craig

Thanks for pointing him out. I'd been thinking the same thing, that he's been good for Eugene, just as he'd been good for Miss and in Cape. Sure, he's a short reliever. But a lefty who can throw strikes in the 90's, not sure why that might not play up. Will be interesting to see how he does going forward. I'm a huge believer in the value of relievers.

Thanks for passing along that stuff/scouting info, Win. The favorable report on the change is news to me. I believe it. That would help explain both how he's gotten to be so good at the end of the year, and also why he's been so very effective against lefties. Big curve and change, are there any harder pitches to control? Not sure how well that control will carry over into next year, but if he's actually developed a good change, and can throw his curve for strikes, that's a good combo.

Myrtle goes down deep in extra innings. Daury Torrez has an excellent game in relief, 4K's in 3 perfect innings. Offense-wise, that's a really weak roster, and other than Clifton not sure there's much very significant on the pitching-side, either. Still, when the big-league pitching staff normally carries 13 pitchers, the 6th starter and 12th/13th guys on the roster aren't always especially talented, but can still make a difference. So who knows with guys like Morrison, Leal, Underwood, Torrez, or McNeil whether one of them might develop favorably and end up being a useful 12th/13th pitcher type guy. Leal won't turn 22 till after spring training begins. I'll be curious to see whether the winter reports include any higher velocity compared to results 1-2 years past? His composite numbers are somewhat blah, but he's 39K/8BB/38 innings over his last ten starts. If we were to receive reports that his regular working fastball velocity has bumped up from upper-80's into low-90's now, and that he's now implemented an effective cutter to go along with improving change and slider, maybe he'd look more plausible as a 4th starter than he was perceived before. Torrez supposedly throws fairly hard now that he's in relief this year, and his low-slot fastball might seem kinda tough on righties. His composite K-rate is way up (almost as many K's this year in relief as he had last year in twice as many innings). And he's finished pretty strong, with some notably good box-scores within the last month. (27K/5BB/19IP, 4-of-12 hits in one outing.) Will be curious whether either Torrez or Leal get 40-man roster. Or Ryan McNeil.

Paredes-Martinez-Rose go 0-13, and Eloy only 1-4. South Bend loses in 10, 4-3. Nice 84-55 season, but they're done. Very fine record for a team that really only had Eloy as a high-end prospect.

"Markey, Skulina, Clark, Miller, Mekkes, etc have taken more seriously on this board than Kellogg" Kellogg is a much better prospect than Markey, Skulina, or Tseng. They have failed, he hasn't. Until he fails, he's a prospect, in my book. But certainly Tseng and Jokish are illustrations that having a resume of Kellogg-esque numbers in the Midwest League is little proof that a guy will be successful at higher levels. I'll keep an eye on Kellogg as long as he's having success; for a guy with minus-velocity I'll probably give up pretty quick if/when he fails. Here's Kellogg's resume: http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/profile.asp?P=ryan-kellogg Not sure how exciting 3.15, 3.76, and 3.60 ERA's are in college, with K/9 of 5-6-7.

I'd sure put Clifton ahead. Plus curve, plus results, plus K-rate, plus velocity, more success in higher league at younger age.

I think Jokisch is a good comp. Kellogg is 22 with 3.03 ERA in Midwest; Jokish had a 2.94 ERA as a 21-year-old in same league, with similarly good K/BB splits. Jokisch than followed that up with a 2.91 ERA in AA at age 22. So, in terms of accomplishments, Jokisch and Kellogg basically have identical years in Midwest League, although Jokisch was a little younger and confirmed with another effective year in AA at the age Kellogg is doing it in A. So if we're looking at accomplishments and performance, Kellogg doesn't look better. I thought mention of touching 90 was a little more common with Jolisch than what we've heard from Kellogg, but that's probably mostly because we don't get many reports on low-velocity college guys. That Jokisch didn't make it doesn't mean that Kellogg won't. Sometimes performance guys are able to carry it up the ladder. Hendricks is the exception not the norm, of course; but perhaps when a guy without velocity somehow keeps getting guys out, eventually we come to realize that there is reason. So long as Kellogg can perform effectively, I'll keep an open mind that he might have a chance to be effective. Good luck to him. Hopefully the Cubs can somehow help him add a little good velocity before it's all said and done. If the change is really good (see Hendricks), and the location is consistently masterful (again see Hendricks), you can have good results even without much velocity. But the emphasis on velocity sure helps to explain why so many pitchers took steroids. Temptation has to be pretty strong.

Bailey Clark is in Durham completing his fall semester at Duke. Semester started in late August. Thanks very much! That's good to hear. Way better to have him shutting down because he's a smart, self-motivated guy who wants to complete his degree rather than because he's got a sore shoulder!

I'm a little concerned that de la Cruz had 5 excellent starts after 3 months of rest/rehab, but then his last 3 were blah/bad. Maybe just the normal ups and downs hot-cold that players go through over a season. But I'm a little nervous that after resting for months his bad arm felt OK for a while, but maybe it didn't take long for it to start not being so good again. Paranoid, paranoid.....

Heh heh, 39K/21IP, that's a good way to wrap up a season. I wonder what kind of variants he has on his curve. A lot of guys will have the big, slow curve, maybe as a 2-strike chase pitch; but also have a much smaller curve that they can more consistently throw for strikes, even if it's more of a grounball pitch than a big K pitch. In this video from last night, his curve looks pretty big; can't imagine he can throw those for strikes real consistently, especially if guys could control themselves and just not swing. Hopefully he's got or will develop the smaller throw-for-strikes variant.

Cease listed for Eugene tonight, I wonder if he'll really go, or if they'll save him for playoff start. It's all about development, so probably no reason to hold him back. But perhaps they think the playoff pressure/excitement is almost better development experience, who knows. Nice finale for Kellogg. Ends 107/26 K/BB, that's a good >4:1 ratio. Ends 3.03 ERA, that's nice too. 8 HR's is kinda high, that's going to be an issue for him. Only 2 HR second half, 52K/9BB/2HR second half is very nice. Kellogg is a great example of why pitchers would have liked to dabble in steroids in years past. If he had his stats and control, but suddenly added solid velocity, he'd be a very popular prospect. Eloy back today, 0-3.

Yup, thanks a ton Cal for getting all of these started. Sad to see the minor-league season end. Hopefully the playoffs are fun. had a lot of good developments this season. Thanks also Tom for a lot of input and discussion.

Tyson Miller, who turned 21 at end of July, is now up over 130 innings between college and pro, but the Cubs hadn't shut him down as of Monday. By contrast, Bailey Clark, who's 8 months older, got shut down at 71 innings on Aug 10. Has anybody heard anything regarding Clark's situation? Each guy is unique, I'm sure But having pitched 60 fewer innings than Miller, I'm not sure Clark was just shut down merely because of innings workload. So, I wonder if he had an injury of some sort, and if so what and how severe? I'm actually rather surprised they've let Miller rack up so many innings.

I wonder how fast Paulino is, actually. I've got the impression that he's got a reputation for throwing reasonably hard, but I wonder how true that is. In a couple of the strikeout videos I saw on milb.com, he didn't look notably fast by my eye-ball look, but granted that isn't very precise. And maybe I was expecting too much. He looked like he might be largely a breaking-ball guy who mixes in some sinking/movement fastballs. Obviously a lefty who can throw strikes, throw with movement/sink, and throw a good breaking ball doesn't need to be a power guy. Not that many lefties, even the good ones, who are overpoweringly fast. Definitely a significant prospect. I'll be very interested to read the scouting reports on him this winter, including their velocity writeup. I'm kind of guessing he's probably a guy who's touched 94-95, who normally works in the 87-92 range with his fastball, whose fastball is fast enough to be a player but not fast enough to be his signature.

Last starts of the regular season for these guys now. Monday is last day, I think, for the full season guys. Eugene, SB and Myrtle will all be playoffs, right? Myrtle included? Tennessee should send Hedge back to Myrtle for the playoffs. Clifton-Morrison-Hedges would be a pretty tough sequence.

Is that still the case, or as much so as before? I wonder if he hasn't smoothed that out some. Seemed the last video of him that I saw, his delivery looked smoother and more normal. And the guy's only 21, so if there's something with his delivery it's not inconceivable that the Cubs will work with him on that and make some improvements.

Given the injury risk and given some issues with his control and stuff, naturally it's less than probable that Clifton will end up being an excellent big-league rotation guy. He doesn't have a strong history for having good control. The curve is a very hard pitch to control, so not sure whether he'll ever be able to become a consistent strike-thrower. Big-league hitters do a better job of hitting curves, of laying off of non-strike curves, of spoiling 2-strike curves, and of making curveballers pay when they do hang a few. Clifton's fastball seems to be good but isn't great, I don't think. And I'm not sure what he has as fall-back on days when the curve is off. So, lots of reasons to think he might not succeed. Still, I can't help but be really interested in a guy with a put-away curve like that, combined with what I think is a pretty good fastball. The kind of K/HR numbers he's put up this year at age 20/21 are pretty impressive for a guy his age. He'll still be 21 for over a month at AA next year, so he's still got time to continue to refine his game. I wonder what the scouting reports on him will say this offseason. An oddity is that his arm slot looks like it might be good versus righties. But his season splits actually show better results versus lefties. A lot of curveballers get killed by lefty hitters, so if he doesn't have problems with lefties, I think that's actually a very good sign. I'm pretty interested. Obviously easily in our top-10 list, possibly top 5-7.

5K/0BB in 2 innings for Daury Torrez. He's had a very good second half. Has some pretty sharp splits, good arm, low slot, tough on righties. Not so tough on lefties, apparently. Cease 8K/4BB in 5 innings. 2 hits. Guy is hard to hit, K's galore. Last 4 starts, 29K/10BB/6H/16IP.

Aach. That's terrible. Sad, that is, to realize that things are starting to shut down.

That's a great point. I think a lot of kinda average guys will put up good numbers in front of this great defense. An average pitcher who doesn't need to get stretched too deep because there's a strong pen behind him, who has great defense, and who pitched in front of a good offense can start a lot of games that the team will win. If they bring back Chapman, and Rondon comes back healthy and like his normal self, and Edwards becomes a consistent guy, they could end up with a really good bullpen.

They won't outpace the revenues the Cubs will be generating in that time span thanks to improved ticket sales, gains from deep playoff runs and likely a WS or two, improved merch and concessions, and then there's the monster media rights deal/s coming at the end of the decade. Hell, in media rights money alone they might come out ahead. That's good, and I'll hope/trust that you're right. Still, I'm not sure. There are going to be some massive salary jumps as Bryant, Hendricks, Russell, Baez, Schwarber, and Contreras go through arb, and assuming Arrieta resigns. It is going to require some massive, massive increases in revenue to outpace the increase in costs. They really wanted Heyward. By account, getting him was possible because management "got creative", and they discussed the thin FA market this winter, almost as if they understood themselves to be "spending ahead" and using this winter's discretionary spending money ahead of time. So, I don't think they've got a big stash of saved-up discretionary cash now, as might have been true entering the lester derby. Perhaps this summer has been so unbelievably good from the start that merchandizing revenue is greatly exceeding what they could have objectively/conservatively assumed last November. So perhaps revenue will be at or beyond their most optimistic projections, and they'll have a much bigger stash of discretionary money this winter than they could have expected following the Heyward signing. I'd be pleased if the Cubs had the cash to retain both Chapman and Fowler. Again, I don't know their finances, so maybe that's beyond their means. *But the pen would look totally different without Chapman, *and if he goes they're still going to need to plow resources into getting other help there. *The drop off from Fowler to Almora/Szczur offensively might be pretty substantial, too. So if $$ permitted, I'd be pretty pleased to extend Fowler for 2-3 years.

I don't anticipate Cubs being able to bundle prospects for big-tickets for budget reasons. Given the crazy salary inflation existing Cubs will experience over the next 5 years, I don't think imagine we'll be seeing many if any big-salary guys added from the outside. For this winter, I'm just hoping we can retain one or both of Chapman and Fowler.

Yeah, the K-rate for Eloy has really been a great story. It's improved dramatically since April and May, and has almost gotten better and better month by month. What pre-season scouting suggested might be a serious problem (there was talk about "holes" and "long swing"), now seems like a major asset. There have been so many clips of him. Just eye-ball, it looks like he's got a really good stance and swing, looks like very good balance and plate coverage. Seems to use all fields very well and cover the outside half very well. Obviously the clips are all of successful swings. So perhaps those are all the "guess right" pitches; maybe anything in the low-inside quadrant kills him, and maybe there are lots of "guess wrong" pitches where he looks way out of balance, beats me. But man just by the video-clip eye-ball test, his swing look really practical and nice. What a great trajectory this season has had for him. The HR-output has probably come in some spurts, as often happens with HR guys. But overall his season has been uncommonly consistent, not a lot of cold spells.

Many of the Mexicans are performing well relative to the DSL/ASL. My question is whether that will translate up the chain. They may be much more practiced, since I'm guessing they've actually played a lot of baseball games, whereas a lot of Dominicans have played very little. So they may have less capacity to improve. (Somewhat like how a college guy can often do well in the ASL because he's more practiced/polished than the teenagers, who have a lot more improvement left to make.)

Thanks. That's not a nit-pick that's a meaningful difference. So, much appreciated! Agree with your bottom-line.