craig

Tom, your support for Gallardo hasn't been fully supported in past years. For the moment, you deserve full, due credit! Lets see how the K's and HR's go moving forward. Hope this becomes increasingly normal.

Gallardo best game of his career. 7K/0BB, 9/1 GO/AO. Last year, he allowed 17HR in only 122 innings, really scary in the minors where not a lot of power hitters. This year, 0HR. Not sure what to make of that, but I'm hoping the new no-HR guy is real. HR-factory or not can make all the difference.

What was Herz extended for? An injury? Or developmental work, some modifications to help enable him to throw strikes?

I haven't been tracking all of the games and evenings. You're saying he was 93 tonight in the cold and wasn't quite getting it past guys? Whereas previous outing he was 95+ and was getting some up-fastball swing-and-miss? Helpful info, assuming I'm understanding it correctly, thanks.

Fun to have Horton dominating. And fun to have a good-stuff pitcher who might have good control.

Speaking of vanished players, has Chris Clarke reappeared? I don't believe he's appeared in a box score since the Cubs got him back from Seattle. Injured? Pitch-labbing in Mesa?

That's neat that Burl is healthy enough to resume his career. I wonder how much of his time away has been injury-related, and how much has been rebuilding his delivery and everything about it that made him hopelessly wild? Would be kinda cool for him personally if he could regain some success, rebuild some confidence, and re-establish some career as a minor-league pitcher. It would be an especially fun human-interest story if he actually somehow turned into an actual. big-league prospect to take seriously. Time will tell.

Tom, thanks for Myrtle video with all the Ks. Arias looks really electric; can see how he'd be wilder than wild, though. Not sure I'd think many 1-walk outings will show up. Agree that Oquendo looks interesting.

When a Latin kid is signed with SS his listed position, but he gets an insignificant signing bonus, it sometimes reflects that he's a 5'10 kid who lacks the levers and the bat speed to hit for power. There can be an Altuve for sure. But there aren't many middle-of-the-order power guys in big-league lineups who are <6 feet. The physics of short levers just doesn't support power for short guys, unless they have both exceptional bat speed and exceptional contact capacity. I knew Lubo was a low-$$ signing, so I suspected he might be one of those short guys who might not really have serious big-league power potential. But at 6'2", I think that's pretty ideal for perhaps having a frame to support power, and levers to support power. I know the 6'4-6'6" guys can have really nice long levers to have great BP power. The physics velocity can be great.... when the swing path meets the ball. But I often think that when the levers get too long, it's just harder to make the solid contact required for HR's. So I'm kinda cautious about real long-levered guys, and often think being more 6'2"-ish makes it a little bit easier to end up as a high-volume HR-hitter than being 5'10" or 6'6".

At 6'2", it's not like Lubo is too short to have real power potential. Lubo was in the Cristian Hernandez/Ballesteros year. Obviously they commanded all of the cash, so he would have been one of the cheap don't-count-against-cap signings . He's from San Pedro de Marcos, not some obscure country town with limited scouting. Would be fun to have him blossom into a real hitter.

Could be a nice night. I'm fascinated by Little, and always rank him higher than most lists do. Wild is wild, but a guy with overpowering stuff that nobody can drive is so interesting. Would love to see him stack some games, and build into a guy who can sometimes slip 5-inning outings under his pitch count. Wicks is supposed to be a top-10 guy with stuff that profiles well. Has been plagued by HR's and presumably fluky-high BABIP. Would love to see him locate his stuff consistently enough to curtail the HR's, and stack some decent-BABIP luck for a stretch of games . I'm still interested in Assad as a useful pitcher. Getting his location squared away at Iowa is good, and he may fill some anti-awful innings for us again, sooner or later. Brody has gotten some favorable scouting reports. Will be interesting to see if he can stack some excellent games for Myrtle. Would be fun if so many guys were doing well that like Horton and Brody would earn promotions in May, Ferris could earn his way up, and maybe Franklin or Little could push a move up to replace Jensen.

Will be interesting to see if Horton goes tonight. Sometimes when they have rainouts and schedule disruptions in the minors, they just have guys throw on the side or in a gym, to keep them on their throwing schedule, rather than pushing a guy back 3 days and maybe messing with their schedule.

Love both of those thoughts, Tom. Silverio is young and has the length to project hopefully as a power guy. Only turned 18 this calendar year. His height (6'3" listing) and the fact that the Cubs used him exclusively as a starter in DSL at age 17 suggests that they view him as a serious projection guy. He had good K/BB profile, so wasn't a wildman. That he's in American spring training and looking solid there, I think he might be a guy with a chance. I think your Ferris-to-Myrtle in May makes good sense. Certainly Horton is the most obvious guy to hopefully excel and promote. Brody McCullough will turn 23 soon, and Grant Kipp is already 23. So may be several guys who could get bumped up with solid Myrtle starts. Tom, any early notes on how they plan to use your guy Oquendo? Are they trying to make him a closer type, and have NOT stretched him out to start? If I was boss, I'd totally have Oquendo in rotation at Myrtle. At ~60 innings he was already doing as many innings as some of the starter guys, like Little and Franklin and Palencia. So I'd think he'd be a natural guy to give starter innings this season. But Phil has suggested otherwise, maybe?

I think this sets up minor leaguers with an awesome financial situation. The financial status of minor-league baseball players, even 3rd-day draftees with little probability of ever making it rich in the majors, is still way better than the vast majority of Americans in their 20's. I have four kids in their 20's, two of them in graduate school and one recently completed. Pre-pharmacist, had to pay four years of college tuition, then four years of expensive pharmacy doctorate program. Seminary, 4 years college, then 3 years in seminary. Ph.D. track in biochemistry, 4 years undergrad + 4-5 years Ph.D. As a teaching assistant or research assistant, Ph.D. candidate in biochemistry gets paid in the $20-28K range as a TA or RA, basically what a minor-league baseball player gets paid. In all cases, those candidates are also responsible for their own room and board, with no housing provided and no meal money granted. Of course, the Ph.D. candidate, Pharm.D candidate, and M.Div candidates got no signing bonus. In the 2022 draft, 15 of the 19 Cub signees got $125K or better. The other four were $100K (20th round), $80K (18th), $50K (17th); the only other guy below $80K was Nick Hull, the $25K senior sign (7th round) who'll turn 24 this summer. Minor-leaguers have it REALLY good compared to Americans their age.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Association_of_Professional_Baseball Not sure about others, but the American Association is one of the best Indy Leagues in the US. As of 2008, they had $100K salary cap per team. Not sure if that's been raised since. If not, that would be an average of $4K per player per season. They raised their minimum monthly salary within the last few years from $800 to $1200. So yeah, it will be a HUGE salary bump when guys playing for an American Indy League to get signed into a big-league organization.

https://www.marqueesportsnetwork.com/road-to-wrigley-analyzing-the-top-30-cubs-prospects/ Lance B's Cubs prospect ranking. There is also a brief clip of video with him talking with Callis.

Did anybody have access to the Lance/Callis show? Any interesting perspectives to share?

1. Crow-A 2. Alcantara 3. Horton 4. Wezneski 5. Brown 6. Wicks 7. Brennen Davis 8. Mervis 9. Palencia 10. Canario 11. Ferris 12. Caissie 13. Amaya 14. Killian 15. Hodge 16. Hernandez 17. Estrada 18. Luke Little 19. Ed Howard 20 Moises Ballesteros Luis Devers Kevin Made Franklin Gray Jensen Ramirez Derniche Valdes Aden Sanchez Jefferson Rojas Jordan Nwogu Triantos Hearn Mule Riley Martin Bailey Horn Pinango Verdugo Birdsell

That said, guys can get better, and for other teams guys do develop (sometimes). Top 20, obviously absolutely not, in a system that has a bunch of interesting possibilities. But the guy has a total of only 796 pro AB. And not even 80 AB in A-ball before he got rushed up to AA. That's where I kinda like the idea of having him back in AA again. By keeping the league the same, it's one constant in the evaluation. If he's hitting .230 again, we know he's not developing in any dramatic way. If he's hitting .280, and his K-rate is down, then we know he's the thing that has changed in some way, not the league level. One of the most common reduce-K adjustments, of course, is to swing earlier in the count. I expect he'll likely do that early on, at the expense of a reduced walk-rate.

Thanks, Mogrified. Yeah, now it auto-lists the new stuff on top. And looks like the back button is working correctly, too. I love it! Thanks for what you do in managing all that stuff!

Dumb question, but with the new website, have you guys found a way to: 1. Have it default so that topics with recent entries default to the top? When I go to the "Cubs Minor League Talk" forum, it defaults to 2006-2022 international signings and 2016 Cubs top 50 prospects discussion. So I need to Sort By > Custom > Last Reply > Last 5 Days each time. Is there some preference setting I'm missing or need to correct? 2. Have the back-button work normally? I'm using Google Chrome on a Mac. If I click on the assignments discussion, and then his the back button to go back to the panel of topics, it doesn't quite do that, and I get a "Press the reload button to resubmit the data needed to load the page." response.

I'm good with Strumpf going back to AA for a bit. If he's ready for Iowa and too good for AA, this gives him a chance to prove that he's too good for it and is ready to promote. As a 3-true-outcomes guy obviously getting hits isn't a priority. But I still kinda feel that if a guy is going to hit enough in the majors to make it work, he probably needs to have an AA average above .234. Let him go back and prove that he's better than that now, and that he's too good for AA.

Very possible. I'd not even noticed that McKinstry was absent from Smith's roster guesses. I'd kinda guess that even if the Cubs cut him, would anybody else pick him up? Wouldn't he just jump at a chance for an Iowa contract, *IF* they were to offer him one? Personally, *IF* they were to send Morel down, I'd rather keep Mastrobuoni up than McKinstry, because I think MM could give competitive AB's and get some hits.

Quiroz got sold to the Phillies today. :):)

https://www.mlb.com/player/chris-clarke-669247?stats=gamelogs-s-pitching-mlb&year=2023 Chris Clarke was Rule-5 selected by Seattle. He's pitched 5.2 innings this camp for Seattle, 6K/2BB/6H. Not sure what their competition is, or how much upside they see in him. That kinda sounds like a guy the Cubs will likely be able to get back, *IF* they want him back.