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craig

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Everything posted by craig

  1. craig
    Nice!
  2. craig
    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.
  3. craig
    Happ's BABIP for the season is .415.
  4. craig
    No update yet on the Jiminez getting pulled early?
  5. craig
    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.
  6. craig
    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.
  7. craig
    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.
  8. craig
    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.
  9. craig
    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.
  10. craig
    I assume Hatch will be pitching again today?
  11. craig
    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?
  12. craig
    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.
  13. craig
    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.
  14. craig
    very decent indeed.
  15. craig
    Cubs spent over $30, right? $18+ on players, and then with tax that puts them over $30 in actual expense? Can't fault the willingness to spend.
  16. craig
    16th round pick from Old Dominion is a catcher-to-pitcher convert, supposedly strong arm. A lot of catchers have good arms, so who knows.
  17. craig
    I could imagine just some modest overslots might be an interesting tool to apply for college guys you like. I imagine a lot of college juniors kind of want to sign and start their pro careers Maybe guys though they would be 4th-7th round 2nd day picks and get $200-400K, and listed ≥$200K on their sign ability survey. But, if Day 2 finishes and nobody has picked you; maybe you figure you'll have to just take the $100 and go forward. But, since you listed ≥$200K on your survey, maybe teams still make sure they call and confirm you'll really sign for $100K before using a pick on you. So, what if the Cubs call a bunch of these guys, and say "we can't go ≥$200K on you, but we can scrape up enough to make $135. Will you sign if we draft you and offer that? If so, make sure you tell any other teams who call you that you've got an overslot deal arranged, so you aren't going to sign for $100K, so they shouldn't draft you if $100K is all they're willing to pay." Maybe must by boosting from $100K to $135-150K, the Cubs can drive off a lot of competition and get a whole string of modest-overslot college pitchers they kinda like on Day 3?
  18. craig
    11th rounder Michael Rucker said they are paying him >$100K, so he's one of the overslots. Not surprising, really that 11th rounder would overslot. As Round 2 winds down and then between day 2 and 3, you talk to guys you like to see who'll sign for what you can/want-to pay. If you reach a mutual agreement on an overslot guy, you want to draft him ASAP before somebody else does, rather than wait till round 30 or whatever. So rounds 11-12-13 are the most likely overslot rounds on Day 3. Rucker said he's got an agreement, short of some details. Mekkes said he's got an agreement, too, short of some details. So, two overslots agreed, will be interesting to see how far over they got.
  19. craig
    That reputable, thoughtful guys would have not only Cease but also Zagunis going top 20 in their re-draft is pretty interesting. Zagunis was not a pick that the board was all that buzzed about at the time: college guy, not an overslot, not a pitcher, not a guy that scouting reports had projected as going higher than he did. Just a pure scouting pick, I think. I'm still surprised these guys would have him in redraft first round. Kind of fun surprise to see him getting that kind of respect.
  20. craig
    Thanks, Dave, very helpful post. I've kind of been wondering where the overage and where the under slot savings are going to go, with Cruz coming in cheap, both 8 and 9 likely to be very cheap, and even with our small pool there is still some overage available. So, where's it going to go? Maybe they like Mekkes quite a bit, and he's going to gobble it all? Maybe one or more of your names from rounds 20-40? Helpful to think about who might be targeted, at any rate. Maybe it will all go to Mekkes and Hatch, both being sophomores. I wonder, though; Hatch will be 22-going-on-23 next draft. Does he really want to come back to next draft as an approaching-23-years-old guy? Might be better off to take his slot now, and get his career moving, I'd think.
  21. craig
    Thought: Cubs have a large scouting staff, but they must have been able to really focus their time. Other teams have been scouting hitters; scouting high school players; scouting top-50 guys. Cubs didn't need to spend (waste?) any time on any of those three groups of players. Unfortunately. But, you'd think that by spending all of their scouting resources on non-top-50 college pitchers, there should be no team in baseball better equipped to discriminate among that large group of arms.
  22. craig
    Oops, at Miller's age the difference between turning 20 and almost 21 is nontrivial. Too bad. Still seems heavily a projection guy. The delivery in the video looks like a development team might analyze and adjust that, maybe get a little more out of it. Pure projection and a project for the development guys.
  23. craig
    6/4, slender, turns 21 next month. A projection/scouting pick.
  24. craig
    Yeah, I'd think there would be just the four, Contreras, Torres, Eloy, and Almora.
  25. craig
    Zagunis is overdue for a big slump. I think it was around this time in the season last year that he was up over .900OPS and was at or near the top of all the Carolina League stats, and then he settled way back into the low .800's. But for now: BA: 9th OBP: 3rd OPS: 8th Slugging: 12th Pretty fun production, in a pretty big league. At 23 he's not exactly young or very projectable, but he's not old. Every step up the ladder where a guy can hold serve.... not that many steps left.
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