craig

Ah, thanks. Didn't realize.

Whatever take one has on all of this, I think even for the apologists/supporters, we have to agree that there ought to be some production pretty soon. This winter, we're talk only three significant pitching prospects in de la Cruz, Clifton, and Cease, and none had gotten out of A-ball. It's time to have more success. Early results are encouraging, but every pitcher is strong in April and not many guys hit much then. We'll see how guys like Clifton, Underwood, Tseng, de la Cruz, Steele, Miller etc. are looking ten starts in.

The volume of meaningful hits is also small enough, for most any team, that the perceptions can change fairly quickly. If Cease and Clifton emerge as two variably capable rotation guys, nobody's talking about this being a failure. If de la Cruz and/or Albertos turn out, procure-and-develop would look pretty good. Not to be overly defensive, but for whatever they've spend in LA, they haven't signed many pitchers. Tseng and Albertos are the only IFA pitchers they've spent on. That may be criticized as a foolish strategy, that moneys spent on Eloy and Sierra and Ademan and Amaya should have been invested in arms instead. But I think it's a bit of a specious argument to infer they've done a poor IFA job with pitching while spending a lot; they haven't.

We'll Health is huge issue for the prospects. And many of the Cubs guys have missed time: de la Cruz, Underwood, Johnson, Albertos, perhaps Hudson, Kellogg, Tseng, etc.. Hard to know how to factor. I tend to ding prospect with DL time. But I wonder if in other orgs, some of our guys would have never been held back? Maybe Cubs guys might be LESS vulnerable to injury, and our guys who've had some down-time aren't actually that risky?

Thanks for post, Dave. Yeah, story isn't finished yet, really. After a night like tonight, I'm thinking "wow, if Cease and Steele pitch like tonight more consistently, look out!" If Clifton and Cease work out, other fans might be totally jealous of hitting on a couple of non-firsts. Part of the take-home from your thread is how non-first-rounders don't hit all that often, lately. With two late first rounders coming up, wonder how they'll develop, if one or both are pitchers? Stinnett, haven't seen him on a roster. Wonder what's happened with him?

Steele with a good game, 6K/1BB and a couple of doubles in 5 innings. Would be fun if he emerged as a consistent strike-thrower.

The "behind the plate" bit is really interesting. By account he's got the arm, the hands,, and the coordination. Almost already too late for that, though. If a guy is racking up hits and success in full-season, he's got no need to switch positions and set his track back by a couple of years. Cool idea, though, given the shortage of catchers who can hit.

Very nice to see from Miller. DJ Wilson has K'd half of his AB's thus far. Did get a bunt single today.

Pretty nice to see Parades starting off so well. Long season, it's one week. But it's so common for any guy to start slow in April, and perhaps especially for a warm-weather kid up in the Midwest League. Very nice. Will be interesting to see how Mekkes does, but fun to see quick start. Weird to see Underwood with good stats like that. We're almost so accustomed to saying critical stuff for him, it would be fun if he was able to do some good. Lets see how next start goes.

Yeah, super fun to have this back. Pierce Johnson, 3K-1BB. Kinda captures his profile. :)

Duncan Robinson will be in that rotation for sure. Wonder what's up with Clark and his health? He's fine, they've just been being super-cautious with him? Or there were some real and present injuries when camp opened, and that's why he didn't go through the camp work that normal pitchers did? Same with Hudson, he was in the rehab group, but we've never gotten a hint what he's rehabbing from.

I sometimes forget that Clifton is still only 21.

As long as he's the top prospect remaining on the board with no major injury red flags, I have no problem with drafting pitchers once you're this low in the draft. While the risk in pitchers is still there, the hitters are no longer anywhere close to the sure things they were higher in the draft. Agree. The failure risk differential between players and pitchers no longer applies. I'd be pretty happy if two pitchers were talented enough to justify our top two picks. I'd be curious to see what the development people could do with guys with enough talent and control to justify a first-round pick.

Good observation. They and a bunch of other Latin kids are the South bend level, which frequently end up going to XST and staying state-side. At least if they look OK and competitive.

Phil has both Albertos and Hudson on rehab throwing programs.

I'm optimistic about Johnson in relief, myself. Last year was his first ineffective year, so if that turned out to be flukey anti-career year, that wouldn't be implausible. Not sure working on his 3rd and 4th pitches over the years has really helped that much. If he just lives on his fastball and his breaking pitch, he could rack up a lot of K's, and might walk a lot fewer without throwing his change and 4th pitch for balls. Obviously a season with health could also be a game-changer for him. He said Bosio had suggested a correction and that it's clicked and helped a lot. Sometimes it doesn't take much of an adjustment to help a pitcher, and Bosio has a good record. Would be a cool story if he found some success. With options, would be fun to have a yo-yo guy with some decent stuff.

Paredes writeup is really favorable. "squat and thick.... Peralta..." "But he has great hands that play at the plate and i the field, and he has surprising agility with nimble, quick feet. An average runner, Paredes has an above-average arm that may work at third base if he has to move.... an advanced hitter for his age with an all-field approached, some pop and good plate discipline." "....He should go back to South Bend fo 2017 as a 19-year-old". Obviously they have his age wrong; he just turned 18 last week. Really all-positive. Hopefully that plays out. I was most encouraged by the "surprising agility with nimble, quick feet" bit. Given the enthusiastic writeup, it's odd that he's ranked behind guys like David Bote, Jack Leathersich and Bailey Clark, and barely in front of Chris Pieters and Caleb Smith. Usually they like to bump up ceiling guys, so that in case a guy pans out BA will have been ahead of the curve. (See Albertos in top-10.) I wonder if the "some pop" is perhaps the semi-weak limiting factor in their analysis? (For example, in writing up David Bote they refer to "present strength" and "enough bat speed to produce solid-average power.")

Wonder how long that's been affecting him? Maybe he's been slow and bad for a while because of that, and perhaps after the surgery he might recover some of the velocity they reported/projected for him when they drafted him?

Said Pierce Johnson had 35K/22IP after he moved to bullpen, stopped using his change and cutter, and mostly just did fastball/breaking ball. Said Moreno got faster as the summer progressed, and that some scouts think he'll get faster still. Gave him good scores on his fastball, his change, and said his breaking ball was inconsistent but flashed quite well at times. Will be interesting to see how his stuff looks in full-season. He'll be 20, could be interesting to see if there is any growth in stuff or excellence. Not sure how much ceiling there is, but not inconceivable for a guy's stuff and velocity to mature.

BA book said several scouts gave Mekkes a 70 on his fastball effectiveness. Even though he maybe only rests at 92, because it's so deceptive.

Yeah, think the Cubs still see internally think Johnson has a chance to be good, and to have good stuff. I would be interested to see how his performance would be if he ever stayed healthy for 6 straight months. Bote was an interesting name to include. Guy had a really good season for Myrtle, over .900 OPS, slugged over .500, OBP over .400, and he plays OK infield. Kind of fun for us, after all of the successful graduations, to be ridiculing the inclusion of a >.900-OPS not-bad-defensive infielder at the back end of a top-30. Johnson's been kind of a weird minor league journey. Seems things are constantly changing. Kind of odd that last year his K/inning rate increased by almost 40%, which you'd think might be good; but his ERA almost tripled. My recall is that he finished pretty well, in relief. When a guy's 25 and he's never been able to sustained, health, style, control, pitch mixture, obviously unlikely that he ever will. But I think it's pretty evident that he's got some pretty good stuff. If he could ever put that stuff together, I still think he's got a shot to be variably useful. Obviously I'm an optimist, so what can I say. But I'm somewhat hopeful that with the Cubs hypothetically improved development system, we'll more often have guys who get better over time, and whose present and future profile may not always be well represented by some of their past performance. *Maybe Bote is better represented by his forgettable 2014 and 2015 results than his 2016 results; but maybe the Cubs development helped him to get better, and the 2017 better represents what he is now and will be future than the 2014-2015 version of himself? *Maybe Johnson has been exploring and tinkering, add the cutter, adjust the change, etc., and eventually he'll settle in? I'm kind of thinking of Samardzija, who was constantly changing his breaking ball and his approach, and then eventually settled into something that worked really well for him. Not at all suggesting that Johnson has any future as "good Samardz", but simply that his development might possibly have that kind of wandering trajectory, but eventually settle into something that will actually work OK.

No idea, unfortunately. I was just given the top 101. None of it has been published online yet. I assume they have a condensation of the same thing they had in Cubs top-20. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=30977

Thanks Tom. That there are even mixed opinions regarding the SS/move question is encouraging. Will be interesting to see how the hitting actually goes this summer, assuming he's full season. And if there emerges any hint of HR-power.

Thanks for Law comments, Win. Interesting that he like's Candelario's hitting that much. More surprising is that he views Clifton as a "high probability" 4th or 5th starter. To be able to crack and stick in a major-league rotation is pretty difficult. Hopefully Law is correct on that assessments. Most surprising is the Sepulveda, and the positive comment about his "great hands". I'd wondered if he was a bad fielder. A contact guy with great hands has a much easier time hanging around as a utility guy.

I think the picture for Torres is basically a better-hitting Addison Russell. An Addison-Russell shortstop who could hit .275, that's better than most top-5 prospects achieve. But whatever, he's not our guy anymore so doesn't matter. Certainly it's also possible that he'll end up being only average at SS and perhaps function as a high-end defensive 2B if his team has a higher-end SS, and that he'll end up hitting .255 with 10-12 HR, and not be that good. But Eloy's the guy we've got. So lets hope he's the guy who becomes a really good hitter with monster power. Heh heh, maybe he could basically becomes Kris bryant with less K's! :)