craig

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.

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?