craig

Not to be overly nit-picky, but I think they have "agreed" as opposed to "signed". I believe that means they have agreed to what the deal will be, continent on other guys signing. But, basically they won't want to actually contractually sign a super-slot guy until the sub-slot guys have actually passed their physicals and actually signed their deals to the agreed-upon underslots. The slot and sub-slot guys can sign as soon as they want (and pass their physicals), but superslots need to wait for the discretionary money to become available.

Tom is totally cool!

With all the "pitch lab will magically cure everybody" optimism from the Athletic, Herz sounds like the prototype for a pitch-lab project. If he's athletic and can throw hard already sometimes, the pitch lab seems exactly the sort of thing to help him figure out how he's doing it on the uncommon occasions that he does throw hard. And if he sometimes throws a sharp slider, lab might hopefully help him figure out how to lock into the good version. Sounds like a really fun, interesting developmental project for the development people. Will be curious how much superslot he gets?

Thanks for info, that's great to hear. It would be so helpful if he stayed healthy, and was able to pitch like a guy you could hope for. Particularly with our bullpen this year, if he was able to come up in July and be a guy we looked forward to seeing, that could be a big boost to the team. Likewise for next year, **IF** he was to develop well enough so that you'd be happy to give him the #5 starter spot, that could help a lot. If you could use Hamels $20 to pay for some of the inflation that Bryant, Javy, etc. will be getting paid, they might be able to perhaps make the budget work.

Swarmer isn't off to a very exciting start with Iowa.

yeah, that looks like a terrible lineup to me. Maybe by being mostly older veterans they'll end up being OK. But to me it looked kind of like Herron, Amaya, and kinda like having mostly a bunch of Heywards or something!

.... Pretty interesting. Nice. I love pitchers with good stuff; and I usually assume most successful pitchers have some individual pitch that is outstanding, even if their fastball isn't. Not sure Richan has any individual pitch that's especially good. But who knows, maybe he's a guy who can throws an assortment of pitches that individually would scout as relatively average; but maybe an average-stuff pitch with excellent location ends up being more than average? Or maybe a collection of average pitches plays out above average if a guy can mix and match and locate all of them? Maybe none has unusually good movement, but if hitters are rarely guessing right, they don't need great movement? I guess I also hope that a smart control pitcher maybe has an easier time refining and improving pitches than a wild guy? Easier to tweak and modify and refine and improve off a good, consistent delivery that you really know how to manage? Rather than when the delivery is inherently inconsistent to start with, and fiddling around just amplifies the inconsistencies? I suppose the other possibility is that some guys do just improve their stuff. Richan just turned 22 this week, was a young college draftee. Probably not usual but neither is it impossible that a guy who was 20-turning-21 during his draft season on which the scouting reports were based, that a guy that young might get a little stronger, or faster, or more consistent, of better able to sharpen the curve or whatever? Also perhaps possible that the scouting reports we've had access to perhaps just weren't super accurate, and maybe some of his individual pitches have more movement and are actually somewhat sharper than we've been led to believe?

Why is Marquez behind schedule? I hadn't realized he'd been injured. Any news yet on what was STeele's latest injury (I assume) that put him behind?

My general view would be that unless a guy is needed for the big-league team, I'd normally prefer to have a guy excel at one level for a somewhat sustainable time prior to jumping them. And I'd generally prefer not to skip levels. An experienced and capable college draftee skipping up to Myrtle, that's a little different and I'm OK with that, as they attempted with Lange and Thompson last spring. If Richan skipped to Myrtle, for example, I'd have no problem with that. With Hoerner, I admit I'd be kind of excited/intrigued if they skip him right up to AA. But I'd be pretty hesitant to do that, and I don't see the value. I'd start him lower, and let him excel for a month in A-ball before considering jumping him to AA. If he's ready for AA, there is no harm done in letting him excel in A-ball for a while first.

Agree. What matters is developing them long-term. I'm not that keen on sending them to the Midwest league in april. It's freezing cold, half the games are rained/frozen out, and they're going to be overmatched, so I think there's a real risk that these young, raw, warm-weather kids will just get dominated there. I don't think doing badly and undermining confidence serves development well. Obviously if they go and are themselves dominating, that would be unexpected and especially exciting, but I don't see the risk-reward being desirable. Of course I defer to the Cubs wisdom; if they do get placed there, for sure I'll be fascinated and hopeful. But the Cubs in general have been a super-rusher organization, so *if* the kids don't get promoted despite the Cubs being rather rush-oriented, I think that will reinforce my idea that they probably really aren't ready yet. I also kind of think practicing every day with all of the facilities and resources in Mesa, is probably more useful than driving around on buses to Grand Rapids and Beloit, and sitting around in hotels during April weather-cancelations. In Midwest league, I don't think they spend as much time practicing or teaching; mostly it's the games. I suspect in Mesa there is a lot more time for practicing and drilling and working on stuff, and the facilities are advantageous. I'd like to see them in daily box-scores, especially so if they're getting hits and doing well. But my curiosity as a fan doesn't really determine development! I don't think getting beaten up in full-season really helps anybody's trade value. I also think that if guys really are ready, they'll do very well in XST and reaffirm that they can stay really ready and consistently excel down there. If so, May or June are fine times to pull them up to South Bend.

Thanks for keeping the Az Phil updates coming. Fun.

Don't think Morel is going to make it, unfortunately. Has some appealing qualities. But guys who can't hit never make it; hitting is a gift that if lacking is never learned. Morel was 29/0 K/BB at Eugene in 91 AB.

Thanks for links and vids, guys! Yeah, that's quite the change in physique. Fun to see. Hope he can hit.

Curious that Roederer is **not** among the six guys with highest exit velocity. I wonder how data-literal Phil's comment actually is? Also interesting that Davis *is* included in that group. I wouldn't have been confident that with his length that he'd have the swing-speed for exit-velo. Also interesting that Ademan, who slugged .273, would be included.

Video of Marquez from last week at South Bend. Not sure I'm really noticing the "soft" bit? I sure wouldn't have thought that from the video, if it hadn't been suggested earlier? If Marquez is "soft", then I don't know what you'd call guys like Schwarber and Justin Wilson... Regardless, I hope he's got the motivation and brains to get the most out of whatever ability he's got. Important guy for the system.

Post-draft, I thought I recall McLeod talking about Thompson being wild but that his stuff when he's at his best was 2nd-round caliber, or something like that. I can't reproduce the exact phrasing, but I recall thinking the "2nd round" phrasing was interesting. That's very good, although perhaps not quite Kimbrel-esque.

Young's played almost exclusively 1B.

This box shows Hultzen going 1 inning, not two. http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2018_08_16_cubrok_diarok_1&t=g_box&sid=milb But over last 4 games, 3.1 innings, he's got 8K/1BB/0H. So that's 11 hitters, 1 walk, 8 K's, and two BIP-outs. Kinda fun. I wonder if the guy has any kind of arm left anymore? That would be super cool, for us as Cubs fans, but more broadly just as a human interest story, to see a guy like that come back and end up still having some major-league success after all these years. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/highschools/a-cautionary-tale-for-pitching-through-pain-former-no-2-pick-attempts-a-comeback/2017/08/17/ca393ca4-6423-11e7-a6c7-f769fa1d5691_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.585fe1249543

There is a possibility I was wrong about richan. Yeah, nice to see Richan doing well, and Franklin too. I wonder when the last year was that we saw a college draftee pitch a 4-inning game during his draft summer? Very unusual, perhaps reflecting that Richan had a very low pitch count? Does anybody know what Davis's latest injury is? He's been out for a week or so now.

Rucker's 3.49 ERA on season, with a 1.09 WHIP, and 109K/118 IP. Nothing great, but not bad. But his composite numbers obviously include his crummy April. Over last 10 starts, he's 2.72. And among those 10, he had one terrible 6-runs-in-3-innings start. Of course every pitcher's numbers are inflated by their worst games, so taking out their worst starts makes a lot of guys look good. But if I take out the 6-run start, he's got a 1.8 ERA over his other last 9 starts. I admit I'm kinda skeptical that his stuff will carry up. But it's fun to hope so.

Rodriguez and Garcia both terrific, again, in DSL. Both are lefties, listing at 6'1" and 6'2", 18 and 17. Garcia was a $150K guy who supposedly added a couple inches and some pounds, and added 5mph. May still be a soft-toss guy, the BA writeup mentioned him having touched 92. Rodriguez, Garcia, and Cruz have been pretty terrific, and Marquez good too. Would be so great to have some of these Latin pitchers develop into serious prospects. I keep assuming Rodriguez or Cruz are bound to get lit up one of these days, how consistent can any 18-year-old be, but they just keep putting up good game after good game. Very fun.

I imagine every pitcher has some deviation. If Lange was 90-92 and gets there most games, I have to assume he'd have a fluke 93 or 94 once in a while. Who cares. If 90-92 is what he pitches with on a good night, that's obviously below-average. Better have very good movement and excellent location to win with below-average velocity. That game got his ERA below 4, so that's good.

Swarmer strictly limits any runs against to HR's! Gives up his second. South bend messes up my all-levels-get-shut-out by scoring 2 in the 9th. Myrtle comes through with a shutout, losing 1-0.

Swarmer with 1HR and otherwise good again through 4. Passantino with 2 HR and otherwise good for 7. Heh heh, Ademan broke up the extra-inning no-hitter to get that 1-0 win. But during middle-or-late innings, all of the full-season teams are getting shutout. That would be kinda uncommon if the Cubs and all four full-season teams could all get shutout on the same day!

90-92 fastball for Lange, on a good day, isn't super inspiring. I've been surprised that after all the curveball buzz, that he hasn't K'd more guys. K-rate hasn't been bad, or anything, but given how few A-ballers can hit average curves, much less excellent ones, I'd have figured he'd have a few more 9K/6IP games on days when curve was sharp.