craig

Rubes, great point and I totally agree. *Pre-draft stuff always had guys with high velocity, and they are always listing top-touch velocity rather than routine day-do-day working velocity. A guy might spend the whole season actually getting outs with 88-92 2-seamers, but if he throw a couple of 96mph 4-seamers, the 96 will get listed as if he's a power pitcher or something. *Agree that what a guy does on 7-day rest over a dozen starts, and what he's doing for the last half of a 5-day rotation season is often different. The 5-day rotation pro will be mostly at the tired end-of-season college velocity. In case of Hatch: * I don't expect him to be a velocity guy. I'm hoping that he can be an average-velocity guy, not sub-par. And that his pitching will make him good. Movement, location, command. *I perceive Clifton as stronger arm and a faster fastball. But I'd rank Hatch above Clifton. Hatch has a chance to be a good command/movement guy. Clifton has struggled with control. So I think Hatch has a better chance to have excellent big-league control than Clifton projects to have, even if Clifton has better pure stuff. *An unflattering analogy I have for Hatch is Warren. (It's wrong in that Warren is HR-vulnerable, and Hatch doesn't profile that way, non-trivial difference.) Warren's been terrible for us and we just gave him away at negligible value. But I see Hatch as being of that style, a shortish guy with average arm. When he's on his game and his location is working, he can be effective. Like Warren, if he loses his command he's going to fail. Capable of starting some, perhaps. But perhaps better used in relief.

The Joe Smith acquisition brought Preston Morrison to mind. Smith has assembled a 10-year career with a 2.94 ERA as a no-velocity sidearm guy. Nothing great, but a useful, productive, functional career for him. I haven't seen any Preston Morrison video since college. But he had a very low arm slot in the video I recall. I wonder if he's got any chance to lower it further, and to carve out a Smith-like career as a funky reliever? Or perhaps something more? Preston is a good example of how little attention we pay to results in A-ball. I assume we have the worst collection of minor league pitching of any organization in baseball. But a guy who's allowed 1 earned run in 7 starts still doesn't even get a thought for a top-10 list. I wonder if he'll be a guy like David Berg who finally hits the wall in AA?

Hatch is in the organization now, so whether he pitches 6 innings or not this month, I'd include him too. I'd include both him and Miller in the top 10, both have good arms and neither has failed yet. Stinnett has been so persistently ineffective, and his velocity predominantly too mediocre, to make top-10 for me. But I know I tend to give a guy with a good arm and projection for good arm/stuff/control, and hasn't accumulated evidence to the contrary, ahead of somebody who has a track record of failure. It's a very limited pool, that's for sure. Hopefully some will progress more favorably next year than has been true these last several years.

Dewees with a good night, walk and 4/5. Started fast, then his batting average sagged for a long time, now he's been hot again and his BABIP is back up towards normal. Season average is back up to .291 now, OPS .776.

Why is that? Over his career, he's career .857 OPS vs RH and .627 LH. And .783 overall. My feeling has been that relief might be exactly where he's best suited to be useful. Overall he's tended to be a guy with average stuff, sub-average control, high HR, and overall well-below-average effectiveness. So, I'd say play to his strengths, use him as a lefty reliever. In relief velocity plays up; doesn't need to go as deep in his control-challenged repertoire; and can get used in more innings where he's likely to see one or two lefties, against whom his stuff matches up better. He's been variably effective in relief, hope you can get that optimized and he may become a capable role guy.

Will be interesting to see how Mekkes does over longer sample and in full season. Agree, would be kinda fun to see him in South Bend. That said, he pitched less than 70 innings total in game-action for Michigan State. Obviously did lots of bullpens and batting practice and stuff as a redshirt guy, and as a "rookie" sophomore, and then during summer league. But really the total volume of game innings is what Fergie Jenkins would have pitched in 2 months. So, he may have quite a bit of development and adjustment and "figuring-things-out" still ahead for him. If he's ready to fly through the system, sure. But for a 10th round pick, if you can patiently develop and actually end up with an effective middle reliever, that's a win, no matter how long it takes to achieve that.

Interesting trade. Wonder who the AAA guy back is. And I wonder what the "imbalance" in the deal was. Vogelbach is a little too much value for MM, so the prospect/Blackburn is in our favor to level the deal? Or MM was actually a little too much for Vogelbach alone, so Blackburn was more value and the prospect is pretty much roster-filler? Pries looks like less than Blackburn value, so somebody in Seattle must have been interested in Blackburn, and saw him as added value.

Yes that's that the guy.

Wow, that Cease news is huge relief. My perspective can flip pretty fast. Not many days I kind of assumed that DelaCruz was cooked, and Cease too. Suddenly within a week, and especially after yesterday, De la Cruz is suddenly exciting again, and Cease as well. Potentially almost like having two top-10 prospects come back to life within a week or 24 hours! :)

Arguello's reports on Moreno this spring were that he wasn't very fast, but had a good curveball. Perhaps the fastball has improved or will do so.

Heh heh, yeah. Being a great kid with a bundle of tools (speed, great CF defense, arm, some pop), that's a great start. But if you can't actually hit the ball, hitting is the one tool you can't live without, and can't "develop" either.

Nice!

I have a hard time getting very excited about Candelario. The only real virtue he's ever shown consistently is being young. But he's never actually been especially good, relative to his competition, for more than short-sample stretches. He's a .759 career OPS guy, and .783 this season. Turning 23 later this year. So it's still projection to be good, rather than actually ever having *been* good, other than in DSL, or in occasional hot stretches. (Every hitter has some ups and downs....) It's always been decent..... for his age. Scouts don't project noteworthy HR power, and he's never hit a lot of HR. Scouts don't project noteworthy defense, acceptable but average. Decent prospect. The majors has lots of guys who have developed into decent/good players who weren't great prospects or great minor-league producers, so Candelario has that possibility. Maybe being a decent player (for his age) is good enough to make top-100. Good prospect, but limited excitement level. Not sure how much trade value goes with that profile? Hard to get a handle on that for my brain.

Happ's BABIP for the season is .415.

No update yet on the Jiminez getting pulled early?

15? This seems as reactionary as 8 in the preseason. Its not like theres been tons more info, its been a little over half a minor league season. There has been a fair bit of observational stuff about Martinez that was not available during the winter, when we had a little of Badler and a little of Keith Law, the latter suggesting he might conceivably approach 1.1 in draft. But now, three months in, we see that his speed tool is unexceptional; his arm is good not great; he doesn't have a great power tool by either results or scouting observation (bp observation as well as game stats); his corner defense is good but he's not a great defensive CF; and he's not a great contact hitter. (Again, observational reports as well as actual low batting average speak to this. Nobody is saying what a beautiful swing he has, or what remarkable bat speed he has; or what a special sound there is when his bat hits the ball.) Overall, the scouting stuff, as well as the actual results and usage thus far, sound pretty JAG. No hint of high first-round talent like Law had been considering. Seems totally JAG thus far.

I suspect cubscentral may be prone to hyperbole, as regards his defense. It's very hard to be an above-average defensive catcher in the major leagues. It's very hard to be an average or acceptable defensive catcher in the major leagues. I'll take Rice a lot more seriously if/when I get some more trustworthy enthusiasm about his chances to be an average or above-average defensive catcher.

Thanks Tom, that's very unusual and interesting. I wonder if lefties just never even try to come inside on him, so he never gets pull pitches? Whereas righties sometimes try to bust him inside, sometimes to their regret? Something to keep an eye on for future, though.

The Cubs full-season pitching is like kind of a vacuum. Underwood is bad, Clifton is wild, and nobody else matters hardly, I almost feel like. But, some guys are doing well. Three recent low-$$ non-high-round college guys who are doing well: 1. Casey Bloomquist (17th rounder, pitched excellent tonight) 2. Preston Morrison (started bad in April, but now has ERA below 3, and hasn't allowed a run in either of last two starts or in 3 of last 4. Has been scoring plenty of K's lately, and everybody else hits grounders, it seems..) 3. Zack Hedges, Myrtle Beach. Do any of these guys have enough arm to be of any major-league interest, or are they all strictly organizational guys? Does anybody know if Bloomquist has any fastball? I know Morrison is more an 84-87 type guy, but he's got the side-arm thing. Not much margin for error I don't suppose, and I'm guessing when he's off he'll get killed. But he's really grooved in relative to Midwest League, and he dominated in Eugene last year. I'd kind of enjoy seeing a totally non-standard gimmick pitcher like that actually have success. Or become a useful middle reliever or something.

Hatch gives up 4 runs in the first 2 innings and is taken out. So, his shutout streak is over. Trey Cobb, the Cubs 12th rounder, relievers him. Has allowed just 1 unearned run in his 5 innings thus far.

I assume Hatch will be pitching again today?

6th rounder Chad Hockin signed. One of my favorite picks. Has a chance to be an interesting fastball/slider reliever. I'll be curious to see whether he's a slot guy, or may have been one of the overslots, along with Mekkes and Rucker?

I'd be quite surprised if such a need arose this year. He's veering into that potentially elite territory, the type of guys that rarely get moved, and the Cubs simply don't have that huge need. Heck, I'm not even convinced they go hard at a lefty pen arm unless the price really comes down. If a huge need arose, or a top level guy's price dropped ... could I see it? Perhaps, but I think the Cubs would try like heck to utilize other assets (namely, Gleyber Torres and maybe Jeimer Candelario) to try and complete a deal before Eloy. I don't really think we should include Candelario's name in trade discussions. His value must be so low that he wouldn't move the dial in any trade that was much worth discussing.

Thanks, Win. I didn't think you'd have a guy traveling to an all-star game get lifted mid-inning for that..... I believe I've read somewhere that they have a 30-pitch-inning limit. Clifton certainly appears to have the stuff to be quite good. The command, different story, pretty evident he doesn't have big-league-caliber command. Will be interesting to see how that goes over time, and whether he'll stay healthy enough long enough to find out. One of the other risks, I think, is that movement/stuff and wildness are intrinsically interconnected. Sometimes steps taken to solve the wildness, also come at the expense of the movement. Hopefully that won't be the story with Clifton.

very decent indeed.