craig

The list has limited star-power. Eloy, and perhaps Cease, are the only guys who'd seem to have exceptional talents. And with Cease, the injury history and the wildness make that pretty low-probability. I think Happ perhaps tends to be overrated based on draft position. He K's like crazy already in low-A, I think his odds of becoming a useful major-leaguer are pretty shaky. Somebody has to go in the top-5, but I have a hard time being very confident about a guy who has so much contact trouble already in low-A. 30K/100AB. Edwards is very wild, and after being wild last year as well there's no reason to think it's a fluke. But, it's a thin line between being uselessly wild and wild but still effective. The Edwards/Marmol comp is good. I tend to remember the hopelessly uselessly wild Marmol of the end; but he had four years (2007-2010) where he was very useful, at times really good, despite being wild. If Edwards could be like the 2007-2010 Marmol, or perhaps modestly less wild than that, you've got a pretty valuable guy. Very iffy, though.

Good list, Tim. For me way different layout than in past. Was a pretty clear differentiation last year, between the top group and then McKinney/Almora type plateau. Here I see some break around 12. I'd keep your first 13 names, but have a big break between the plateau that then includes limited long-shots like Vogelbach and Candelario. I'd maybe put Sands, who's mostly struggled a lot this year, showing neither high-level command nor notably good pure stuff, and Steele, outside of the top 13. Top 12: Players: Torres, Contreras, Jiminez, Almora, McKinney, Zagunis, Happ Pitchers: Edwards, Tseng, Johnson, Cease, Underwood

Ryan McNeil has improved as the season has progressed. Not sure what his actual stuff is at this point, but he's putting together an interesting season.

So, pitching on once-a-week rest in college, 3-4 fastballs per month? In-fifth-day grind, might be tougher. But, who knows. Guys can get somewhat stronger/faster at/after 21, sometimes. A little tweak, a little added strength, some steroids or supplements, it's possible. Usually guys who struggle to touch 92-93 touch it with low-movement 4-seamer, the relatively ineffective fastball variant that they don't and shouldn't use much anyway. Touching 92 with 4-seam probably fits with normally working with 86-90 actual fastball that can actually get some outs.

Contreras continuing to be rarely listed is almost as surprising as how Almora continues to get listed. Just the tenure system, Almora has been a routine listed guy and Contreras hasn't been, so it can't be changed? I wonder if to some degree whether while Contreras's defensive tools are solid physically, that perhaps his intangibles don't rate well? Maybe he's quick and has a solid arm, but scouts see him as a poor framer, poor pitch-caller, and poor at working with pitchers? Fair chance that many rankers have no real scouting info on details like that, though.

21.4 Caveat: we need to be cautious about using "age-versus-average" logic to value a prospect. I think it's more useful to use "age-per-league-top-10" Real, meaningful big-league prospects usually have a much lower average age than league-average. With Vogelbach, for example, he was always "young-per-league", but never "young-per-league-top-20". The nice thing with Torres is that he is very young not only per league, but also relative to his league's top-20.

Edwards hasn't shown any control since leaving A-ball. If he gets some, he could become a good pitcher in one role or another. But I can't put him in my top 10, or expect anybody else to put them in their overall top-100, when he has no control.

Morrison deal $30K. I think that leaves $1,129,205 left with which to sign Hudson. Cubs had $976K available prior to the morrison signing, the extra $152 available pushes past both the $1.0 and the $1.1 thresholds. Who knows exactly how a family comes up with a price tag. *Million is a round number threshold, so I'd guess there are a lot of families who say $1.0 is their price tag; maybe that was Hudson and now they'll have an extra $129K to save or overslot? *Or maybe Hudson was $1.1; "over a million dollars" felt more aggressive and sophisticated than just flat 1.0? *Perhaps they were using slot position to pick their price? $1,129,205 would fall in between the 11th and 12th slot values of round 2. So, perhaps family and advisor figured that they wanted to be top-half of the 2nd round? Expectation satisfied. *Or, maybe they set "top 50" as their goal? The slot for pick 50 is $1.196, in which case the cubs are $63K short. Would a kid spike a $1.13 deal because it's $0.06 short? Doubtful.

Yeah, that's what I've got too. If morrison signs for $5K, typical, then the Cubs should have $1,154,205 left for Hudson. Don't know why Callis would think that's a reach. Cubs talk to all these guys in advance. I assume that's what they had for his bill. *If that wasn't close, they'd not have picked him. *If that wasn't close, they'd not have gone and picked Wilson at his list-price. If it was close, but is a little short (for example Hudson was $1.2 or $1.3 as his cutoff, and now they don't quite have that....), then they'd have hard-balled a little harder on Happ, Dewees, and/or Wilson. (If they're going to end up $50-200K short on Hudson, they'd have fought harder and longer to free up that level of cash.) Not worried at all about getting Hudson signed. But, everything in it's turn, and as we know from Houston's Aiken/Nix blunder, the Cubs can't sign Hudson until the Morrison deal is totally done, physicals passed, no going back.

gotta figure Twomey just wanted to sign and get started. Surprising with Dewees. I wouldn't have guessed. Explains why it took so long for him to sign, I'd wondered why a presumed slot-signing would take so long. Obviously what's surprising or not surprising to me is based on expectations. And what the Cubs actually do is based on their scouting evals, wise or unwise as they may be. When Dewees gets a significant overslot, and when the Cubs pick Wilson where they did with the expectation of a large overslot, I guess it suggests that the Cubs scouted them much more favorably than we might have assumed based on BA types. We'll see whether the Cubs scouting makes any sense, down the road. (I wish we'd stuck with the consensus valuation on Hannemann....)

I've not been following the CWS. Morrison and Peitzmeir's teams have only been eliminated within the last week or so, correct? So, I'm sure nothing happening with wilson and Hudson signings until Morrison and Peitzmeier's contracts get finalized, including all physicals and everything. I don't doubt that Hudson and Wilson have their deals all wrapped up, conditional on Morrison and Peitzmeier. But obviously you can't sign an overslot until you're sure you've got the money in hand, and until Morrision and Peitzmeier are official, you can't be sure you've got everything you expect to have. Heh heh, I've sometimes wondered how the "passing physical" process works. I'm sure the GM could override a doctor's "failed physical" report. But imagine that Wilson and Hudson have agreements, and their deals are simply waiting for Morrison/Peitzmeier $$$. What if a very academic guy like Morrison failed his physical, and realized that his health wouldn't permit a worthwhile pro career, so decided to bag it? The Cubs would be stuck without his money. Or, what if the Cubs doctor failed Peitzmeier, but McLeod needed the money. I'm sure McLeod could override the doctor's failed physical and sign the guy anyway, just to free the money, even without any expectation that the guy would ever pitch a pro inning.

Anybody know what's happened with Turner? he hasn't pitched in a box-score game since the previous weekend, and got skipped in the Tennesee rotation. Did he perhaps do some throwng in a cage during a rain day? Or perhaps have a setback of some sort?

Rose said he'll play 3rd and that his pitching days are done.

Rose signed. Dewees is reported to have been straight slot deal.

I won't. Might end up with $0.1-0.3 left over at the end, but I expect that Wilson will take them very close to their limit. I thought I heard that Hudson was about $350 over, or something like that. Basically Hudson will use up the Happ money, and Dewees is rumored to be slot. So, 1-3 composite right on slot. Wilson will eat up all the rest, I think. I'm assuming overage and senior signing will enable him to get somewhere in the $1.5-1.2 range, and there won't be anything meaningful left.

Thanks much, Duke. Very helpful.

Thanks, cal. In a season with very few happy stories on the pitching side, nice to have a positive one. Over his last 7 starts he's had only one bad one (4 innings, 3 ER). IN the other six, he's allowed a total of 6 earned runs combined, and gone 6 innings in all of the others into today's 7 IP. In the pitch-count world of the minors. getting in six innings in 6/7 starts is pretty good. And 6 ER in 37 innings is also pretty good.

I wonder how the mechanics of those pre-draft phone calls work. Area scouts who know the kid and his family are making those calls? McLeod makes them all? Madison? Every year we get reports of kids saying they've been called and team X was interested in them for Round Y but the player demanded dollars Z. I wonder whether between area scouts and McLeod/Madison/Hoyer/Theo etc., whether the Cubs don't have 20 phone conversations going on at the same time with 20 different players? Between Monday night and Tuesday noon they called Padgett, AND Hudson, AND Sands, and two dozen other guys, and got their won't-budge price tags, and then go back and discuss who's the best value-per-dollar. Padget wants $0.8, Hudson $1.2, Wilson $1.5, Sands $1.2? Which are the best values per-dollar? And how can we get the most value given the dollars we've got? Padgett at $0.8 might be better than Hudson at $1.6, but Hudson at $1.2 is better value than Sands at same price and enough better than Padgett so that the savings on Padgett at $0.8 aren't worth it? But I really like Wilson! He's better value than any of those pitchers. OK, Theo, but I don't think other teams are going to take him yet at that price. I think he'll still be available for our round 4 pick at $1.5....

Contreras started, schwarber didn't. Schwarber pinch hit for Contreras in the 4th. Anybody hear what happened to Contreras?

Don't think depth draft applies here. You get 40 picks, so you can take as many $100K college roster fills as you want any and every draft. Not much different this time, other than that This draft was college organizational/roster fillers, Kellogg, and the four $$ guys. This wasn't a spread-it-around draft; they went all in on the four top guys. After they sign Kellogg and 24 other $100K (or less) college guys, maybe if you click you hit on one of those. Sometimes a Kellogg might turn into a James Russell/Sean Marshall, and sometimes a $100K guy might turn into role player. Maybe somebody will turn into last-year's Chesny Young or better, and reach high minors or even find a big-league role. Ryan Williams has reached AA, for $5K bonus. So commanding no $$ doesn't prove you can't get to AA or perhaps beyond. Maybe Berg will be the cheap senior niche guy who finds a useful role as a Roogy, perhaps in majors someday, or else for years in minors and Indy leagues. Maybe the next CBA they'll expand the rosters, and it will be easier for a team to carry a Roogy. But every year there is chance to draft a bunch of $100K college guys, roster fillers with the hopes that one or two emerge as more. This is no different. We just went more quality-over-quantity than usual. The four $$ guys are where this draft will sink or swim, from the perspective of the major-league team. Much simpler that way than usual.

Cubs haven't signed an overslot guy after round 13 in any of the previous three drafts. Unless Wilson ends up not signing for some reason, I doubt that will change this year either. I think their $$$ was basically invested after round 4 with Wilson. Hopefully Berg or some $100-slot guy emerges eventually as a big-league contributor. Good scouting, development, and luck can sometimes get a guy for $0.1 or less. But I think this was pretty much a 4-round draft. Hopefully some of the four $$ guys work out.

That's the reputation. But, he's got 13 errors in only 41 games this year. Not a lot of 3B's that make 50 errors over a big-league season. Villanueva has always been something of a high errors guy, I think. Obviously it's only 1/3/season sample size, and he'll not sustain that rate. But while defense is much about range, making errors still is a factor.

BA's been fairly negative about his defense for a while. Also suggested that he may not really want to catch, unlike Schwarber who has seemed to want to be able to. I think it's possible that perhaps they wanted to let Zagunis establish his offensive game, and use this year to see what he can do, and see how things go with the other catchers. Will Schwarber still be a catcher after this season, or not? Will Caratini be anything, or will he be a forgotten roster-fill? Will Contreras look like a real factor, defensively and offensively? Amaya doesn't sound like his hitting is going to be enough to be a factor in the conversation. In April, Zagunis had a non-trivial K-rate, for a no-power contact hitter in A-ball. That's improved this month. I'd like more power, but .900-OPS guys, with .450-OBP, those aren't easy to find. I think it will be curious to see how he holds up for the duration of the season, and once he's gotten a full year in, what they decide to do with him going forward. Basically develop him as a utility 4th outfielder? Perhaps get him more CF work? He's supposed to be kinda fast, and certainly he's faster than Almora. But, I wonder if he has any instincts or jumps that make Almora excellent defensively? In the unlikely event that Zagunis was actually *good* defensively in center, he'd obviously look like an interesting offensive option and top-of-the-order hitter compared to Almora. Not sure how much sense it makes, given the alternatives, but my understanding is that they have had conversations internally about putting him at 2B. Not sure that's obviously that strategic as long as we're still interested in Castro/Baez/Torres, but a Biggio-esque sort of guy could be useful.

I'm going Clifton and Null. Clifton's supposed to have a very good fastball, good velocity, and my understanding is that while he has gotten bigger/stronger, he's still got some physical projection left. (Just turned 20 last week, I think.) He's been one of the best K-pitchers we've got. Got a ways to go, and control is a challenge, but he's seemed to gain consistency there. Good shot to be a top-10 guy once the season's done. Null throws strikes, scouts as having a solid fastball, and the Cubs like him a lot. We'll see how the success, and the velocity/command, sustain over a full season. Others close in my list, some of whom have already gotten votes from others, are Pineyro (when you're K'ing guys and not walking guys like he's been doing in AA, lots to like. And 92-93 velocity isn't great, but if he can really work at those velocities with control/command and a K breaking pitch, you can be a useful guy. Similar to Null, in a sense.) Contreras. and Michael Jensen.

Castro may be a good comp for Torres. *Guy who hit very well as a very young player and was able to hit through the minors and progress very fast. *Body shape may be similar, not the slender wiry types. *Neither showed much power as teenagers, or project to be power hitters. *Both looked good at SS as teenagers, but without either looking great or future-gold-gloveish flash, and with the chance they might outgrow it. *Both run fine as teenagers, but neither actually fast as teenagers, and may not run well beyond early 20's. *Both Cubs, both SS's, both undrafted. If Torres moves up through the system, fine. Needs happen, trades happen. We'll just see how good his hitting holds up, just in case his BABIP slips below .430 later in his career. Might even happen this summer!