craig

I voted Tseng, but I really like Stinnett too. I'll have Stinnett ahead of Underwood, I think. Big, strong guy. Excellent stuff, very good movement on his fastball, throws hard, and really good command with his fastball. Very good slider. The keys for him, I think, will be: 1. how his change develops. 2. How consistently fine his command can be. Derek Johnson is a big believer that he's going to really be a good control artist, but again that's a lot easier to project than to actually prove true. A lot easier to analogize to Hendricks or Maddux than to actually have that level of control pretty consistently. 3. How his cutter develops. He's got good stuff and movement. If he can spot fastball, slider, and cutter, those are three movement variations that can help success against both lefties and righties, and can come out of the hand and be hard for hitters to differentiate. Will be interesting to see how well Stinnett handles Myrtle Beach, and how quickly they bump him up to AA this summer. Underwood threw harder than the other guys last year. Not sure how much harder than Stinnett. He showed some really good progress over the year, and improved consistency in a way. At the same time, my game recall is that he was still somewhat inconsistent. One day a good bunch of K's; the next very few. One day high groundouts, the game now many at all. That may be a good thing; he's got varying tools and can win in different ways. Some of the media reports have been positive that his curveball is sometimes pretty nice, and on occasion his change is pretty nice too. If he can get consistency, we might have a really good pitcher. A hesitation on my part for him are the high HR's. 10HR's in 100 innings would be OK in majors, but that's pretty high in low-A. My sense is that each of his pitches is currently somewhat inconsistent, and also that sometimes his delivery telegraphs what's coming. Hopefully with time and coaching and experience, he'll smooth that, and gain consistency and command of all his pitches. Johnson, Tseng, Stinnett, and Underwood, those are some very good prospects. Let's hope that they all stay healthy, and several (all?) of them progress favorably this summer.

Tseng. 6:1 K/BB plays very well. Location/command. Consistency. Underrated stuff. Good curve, good change, good slider. Commands everything. Good delivery so that hitters can't read what's coming. Four-pitch repertoire gives him enough variety so that he can work different hitters in different ways, and work different games in different ways. (If the curve is off, he's not cooked because he's got other weapons to use.) I'm thinking Hendricks command but can cruise with 2-3 more mph? Tseng's velocity may be somewhat underrated. I think he threw his fastball slower than he could, or than he will in future. Part of Derek Johnson's development program is to set a velocity range where a guy can consistently throw strikes within that range, without stressing the arm. The Cubs think throwing harder puts more stress on the arm; compromises control; and compromises change-of-speed strategies. Restraining the velocity is especially a priority for new guys. So, I think that Tseng may later throw harder than he did this past year. Either because he really gets stronger physically. Or simply because when he's a little older they'll be more confident that he can throw harder with control and with a repeatable delivery.

I voted Johnson, but I totally get the concerns and the advocacy for others. To my view this was the first time he's really had control problems. He hadn't the previous year or during his college draft year I don't think? His stuff was really good in AA already. So I think that *if* there was a correctible reason for the wildness, and *if* he can improve that significantly, I think he could come on fast. When a guy already has 90 successful innings in AA (2.54 ERA), he may not be that far away. His "ceiling" seems plenty high, his stuff is very good. Fastball movement, velocity, slider, and the cutter are all quite good. So if he could emerge with the consistency/command, I don't see much reason why he couldn't be a very solid rotation guy. Being two levels ahead of Tseng and Underwood also means less time within which to get injured prior to big-league contribution. I'm hoping that after coming back from injury, that his delivery was a little messed up, so he was wild. But that if he can come back fine and healthy this spring, and go through regular camp with everybody else and start on schedule, that perhaps the control will show up a lot better. If so, you might have a guy who is really close, if they needed somebody. Stuff-wise, I think his ceiling is really pretty good. Maybe Underwood is a little higher, I understand that view. But it's not like Johnson is a soft-tossing back-of-rotation guy or anything like that. He's got plenty of stuff and velocity.

He makes CJ Edwards look kind of chunky!

Almora. Excellent defender, good contact gift, bat speed to handle big-league velocity, good size and excellent power potential. Doesn't have star-projection offensively, but we're talking #8 prospect here. His potential success is especially significant because currently he's unique in the system as a legit defensive CF. There are various guys who might end up filling LF (Schwarber, Bryant, McKinney, Fowler, etc...); 3B (Bryant, Baez, Castro, Russell....); SS (Castro, Russell, Baez, Torres...); and 2B. But there don't seem to be a lot of current in-system alternatives in CF. So if Almora would emerge as a legit solid-average starter in center, that would be very helpful. Obviously the value of having him succeed doesn't impact his odds of doing so, but there seems to be more at stake on whether he succeeds or fails than with some of the other guys in this neighborhood. I know this will sound lame, but I admit to being influenced by what other people think. Especially the Cubs scouting/farm departments themselves. There seem to be a lot of intelligent analysts and scouts who still rank Almora within the top 6 prospects within the system, and even within the top 100 prospects in baseball. If there was some obvious talent-deficiency which will always make him unable to hit, I'd think the Cubs and more of the scouts would have noticed by now. So, Occam's Razor suggests that if a lot of smart observers still think he's got a reasonable chance to hit, that his chance of being a reasonable hitter is at least somewhat better than zero. My concerns go well beyond the low-walk thing, as problematic as that is. 1. I'm concerned that may be a manifestation of fundamental talent-deficiency in being able to process pitch movement and handle breaking stuff. If you're going to be off-balance every time a pitcher throws something other than a fastball, and you can't even punish the hanging breaking balls, it's going to be bad. If you don't have the vision/brain for good pitch-recognition etc., I don't think that's an acquirable skill. If he's failing because he doesn't have that, practice and experience won't cure the disease. I think pitch recognition and fear of breaking balls may also contribute to why the walk rate is so horrible. 2. The ridiculous leg-kick doesn't help. How do you keep good balance to enable efficient weight-transfer to drive the ball with that leg kick? Yuck. I'm hoping that's something mechanical that can be adjusted, reduced, to his future advantage. 3. I don't know how adjustable this factor is. But Almora has always been heavily groundball-oriented. Is that something so ingrained in the swing-plane that if a guy's stroke mechanics don't have lift, they can't tweak that? If so, Almora may be cooked. 4. Not sure how coachable or correctible this is either. But can an up-the-middle/opposite-field guy make some adjustments to use the whole field including his pull field? My perception (Cubs have way better data) is that Almora usually went center/right, but rarely used left. Obviously most of his contact was groundouts; but my perception is that if you marked where a normal SS usually starts out, there were 3 groundouts to the RF side of the initial SS position for every groundout to the 3B side of the initial SS position. Can he better learn to pull the ball, and perhaps with more lift? Beats me, but I'm hoping.

McKinney is winning by a couple of votes. If that's still true when Tim gets around to it, give McKinney 6, Torres 7, and lets get on to 8, 9, and 10. :) On McKinney, my understanding is that the Cubs feel he can easily be in the 12-17 HR range. Can he be in the 17-25 range?

As I noted in an earlier point, I think the power question with McKinney is central to how we project him. You mention "the lack of power"; I wonder how lacking that is projection wise? Heh heh, reference to Aoki and Markakis is interesting, if both are to represent power-deficient outfielders who were still variably useful. Aoki is seriously power-deficient; he's never exceeded 10 HR in a season, and last year hit only one. That is power-lacking in a way totally different from Markakis. If McKinney is power-deficient only to the degree that Markakis was, I think that's more reason to support him than to downgrade him. Markakis hit 16-23 HR per year during his first four seasons. Over his first six seasons, he OPS'd below .799 in only one of them, including slugging .489 and .491 during his 2nd and 3rd years. To my view, if McKinney has Aoki power, hes way down the list for me. But if he's the disciplined balanced professional hitter that the scouts say of him, with the kind of power Markakis had early on before injuries, I'd have him higher than #6, not lower. That's not a problem at all, for me. The other point as always is that HR's are a function of strength during contact, but also how often you hit it on the nose. If he's just an excellent hit-it-on-the-nose hitter, he doesn't need Baez power to hit 15+ HR.

If you're K-ing everybody like Rivero, won't be a lot of hits. When you're K'ing a lot like Edwards, and don't allow any over-the-wall hits, you also won't allow many hits. Over-the-wall hits are hits too. The worst kind.

How do you mean hits don't matter? His H, HR and K numbers say that his stuff is somehow very hard to square up. Higher level hitters will of course be better at it, but there's no reason to think his advantage relative to other pitchers will disappear. I like your love of Rivero but I don't think Edwards should be brought down to the level of a 27 year old for-sure reliever whose numbers in fewer US innings are worse. Rivero's K-rate is pretty stunning, so his stuff seems especially hard to square up. He's got a chance to be very good, in the pen. My concern there is the control, obviously. I think the point is valid, that Rivero's K-rate is more stunning, dominant at a higher level; given that Edwards is likely to end in relief anyway, it's not obvious that he'll be as good or better in relief than will be Rivero. You'll get the same 6 years of club control either way. I agree the issue of the HR's is central to Edwards. Obviously the rate has been so low that it won't sustain against big leaguers. But if it's real, the result of late motion on the fastball, that may translate well into the majors. We'll see. For both, control is very much in question. Edwards was erratic this year, and isn't a control ace. Rivero has always seemed kinda wild. Not sure whether either will improve, or how their current level of inconsistency will play against major-league bats if they don't improve. Some of the scouts who love edwards seem to think his delivery mechanics are simple enough and repeatable enough so that he will perhaps be able to have rather good control. We'll see.

Torres, McKinney, Almora, Underwood, etc., a lot to still like here. Arguments for any of them, and each has a chance to become a really valuable contributor. I think I'll just go Torres here. Why not, hoping he'll become a top-notch defender who's a good all-around hitter and ends up with 15-HR power so that power isn't a liability. Castro was one of the best offensive SS's in baseball with 14 HR's. If Torres can have similar power, with a lot more walks/OBP, and be a much superior/smarter defensive guy, the value could be massive. (Perhaps for us, perhaps in trade.) *If* Almora could somehow learn to hit, his ability to play CF combined with his power potential could be a really good fit on the roster. If that were safe or sure, he'd not still be available for spot #6. But there has been enough contact success and scouting respect for his swing; it's too soon to dismiss his chance to blossom into a variably capable hitter, even if his walks are low. Sure he had a terrible year, with ridiculous leg kick, all grounders, resulting lowsy BABIP, and no walks. But I think he may improve a lot on each one of those. I particularly think his power-potential is underrated. He's not Bryant/Baez, but he's a pretty big guy, and his BP power is excellent. "If" things do work for him, I think he'll drive more balls in the air and pull more balls, both of which will boost his HR output. I'm hoping. HItting is the hardest/rarest gift in baseball. McKinney may have it. His HR potential may be being undersold, and that's key. 11 HR's as a teenager in A+ is promising, even if inflated by Cal League. Some of HR power is strength, but much is contact and leverage. With physical maturation, and given his pure hitting knack, I think he might mature into a 20 HR guy. A 20+ HR guy with walks and contact could be a super valuable regular, even in LF. I'm hoping he's just such a really good hitter that some of the good contact will just naturally end up over the wall.

Out of curiosity, have you heard any questions about Torres other than he hasn't played above short season yet? Not really. The following might be some concerns: 1. Just the lack of power, either present or projected. 2. Second, he was >2:1 GO/AO last summer. There isn't a lot of good that gets done by hitting ground balls. My unresearched impression/fear is that most guys who are "lift" hitters later were lift hitters when young, and that the orientation towards lift versus ground balls is manifest pretty early. Not sure what the history of development is for that, or how naturally changeable/coachable/correctible that is. 3. Some scouts have questioned whether they really see him as a plus defensive SS; seems like I've seen some outside-the-organization scouting things suggest that he may eventually be a move-to-2B possibility. I buy into the true-SS view, myself, but given the very high standard of big-league SS defense, it's hard to actually be an asset defensive SS. 4. He did K 40 times per 182 AB. Not bad per age, but I'm not sure he's Almora or Vitters or anything like that in terms of contact gift. I'm really hopeful. That his present power, who care he's young, so that by the time he's 24 he'll be hitting 12-18 HR per year. That his defense will be really good and that he'll be a real asset defensively, better than any of the Castro/Baez/Russells that we have now, or the Cedeno/Theriot type of a few years ago. Hopefully the ground ball thing will just be a 17-year-old small-sample thing, and he'll be driving the ball with authority through gaps and sometimes over the wall very soon. And that with time the 2:40 HR/K ratio will soon be blossoming into 15:80 instead.

I'm going with Edwards. He's hard to hit, he allows very few HR's, and by account he's got good late movement on his fastball. (Which is probably why the HR's are so low.) He's already been reasonably good in AA. Concerns are control and durability. His control this past year was inconsistent at best. Maybe that was partly missing time, and then not being in a groove when he came back, but I'm a little concerned that he's maybe going to have some Marmol-light issues. Obviously he's a pitcher, and after some arm issues last year the risk of future arm problems is probably elevated. Plus the size and question of whether he can sustain his stuff beyond 60 pitches as might be needed to start. But everybody has questions at this point, and I'm not sure there aren't as many or more concerns for Torres, Almora, and McKinney. (Or Rivero). I'm also not a believer that value vanishes if a guy moved to relief. Pitchers with good stuff who can get people out end up being useful, and always get opportunities. (No place like the bullpen for having usage ending up conforming to performance.) I'm very much motivated for the Cubs to end up with a really, really good bullpen. If Edwards ends up there, but he's good, that's still not a bad value for a #5 prospect.

"Signing" is often used interchangeably with "coming to agreement", so he could basically make his decision by the end of the month, even if that was an agreement with the Cubs. Cubs would obviously need to offer him some pretty good guarantee in case of injury or something, and perhaps still let him work at their facilities or whatever. Ridiculous and even faintly possible, no. But yes, due diligence.

Yeah, that would be fun.

That would help a lot, and would streamline getting everything done during a compressed signing period, plus avoid anything like this awkward Aiken deal. Cubs have had at least one failed physical within the last several years, (DeLeon), so while it's uncommon it's not so rare that doing physicals altogether would be unnecessary.

I don't see the advantage here. 1. It shrinks the signing timeline to two weeks. That seems rather brief, given that management have a lot of draftees that they need to work with. 2. A two-week window doesn't seem a lot of time to get all the physicals done. 3. A two-week window doesn't seem a lot of time to work out contingency signings. You kinda need your high-round guys signed before you can sign later guys, in order to access the overage money, and in order to know what you've got to work with assuming some sign sub-slot. 4. I don't think it's good for the scouting community. I can recall the Dempster trade summer, Randy Bush saying things would pick up after the draft, but that everybody and all the scouts had been so busy with draft stuff that there was no time for trades or for scouting pros. If you bump the draft back to July, then the scouts may be all engaged scouting amateurs for so long that there's isn't much time for scouting trade-deadline minor-leaguers. 5. It shortens the amount of season within which signed prospects can play.

The "being good" is the key. Zobrist has been good offensively and defensively. Alcantara was .254 OBP, .215 versus RHP. He's going to need to show a lot of improvement. Hope he can, and if so he can be really valuable. But hitting big-league pitching is tough, so no guarantee. We'll see.

Who knows what they're going to do about 2B/3B at the start of the season. My guess is they don't know themselves. Baez, Alcantara, La Stella, and possibly Olt. Four guys now competing for two starting spots, and either 3 or 4 roster spots. Of those four, one could easily argue that Baez, Alcantara, and certainly Olt really belong in the minors improving their offense and earning another chance. The other oddity is that Alcantara has played hardly any pro 3B, and not sure La Stella has either. Not sure how ready they'll be defensively to start the year at 3B. I wonder whether in absence of Valbuena whether they might not sign some backup 3B. I think this would be the kind of open-opportunity situation that the agent for any non-roster guy or a comeback-from-injury guy would be on the phone calling about. Not sure how many people are in the Cubs complex at Mesa these days. But if I was La Stella, I'd be down there begging a couple of guys, one to stand on 1B and the other to hit grounders and choppers and bunt, and get in all the 3B practice, throwing especially, that I could get.

Structuring a lineup with some OBP on top might be nice. Cubs haven't had a serious OBP-guy at leadoff very often. Depending on how left and 2B shake out, it's possible that one of those spots could provide a decent OBP guy batting 2nd, too. La Stella, Coghlan, and Denorfia all profile as guys who *might* be pretty solid OBP guys, and might kind of fit into 2nd slot. Not sure which of them will be any good this year, or get to play much. But on a given day, fair chance that one of those three might be in the lineup. *La Stella was a .407-OBP minor-league career, and his .328-OBP for Atlanta is still well above league average. *Denorfia stunk last year, but was .335-OBP or better the previous four years, .331 career. *Coghlan was .352 last year and .340 career. I think Transmogrified Tiger made a good point about more stability in terms of expectations. Offensively, Fowler gives some stability to one of the three OF spots, and leadoff and the front of the batting order. Alcantara might do very well this year, but there's also the chance that he'd be a black hole offensively. If he's good, there are lots of places for him to get AB: maybe CF (with Fowler to left; maybe LF; maybe 2B is Baez doesn't earn it; maybe 3B until Bryant is ready. I don't know how 2B will play, but La Stella, Baez, and Alcantara provide an interesting pool. Rather diverse profiles. I think this also makes it a little easier to send Alcantara down, if he looks pretty rough. The way the roster stood, you almost had to play Alcantara in CF, whether he looked improved or not. Now, perhaps easier to send him down if he's really best served with more Iowa time.

He's also got Cease and Steele in his top 30. He commented that all the pitchers in the Cubs first 7 rounds were in his top 30, but I think that was a mistake. 6th round covers Stinnett, Sands, Steele, and Cease, all of whom are in. But 7th is Norwood, I don't think he really has him in there.

Are you talking about Denorfia? And if so, you mean 2014 right? He had 4 WAR in 2013, which was way higher than anything he'd done previously. 2014 was an outlier going the other way too though. I had just taken a quick look at the offensive numbers and they looked similar to other years. Definitely an outlier with most of the extra WAR coming from defense it would appear. His offensive rate numbers in 2013 seem in line with his previous three years. 2014 was way off low, but 2013 was not at all flukey high. His WAR was probably higher in 2013 in large part because he got 520 PA; in his other seasons he's been 300's.

...It may be that signing Gomes could happen only if they make some small deal of Ruggiano first. . .... Heh heh. I knew it seemed like a possibility, but I didn't anticipate them dealing Ruggiano within hours! Funny. By the way, this won't trigger Gomes move..... yet, at least. Motte had put the roster at 41, I think, so this just gets it back to 40. They may reach an agreement with Gomes, but they'll need to clear another spot before they'll announce anything.

Yes, assuming major-league contracts. It may be that signing Gomes could happen only if they make some small deal of Ruggiano first. Ruggiano was $2 last year, I think. Ross, I assume he'd be a target if they trade Castillo. Rumors often drag behind actual discussions. I wonder if actual Ross discussions preceded the trade for Montero?

Yeah, agree that a vesting 7th year may not be very persuasive or add much value to Lester or his agent. It might, of course. With 7 years, that would take him through his age-37 season. That might seem like a lot of stability for a guy and his wife? But yeah, for exactly the reasons that we don't mind it at all, he probably wouldn't value it much. Still, sometimes a guy figures he's going to last, and getting an extra $25 secured might seem kind of appealing. Maybe the agent would like it, too? They like to report the richest version, so $138/6 might not seem as productive as $160/7? In either case, no harm in Hoyer offering it. Assuming he doesn't take it, no harm done; if he does sign, no harm done either.

Hi, deeg. I actually like that idea. Can't-lose value. 360 innings isn't easy, if the vesting threshold is really that high. If he's healthy enough and effective enough to still be racking up 180+ innings/year at the back-end of the 6-year deal, that means the 6-year deal has worked out really, really well. Terrific. And assuming the 7th year doesn't vest, you've lost nothing extra. So I'd very willingly support offering that.