craig

I don't expect much from Almora offensively. And if he becomes the Cubs primary CF next year, I'm not sure I won't quickly be wishing he wasn't, and viewing him as a real liability in any effort to have a relentless lineup offensively. But, I do have hopes, if not expectations, that he still has improvement left. 1. His HR-power may improve some. Lots of guys hit somewhat more HR at 24-28 than they do at 22. It's not like it would take some radical change in his profile for him to end up hitting 10-12 HR per season. Over the course of a 500-AB primary-starter season, an extra 5 HR is worth 10 points in BA, 10 points in OBP, and 50 points in slugging, simplistically. Does it require some inconceivable radical improvement for him to improve from a 6-HR guy to an 11-HR guy? That might impact whether he could be a .725-OPS guy (not awful for a premium CFer) versus a .675 guy (pretty lousy even for a high-end CFer.) 2. Most guys lose a lot of OPS upon going from AAA to the great-pitching-great-defense majors. But I have a notion that contact hitters may not lose as much. If you can hit the ball regardless and put it in play, and you're living on BABIP, a low-K guy may not suffer as badly, or be exposed as badly by the superior ability of major-leaguers. 3. I think it's reasonable that an intelligent, hard-working, great-makeup guy in the context of a top-end development and teaching team might be able to adjust and adapt and improve a little better than elsewhere. I almost think I should *expect* improvement these days to be a little better than with guys in previous Cub eras. Not sure how much he has to improve. Had a .712 OPS with Cubs. Personally, I think that would have gone down, down, down if he'd stayed up. But, that's just me. With his defense, if he could actually sustain that level of .712 OPS, or improve it just modestly, I don't think a .720-.735-OPS Almora would necessarily be a liability player.

Thanks, Tom, that "92-as-pitcher" is pretty interesting. That's a good arm. *I wonder how he'd been balancing pitching versus in fielding? *I wonder if there's any chance some teams were looking at him as a pitcher, and didn't appreciate his value as a position guy? I have two questions with the Mexicans. 1. I wonder how teams evaluate. A Mexican signing for $800, kid gets only $400, and Cubs get taxed at only $400. Does a team scout/value him as equal to a $400 Dominican, or equal to an $800 Dominican, or something somewhere in between? (Obviously there is tons of guesswork pre-signing; given how Paredes has made contact, maybe he'd get $2.5 million now, if back on the market..... Maybe all of our Mexicans would get double or triple what we paid for them if available now....) 2. The other major question is how development/improvement/projection will go. It's great to have nice relative-to-age stats in the DSL and ASL. But most teens we expect to improve dramatically over time, both physically and skills-wise. The appeal is that their perceived potential ceiling is assumed to be so much higher than their present. With the Mexican kids, I wonder if they might be closer to their ceilings, both physically and skills-wise, than is true for most teen pros; so that they might not have as much improvement capacity? Whether or not the Mexican kids can further elevate their games a lot isn't clear, but will determine whether they'll be able to keep up with all the improvements in competition they'll need to handle to remain good right up the majors.

Hedges finally has a very bad day. Moreno finally allows a HR.

1. He'll rank higher on "lists" than on stats. .745 OPS, >20% K-rate, 3 HR, those stats are a bit above average. It's the non-statistical scouting tools and the projection that stand out better, I think. 2. You make lists yourself. Nothing wrong with lists. But some are better than others, duh. No intelligent list will ignore stats. Just like no intelligent list will ignore age or, if information permits, some scouting. The more input the better, and the more intelligent the list will be. (For example, Katoh had some list with Amora ranked super high; I think that list was missing something somehow, and had him too high.) 3. We know the scouting on DJ is that his defense is really good, and the tools eval project that it should stay truly good. Lots of short-season middle guys won't be middle guys in the majors, or won't be good middle-defenders. But Wilson very much projects to be a true CFer, and a very good one, perhaps even relative to the high standard of big-league CF defense. It's significantly the scouting input on his defense/speed/arm that makes me as hopeful about him as I am, even though I don't really have stats to prove how his defense compares to some other short-season guy playing CF who might not at all project to actually end up playing good CF defense. 4. Majors are years away, at best, for Wilson, if he develops favorably. Hard to imagine the big-league landscape. But, just for fun: it is conceivable that Fowler will get resigned. If so, if Wilson percolates up the chain and develops beautifully, his graduation might conceivably sync semi-well with Folwer's next contract ending? It's also conceivable that Almora might be a significant player in the Cubs CF landscape at a time when Wilson might theoretically graduate. Wilson is lefty, Almora is righty. There could hypothetically be some "fit" there, too. Maybe a 3rd hypothetical might be Cubs covering CF for at least a while with some Heyward, perhaps supplemented with some Almora. Perhaps if Wilson was to develop beautifully, he might be able to merge into that landscape somehow, too. Anyway, hope the kid develops into a tremendous center fielder and baserunner, and develops into a good hitter as well.

Very, very few. The Northwest League, and it's level, has one of the lowest good-major-leaguer-producing rates of any league, for guys who spend more than 100AB there. If you look over the years, the success rate for guys in the top-20/2nd-ten in the Midwest League or Florida State League is MUCH higher than looking at top-10 in the Northwest League. Teams just don't often keep big-league talent there very long. If you're talented enough to become a good major leaguer, you'll probably skip that level or play your way out pretty quick. The league is populated by a lot of roster-fill guys. (True every league, which is why "young for league" is routinely deceptive. Perhaps better to compare to the actual big-league prospects in a league....) A lot of 3rd-day college draftees, who elevate the league age norms; and a lot of Latin guys who have been around for some years and may be youngish but are talent-limited. I'm saying that Wilson's K-rate or OPS or slugging, relative to league, is solid, absolutely, and I hope he solidly improves and becomes good. I like him as a prospect, a lot. With all of his Heyward-like non-hitting qualities, he doesn't need to hit that great to be a useful player, and he may be on track to be good offensively too. But I'm also saying that his stats, relative to league, is not that outstanding. It's not like he's several standard deviations from the norm or anything. Being 2% lower K-rate than league, this isn't like Almora or Vitters or Paredes. They are solid overall, and when the second-half numbers are considered those really stand out. But overall, being a little above-average while being a little young relative to a really weak league is of uncertain impressiveness. I would also say that using top-10 lists versus stats-relative-to-league (age-factor included), that I suspect the "lists" have as good or better predictive success than the stats-relative-to-league (age-factor-included.) Neither is very precise, but I think the lists, factoring in performance and stats and tools-scouting, probably do OK, all things considered. And Wilson will rank well in those, because his non-hitting tools, run/throw/field, are really outstanding. If he could become an average big-league hitter, his other stuff might make his overall value well above average.

Comparison to league norms is helpful. Still, not sure how informative. Being good relative a league that very rarely produces good major leaguers means only so much. High end prospects don't usually spend much time if any at Northwest League level. Good ones spend time in rookie, then skip up to full pretty quick. New draftees spend little time there. (Bryant, Scharber, Happ model). Over the years, if you look at BA Top-10's for Northwest League, I'm sure most of the top-10 guys compared very favorably to the league, as you show Wilson doing. But VERY few NW-top-10 position guys become significant major-leaguers. Hopefully Wilson will be an exceptions.

Thanks, CubsWin. Yeah, wow, that's really dramatic. Almost unbelievable. Agree, obviously he's not going to sustain the 2nd half numbers, but that's becoming a decent sample size. And I'd agree, some kind of adjustment was made that's presumably more than random hot/cold oscillation. You'd think the second half might be a little more predictive. My hypothesis is that the "flip" corresponded to dropped from leadoff to 9th. First-half, IsoD .128; second half, .019. So he's cut his IsoD to less than 1/6 what it was before. "Speedy leadoff" model calls for guys to take pitches and be patient. Patient guys get to 2-strike counts, when pitchers throw breaking balls and guys whiff. And hitting .158 probably messes with your mind and it's a spiral. Batting 9th, he probably felt free to swing at strikes, including first-pitch fastballs. Swing at better pitches to hit; start hitting; get comfortable and get your confidence back. Northwest pitching isn't the greatest. If the adjustment is essentially to pick on early-count fastballs, that may not necessarily work up well. But, hopefully he will scale up just fine.

Thanks for those tweets, Tom. His run/throw/defense sound really, really good. Now he's gotten his average up to .271, and OPS to .753. 40K/3HR is not good, but his slugging isn't way short of .400, and he's 18XBH/47AB, so it's a hair over 1/3, not bad. He's not a groundout guy (0.79), so that's good. For a while I had him totally off my top-20, when he was all K's/no-hits. But he's definitely played his way back up, way back up. Hope he can finish strong.

Man, Wilson has been really going well. Two doubles tonight, he's up to .271 now, and I think his OPS is around .750 now. Has really reduced his K-rate. Wouldn't have imagine that a month ago. With his arm/defense/speed, he's got some Heyward to him. *IF* the guy can hit, he could be quite good.

Candelario with a HR. It's his 12th, setting a new career high.

I think from the beginning Torres scouted as a polished hitter with a beautiful swing. (I think it's almost been unexpected that he k's as much as he does....) But from the start, Torres looked really good defensively. Cubs have had some nice infielders, but I recall Az Phil gushing over how special Torres was defensively during his first year there in Mesa. Phil isn't a super-scout, of course. But he was making Venezualan SS talk and Luis Aparachio and Omar Vizquel talk and stuff like that, talking about him as the most "highlight-reel play" thriller that he'd seen there in many years (and he'd only had Baez there within very recent history at the time). So, I think the defense was strong on Torres from the start, in terms of projected big-league ability. I also think the Cubs, who obviously gave him the winning bonus, also projected him as a guy who projected to hit 15-20 HR. If Parades can become a 13-18 HR guy, with his low-K contact aptitude, he could be a terrific offensive guy.

Garcia with another good game for DSL, 1 run.

Yeah, Tom, Paredes has really been productive. I completely agree with you in your comparison to rookie-league Gleyber, Parades is more appealing. The greater present power and the *MUCH* lower K-rate are preferable. Fully agree, K-rate is much more meaningful than BB-rate down there. Thanks for including the stats since the first-week 5-K day. Those subsequent stats are really nice. Obviously 17-year-old stats are one thing, but what guys will be future is more important. Torres scouted favorably in terms of the power, and my understanding is that Torres scouted REALLY favorably in terms of the defense. So, I'd not score Paredes as a better prospect than rookie-league Gleyber. But, Gleyber was really well regarded, and became our #1 guy, so Paredes doesn't need to be quite that level to still be a very good and very valuable prospect. And, perhaps in time, his hitting and ability to play SS will translate up just fine, and his HR-power will develop just fine. By Phil/Arguello report, he's a stockier, thicker guy than what you expect for a SS, and slower on the run. So, a lot of guys can do something at 17 that they can't do at 24. Still, I wonder if scouts don't sometimes "under-project" thicker guys in terms of defense? I recall for Baez, BA had him as a stocky guy who could play SS at 18, but they almost assumed he's outgrow SS and need to move off. Not the case, he's plenty-well equipped for SS. I think there was some of that for draft-year Addison Russell, that he looked bigger than a SS and that he'd likely need to move to 3B or 2B. Not true. Will Paredes be another "looks too big at 17 to probably stick at SS" guy who can and does stick and ends up excellent? Probably not, but it's at least possible. And there are plenty of good 2B and 3B who don't have sprinter bodies, but who are very good defensively at those positions. So, will be interesting to follow how he develops, both as hitter, as fielder, and in terms of power..

de la Cruz bad night 6 runs in 3 innings. Morrison excellent as usual through first 5: 6K/1H/1BB. But then two walks and two singles and lifted, ended up 3 runs. Yeah, Paredes looks like he's really interesting as a contact hitter. Nice to see some power.

Tom, what have you heard about Gutierrez? I've got that he got $550K, is <6 feet tall, doesn't K much, gets thrown stealing more often then he succeeds, and has gobs of triples. Is your info that he projects as a really athletic CFer, even though he's presently not fast enough to steal effectively? Do scouts project some power? Or are we projecting more of a hit-and-run type guy?

Thanks for the links regarding scouting and velocity. I believe the original draft report had him as a guy who could max in the 92-93 range, so the concept that he's added some velocity and can now actually regularly control low 90's velocity sounds pretty decent. If he's locating a good, every-day sinker at 90-92, that's hardly overpowering, but that's a perfectly reasonable fastball to build around. Low 90's sinker is plenty good. Granted, I'm skeptical: if one of the Cubs prospect sites refers to low 90's, my guess is that really means he'll max in the low 90's but probably throws most of his every-day fastballs more in the 87-90 range? Their's nothing fishy about his present results. We'd like the K's higher, but the BB/HR are nice and low. K/BB/HR, excellent on 2 of the 3. Agree with Tom, using the "Hendricks" comp has mixed value. Obviously that's general code for a guy who's velocity-short. But, Hendricks change is a plus-plus pitch. Hendricks without the change is a totally different guy, and there is little evidence that Hedges or Ryan Williams or any of those finesse guys has a Hendricks-like change. But, I think we all understand that any "Hendricks" reference is simply alluding to a guy who lacks velocity but somehow is usefully good anyway. Hedges, I think, supposedly has a very fine slider. Hopefully that becomes a signature pitch for him. There have been lots of effective sinker/slider guys over the years, so for Hedges to make it with that combo would hardly be unprecedented.

Hedges excellent again, 3rd straight AA shutout outing. But taken out after only 5 innings/60 pitches. Hope he's OK. WHIP under 1 for Tennesse.

Thrilho, Tom can answer for himself better. But I think the "1/5" was referring to PITCHERS, not hitters. *Definitely way more than 1/5 of big-league AB's are LH. *A typical rotation has one lefty, so 1/5 makes sense there. Cubs with Lester are typical. So, more often than not 1/5 of the rotation is lefty. That said, I'd think somewhat more than 1/5 of starts overall are by lefty. There are more rotations with 2 lefties than there are with none, I'd think? (I'm just talking off the top of my head here, maybe I'm wrong.) *Pen-wise, though, the population of lefties is definitely >1/5. Cubs aren't rare in having 3 lefties in pen, and certainly most have two. *So, in general I'd guess that a typical roster will have 3 lefties, and more often 4 than 2 or less. So I'd guess about 1/4 of big-league pitchers are lefties. *Thing is, a lot of the lefties aren't that good. Would Cubs have kept Richard so long if he wasn't lefty? I think you touch on my perception for most of my life as a Cubs fan. I've often felt like cubs were forcing in "token lefty" into rotation, even if the guy wasn't very good, and the same for a second lefty in the pen. This is where having lefty prospects provides an opportunity. Teams *want* to have 3-4 lefties, but there aren't enough good ones to go around. So, if the Cubs have a stock of them, that might provide trade opportunities. Second, many lefties last without overpowering velocity. That too perhaps provides an opportunity; you maybe don't need 1st-2nd round arms or 1st-round velocity to get lefties who might end up making it.

Yup. Branch Rickey had the famous "from quantity comes quality" philosophy, and hopefully that will prove out from this pool.

Nice to see Cease going 3.1 with only one walk. de la Cruz, fantastic.

I'll get to this post later but can address this quickly - the pitchers are not doing the majority of the leg work in a trade. Teams are trading with the Cubs to land bats, pitching is just there largely to fill out the depth charts since the Cubs will be looking for pitching from those teams. Guys like Hedgesm Tseng, Kellogg, and Zastrzny are healthy and not terrible bets to throw ML innings, which is all that is really necessary - particularly since the Cubs do have upside arms to deal even around those guys as well as the more well known and regarded bats. Throwins. Yes. Like Blackburn; like Rosscup in the Archer-Garza trade; like Leal in the big Campana/Castillo trade. Grimm obviously was scouted more favorably and had bigger arm, with 1st-degree pedigree and stuff, but he was kind of the 3rd-piece throw-in the Garza-Edwards/Olt trade. Our guys can be some small-nickel throw-ins like that, I agree. But they'll be about as insignificant as McKinney in the Chapman deal.

..Rumors of the Cubs not having pitching to trade this offseason are overstated. There's enough depth at the A/A+ level loving to A+ and AA next year that they can fill something out behind the movable bats. Hell, Tseng and Hedges among hopefully others give them a more interesting/marketable AAA group than they've had. They won't spend like last year, duh, but this is still going to be a pretty active and fun offseason where this FO can dig in and be more about clever buys through their traditional blend of thorough scouting and analytics. Yeah, Tom, I'm really pleased to see a lot of effective pitching recently. Your point is well taken, that management won't be signing multiple external big-ticket FA's like the last two years, but may be active in some clever smaller-scale moves. I think it will need to be some very small-scale moves for our pitching prospects to move the needle much, though. Cease and de la Cruz, yes, those guys could be significant pieces in a trade. But I don't think guys like Hedges, Tseng, Kellogg, Zastryzny,I don't think those guys will get you very far in a high-profile acquisition. Those are the types of guys to add as extra scraps to finish a deal for a back-of-roster guy like Montgomery (Vogelbach main guy; Blackburn a little extra value added); or an end-of-pen pickup like Joe Smith (Castillo); maybe a salary dump (Jeferson Mejia for Miguel Montero); . Sometimes those clever moves can make a big impact (Montero last year), so I don't at all mean to belittle their relevance. I struggle to guess what the offseason will entail. Always tweaking, I'm sure. Big hinges will be $$$, Folwer, and Chapman. By most accounts they stretched/"got creative" to get Heyward, partly under assumption that this winter wouldn't be a plush FA winter. And then they stretched even further to bring in Fowler besides. Perhaps with a fantastic season, tons of jersey sales, hopefully significant post-season revenue, perhaps their revenue this year will be terrific, more than enough to cover those "stretch" signings. Hopefully they'll have so much revenue that they'll be able to resign both Chapman and Fowler, and cover all the significant inflation on existing guys, and whatever they borrowed-ahead to sign Heyward/Fowler. I'd pretty much love to basically retain exactly what they have now. Contracts for Cahill, Richard, Ross, and Travis Wood would come off, but basically if that was all they lost, it would be awesome. Those dollars aren't zero, but I can't imagine they'd get even remotely close to paying for built-in inflation. Which rambles to: my guess is the "overachievement" pitchers (guys whose production seems better than their arms or stuff or scouting reports) don't really have the market buzz to get you a lot, so I think they'll basically keep almost all of them. (Kellogg, Hedges, Morrison, Tseng, Zastryzny types all fall in my minimal-trade-value "overachiever" pool.) Hammel and Lackey expire after next year. I think they'll largely want to keep those guys percolating in AA/AAA, in hopes that the best might emerge as acceptable 6th-starter/emergency options during next year; and perhaps 5th-starter replacement options for Lackey/Hammel for 2018. 5th starter pitches about as many starts as 1st starter during regular season. Last December, I'm guessing most posters would have classified Hendricks/Hammel as 4th/5th starters. One of the reasons the Cubs have an amazing record is because those 4th/5th starters both have <3 ERA's. So, it's not like replacing Hammel/Lackey with two crummy starters wouldn't have a huge impact. Still, if you have a great bullpen, great defense, and a relentless offense, you can win a lot of games with an overachiever rotation guy. Throw strikes, you don't need a power arm to allow 1-3 runs in 5-6 innings during most of your starts. A great team can win a lot of games involving an anti-awful starter. Perhaps one or more from the Hedges/Clifton/Kellogg/Morrison/Zastryzny/Hedges pool will be able to provide that, or more.

Nice to see Bailey Clark with a good outing. I thought he was strong/fast but wild. Small sample, but 13K/0BB is encouraging in terms of control. Fun to see some effective pitching.

Nice to see Clifton sequencing strong starts. His ERA is now under 3.

Add Hedges and Moreno. Hedges is having a really nice year, and in his 2nd/3rd starts in AA, he's allowed 1 run combined. For minor league prospects, I look to K's first since that speaks to stuff, and Hedges does not impress. Neither does his velocity. But actual effectiveness is largely a function of K/BB/HR, and Hedges is excellent on the latter two, especially the HR-rate. His ground ball profile is strong, so the low-HR rate may not be flukey luck? (4HR/121 innings this year, 9HR/271 innings career.) One of the problems that no-stuff guys have is that hitters can kill their pitches; but if a guy doesn't allow killed HR's, perhaps that's a hint that maybe his stuff is actually better than we appreciate? I'm kinda hoping that he's one of those deceptive guys; he doesn't throw 94 much because he's got a comfortable 88-91 sinker that works well consistently, so there is little reason to throw 4-seamers? Anyway, it will be interesting to see whether he can actually sustain his success, or if it has any potential for the majors. He's a guy where I'll be interested to see what the scouting reports say about him after the season. Right now, my assumption is that he's a weak-armed college overachiever with little potential. But if we got a scouting report that his sinker is actually now 90-92, that he's added an effective cutter which has helped, and that he never threw a curve in college because in his small conference he didn't need one, but that it is now developing well and projects to perhaps be a solid major-league curve, maybe he'd look much more interesting as a future Lackey-replacement candidate?