craig

Tennessee loses game, 5-4, despite outhitting 15-7. Candelario not surprisingly is having a slow start in AA, Smokies got the first two guys on in the 9th, but Candelario hit into DP and McKinney K'd to end it. Other team got their last two runs by bunching a walk by Black, two walks by Acevedo, an error (Penalver), and a stolen base around a single single.

Tennessee tied 3-3 in the 7th. I love these morning games that I can check during lunch. Tseng with 4 K's during 3 shutout innings before getting lifted. ""Mobile Top of the 4th Kevin Cron singles on a sharp ground ball to third baseman Jeimer Candelario, deflected by pitcher Jen-Ho Tseng." Then pitching change. Chesny Young, with another HR, he leads the Cubs system with 2HR. Corey Black has amazingly gone 1.1 innings without a single walk.

Sure would be nice if he had a good year, could be the lead potential swing arm. Anybody know who will start for SB tomorrow? It's got to be between Morrison and Kellogg. Morrison. Kellogg is their #5 starter.

Stinnett 4 perfect innings in his opener, 6K/5GO/1FO. Nice start.

Phil said Null fell behind, got started late with some arm something or other, but expected him to be back fairly soon to take over as 5th starter for Myrtle beach. He had an interesting note on Maples: That Maples throws the same 94 that he did after signing, that despite years of work and maturation and stuff, and injuries, that he's never lost any velocity to the injuries nor gained any from maturation and workouts and delivery optimization and stuff. But Phil said that Maples' fastball has zero deception. I recall early on the thought that he had a really "heavy" fastball, and would be a ground ball machine. Phil's take was that his fastball is bad, and since he's afraid his fastball will get killed he nibbled or throws off the plate with that and gets behind a lot.

Tom, Phil's roster listing has Jordan Brink with rehab group. So whatever his arm problems, they appear to have recurred.

4th starters are Sands, Leal, Skulina, and Pierce Johnson, according to Az Phil. http://www.thecubreporter.com/04042016/baez-and-victorino-action-riverview#comment-form Skulina has apparently been behind, for whatever reason. I'm assuming for South bend the other four starters will come from Steele, Morrison, Kellogg, Twomey, and Alzolay. I wonder if they'll piggy-back a couple of them, or if not which works relief? Or maybe Norwood will do some rotation work, too? Anybody know or want to guess 5th starter for myrtle? I'm assuming Stinnett, Martinez, and Clifton, although even there you never know; perhaps Martinez is reaching the point where they decide to move him to relief. Arguello says Torrez is moving to relief. If so, that leaves one open spot, between the Zach Hedges, Ihrig, Thorpe types. I'm curious how Ryan McNeil will do this year, another year out from the surgery now, and throwing fairly hard into the mid 90's. I have a secret and unrealistic hope that he'll be in the rotation, having built up his arm strength and workload last year, but I don't think that's going to happen. Good relievers are invaluable, and can emerge unexpectedly, so if a cat like McNeil, Torrez, Garner, or Norwood, or Conway emerging, or Maples mysteriously finding some control, or Paniagua mysteriously finding control, or Acevedo mysteriously finding some control, that would be cool. Wildman-ultra Black is presumably beyond any chance to ever find some control, but I suppose if I'm entertaining ridiculous wildman-mysteriously-finding-some-control dreams, I guess I could throw Black into that pool too. Heh heh, if I'm going ridiculous enough to imagine Black having a clue where his fastball is going, then I suppose I might as well add Scott Frazier to my list as well! :)

Of those names, the following are the new signees? All position players. INF Aramis Ademan, OF Jonathan Sierra OF Abraham Rodriguez SSF Yonathan Perlaza

Thanks for all the info, friends. Very fun, very encouraging. Albertos as a 94-mph $1.5, that's very cool. Perez as a tall power conversion guy who's already gaining consistency, that's very cool. Two $1.25 catchers, that's hopeful. >$18 spent from those notes, at well over $30M given the tax, and perhaps still the possibility that there may be more who still sign, or that they don't know about, that's cool too. INteresting to have a couple of $$ guys from Mexico, and interesting that despite seeming to pull out from Venezuela, they still got three Venezuelan kids on that list.

I think when the Cubs farmed Candelario they assigned him to Tennessee. Is that just a procedural formality, and has no bearing on where he'll start? I assumed that meant he'd actually start at Tennesse.

Those 12 add up to $16.6. Almost all is above the tax line, so that's got to be $30-million in actual costs for those 12 guys alone. May not be done, but even if they are, we can hardly complain that they've been cheap. Hopefully the scouting was wise and some of the $$ turns into actual big-league value players.

http://www.chicagonow.com/cubs-den/2016/03/beyond-contreras-and-candelario-20-cubs-prospects-on-the-rise/#image/20 Really nice ARguello piece on 20 guys who could be "on the rise." Includes guys who aren't on lots of the main lists, and includes lots of recent spring-camp views.

According to Az Phil, Brink got sent down to XST already.

Looks like Eddy's got this one, with DelaCruz lined up to make it as #12.

DelaCruz. High ceiling and throws strikes, great combo. I like EJM, but he hit badly in his limited Cuban games, and we don't have much clue whether he'll have a clue against non-BP pitching.

Fun to have the minor league games getting rolling, and getting more reports from Az Phil, Arguello, and variable others hanging out down in Arizona. Eloy hit a long HR yesterday. Steele and Stinnett apparently impressed, Stinnet hitting 96 and working 91-93. Clifton and Alzolay were good yesterday. Somebody said they'd seen Blackburn a few days back and were surprised by how good he looked. Will be fun to have some pitchers emerge.

Tom, Az Phil mentioned that your guy Brink pitched. Only 4 strikes in 15 pitches or whatever, but he pitched. So he must not have had surgery or anything.

Thanks truffle, very cool.

Yeah, he basically pitched for only two weeks, so it would seem he had three presumably injury knockouts: 1. Missed first two months 2. Pitched a week. 3. Missed six weeks. 4. Pitched a week. 5. Missed last three weeks. Speaking of injury I-wonders, Edwards got pulled out mid-inning after three batters (out, single, walk.) *Probably Maddon wanted to use his wildness as an occasion to give Strop a mid-inning appearance? (Strop promptly gave up 3-run homer.) *Or is a 2-baserunners-then-remove an indication that something wasn't right physically? *I suppose other reasons also possible; maybe if he'd just walked a guy, they wanted to get Edwards out right away to make an immediate correction, or have a teaching moment, or something?

Thanks, Tom. Jordan Brink: Do you know whether they did surgery after the season, and whether it's shoulder or elbow? As a guy who's 23 now, he's kind of in a tough spot, probably kinda needs to be healthy. Maybe it's been all coincidence, and his arm is healthy as can be. But if he's missed most of last two seasons because arm has problems, guys with problems don't always just have them disappear over the winter. And if he needed or needs surgery to fix something wrong, he's kind of late on the time clock to go through that and then start his career. He did appear twice in June, got shut down, then rehabbed enough to pitch two innings again in early August, before they shut him down again. Cubs have wanted to be the smart, optimal developmental organization. It would be awesome if one of the guys you've mentioned really did show some development, and emerge as a value. I think your point is well taken that some of the Martinez/Blackburn/Tseng/Torres/Null type guys could get re-evaluated this year. To get much attention in A-ball, seems to me you either need to have some really noteworthy velocity or stuff, or else you need to post some eye-catching stats. With the Martinez/Blackburn/Tseng/Null rotation, none had either, and none showed stellar K-rates. But, guys their age can sometimes improve their velocity, by variable or marginal degree, with a little maturation, or optimization of mechanics, or just by trying to throw a little harder for the gun. Guys their age can sometimes revise their grip or sharpen their breaking ball, and boost their K's. Having 3.0 ERA-type in A-ball is boring without projection/stuff, but if you carry that up or a little lower to AA, add 1-2 mph to your normal fastball, add 2-3mph to your "tops-at" fastball, and add an extra 2K/9IP to your K-rate, suddenly back-of-rotation possibilities can seem more real, or the prospect of relief success can seem more realistic. I do wonder also whether the new pitching coach will make an impact, in some cases favorable? My understanding is that Derek Johnson originally did NOT want his guys throwing real hard. That he had them throw a bunch in camp, determine where the range was that they could consistently control the fastball, and they were trained to NOT throw harder than that, even though perhaps they could. Limiting velocity was expected to have more consistency in delivery, better control, and also avoid injury. But a new guy might perhaps approach it differently? Or perhaps a new camp, a guy who could throw 91-93 pretty often if he wanted, but had found 89-91 to be his control-sweet-spot one year, perhaps a year later for whatever reason he can now control the 91-93? Johnson was highly respected, but sometimes a new guy has some new insights. Maybe for whatever reason, the new guy is able to get Blackburn's curve working consistently? Or make some very subtle adjustment with Torres so that his slider breaks a little better, deceives a little better, and controls more consistently, and suddenly it evolves into an any-count pitch and a 2-strike put away? Development, you never know! Thing is, I doubt the Martinez/Blackburn/Torress/Null/Tseng types are really going to have that much trade weight. I think teams in a trade tend to want a little more upside, not limited-stuff back-of-rotation wannabes?

I just switched my vote to Edwards, to be a consensus guy and to help make it obvious that Edwards is going to win. We could just declare Edwards the winner, DelaCruz #11, and move on to vote #12? OK, maybe not, maybe Martinez is now too close to DelaCruz to do that this fast.

I'm going DelaCruz and Edwards at this point. Giving DelaCruz the edge, because he throws strikes, and projects as a full repertoire rotation guy. Not many guys end up being TORP, but he's got the stuff/projection where if things work out he might be exactly that. Edwards has a good shot to be an excellent 6th/7th inning guy, and those are super valuable as well. Using the "which would I more regret trading away", I'm feeling less willing to give up a possible long-term rotation cornerstone than a wildish 6th/7th inning reliever.

I agree. Agree also, just to keep this moving along.

Easy Underwood for me, on this tie-breaker. 1. Outside evaluation consensus: As Cubswin just noted, outside sources almost invariably rank Underwood ahead. Maybe for some informed reasons? Just following the crowd isn't necessarily correct; but sometimes the outside crowd actually does have some objective sense? 2. Inside evaluation consensus: McLeod and the Cubs scouts do their own ranking. Both this offseason and last, they valued Underwood ahead of Candelario. Maybe for a reason? 3. Age: Underwood is a year younger. 4. Ceiling: Underwood scores higher. 5. Pitchers jump: Pitchers have greater opportunity to "jump" than hitters. You throw the ball yourself, you're the initiator. As the initiator who determines each pitch, it's way easier for a pitcher to "figure something out" and make a performance jump, than for a hitter. 6. Scouting and inconsistency: Scouts, including McLeod himself, see Underwood at times having a plus heavy fastball, a plus curve, and a plus change. Again, a very young pitcher has a greater opportunity to improve consistency. 7. BB-progress: 6.2 - 4.5 - 3.2 - 2.8 BB/9. Underwood has been on a steady pathway of control improvement. For a guy who is scouted as having very good stuff, and who'll play his AA season at age 21, that seems pretty good progress. Good stuff and low walks, that seems good. 8. Fastball/groundball/K/BB puzzle: Underwood's faults of course are the HR's and the low K's. Interestingly, his GO/AO ratio is pretty good, 1.42 on his career. That seems to match the scouting, that his fastball is a pretty heavy ground ball pitch. That also seems to match the scouting, that he's thrown a lot of fastballs thus the modest K-rates. Breaking balls and change ups can improve with practice; if they do, K's can go up and HR's can drop.

Really hard to sift here, but I went Cease. Cease and DelaCruz have higher ceiling than Underwood, for me. Using the "which would you more mind losing", I think I'd be more disappointed to trade DelaCruz or Cease than Underwood or Edwards, but that's just gut feeling. We know that even mid/back-rotation guys cost a lot, and make a huge difference. During regular season, the quality of the 30 starts by #4 matter as much as the 30 by your #1 or #2. So, paying $32/2 and a high draft pick for Lackey. So if Underwood could basically fill Lackey's mid-back rotation slot in a couple of years as a minimum wage guy, and perform at a high level, that would be very valuable. But I'm going with Cease in hopes that he can both stay healthy and figure out how to command his potentially plus-plus fastball and curve, and improve his change to pretty decent. Very fast with movement, that's not easy to find.