craig

Thinking: 1. Too expensive to draft HS'er? 2. Too much inherent risk with HS'ers? or 3. We're in too Nowacrat a mode to go with two HSers, given Win-Now mindset? That HSers are too distant, even if they prove to be good long-term values once they eventually do arrive and thrive? I've got no problem with going HS, if scouting judges them as good value, risk considered, and if HS leverage doesn't make them overpriced. And even if waiting 5-years for a HS kid to blossom might not match our present ideal window-of-opportunity. Maybe that might actually be good, too.... Maybe 5 years out, that might provide a good timeline to replace one of the Russell/Baez/Bryant/Schwarber/Contreras/Hewyard guys leaving in FA. Seems weird to be looking for replacements already, but maybe that's a way. And if some of the young guys do end up stars/good enough to justify Cub extensions at high prices, the team will need some low-price guys to balance the budget.

Has anybody seen Michael Rucker, or have inside scoop? 32K/2BB/1HR/19.2IP, pretty good splits. What I think I know: 1. Lists as only 6'1", 185, so not a big guy. 2. 11th round, but got $180 overslot. So, the Cubs liked him kinda, although still $180K isn't exactly a bonus baby. 3. 23, so already kinda old. 4. Was 3rd team All-American at BYU last year, his only rotation year. 5. Started at Gonzaga (he's a Washington kid), pitched like 10 innings as freshman; sat out sophomore year while transferring; swing reliever/6-start guy as junior; last year Friday night starter as senior, 180 innings total over his four years in college. 6. The bizarre K/BB/IP splits he's showing this year have no precedent in college. He was <1K/IP at BYU, and senior year was first year his K/BB got as high as 3/1. So good chance this is kinda SSS non-sustainable fluke. 7. Perhaps relief is an advantage, don't mix in as many pitches? 8. Beats me, but maybe pitching in BYU/WAC is like pitching for the Rockies? All anti-pitcher environments, thin air, etc? Last year at BYU, he had a 2.76 ERA; the rest of the staff was 4.5, nobody else was less than 3.5, and BYU ERA-against >7. So perhaps relative to environment/competition, he was better than realized? 9. https://baseballdraftreport.com/tag/michael-rucker/ Listed Rucker as #158 draft prospect last year, quoting some scouting report that said: Draft scouting always seems to inflate everybody, but if in relief he's able to consistently pump it up and work at low 90's, with control, and has somehow tweaked up his slider into a good knockout pitch, maybe he's a thing?

Sounds pretty serious for Caratini. Sounds like he'll be out for quite some time.

Odorizzi has been a 2-3 WAR guy. If you end up getting a consistent, durable 2-3 WAR guy at end of round 1, that's not bad. But if that's the prospect's ceiling? Different story. Few guys reach or sustain their ceiling, so if that's the best you might possible get, and there is an 80% probability that you'll get less, that wouldn't seem a great value. I don't share Tom's premise, though, that the ceiling for Enlow would be Odorizzi level. I think there's the ceiling possibility for being considerably more than Odorizzi. Young, slender, projectible guy who might add considerably more velocity, and who pitches with balance and a good repertoire, there is at least a chance that guy could end up very, very good.

Thanks for Peyton notes. Had assumed as an old 29th rounder, that he had no moe than roster-fill velocity. If he's got good command of 92-94 sinker, that's not inadequate. Love to see Midwest guys do well, so would be fun to see him extend success and build a career.

slicing out the best possible sample of a guy and there he's still not striking anybody out / controlling the strike zone kind of seems like damning with faint praise kind of situation Fair enough. ....As far as the Ks, I get it. I love Ks, but that's not Hudson's game. If he had induced 39 ground outs vs. 8 fly ball outs in his last 4 starts, the lack of strikeouts becomes a lot more worrisome. Not trying to change your mind on him. Just stating why I'm encouraged. I'm also encouraged. Players have success in different way But counting the two XST games, he's had 8 starts, and 7 of them have been variably effective, he's only had one terrible start. It would seem that for now, as a 19/20 year old, relative to low-level hitting, he's pitching effectively. So, for the moment, being effective relative to his league, and certainly relative to his age, now seems the norm and not the exception. Usually being effective is a change compared to last summer, so I take that as encouragement. And the extraordinary GO/AO ratio seems reproducible enough to suggest that's no fluke. The K's are terrible, particularly in conjunction with the BB's which are mediocre. (And the BB's don't capture the other "wild" things, if you added in the HBP and the WP, the ratio of K's/"wild things" would be well below 1.) But you can get away with a lot if you never allow a HR. Tom has correctly mentioned the massive importance of HR-allowance rate (hello, Lackey and Underwood.....). That's the area where Hudson has excelled this season, and assuming the GO/AO is even remotely sustainable, that should continue to excel. HR/K/BB seem the big three to me; If the GO/AO allows the HR to be great, and the BB's are anti-awful, he's got a chance. It's odd that his K-rate is so exceptionally low, when at draft and in early camp, there was talk about his curve being so good. Most K's come on breaking balls, obviously, so it appears that was either untrue to start with, or that he's lost that curve or any semblance of control over it. So I think there may be a possibility (which doesn't mean probability) that K's might improve. He just turned 20; he might get a little faster, and grow into mediocre/average velocity. And sometimes guys who have just turned 20 can adjust/improve their curveball some.

Cease on DL

The lack of K's is a concern for both de la Cruz and Clifton, in my opinion. For high-stuff prospects, they might be too inconsistent as prospects to do it every time, but I'd expect a guy with a plus big-league arm and plus big-league stuff should dominate minor-league hitters on the occasional game when their stuff is on. Not every game, but I'd expect a 9K/1BB/6IP start now and then. de la Cruz has had only a single start where he out-K'd his innings, a 6K/5IP start. de la Cruz is supposed to have good stuff, but as a high-HR/low-K guy, maybe his stuff isn't all that excellent, or his fastball that notably fast or movement-ish? Lots of minor-leaguers can work at 90-92 and touch an occasional 95-96. And for a guy who's touted for his size, should he be worn out after 5 innings? Not sure that testifies that "big/strong/durable" is necessarily a true asset? But, the guy has only pitched 240 pro innings. Hopefully he'll gain consistency and sharpen up the change and offspeed. Just not sure the results indicate notable life on the fastball, or any high-end breaking stuff. Seems like a solid prospect, but probably not much change to be more than a #4 rotation type? Obviously with the Cubs potential defense and position group, if you have a collection of three #3/4 type rotation guys, a great pen, and find one or two top-end starters, you could win a ton of games.

Justin Steele has sequenced three decent starts, 2 earned runs over past three starts. His overall numbers are weird, 1.6 WHIP and giving up I think a .330 BABIP or something like that. His K/BB splits are terrible. Obviously he doesn't have especially good stuff, needs to get by with unexceptional stuff. And traditionally he's been wild, or at least inconsistent. But composite numbers are a mix of all games, and he's had two bad starts, one terrible; the other 6 have all been one earned run max. Has some groundball profile, so that's a good thing. Will be interesting to see how he can progress as the season progresses,and whether he can either improve his consistency or perhaps improve his K-quality. Would be fun to see him develop into a decent prospect.

Thanks for scouting account, Win. Very helpful. And glad to hear the report that Cease claim's it's not a big deal. Your observation that he was locating what catcher was asking for, that's encouraging, and that the hits were bloops, etc. Thanks also for links.

:):) I agree Tom. Huge difference. Perhaps why Ryan Harvey and Bubba Starling aren't doing much. Also think big difference between crude bulk "football-combine" type tools, and actual finesse baseball talents, as required to adjust and square up to, or lay off of, a fast-moving cutter or slider. Or to not only be able to throw fast and to spin, but to locate and command those pitches consistently. Bulk tools like velocity, power, and speed are easy to see. But the finesse tools required to hit and pitch with command, much harder to quantify. Also, thanks very much you guys for your posts and opinions about the draft. I haven't had the capacity to keep track or have opinions myself. Drafting top 5 or top 10, not that hard to try to track 8 or 10 guys and read as much as possible. But kinda hard for me to evaluate guys in the late 20's. If a guy sounds really good, the better he sounds th eless likely he lasts. So anyway, reading you guys's thoughts has been helpful. Keep it up! :)

I suspect this may be more individual, than organizational. "If you get into situations where you have to strike guys out", try to. I wonder if, to a pitcher, "pitch to contact" is basically understood to mean "throw more fastballs"? Watched part of Butler's game on Friday. Totally different approach than Lester or Hendricks. Suspect if Butler tries to pitch like Lester, he'll not do very well. But for that day at least, he had enough fastball that he could throw a lot of fastballs, and still succeed. Did he spot them all, and were they so fast and so explosive that they were swing-and-miss fastballs? No. But they were fast enough and had enough run/movement that they weren't all getting mashed. In his case, I'd guess "pitch to contact" in practice means "throw your fastball a lot, don't get behind in the count all the time, and if they' sit on fastball, your change doesn't need to be Hendricks-esque to get some chase swings." Montgomery could perhaps use a little "pitch to contact" encouragement. Does he ever throw two fastballs in a row, or three strikes in a row? When he does does mix in a fastball, the hitter could almost count on the next pitch *Not* being another fastball. Perhaps if he threw more fastballs, maybe he'd pitch ahead more often, and maybe guys wouldn't be sitting offspeed as effectively if they weren't so sure fastball wasn't coming. Guessing De la Cruz has got a pretty decent fastball,and maybe is throwing lots of curves and changeups which result in long and unfavorable counts? Maybe throwing more fastballs for him is "pitching to contact" and helps him in A-ball. Whether it will help him have the command for majors, not so sure. Cease might be another guy who might be encouraged to "pitch to contact. But kinda guessing he can get some K's even with his fastball; that developmentally he needs plenty of work on curve and change; and that even if he threw mostly fastballs that he'd still be wild.

Yeah, those guys appear to be doing pretty terrible in XST. O well. Hopefully they'll get better with time.

Thanks for scouting notes. Very helpful. Helpful to actually have viewed the action. Yeah, obviously 89 isn't very fast, so that's going to be a finesse guy. But also possible that a guy can add some velocity after just hitting age 20; and a guy can get more confidence and comfort in his delivery, and throw a little harder; obviously in relief too. It's a prospect and a project. Seems like the real long guys can have more challenges with consistent delivery and with breaking pitch. Hopefully in time his curve will get better. Going to be a long road for him, I'm guessing, even if things do have a happy ending.

Nice to see Hudson accumulating effective outings. He had the one bad outing, 7 runs. But in his other four starts, he's allowed 4 runs total. Not too bad.

What does that actually mean, I wonder? The pitcher throws the ball, the hitter hits it... So, does that mean: 1. Throw a lot of strikes and don't nibble? 2. Throw a lot of fastballs, for strikes, and not too many breaking balls? 3. Even if you get ahead 0-2, keep trying to throw strikes, maybe even fastball strikes, rather than throwing all chase pitch wannabes? 4. Don't overthrow your fastball? I'd guess some of the priorities might be quite different in AA/AAA versus low minors. But I'd guess what's valued in A+ would also be valued in lower levels.

Curious outing; may be wrong, but I thought in past the Cubs had a 30-pitch limit for prospect pitchers in an inning? Brailyn Marquez pitched in the Eloy game, a walk and 6 hits in his one inning. Allowed to stay in for 43 pitches in his inning.

http://www.thecubreporter.com/05062017/cubs-rehabbers-finding-their-game-riverview-park May be a day or two old, so apologies if already noted. Carlos Ocampo had a funny outing, 2 innings and 2 walks and 4 runs. The funny part is throwing 5 wild pitches in two innings! :) Not sure I've ever seen anything like that!

de la Cruz really hasn't shown anything thus far. Thus far, seems something's missing. Looking at current Cub team, there is real value in anti-awful. Granted, next year might a different look once again. But the combo of a great offense, great defense, and a really good bullpen reduces the need for great rotation pitchers. Right now, if a starter can get through 5-6 innings while allowing 2-3 runs, that's not at all excellent performance; but more days than not that will be sufficient for the team to win. Clifton doesn't seem to be dominating any games, neither killer-K rate, hard-to-hit, or anti-HR. But relative to Lackey and Anderson, the bar isn't very high. I can easily imagine the Cubs having some seasons where they use non-dominant guys as rotation fillers. As they are doing now with Anderson, and did two years ago with Haren and Wada and Richard.

Zagunis hit his 4th HR. I thought his scouting on this board has always been as a singles hitter. But seeing him on TV from camp, he's a burly, big, muscular-looking guy. If he can hit HR's to go with all his millions of walks, he'll have a big-league career, even if his defense stinks.

That's great. I thought the report on Marquez last fall was that he was even slower than Hudson. I know there had been a report of a 92, but those tops listings are routinely way faster than a guy actually pitches at. If he can actually pitch at 90-92 at his present age, that's really cool. Likewise for Perez. Very fun.

I agree, he'd had two really clean outing in a row, and Az Phil who watches all the games was really positive. Guys improve in all kinds of different ways, sometimes light-bulb, sometimes progress-plateau-regress-progress-plateau, whatever. But I was hopeful that something was better, and I think that Cubs management was also, thus the promotion. Yesterday disappointing. If he'd had 5 shutout innings, we'd be having a different conversation. Tom, obviously he's not going to be a prospect if he doesn't have results. Results AND velocity bump => more national respect (justifiably). No results, no respect. Even if he improves to Kellogg-level results (or worse) with Kellogg-level velocity (or worse) and Kellogg-level movement/breaking stuff => he'll get nothing more than Kellogg-level respect (or less). I do think that some prospects do improve with time. Hudson's under 70 pro innings; that's enough to know what the rest of his career will be? (Paredes has 1 HR in his pro career, should we conclude he'll never hit any HR's?) As for the "can hit 94", I'd take that with about 94 grains of salt. Don't think Hudson actually can pitch at 94, or at least not since high school. My understanding is that at least as of last summer, he wasn't fast at all, and maybe kinda made Anderson look like a power lefty. Guys can change and improve, so I'm hopeful. But certainly the burden of proof is on the player, if he hasn't performed well thus far.

He also hit not one, not two, but three hitters. So some control issues remain. Tom's comment is pretty obvious: Hudson's a young guy, if he produces and pitches effectively, he may get on the map. If he's predominantly ineffective, not likely. Certainly the velocity will factor there. If he continues to have Kellogg-esque 80's velocity, he'll need to be pretty consistent with his command to get much interest. If his velocity bumps into the 90's, then there's more tolerance for inconsistency.

Rosscup's never been able to translate it up. But he's back to his minor-league thing. 9K/0BB in 5 innings. The guy is a killer K-king in the minors. Given the shaky Loogy landscape in Wrigley, it's not impossible that he might get another call-up at some point?

LaStella in the Iowa lineup. Hit and a walk his first two PA. The guy is just a hitter. I think getting regular action at Iowa for a while will actually be very helpful for him. It's been a while since he's had that. Best wishes to him.