craig

Contreras was a really unusual jump. Don't expect anything quite like that. But, certainly he'd been in discussion and in back-of-top-30's before, so for people like us it's not like he came out of totally nowhere. We all certainly knew about him, and that he had some tools. Personally I'd look for more modest and less-extreme jumps. Caratini has been in top-30's. If his hitting and power jumped some, and some favorable defensive reports started to come in, catchers can get into lists pretty easily. If you want a real long-shot, how about Skulina? Nobody talks about him. But he's pretty fast, has a pretty good slider, and inconsistently has some very good outings. His numbers last year were K-per-inning. He's the kind of guy with the size and raw stuff, where if he both stayed healthy all year, and improved his delivery so that his control improved and consistency appeared out of thin air, you might have a very good prospect. Pierce and Zagunis are kind of in that landscape, too. Non-young college, injury-interference, wildly inconsistent, forgotten men. But sometimes full health, a delivery adjustment, some success/confidence, resulting increase in consistency/command, resulting decrease in HR-allowed, and a yesterday's-news guy can suddenly be back on the map. Dewees is another. As a 2nd-round pick, it wouldn't be Contreras-esque if he emerged. But what if he showed up in Myrtle, locked in, and mid-year was hitting .320 with 10-HR and 20 stolen bases? Sure, that wouldn't be Contreras, but he's not exactly a guy who many posters have really loved or discussed much. I know these aren't as extreme a the "not-in-org-top-50-jumping-into-mlb-top-50" jump of Contreras. But I'll take what jumps we can get!

On EJM, I agree it's very probable he's off. Not necessarily because he won't be an excellent prospect, but because of his circumstances. He's presumably going to start in XST, and get lots of Cubs-Way training etc. So he likely will not be playing any box-score games until Eugene's season starts in late June. There just won't be hardly any new information or stats or scouting looks on him for rankers to consider, unless he starts in full-season or gets called up their quickly. So other guys will pass him on media lists. Wouldn't really reflect either way on his long-term. But if you start at 97, and have no visible opportunity to move up or prove yourself, some other guys will elevate past you on the list. (Within the Cubs own system alone, they've got plenty of guys like Eloy, Candelario, Underwood, DelaCruz, Cease, Steele, and Caratini who could jump their way into the top-100 with good first half. So if EJM is standing still, in the minds of the rankers, he should be off the list.)

Thanks, Tom. That's pretty good. I heard a Myrtle interview with Madison at the convention. Not sure I'm remembering it all exactly right. But he mentioned Caratini in a favorable way, and suggested that Caratini hit in bad luck first half, and was actually hitting the ball pretty hard pretty often for most of the season. Defense has more questions and a ways to go. Madison also mentioned that Happ will be full-time 2B. Suggested that Happ's bat was Myrtle ready; but he might start out at South Bend because of his defense. If Happ starts at South Bend at 2B, South Bend has the chance to have a pretty interesting roster. Some might be XST and some Myrtle, but it's possible that you might have Happ, Dewees, Eloy, and Martinez possibly all at South Bend. DJ Wilson and/or Galindo also not impossible. If they do bunch their better guys there, combined with the rotation they might possibly have (DelaRosa, steel, Sands, Paulino, Alzolay, Araujo, and perhaps some from the college pitcher group (Kellogg, Twomey, Brooks....), that could be a really interesting roster.

To belabor my standard precaution: hitting mid-90's in a showcase isn't inherently very impressive. If you can't, it's a bad sign, but if you can, it doesn't prove a ton. 1. Full-season minor-leaguers are pitching every 5th day and getting tired; showcase guys can be building up and resting all geared toward that showcase. Will a show-case mid-90's sustain mid-90's after 15 starts? 2. Even Tseng and Ryan Williams can hit mid-90's, if they are well-rested and throw their 4-seamer for velocity rather than their 2-seamers for movement and outs.

Happy New Year, guys! Hopefully it will be a really fun one for the big-league team, and a fun one for the developing prospects, and hopefully signing some more, as well. Win, I agree that drafting pitchers in the mid-late 1st is much more understandable than doing so in the top 6, for risk-reward reasons. When picking in the top 6, there should be a player who's good enough to have only modest performance risk; why take the injury-risk pitcher? But by pick 10 or above, the performance risk with players is rising, and the inherent injury-risk with pitchers may be no worse than the performance-risk with players. Case-by-case, scouting all the way!

Thanks for interesting review. Certainly some pitchers from these recent drafts will emerge in time, who aren't recognized yet. Other teams may have guys like Steele/Sands/Cease who may emerge down the road, but aren't recognized in top-50 lists yet. The strategy of using high picks on players, and then stocking up on pitchers with picks outside the top-25, that's a great strategy. But your review highlights how challenging it is to hit on sandwich/2nd-round/later pitchers. Internationally they've also focused their spending on players, even this year thus far. Pitchers are risky acquisitions. But still you've got to get them somewhere, somehow. With Hammels and Lackey expiring over the next two years, would be nice to be able to replace them with internal guys, quality internal guys. The system may be pressed to do so. The strategy may be to simply buy them or trade for them rather than developing any yourself. But seeing the high price for pitchers in trade, that approach won't come cheap. Hitting on a couple of non-1st-round picks somehow would really, really help. Johnson, Underwood, DelaRosa, Steels, Cease, Tseng, Sands, Hudson, please develop beautifully, perhaps unexpectedly better than we have reason to hope or expect or than statistics could justify!

We're all speculating, but I think Dave's argument is well structured: they had access to massive $$$ for Moncada; they stated an interest in pitching "at all levels" only two months ago; and Theo is too long-term and youth-oriented to allow the farm to get emptied by two blank years. Targetting Price/Miller/Carasco/Samardz/Lackey types, those wouldn't fit the "all levels" phrasing. [unless they were just referring to all levels within the major-league staff. High end starter (we'll talk to Price, and offer Baez or Soler for Carasco); second-level starters (Lackey, Samardz, Miller, Ross); back-end depth rotation/swing guys (Cahill, Warren); swing guys (Cahill, Warren, Richard); true relievers (Bastardo, Giles).] But since "levels" normally refers to major and minor leagues, the "all levels" comment most likely implies stocking up the minors as well as helping at the big-league level. Given IFA as pretty much the only means of off-season minor-league pitching procurement, (other than via trade), the "all levels" comment certainly suggests the intent to use IFA. That would also seem to fit Theo's long-term thinking. Same interview as the "all levels" comment, he talked about how he expected some "impact" pitching from the young minor leaguers, mentioning guys down in the short-season level (Cease, Sands, Steele, DelaRosa, Alzolay...). But the admin has generally seemed to be cognizant that the farm is not rich with pitching. Theo knows they could be needing rotation guys next winter (Hammel) and the following (Lackey), plus in event of injury for other guys. So with no chance at big-ticket IFA's or high-round picks for the next couple of years, unless he's satisfied with the pitching he's got on the farm right now, he'd likely understand the importance of adding some IFA's this cycle. Still, they seem to prioritize just getting value. So even if they know they want pitching, the IFA signings thus far have once more heavily skewed towards position guys.

I wonder whether the opportunity to get Heyward came at some expense to the procurement budget? Theo talked about needing "creativity". If Theo was appealing to Ricketts and accounting/budget to get creative and reallocate due to special Heyward opportunity, might they have not have expected him to provide some of those millions by reallocating some from the Cuban cookie jar? We'll never know, unless the Cubs do proceed and sign some more significant Cubans. But they may have heavily depleted their discretionary cash.

Glad we kept him, but not a fan, personally. Good arm, so that gives him chances. But so, so, so very wild. Not many useful major-league pitchers who have no control, and not many guys whose stuff is so superior that they can be useful without any control. But, there's always a hope. Maybe Bosio or the coaches next spring, or perhaps down in instrux or something, can help him make some adjustment in his delivery that could improve his control from awful to merely below-average, and maybe he'll still have a shot.

Drafting team gets to keep him. Cost is peanuts, like $1K or something insignificant. And unlike the major-league version, I don't think the drafting team needs to even keep the draftee on it's AAA roster. Basically it's a free transfer of roster-fill players. Most major-league Rule 5's don't stay with drafting team; AAA draftees never get returned to original team. Heesch and Chen have been productive minor-leaguers. Best wishes to them.

Agree completely. It's not like we've got an excess of relief options. Wood was good in relief, and his expected salary seems reasonably in line with what relievers get. (See Motte's $10/5 deal; Cahill's $4.5/1, etc...) That he can pitch extra innings, go multi-inning, and start if circumstances necessitate, he seems like he fits very well. If there's some compelling reason like Heyward to clear salary, OK, but I'll be surprised if he's traded.

Who has options? I know Edwards does, and Rivero, and Ramirez does not. Patton does also? Does Brothers? He's a lot more interesting if he does.

I actually think it looks pretty good. (Going to be tough for a Rule 5 to crack that pen though....) 5 starters, 9 relievers, that's only two extra guys really. 1. For any 14 pitchers, typically at least one would be opening the year on the DL and at least one would be on the DL at any given moment in time. 2. Ramirez, fair chance that he won't actually show up healthy, or healthy and controlled enough to make the team. 3. Some other teams are always short. So if everybody is both healthy and looking impressive, shouldn't be too hard to trade a Ramirez or Grimm or somebody else. 4. Isn't Brothers just a flyer? Maybe a new start and a new pitching coach will fix him. But pretty fair chance that he won't be fixed, and they'll be able to release him in camp and be freed from much of his modest salary? 5. I don't know, but is there any chance that Brothers still has options left? 6. Brothers only brought back a modest-bonus DSL pitcher. If he looks as wild as ever and remains ineffective in camp, I'd be surprised if anybody picked him up were we to cut him. Good chance you could get him to Iowa and take more time to try to fix him there? 7. A chance Hammel will get traded for salary relief so they can address CF. Maybe just let Warren/Cahill compete for 5th spot? I like it a lot, actually.

Interesting. Obviously there is some hope that Samardz has the arm and velocity and stuff to pitch better than his 3-year composite; and some fear that Leake would pitch worse. But yeah, pretty good chance that actual Samardz won't be any better, and may well be worse, than Leake or Lackey or Hendricks or Hammel. Tangent: We've presumed that rotation was going to be the place where the pitching upgrade would be most noticeable. But I wonder if relief might be an area? Statistically, both rotation and relief were very good last year. Both look very vulnerable to decline. But if we added some bullpen firepower, and both the added talent pitched well, and the risky wild return guys like Strop and Grimm remained good, the Cubs could hypothetically have a very, very strong bullpen. You can win a lot of games with Hendricks/Hammel/Leake types starting and giving 5-6 innings, and then turning games over to a really good/deep bullpen. In the playoffs with zillions of off days, you can turn games over to the bullpen even quicker.

Thanks for info, Bear Cub.

he's been struggling even worse in winter league than in the states. Even after the 4-4 day, he's still only at .218, 20K/0HR. Ouch.

.... Hmm, pretty short.

Thanks, cal. Heh heh, gotta give Longenhagen credit, he thinks for himself! :) Perhaps a reminder of how every scout has his own opinions about guy, and the concept that there is any uniform "consensus" about any player is a myth. Contreras: "all the traits of a big time power hitter"? That's a new one! Candelario: "butcher"! I think Longenhagen and John Manual from BA define the boundary extremes on that eval! :) (In Manual's favor is that his opinion is taken from two or three pro scouts, so fair hope that Manual's sources outnumber and "out-accurate" that of Longenhagen. Not sure how many AFL games Longenhagen attended; I'm guessing Candy's 3-error game was one of them? *"Mild case of Vitters disease" is another take I haven't read before. (I could very much live with that, I think.....) Vogelbach: "bat speed" but "bad approach", that's another spin I don't think I've seen. Not sure what he doesn't like about the approach, but that would seem to be again the opposite boundary from some Vogelbach supporters, where Vogelbach's take-a-walk approach is perhaps his best skill. Anyway, kind of fun to read opinions from a guy who's way out there and has no compunctions about being so. Somehow I don't anticipate that Contreras will really be a big-time power hitter, though!

Shocked/stunned. Will be interested to see whether the guy can ever add any power. His HR rate has gone down each year. I'd thought this past year might be time for a bump, using the old "FSL-pitchers-league" bit. But it continued plateau/decline. Hopefully he'll still bump it up some next year, somehow. But after 4-years straight, I suspect he probably just doesn't have the quickness to hit a lot of game HR's.

I'd just do the main three, Contreras, Johnson, and Candelario. No way I'd waste a spot on Vogelbach. Only playable skill is walking; don't see any team burning a 25-man spot to protect a walking DH. If they keep a 4th guy, I'd assume it would be one of the pitchers.

Don't think so. QO could theoretically be repeated, if the team still thinks the guy is worth it but the rest of the league still doesn't think guy is worth multi-year deal Very different from Franchise Tag, since Tag deprives NFL player of free agency, whereas QO does not. Seems fair that NFL team should pay escalating price to deprive a guy of FA two years straight. But since QO doesn't at all deprive guy of anything, baseball QO can go FA if he wants, there's no reason to make it increasingly hard for the team the second year. I assume a QO-acceptor can re-work deal any time as well. Replace the $16/1 QO agreement with a $33/3 deal in it's place, if they both wanted to? Wonder if Fowler has any interest in accepting Cubs QO?

Ah, then I'm way wrong. I thought they did something with Pena different than what they did with Contreras. If it was EXACTLY the same, then the question of Pena being rostered remains open. Something seems not right, though. You write that Pena and Contreras could have jumped ship. I don't believe that can have been true. (Just using common sense here, not having read the rules.) The Cubs could have rostered Contreras whenever they wanted. I can't imagine they'd have **ever** let him become a completely free free agent free to jump ship this fall. We see what international unlimited FA's get; and we see what teams spend for first and second round talent, especially prior to the draft cap. *If* Contreras had really been free, would he not have received an offer of at least a million, and possibly several of them? Proceduraly I can't imagine the Cubs ever let him go free.

He's Rule 5 eligible for sure. (Well, unless the Cubs now decide to roster him, which I don't expect.) And there isn't anything procedural that necessitates doing this prior to rostering him, if that was indeed what they intended. (If this was an obscure procedural step needed prior to Rule 5-protection, then Contreras would have undergone the same necessary procedural step, which in fact did not happen.) As Ryan said, he just decided that he'd rather stay with Cubs on a minor-league contract than wait and hope for something more attractive elsewhere. If he had reason to expect other teams to offer him major-league contracts, he should have waited. Given how thin the Cubs pitching is, especially in terms of potential yo-yo guys with options, he's probably wise to stick with the Cubs. I'm sure a 40-man spot elsewhere would pay better, but I can't imagine there are many orgs who are more thin in terms of both rotation and relief yo-yo candidates. But, certainly if some other team wants him for 25-man, they are free to Rule 5 him.

A few years back, the Cubs were clearly in rebuilding, talent-accumulation. I have so many questions about how it works internally now. Now the Cubs are a 97-win team who went to the NL championship series. I wonder how much discretionary money the Cubs have to spend? And how internally they split that between prospect procurement and big-league free agency? Do they have totally different budgets? In the Soler/Concepcion and Jiminez/Tseng/Torres years, were they stealing tens of millions from the big-league cookie jar because there was nothing worthwhile to spend that money on? Or do they have a fixed budget for procurement, which had $14 mill per year between draftees and internationals? Do they have different cookie jars for draft versus international procurement? The face that they can't spend for the next two years, can they borrow from the future? Or can they only spend from whatever savings and revenue-past has accumulated? Internally, is Theo sitting in a room in which McLeod/Madison/Dorey are having heated arguments with Hoyer/Bush/Shiraz Rehman? McLeod wants $30 million to sign Cubans, but Hoyer wants that to sign Fowler and Zobrist and O'Day rather than settling for Darren Jackson? Do FA spending and international procurement come out of different budgets with different Zell-sale debt/borrowing constraints? I would just love to have an inside dope scoop on how this plays out internally. Dave, as you mentioned with the "all levels" bit, I think that could very much fit an interest in Sierra. If he was signed and went to AA or AAA, but might be ready fairly soon, that could provide an extra alternative to Hammel if he hits the wall again, or be an option for injury replacement. One of my other "all levels" thoughts has been that Castro doesn't have trade value for a good big-league starter, but he might have value for an interesting minor-league pitching prospect. How good of an almost-ready prospect arm might you get for Castro+Happ? Or Castro + Underwood?

Good point, Ryan. Carrying a guy on the 40 with the options-shuffle is way different than needing to carry on the 25. If some other team liked him enough to commit a 25-man spot to him, they should have liked him enough to commit a 40-man spot to him. Way easier. So I don't see him as a likely Rule 5 guy, unless he somehow does something to change a team's evaluation over the next month. (Is he pitching winter ball, I wonder?)