craig

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.

I haven't gotten mine yet. If you are a veteran of VineLine prospect reports, how does the layout compare this year to previous years? They used to give top 10 with good thorough scouting reports, plus short notes on next ten. Last year they didn't want to offend any players by ranking them lower than others, so they just had these cheesy "best at skill X..." deals, which ended up giving the impression that Buck Coats and Micah Hoffpauir were the best prospects in the system! I hope they have some all-around prospect reports on some selected players, like in former years, even if they don't actually rank guys.

Do you really think that this is going to happen? I remember Hendry saying the same things about Dubois last year and look who Baker played. Hollandsworth was the veteran, Walker is the veteran. Hollandsworth was the incumbent, the more known commodity; Walker is the incumbent, the more known commodity. By all accounts Baker likes Walker well enough, no indication that he has any strong anti-Walker bias. Also, to be fair, Dubois hit .239 with a .289 OBP and whiffed more than a 3rd of his AB's, all while playing bad defense. I expect that if walker is K'ing 35% of his AB, hitting for low average, getting on base very little, and playing bad defense, to whatever degree there is a competition Walker won't win it with Dubois-type numbers. He'll probably need to be a pretty competent producer offensively if he wants to overcome his defensive deficiencies. If he hits like Dubois, he loses.

Hey, Chief's voice, you posted while I was rambling! I hadn't seen yours when I posted, so I like it that I thought Fuld and Phelps, and those are two of the guys you ID as well. I haven't heard a scouting report on Phelps, other than the BA report at draft. You mention him being "electric". Do you remember anything you could share? Electric fast? An electric slider? Average velocity but electric movement? I'm just curious in terms of how much stuff he has. Also, I know he didn't have much summer, and hadn't been starting in college, etc., so it made sense that he pitched limited innings in relief. Any idea whether his repertoire or personality make him an obvious reliever for always? Or whether perhaps with a fresh spring, that he might get relocated to rotation, where he'd get more work, perhaps more fame and more trade value (hard to ever expect huge trade value for a minor league relief pitcher...), or perhaps if he did great consideration as a big-league starter?

From the draft, I think Michael Phelps and Mark Holliman are two guys who might be surprisingly good. Holliman's 3rd round, so I guess that wouldn't be a huge surprise. But I don't recall the board being very enthused about him. Not exactly "under the radar", but I think Veal could easily leap into a high-value guy with success in full-A. Again, he's a 2nd rounder, so would hardly be "under the radar". But I think he's a guy who might jump higher/faster than almost anybody. Agree on Mota, having rise potential. If he was to show up at Peoria and hit .275, suddenly we'd think for a good-defense middle infielder with a projectible body to hit decently at age, might be real interesting. Sam Fuld might perhaps get more attention. He started so slow, didn't help. And being so old in low-A, natural to dismiss whatever success he did have due to his age. But if he suddenly pops up in AA and produces to the same degree, suddenly the OBP boys will be all over him, and his age won't look as bad. (24 in AA isn't as objectionable as 23 in low-A...). One other who I think has a chance to get significantly increased respect is Ryu. Last year he was coming back off an injury, and I'm not sure what his winter purposes were last year. I think he's gotten the limited respect appropriate for a guy perceived to throw mostly in the 80's. But given his youth, and being further removed from his arm troubles, I think there's a chance he might perhaps throw harder this coming season than most of the early reports from last year suggest. If he's getting guys out in AAA with a 3-pitch repertoire and has a good control/GB orientation, and if suddenly we're getting regular 90-94 mph reports instead of 86-91 reports, suddenly people might take him a lot more seriously? Probable, no. But possible.

From the draft, I think Michael Phelps and Mark Holliman are two guys who might be surprisingly good. Holliman's 3rd round, so I guess that wouldn't be a huge surprise. But I don't recall the board being very enthused about him. Not exactly "under the radar", but I think Veal could easily leap into a high-value guy with success in full-A. Again, he's a 2nd rounder, so would hardly be "under the radar". But I think he's a guy who might jump higher/faster than almost anybody. Agree on Mota, having rise potential. If he was to show up at Peoria and hit .275, suddenly we'd think for a good-defense middle infielder with a projectible body to hit decently at age, might be real interesting.

I also found the Mota stuff interesting. To have been skipped up to Boise so young so fast was unexpected last year. To again be advanced up to full-season, again interesting. Not the normal handling for a roster-fill guy. Mota is also not your ordinary 5'9" Latin SS. I think he lists at 6'0" or 6'1", so who knows whether when he's 26 instead of 18 whether he might possibly have some decent power. I imagine he's basically a guy they like defensively, and who knows what might happen with his hitting in due time. If he learns to hit ala Cedeno, maybe he'll end up being a very significant middle-infield prospect. If his hitting never exceeds the Augie Ojeda/Carlos Rojas level. Sometimes physical maturation works both ways, of course. Guy grows and grows into more power. But often as he grows into more power his range and flexibility for playing shortstop can diminish. At any rate, if Mota can be at least fairly decent as a hitter this summer, he'll remain a guy to keep an eye on.

To me that seems like a demotion. Certainly going from manager to hitting coach at the major league level would be a demotion; I would think it would be in the minors as well. I would also think that being hitting coach for a specific team would be considered a demotion from being the organization-wide hitting coordinator (which Zisk was a few years ago); however, I don't know if it really is viewed that way (just because it seems to me like it would be doesn't necessarily mean that it actually is). I believe this is Zisk's wish. I believe he became manager at one point because somebody left, and they needed somebody to fill. I don't believe he wanted to be or to remain manager, and prefers to focus on hitting coach. I also think he prefers being the Daytona hitting coach over the organizational hitting coordinator. His family lives around Daytona, and he isn't angling to promote up. The FSL is one of the least-travel leagues around, and I believe Zisk likes that. My guess is that he has served as hitting coordinator and as manager as a favor, when special circumstances needed somebody. But that he doesn't want to manage, or move up to AA and AAA or hitting coordinator.

Craig, According to the Cubs convention reports (see other thread) from Fleita, they plan on putting Spears in Daytona and Patterson at Jackson. Seems to be a waste regarding Spears, his progression says he's ready for AA. Yeah, I saw that link this morning, very helpful. Actually, I wasn't quite clear on that report. Was the Al Yellon reporter saying that Fleita said Spears would go Daytona? Or was the reporter deducing that if Eric gets WTenn, then Spears would go Daytona? Wasn't entirely clear on that. When I scanned through some of the responses to that article, one of the respondants who'd been at the session said Fleita had also talked some about Spears perhaps playing some 3B. Bottom line would seem to be that Eric opens as the primary AA 2B, and given his age and the talents (much faster, more power) that he has that Spears will never have, that makes sense. Spears will play the first month of the year at age 20; he's still really young. if he returns to Daytona, that's no big deal, he's got time if he's actually going to become a major leaguer. But it's also possible they could share some time at 2b, Spears could play some 3B, Spears could perhaps play a little SS, one or the other could DH a little for rest... Someone asked earlier on this thread who will play 2B for Cubs in 2007? That's perhaps even harder to answer than the question of who will play 2B this year. Most likely it will not be somebody from the current farm system. Spears is almost certainly too young. The odds that Eric, who was still in low-A in July 2005, would have advanced enough to be the April starter in the NL in April 2007 is very unlikely. Murton and Cedeno, they never K'd much. Contact guys like Murton, Cedeno, Spears, Fuld, McGehee, are often more able to survive promotions than high-K hitters like Dopirak, Harvey, and Eric. Eric has an opportunity, for sure. But he's going to have to show a lot of improvement this year to get any consideration to start next year.

Craig and Fontenot are viewed as roster fill guys. Craig is a DH who can play a little 3rd and 1st, Fontenot is perhaps Walker-like in his 2B defense, and his lack of utility flexibility. He's got zero of the 5 traditional tools, the only thing he's got is the abilty to walk (although he K's a lot). Cubs like McGehee as a potential bench guy. He's the kind of hard-working contact-hitter/hustle/high-IQ/good-defense/fundamentals guy they like. Spears and EPatt are the problem pair, unless Spears plays SS which I doubt. Both have a shot to emerge as starting 2B, but both are far more likely to live in the majors as utility guys. As such, I think both would benefit from some action at some other positions. Maybe Spears some SS and 3B? Eric could use some 2B work and maybe some CF? My guess is they put both at AA, and let the manager decide who seems better at 2B. The "competition brings out the best" view. An alternative is to put one at Daytona, but which? Eric is older and has more tools, Spears is younger but hgas already handled high-A pretty well. Cubs could do it either way if they wanted, but my guess is they'll just let them work it out at WTenn.

Thanks again, deuce. Do you recall if Fleita talked at all about unfamiliar Latin players, or whether he thinks they might have some significant Latin guys we haven't heard about yet? Do you know if he made any comments about Ryu or Marshall? And do you recall if anybody talked enthusiastically about any prospects that might not be as familiar as the Pie/Cedeno/Dopirak/Guzman types? Somebody we might not know about as a prize prospect, but Fleita thinks is pretty good or has a chance to emerge soon? (Last year none of us thought Murton was super special. Two years ago who'd have guessed Cedeno was going to be hitting .300, and even last year who'd have guessed he'd be figuring to be a starter? Just wondering if Fleita gave any indications of guys they are excited about or think may be ready for some kind of a Murton/Cedeno/Hill-like breakthrough....)