhaps the Cubs want the guy to not rely on that pitch for getting outs, and instead figure they need to work on their curveball. I'm just curious in Phelps case. The optimist in me says it's all true. Phelps looked great last year, with his fastball and curve. But his change is even better, and when he adds his changeup into his arsenal this summer, he'll look fantastic. Vineline (a very unreliable pub, by the way) also claimed that Phelps was supposedly a possibility as a 1st round pick entering last spring, before he broke his skull. I've heard BA say that he had a shot to be a "high round" pick next year, but hadn't heard them refer to as a 1st round candidate. If he really has the arm (and/or projection) to have been considered a 1st round candidate, that's pretty encouraging. Just for the record, Vineline has all kinds of factual errors. They write up Ryu has throwing in the high 90's, which of course hasn't been true since his high school days in Korea. They said Marmol has been in the states or pitching in the states for only 2 years, when he's been pitching in the states for three and in the states for at least 5. They also write up Matt Craig as if he's some defensive wizard at 3B. Always a little hard to sift through their exaggeration.

Don't forget guys like Yusuf Carter, John Defendis, Brandon Taylor and maybe even a recovered Ryan Norwood. And guys who finished the year here in 05 and could be back for 06. And personally I think Phelps proved he is above this league, especially if he is gonna be a reliever. And Billek could easily contend for a Daytona spot in spring.... Good points. Certainly Phelps and Billek, and perhaps even Holliman, might start higher than Peoria and leave it with not such an interesting rotation. If Pawelek were to start below Peoria, and two or three from the Phelps/Billek/Holliman were to start above Peoria, then the rotation could not be that interesting after Veal. You make a good point on the hitters. I might judge that the glass is pretty empty in terms of big-league position prospects. But in terms of guys who might do well enough at A- to help Peoria score some runs and win some games, often organizational players can do that. So who knows. Who might some of the OFers be? Defendis, maybe bring Flowers back..., Davey Gregg, Valdes, maybe Quinones, maybe Carter... Infielders: Kyle Reynolds, Brandon Taylor, Norwood, Simokaitis, Mota, Drew Larsen, Elvin Puello again, maybe another round of Tony Granato... Catchers: Reed, Muyco, more Alan Rick... Doesn't sound like a very exciting list in terms of potential big-leaguers. But I guess you don't necessarily need to have big-league potential to possibly hit respectably enough in low-A league.

Which Boise/Mesa guys were included in the Top 50 beyond obvious picks like Pawelek, Reed, and Veal? Also, the only thing I know about Valdez is that he sat out all of 2004 with some sort of injury. Fair question. I think there were about 8 or 10 guys who played at Mesa/Boise last year or not even. I'm going to try to remember: *Pawelek *Veal *Holliiman *Billek *Johnston *Taylor (Scott) *Muyco *Kyle Reynolds *Simokaitis (sp?) (the Nebraska SS who hit arond .190) *Phelps *Sammy Baez *Mark Reed *Darrin Downs *Mitch Atkins So that's 14 guys from the short-season range. Most were drafted players, so perhaps there is some bias there. But if dudes like Jake Muyco and Simokaitis and Reynolds and Reed and Sammy Baez are making the list, I'd think if Valdez or Quinones had any star potential, the Cub people would have gotten at least a hint in their several years in the states. Baez made it with one year in the states; Valdez and Quinones have each had two, I think, so they might have made it too. I'm hoping they did miss some guys, and some of the Latins who didn't perform very well just got left off. Particularly the SS, or one of the pitchers perhaps. But it's not just a case that unless you were a 1st or 2nd rounder, you need to have some full-season baseball to make the list.

Tim, I think it depended on the day. On a good day the 2-seamer might go 91-93, but not always. Of course, it could well be that without a sore shoulder, he might be able to sustain that *more* consistently, not less. To harken back to what a guy was pre-surgery is helpful, but often guys are compromised by sort arm for quite a while prior to the actual surgery, and Guzman's issues had arisen well before his AA season or else he wouldn't have needed to shut things down with sore shoulder in his Daytona season. I agree that a guy with Z-lite stuff but much better control could be a tremendous pitcher. Heh, could be a Cy Young pitcher. And I hope that ends up being Guzman. But I think it's quite possible that Guzman's stuff might end up being more than "a little" less than Zambrano's. Kessinger started this thread with the bottom line that he likes Guzman way better than Hill. All things considered, I don't know. In some ways, Guzman's potential seems considerably higher. Guzman's potential control seems so much better, and while stuff matters, control is really everything in pitching. So I think Guzman's potential control gives him a really excellent chance to be much the superior dude. On the other hand, Hill's stuff does seem awfully good, guys with curveballs like that don't grow on trees. And, it's hard to sustain good stuff and good control if your arm is always hurting, so the fact that Hill has a golden record for health, that means a lot to me. It will be interesting to re-evaluate how I feel about them a month from now, after most of camp; and then again after a month or two of Iowa time.

In the recent prospects Vineline, Fleita says that he clocked Marmol in that kind of velocity (or perhaps even faster) during Dominican league. So I believe that it's true. How good that will make him as a pitcher, I don't know. We know Farsnworth was faster than that without always being all that good. And we know that Marmol had an ERA in the 6's in the Dominican, so however hard he was throwing, he obviously wasn't getting guys out with that. It's pretty obvious that Fleita likes him, though.

Indeed. But it's often the 4-seamer velocity that people talk about, as if he has this overpowring fastball. And it's often the K's that are used to indicate monster stuff. Zambrano is perhaps a good analogy, in that if Guzman is to end up being successful, he will be like Z in having good GB ratio, in *not* throwing at his highest velocity most of the time, and in *not* having knockout K's. There have been days when Guzman K'd a lot of guys, in WTenn especially. But that was also the time when he gave up lots of HR's. My hypothesis has always been that throwing up-the-ladder 4-seamers at 95 mph is a very useful tool, gets the radar people excited, gets the K's, and gets the high-K's-means-great-stuff people excited. But it comes with a price: with more of those K's and high 4-seamers come more HR's. Again, I'm just repeating myself, but I expect that if/when he's actually pitching real effectively, he'll be mixing more 90-mph fastballs with curves and changes than blistering people with high-90's heat. And the 96-mph eye-high 4-seamers will be more effective as a surprise change of pace. But if he's throwing mostly 90 mph fastballs, I'm not sure he'll have as many people talking monster stuff. Personally I think the healthis obviously crucial. But if he's healthy, I expect he'll be as good as his control. If he's good, he'll be more noteworthy for his unusually good control than for his unusually good stuff. But the combination of very good control with good-to-excellent stuff can make for a very, very, very productive pitcher, even if the stuff isn't quite Oswalt/Clemens caliber.

What one "hopes" for Guzman and what one can "expect" for him are two totally different issues. I have high hopes for him, and have him high on my prospect list. Like Tim, I believe I have him 2nd only to Pie? If he is healthy and stays healthy, he has a good chance to be a very good pitcher. There aren't that many guys who have both good stuff and good control and good brains, and Guzman has the chance for all of that. That said, I do think that his stuff is routinely overrated by Cub people. "Monster" stuff? I don't think so, really. Good stuff, major league stuff, yes, I hope he still has that. But I don't think it's extraordinary. My take before the injury is that he could throw his high, straight, HR-prone 4-seam fastball at the 94-96 that we've heard about, sometimes. And as Tim notes, it appears that he can again do that, so I agree with Tim that it's not clear that his arm is shot or his stuff necessarily compromised. But I think his bread-and-butter fastball was not the mid-90's 4-seamer, but rather the 89-92 2-seamer that's better for the ground balls, but is hardly overpowering. If he tries to live in the majors on a low-mid-90's high 4-seamers, I expect he'll get pounded and give up lots of HR's. I expect he'll need to much more often be throwing a solid, low-in-strike zone 2-seamer that has more sink and action on it. But one which will not light up radar guns or seem like monster stuff or any of that. If he's going to be really good, he's going to need to control his curveball and changeup. Those are two very, very, very, very, very difficult pitches to control. If he has extraordinary control of them, combined with his fastball, he'll be really good. If he has normal control of them, he'll be like a lot of big-league pitchers; look really sharp some days, look not so great on others. Pre-injury it was projected that he might have exceptional control of the curve and change and fastball. I still think that's ppossible. I don't think the injury precludes that. But at the same time, Guzman's control of his curveball/change/fastball was not consistent even before the surgery. Now it's three years later. I wouldn't expect his control of the curve to be all that hot right now. It might become excellent, and perhaps sooner rather than later. But it might take a while, or it might never be great. I'm very, very optimistic about him. But I think it might take a while, and my interest is actually more for 2007, post-Maddux, than for 2006. Second, I think we should beware of assuming that he has this monster stuff, and the only question is health. I believe it's entirely possible that he'll have decent health for a while, but will turn out to have stuff and control which is fine but is less than spectacular, and that he'll end up being a useful pitcher but much less than the superstar we'd like to see.

Yes, Downs might start, although I hope not, since I'm pretty sure he's no more than roster-fill. I suppose he's got a Phil Norton type ceiling, but I admit I'm not that excited about these mid-80's junk lefties. Maybe his father can persuade us that he might someday grow into a Mark Guthrie fastball... In recent VineLine, Cub farm people got to talk about their prospects, and a handful of the Mesa/Boise type guys got included in the top-50 list. (Including Downs). None of the Valdes/Quinones/Mota guys were included, even though both Quinones and Valdes have been in the states for what, three years already? I suspect if there were "potential stars in the making", the "glass is not only half full, it's overflowing" Cub farm hypers would have seen something in Quinones and Valdes to bump them into the top 50. Mota, he's pretty new, so I could see him being perhaps overlooked perhaps. But I wouldn't hold out any hopes that Valdes or Quinones are going to make an impact.

I expect Pawelek will open at Peoria, and that Peoria could have the deepest rotation of quality prospect in the system. Pawalek, Veal, Holliman, Phelps, Billek, perhaps even Scott Taylor, and the best of Avery or Mitch Atkins or Yepez, and you might have a very intersting rotation. Might need to. If Mark Reed is the best/only position prospect on the team (or will it be Davey Gregg, or Kyle Reynolds?), and if Reed doesn't improve on his poor hitting, that could be a really, really poor lineup. Pawelek has already made 14 starts, and it's pretty likely that his stuff is good enough to be competent in Peoria. He's a 1st rounder, and doesn't have all the injury and other baggage that Harvey had. The plate's no further or smaller in Peoria than in Mesa or Boise, so he can practice throwing strikes anywhere. Several of you have mentioned concerns about innings, for good reason. I think it's sometimes deceptive, though, we think a guy is safe if he isn't pitching box score innings. But he might be throwing just as many pitches in Mesa as he would in Peoria, who knows? The lack of box scores doesn't mean he isn't putting some pitches on his arm down there. I know I'm being selfish, but I hope he starts at Peoria. It would be fun to have a prospect to track who's worth getting excited about. He might be!

Bruce, this is a curious question, but I've wondered for a while. During spring training, you and Mike Kiley often have stories about the same player, sometimes including some of the same quotes. Paul Sullivan will often have a story about somebody different. I've always assumed that you and Mike were experiencing the same source session, whether that be a scheduled media session by the Cubs in which the star of the game or the struggler of the game or the hot new rookie or whomever was the guy presented before the media. And you also often have common stuff that Hendry or Baker say, so I assume that they often participate in the same media sessions. Am I correct in that understanding of how it works? If so, how does it get decided which player will appear for the media? Do you guys ask? Do the Cubs just decide who's willing and who seems a guy of interest? Or is there no such "media-room" thing? It seems Paul Sullivan only occassionally writes from the same interview. Do you know why that is? Is he personna non-grata in the media room, after his flames with Dusty and Prior? Is his deadline schedule different so that it doesn't work as nicely for him? Or is he just stubborn/independent in *not* wanting to use the same source/interview that you guys and the TV guys might be sharing, or where he can't control all the questions, or maybe can't think of good questions to ask, or maybe doesn't get called on because Dusty and Prior can't stand him, or whatever? Or am I way off, and is there an open locker room for a designated period where you and Mike just happen to find it efficient and more cooperative with the players to just share an interview with a common player? Just curious about how it works for you guys to get the sources.

None of Johnson, Fuld, Patterson, Gallagher, or Reed will be eligible. Grant/Eric/Fuld will need to have three seasons, but will have only two. Gallagher and Reed would need to have played in 4 seasons, but will have only three. Basically the new American eligibles will be college players who both signed and played already in 2004 from the Johnson draft (Shaver, Layden), and HS players from the Harvey draft (Harvey, Darrin Downs, and Matt Weber). Basically Harvey is the only drafted player who will be eligible for the first time and will demand protection. (Unless Layden goes nuts this year...) Any other guys demanding protection will be from guys who are either: - first-time Latin eligibles (I'm unaware of of anybody very interesting who qualifies) - trade pickups who will be newly eligible (NATE SPEARS and Justin Berg) - guys who have been eligible before but weren't valued enough to protect (or to be taken). Maybe Mateo if returned, Randy Wells, Sing, Richie, Fox, Petrick, Brownlie, Blasko, Connolly, Greenberg might emerge? But unless Blasko or Petrick show up healthy and throwing 95, I don't expect any of these guys are real excitining guys to worry much about losing. It appears there will be amost zero pressure on the 40-man roster next winter.

I like the BA book. It provides qualitative, subjective scouting information, and for many of the pitchers gives mph info and repertoire info that isn't provided by a stats book. I'm not that interested in paying for a stats book. I can check the stats myself, and for any Cub prospect I'll already know their stats info. But the scouting report stuff is often news. Does Dylan Johnston project as a defense-first SS, or a guy who'll need to hit enough to justify life at 3B? Does Phelps throw 88, 92, or 96, and with curve or slider? Billek was solid but not dominating in terms of stuff; does he project to throw harder down the line? The other books don't sound like they'd tell me much that I can't already find and don't already know.

I think it is interesting that Oakland took a lot of HS players, including HS pitchers, after not doing so for years. Some possible reasons for the switch: 1. They'be been stupid. They finally wized up and caught up to the baseball world, are no longer any dumber than the rest. I think there is merit to this hypothesis. My recall is that BA studies have indicated that in first round, all studies have indicated better average returns for college than HS draft picks. But in 2nd round and beyond, that isn't true. 2. Perhaps they changed because baseball supply-and-demand has shifted. In past, perhaps college players were undervalued and HS players overvalued. Now, perhaps that's changed (perhaps in part because the Oakland influence has spread...). Perhaps now the market valuation is perfectly balanced, or perhaps if anything swung such that HS talent is now the undervalued one. (Or perhaps that's true after the first round...) 3. Scotti said it was arrogant to ignore half of the draft field. But perhaps they were a team that had only half the scouting staff. Do you do a half-baked job on all players, or do a competitively thorough job on the guys you do scout, but you just elect to scout only half of the guys because you can't afford to thoroughly scout everybody? I dunno. Maybe they can now afford to scout more HS guys? Or perhaps last year they decided that if they had to scout onlyhalf of the guys in the 2nd-6th round range, they'd be better off scouting the HS group rather than the college guys? ====== Whatever the reason, the fact that Oakland spend 6 of its 7 draft picks in rounds 2-6 on HS players, and 5 of those HS picks on HS pitchers, reflects a change in Oakland policy. For people who think Oakland is smarter than the Cubs, it's hard to justify a view that picking HS or picking HS pitchers is dumb (at least in rounds 2-6) based on Oakland's policy. there are high risks associated with drafting HS players, almost no matter how high they go. (See Corey, MOntanez, and Harvey). But there are high risks associated with drafting almost any amateur player. And by the time you get to the 2nd round, the risks are enormously high. A pitcher might fail because of injury. Or his stuff just isn't enough. Or his control isn't enough. The risks associated with HS guys may be no higher than the risks associated with alternative choices pretty quickly in the draft.

I don't think the question can be answered until spring training unfolds. Willingness to deal a rotation pitcher might depend on how Wood, Prior, Miller, Guzman, Hill, and Williams look. Willingness to deal Wellemeyer, and how much you get for him, might depend on how many if any Cub pitchers end up with arm trouble and go on the 60-day DL. The 2B situation could depend on how Walker and Hairston look in camp, and on how things go in other team camps in terms of their needs. Every trade requires two partners. Hendry's willingness to pay the cost required to acquire 2B target X obviously depends on Cub factors: a) how our 2B look and thus how desparate he is to get a replacement, and b) how our pitchers look because acquired a 2B will obviously cost us some pitching. Do we have it to spare? But every trade also depens on the other partner, and on their needs. How much they demand in trade will depend in turn on how their 2B alternatives look, in the even that they trade X. But also on how their pitching looks (how desparate are they to add the kind of pitching that Hendry is willing to sell?) Too soon to tell how all of these interrelated factors will play out. Perhaps if nobody lowers their price, or if nothing happens in camp to soothe anxieties about our pitching depth, nothing much changes. But if things happen so that other team(s) lower price, or so that our pitching looks safer so that we can better afford to part with somebody, I wouldn't be surprised to see something still happen. But not until spring has gone deep enough for teams to get some meaningful feedback on their guys. At least a month from that point.

This was Fleita's comment too, that Marmol can throw a lot harder without losing his movement in short relief. Ron, you mention throwing 93-94 in rotation, and perhaps high 90's in relief. How often was he 93-94? That seems faster than what BA's scouting report had on him. mph reports always confuse me, because I never quite know what somebody means. Did he throw 93-94 two or three pitches every other game, but even in those throw mostly in the 89-92 range? And on slower days he was working 86-91 and topping at 92? Or are you talking about a guy who's routinely throwing 93-94, throwing a couple of fastballs in that range every inning of every game? Obviously everybody has considerable scatter. Not many guys at any level, other than relievers, whose average fastball is 93-94. But probably every organization has two dozen guys who top out at 93-94 on at least a couple of pitches per month....

Signing international players would help. I think with the Latin stuff as well as domestic, the Cubs are much better at scouting pitchers. From the last couple DSL teams, a bunch of pitchers always look good enough to come over and get at least a look stateside. The DSL team has graduated hardly any position players that even get to short-season ball. Other than that, I have no idea. Just scout better and get luckier. I don't think the Corey or Kelton picks were bad ones. You might take another Corey, and have him turn out able to recognize high fastballs and wide sliders, and he might turn into a 10-time allstar. I'm not convinced that the solution is going college instead. Pre-Hendry, results weren't any better with Kieschnick, Orie, Glanville, and Ty Griffin, all college guys. Also, while perhaps the Cubs have had some bad luck with position guys, recently they may be in for some good luck. If Cedeno and Murton both work out, and if Pie was to work out as well (we hope!), to generate three quality position players within a 2-year period would be very good production. Maybe lucky, given how thin our position pool is; but perhaps we're due for some good luck after the bad luck we've had for a while. Maybe we'll get real lucky and Eric will work out, or perhaps even Harvey or Sing or somebody, it isn't likely but sometimes you do get lucky. I just hope that they don't naively assume that just because a kid can run and throw and hit long BP-drives, that they just assume he's capable of learning to hit real pitching. And I also might personally be willing to sacrifice a little ceiling for some probability. Murton doesn't have Harvey's RF arm, RF-defensive possibllity, nor Harvey's HR power. But right now there's no way I'd choose Harvey over Murton. I think to some degree they are always choosing between options, and I might like them to sometimes take the more conservative picks? Sometimes that might involve taking a college guy rather than a wildcard HS guy. But not that much point in taking college guys if you know they can't run or play a position well enough to be useful big-leaguers (as has turned out to be the case for Craig and Gripp). I'm hoping that Wilken might help some. Toronto seems to have more experience with ID'ing some good position players. Cubs seem great at scouting pitching talent (if not projecting pitching health), but I'm not sure they really know what to look for in hitters. Perhaps Wilken has an eye for that in a way that Stockstill or Hendry didn't really have.

UK, good points, and I kind of agree with many of them. -You can't turn a frog into a prince, but you can improve a bit on whatever a guy has to work with -guys can learn and improve to some degree. -Most of the college guys have begun with better plate discipline than than the HS guys. -Most of the college guys have begun with lower non-hitting tools and ceiling than the HS guys -Eric's current K-problem is not quite as extreme as with Sing. And his current K-problem probably has more chance for correction than does Sing's or Dubois. All laws of physics and levers and momentum suggest that a 5'10" guy has more chance to shorten his swing or check his swing on bad-balls more easily than the 6'4" guys. He may be able to learn to shorten his swing and stop his swing when bad-balls are breaking, in a way that Sing has no chance to ever "learn" to do. -most real prospects are somewhere in between the "frog" and "prince" extremes. Harvey may be a frog, not chance. But Eric and Pie, while not necessarily princes, may have enough to work with.

Just to clarify, I'm not at all opposed to drafting HS players. Nor am I opposed to valuing high-ceiling guys and valuing non-hitting tools. Speed, defense, throwing arms that enable guys to play positions other than LF and 1B, those are all excellent. My main points were two-fold: *1 That the Cub success with drafted position players has been poor. It's not just a matter, as I inferred scotti to have suggested, that they've used so few high draft picks on players that the lack of success should have been expected. and *2 I'm very dubious that guys can "learn" to hit, or to recognize/respond to pitches, or to have the plate discipline and walk/K profiles that I associate with pure hitters and good-discipline guys, if they aren't born with the innate "toolbox" for rapid sight/process/respond to fast-moving balls-in-flight. If a guy has that hitting toolbox, then with instruction and proper development he'll hit. And perhaps walk a reasonable amount, without K'ing a ton. Murton seems to have that. It appears that Cedeno does as well. (He doesn't walk much, but his pitch recognition and see-respond-hit abilities seem good, no problem with his toolbox. I think he's a case where if he did choose to walk more, it's within his toolbox ability to do so. Corey, not true.) I don't think that by getting a guy at 18, that you can teach him to be a good contact hitter and have good pitch recognition and have a good walk rate while at the same time not K'ing much, unless he has the toolbox to start with. I hypothesize that Corey never did. Some blame the Cubs (they handled him wrong!), others blame Corey (bad makeup, doesn't take instruction, must be really dumb to swing at those high fastballs, yada yada..). I suspect that he doesn't have the talent to see-recognize-respond well. You could keep him at AA for ten years without that changing; he could have all the will and desire and makeup in the world, but if he didn't have the see-recognize-respond ability, it wasn't going to work out. UK, you noted that the Cubs do have some guys who take walks. Indeed. Dubois, Hill, Harris, Sing, Soto, Choi, Fuld, Choi. I don't see a strong college flavor to that. Soto and Sing are HS guys, and Choi essentially. They had some aptitude. At the same time, just taking walks doesn't to me mean you've got the read-recognize-respond-rightly toolbox. Having the hitting tool goes beyond deciding what is and isn't worth swinging at. It also involves being able to hit the pitches that are worth swinging at! Choi, dubois, Sing, and Eric Patterson may have the kind of patience so many posters like; but none actually has the "tool" to hit the ball very well when they decide to swing. They all K like crazy, Eric included. Hard to be a good big-league position player when you miss the ball on so many of your swings. There's more to being a good big-league hitter than just walking. Hitting counts, too! Murton and Cedeno seem able to hit; Dubois and Eric and Sing, not so well. Fuld, he seems to have that ability, but he hits it so softly. Theriot, kind of the same limitation. I have rarely seen a hitter whose profile changes drastically, in the Cub system or in any other. (Sammy is the greatest example, going from a low-walk guy to a 100+ walker...). Usually guys who don't have the pure see-and-hit toolbox always have lots of K's. Sammy's walks improved, and of course his power, but his K's and contact limitations never went away. Fuld is a contact/good-eye guy now, he was as a freshman already. Nobody taught him that. Corey was a high-K low-OBP guy from the start; that never changed. (He was about 8th on his A- team in OBP. A guy can be doing worse than his toolbox allows as a result of bad mechanics, bad approach, etc.. But it's pretty uncommon that a guy changes a lot. But, of course, some do. We can always hope that Harvey or Dopirak will become one of those happy exceptions.

I'm not sure what you mean, and I don't remember when Hendry turned things over and Stockstill took over. But if you include Stockstill's drafts as being under Hendry's supervision, and being by a guy that Hendry tutored and hired, , since Hendry began drafting in 1996, the Cubs have taken 6 position players out of college and 10 from HS during the first three rounds. But the college picks have been concentrated in the 3rd round, where the odds of any pick becoming good is slim, and by which point I believe the cubs figure they're lucky to get a solid player, but they shouldn't expect a high-ceiling star-potential guy. Anyway, of the six college selections in the first three rounds, five were 3rd rounders: Ryan Gripp, Nic Jackson, Ryan Theriot, Matt Craig, and Jake Fox. Each of these they already knew had some limitations in their toolboxes, with the exception of Nitro Nic. The only college player taken in the 2nd round was Bobby Hill, and at the time Hendry said they Cubs ranked him as the #10 or #13 player on their board, somewhere in that range. It's funny in retrospect; back then, I recall much board discussion about whether the Cubs were idiots to move Hill to 2B, leave him at SS! Now his defense is considered to be no more than average even at 2B, much less at SS. I also remember how much fuss there was when Hendry didn't fork over all the money that Hill wanted, and stalled before eventually settling at $1.5 or whatever it was. Kind of like with Brownlie, how Hendry was nuts to hold the line to only $2.5 million for the guy.

Scotti has suggested there is no problem, since the Cubs have mostly drafted pitchers, and the draft production of position guys simply follows the pitching emphasis. Some thoughts: *Cubs have only drafted 3 1st round players during the ten years since Hendry took over the draft. But all three were top-6 picks. I think it's reasonable to be hope for more than Nate Spears out of three top-6 picks. *Over that ten years, the Cubs have taken 16 position players in rounds 1-3. Thanks to compenation picks they've have a little more than 30 selections over rounds 1-3 during those ten years, but position players have absorbed almost half of the rounds 1-3 picks. Having taken almost half of the picks during rounds 1-3, and all three of the top-6 picks, I think it's fair to be disappointed in the position oucome. Why hasn't it been better? *I think luck has something to do with it. Corey didn't work out, he could have. Montanez was a weak draft. Things went wrong for Hill and Kelton. *I think the Cubs prioritize high-celing guys who are strong in non-hitting tools. They have focussed their high-round position picks on players with notable tools outside of the pure-hitting tool: speed (Corey, Hill, Mallory), power (Corey, Dopirak, Harvey, Mallory), perceived athletic ability (Corey, Kelton, Harvey, Mallory, Nic Jackson, Bobby Hill), throwing arms (Mallory, Kelton, Harvey, Montanez...). I believe that rather than compromise on ceiling and settle for some guys who look like hitters but have some tools limitations, they want the athletic toolbox guys and hope they'll be able to hit, thinking that if they turn out to have the hitting tool, that they have big-star potential. I believe they tend to think that hitting can be learned, and also that plate discipline and pitch recognition are learnable skills that can come with time and experience. As a result I think they tend to prefer more toolsy guys, relative to guys who may look stronger in terms of pure hitting and pitch recognition but are more limited in terms of throwing/running/power tools. For example, I don't think the Cubs would have burned a top-35 pick on a guy like Murton. The Cubs would have preferred somebody else, rather than spend such a high pick on a player they could already see wouldn't run well enough to steal bases or play CF; a player they could already see didn't have much of a throwing arm and certainly couldn't play RF; and a player they could see didn't have knockout power. So I think it's because the Cubs have placed such a high empashis on high ceilings and on having strong marks in non-hitting tools, they probably haven't been so successful in getting pure-hitting players. I personally believe that to a large degree hitters are born, not made, and that there are some inherent tools in the brain required to read and respond to big-league pitching, tools that go beyond the more easily scouted power and bat speed. So I think the Cubs have too strongly assumed that talented athletes will learn how to recognize pitches and learn how to hit and learn plate discipline if only given enough time and added experience. I also think that "tool" is hard to scout. When scouting a HS Corey or Kelton, how can you tell whether they'll ever learn to put the bat on the ball? How can you tell whether he'll center the ball and hit for excellent contact, or always have trouble swinging through pitches and striking out? How can you learn whether hitting the breaking ball is beyond their talents, or is well within their talents but they just haven't seen many yet? How can you tell whether with experience a guy will have a good eye and will be able to project shortly after a pitcher throws whether the ball will cross the plate in a hittable zone, or will slide a foot off the plate and be a pitch you should take? When Hendry drafted corey, I recall he made some comments that suggeested he thought Corey had a good command of the strike zone! It's not easy to scout, that's for sure. I don't actually believe it's a developmental problem. I think the development people do emphasize selectivity and all that. I just don't think the Cubs have drafted guys who had the inherent tools to be good contact hitters and good selective hitters. [/i]

It's a mystery how all the rotation guys will shake out. Will Williams be as competent as he was last year? Will he be in better shape and be even more competent? Will Wood come back? Will Guzman be good? Will Miller offer anything, and if so how soon? Will Rusch be OK, or rotten? Will Hill look good, or like wildman? Questions, questions, questions. My guess is that Hendry holds his cards until more of those questons have positive answers. Or until their is more urgency to make a trade. If he thinks Jones is fine, and Murton is fine, and cedeno is fine, and Walker/Neifi/Hairston is acceptable, no rush to make a deal. And even if you want to, why bother unless there's actually somebody available who looks a lot better than what you've got? Six weeks from now things may look a lot clearer. Does Guzman look great, like "Wow!" great? Or does he look like just a guy who's got a pretty decent arm but who doens't have consistent control yet, and who's an injury risk? Does Wood look 100% and ready to rock, first week or if not by April 15 or so? Or does Wood look like he'll take a while. Does Miller look fine, on pace to be May10 ready? Or look like he's no-way a factor before mid-June at the earliest? Does Williams look fat and lazy? Or sleek and commmitted? Is Williams throwing 87 with an occassional 90-91 topped in? Or is Williams consistently humming it up at 90-92 with an occassional 93-94 for good measure? Is Hill looking healthy, confident, consistently throwing fastball at 89-93 and popping an occasional 94, making guys shake their heads with his curve, and making a few look silly with a surprise changeup? Is he making you go "Wow!"? Or is he just lookiing like an 86-89 fastball who throws a few nice curves but basically looks like another wildman? Who knows? But I think Hendry will want the early feedback on a bunch of these to look favorable before making any trades.

It's very rare for a low-walks guy to ever become a high-walks guy. Sammy Sosa is the classice exception. Guerrero is actually another; he has a reputation as a low-walk hacker, but he's been above average in walks for the last five years at least. Has taken 60-84 walks in four of last five years. Obviously pitcher fear factor is part of it, but... It's not clear how bad Pie's walk problem is or will be. His career IsoP is 0.059, that's not that bad. His career walk rate is >8%, which would be right around or a shade above big-league average. This past season was his first year in which his IsoP has dropped below 60. That, of course, is the norm for the vast majority of hitters. 90+% of major leaguers had higher walk rates in the minors than they have in the majors, and the norm is for the walk rate to drop with each level of promotion. Pitchers get better, and have better control, and walk rates drop. Pitchers get better breaking stuff and are better able to throw knockout pitches that strike you out, and hitters are more reluctant to let themselves get into a two-strike count where they can get whiffed. So they perhaps tend to swing more early and often, ala Dopirak and Corey and Harvey. Ithink the concern with Pie is that he's getting and will continue to get worse in this regard. He's now tring to mold himself as a homerun hitter/slugger. And as poor as his walk-rate was in AA, it was much worse in the Dominican. Vance (I think) noted that Pie had "all the tools". We'll see. I believe that pitch recognition and the eye/brains to read pitches enough to have good plate discipline is primarily an inborn tool, and isn't a teachable approach which is just a matter of choice. That just may be a tool that Pie does not have and never will. The fact that he strikes out so much, combined with the walk concerns, does not bode well in this regard. He may need to get by as best he can with that as a limitation.

Theriot is way ahead of Fontenot. Theriot is a good fielder, and can play a good SS, 2B, and 3B. That makes him an infield candidate, with utility profile. He's also a good contact hitter, and contact guys who don't whiff much are less likely to be ovewhelmed by the superior pitching in the majors. (Normally high-K guys have more difficulty with promotions and have their production drop more significantly than do low-K hitters.) Fontenot is a good walker. But he's not a good fielder, sort of a Todd Walker type, sub-par at 2B, bad at 3rd, don't-even-think-about-it at SS. Not a good profile for a utility infielder. Not a base-stealer, not a power hitter, although he K's a lot like a would-be power-hitter. Not a very high-average hitter (probably because he K's so often). I don't think the Cubs see Fontenot as having any future with them in the majors.

Thanks for the recap of the comments. The notion that perhaps Murton and Cedeno wouldn't be used at #2 this year could be a good thing. There has been considerable angst that Neifi would start ahead of Cedeno. With the comments Hendry has now made repeatedly, and that Baker made on several occassions at convention and caravan, that seems to be a non-concern. Cedeno is the man, and he'll probably need to take a Bobby-Hill type nosedive to lose it. Now there is angst that Neifi will start at 2nd. Let's assume two options. 1) Cedeno or Murton bat 2nd. 2b bats low in order. If you figure it's bottom of order, Neifi's hitting may not seem so unacceptable. A reasonable chance that they'll consider him to play a lot. 2) Cedeno or Murton not to be used batting 2nd this early. And lets assume Barrett won't, either. So who does that leave? Whoever is playing 2B. When deciding who to play at 2B, if he's got to bat 2nd, who do you choose? Neifi's bad offense/bad OBP doesn't help his chances of being the choice. If you want Neifi to *not* play very much, that is much more likely is the 2B is required to bat 2nd than if the 2B bats 8th.