craig

I would hope they just go BPA because this is hopefully their last chance to add a top 10 talent to the system for some time. It's an interesting thought that they might roll the dice on a college arm with the thought that they're nearly ready to compete and top pitchers are a weakness at the top levels. That said, I'm not sure organizational depth wasn't as big a factor with Schwarber ..... good point about schwarber; i'm going off of that hoyer quote where he mentioned their catching talent scarcity vis a vis picking schwarber, though he doesn't actually say that it was a deciding factor iirc ....i can't imagine the strategy changes at this juncture, whether the strategy was pitcher averse or not 1. I think they thought Schwarber was simply the BPA (or at least BVA, best Value....) at the time, with no expectation that he'd catch. Simply considered him the best bat, with no pitcher exciting enough to trump that. 2. I think the lower down you go, I suspect the bat-vs-pitcher balance may change. The failure rate for top-5 bats is low enough that it's not easy for a pitcher to compete. Perhaps by the second-5 or the second-10 or later, the failure-rate for hitters is high enough that it may at time equal or exceed the failure-rate for available pitchers. 3. I think there are strong indications that they would have taken both Appel and Aiken. (Lucky we didn't have those chances.) So I think they are quite open to drafting pitchers. I suspect it's just a case-by-case deal, and presumably the hypothetical if-never-injured pitcher would need to be significantly BPA relative to the best available player. 4. A good pitcher can advance pretty quickly. I don't think they will or should let short-term interesting bias their choice Bst IF they do end up scouting a pitcher as being talented enough to justify a top-10 pick despite the inherent injury risks, good top-10 pitchers are often ready to be major-league contributors within 24 months of being drafted.

Steele and Sands are both 19. Sands is only 5 months younger than Tseng, and 8 months younger than Underwood. Steele is less than a year younger than Underwood. So, if Tseng and Underwood were both sent to Kane this year, it's possible that neither Sands nor Steele would be kept back on account of age. Development reasons, and the slow buildup of innings-per-year, of course, might dictate otherwise. I don't know what to expect anymore. I was shocked when Tseng got moved right up to Kane this year, at his age and without all of the instructional time. So who knows with Sands and steele.

... Thanks, cal. Good stuff. That's some good stuff with those kids. Fun.

The 90/93, he's talking Steele, right?

Fall instrux 2015 and spring XST 2016, we'll get some Arizona Phil reports. June 2016, box score games in short season. 2017 full season and pitching to win. Possibly 1-5 innings in Arizona rookie league during August of 2015. Even if he did get a couple of game innings next year August, they'd not be letting him throw breaking balls or throw hard that soon, even if he could.

Thanks much, CubsWin. Very helpful summary/compilation. Rodriguez was the only one of the those four non-bonus pitchers that I've been tracking. As you say, a weird case. As a short Dominican righty, not pitching pro till his turn-20 summer doesn't suggest a very big arm, and nothing great during his first 40 innings. But 32K/1BB over his last 19 innings, that's a weird turnaround, kind of interesting. Hadn't been especially watching Morel, but hadn't realized he's 6'6", so perhaps there's some big-arm projection in there. Morel was straight rotation other than one relief inning after a terrible start. De Le Cruz has been rotation all season. Usually the guys with more favorable physical projection, or simply the guys who look stronger velocity-wise, they have them starting. Rodriguez by contrast has 7 of 12 appearances in relief. So my guess is that he doesn't have the same kind of arm projection, but simply pitched well enough to get himself into the rotation. Delarosa has made some nice progress, in my view. Last year, I thought he had bust written. 20K/39AB in DSL, and he was just as bad in US in instructional league play, I didn't anticipate that the gift of contact was a matter of a year's experience. And while he started well this summer, then I thought he was struggling again. But overall his stats now look like they no longer have any red flags. 19/42 XBH/H, that's OK. 27K/13BB/169AB, nothing notably great but no real problems there, either, even if the walk-rate is kinda low for the wild-man DSL. But seems like the doubles are coming more frequently lately. Hopefully his step up from last year is the first step up, and he'll keep improving steadily. Matos, he's had a remarkably good season. For a 17-year-old in a league with 40 teams or whatever to be a top-10 guy in most of the key offensive stats, that's totally unexpected. Jeimer Candelario and Felix Pie are the only guys that come to my memory who were immediately really excellent as 17-year-old pro hitters. I suppose their subsequent decline confirms that Matos isn't safe to actually hit at later, but I'm hoping. Castro and Lake are two others, although neither were remotely as good as Matos (both were .750-OPS types versus Matos .950....). Heh, I wish Matos had been more of a "bonus baby". With inflation, his $280K or whatever probably isn't all that much more than Castro's $45. Why didn't he get more? My fear is that he got <$300K because he's got no defensive tools, and is really a DH/1B type. My hope is that scouts undervalued him for any of several reasons: 1. Maybe he just didn't play that much in places where scouts could see him? I suppose even in Dominican that may be possible. 2. Maybe he just got connected with a crummy buscone. A new guy who doesn't get you set up with the right showcases? A new guy who doesn't negotiate, or realize what you're worth? 3. scouts like runners with athletic builds and positional flexibility? Chunky catcher-only guys, maybe undervalued? 4. Maybe he was just a slow 1B/3B/LF guy, with no defensive aptitude for those, but the Cubs scouts had the eyes to see that he could convert well to catching? 5. Hitting is hard to scout, when guys don't play in games. Maybe there are 20 other kids who scout about the same hitting wise, but he's the rare one who can actually hit in competitive games. Scouts couldn't have really known he'd be .950 rather than .650 at this point? 6. Maybe he's just improved a ton? Catching is hard, and hitting is hard. We'll see if he can carry either one on up.

Bah. That's disappointing on Rhee. Rhee and Whitenack are reminders that TJS certainly doesn't have a 100% success rate. Yeah, I'd wondered whether after all these years Rhee had perhaps become semi-interesting again somehow. Too bad. Agree, good reminder that TJS doesn't have that great of a success rate. Hard to evaluate it, really, since so many TJ guys are minor leaguers and who knows how much more they'd have improved even without. But it seems like there are some like Whitenack and Rhee who never get the velocity back. And for every one of those, I think there are five more who don't get the control/command/consistency back. I feel like while it's success is common, I still feel like it's less common to get it all back then to have reduced skills afterwards. In such a competitive game, even a modest reduction in velocity or control or repertoire can prevent success.

It appears several people believe just that. Who are these people? We've all been pretty clear that two unexpected things happened which led to this situation. Marshall, who was supposedly not signable, became signable and Houston's doctor found something out of the normal. There was no plan before any of this. Houston's FO thought Aiken's irregularity would create the leverage they needed to get greedy and grab that one last prospect. Once they realized that Aiken wasn't going to cave and it was going to blow up in their face, they threw 5M at AIken so they could land Aiken+Nix. I see two issues in this argument. 1. That Marshall unexpectedly became signable. I haven't read everything. But was that really unexpected? Wasn't he always signable at $1.5-$2 but nobody had the money available, or in the Cubs case they chose Cease instead, and Houston used their $1.5 slot on Nix instead? In other words, did Marshall really unexpectedly change his price tag? Or did his price tag suddenly become possibly available? 2. You seem to argue that the "irregularity" simply provided Houston an opportunity (or excuse), and they used it in a "greedy" way. The "greedy" part implies that the irregularity was just an excuse, a pretext, an opportunity, but that it didn't impact his actual value as a prospect. Again, I would suggest that from the beginning they were happy to get Aiken and Nix; and they let that all blow up plus the PR nightmare. If the irregularity was just an insignificant thing in terms of his baseball future, while at the same time was an opportunity to create leverage, why didn't they go back to their original situation and sign Aiken and Nix for their original agreements, once they saw the leverage wasn't working? So, I guess I'm questioning the "unexpectedness" of Marshall's sign ability pricetag. And I'm questioning the perspective that the irregularity was for Houston an unexpected "opportunity" rather than an unexpected blow/disappointment/shock/problem/concern.

So, Houston signed none of Aiken, Nix, or Marshall, primarily because they were most prioritized on signing Marshall. They had the first pick in the draft, wink-wink, and selected aiken the player they wanted the most; but they dumped him, wink-wink, because they wanted Marshall, who was like #56 in BA's list. They set up the Nix press-conference in advance, wink-wink as a really tricky way to make the scam even more amazing. And they did all of this and stuck to their position and signed none of the three players, wink-wink, because they wanted #56 Marshall so much that it was worth sacrificing both Aiken and Nix on the chance that they might get all three. So, they risked and lost everything all on account of a insincere wink-wink fabricated pretext concern, all for the sake of #56 Mac Marshall who they still didn't get. If Mac Marshall is THAT desirable, I hope he's going to JC so that the Cubs have a chance to get him next summer! He must be something amazing if he's the most valuable guy in the draft and more valuable than the #1 pick.

I agree with south side. Houston has their own specialist who looked things through, and ultimately they need to make an evaluation. Was it a bad evaluation medically? Perhaps so. Given the magnitude of all this, seems to me they had enough time where they could and should have gotten not one but more like a dozen extra opinions. Was Andrews one of the second-opinions they consulted with, and he got the full imagine and everything? Or is he just giving his opinion based on what he's heard on the internet? As the author of that article implied, it totally doesn't seem like the Astros were looking for a pretext. If so, as the author suggested, they'd not have waited until round 22 to pick some interesting overslot. If so, they'd not have had Nix all lined up for a press-conference. Seems to me that they liked Aiken as the clear top guy, and had Aiken and Nix all lined up and they were good with that, and then boom, very much AGAINST their wishes, the doctor comes back with concerns from the physical. So suddenly they are in scramble mode and canceling the Nix stuff. They then had a lot of weeks to review the medical stuff and get lots of additional opinions. Given their general incompetence, perhaps they blew that too. But it sure sounds like they should have had time to further think and study, and they seemed to stick to their concerns. If their medical opinions had predominantly agreed that it was not an issue, as I'm understanding is Andrews view, I'd think they'd have come back to the original deal that they wanted in the first place. Aiken and Nix can go back to the draft in 11 months. But Houston, I think, has had the biggest losses in this whole deal. I can't imagine they'd have done that if it was all a pretext. Sure seems to me that they must have thought the UCL issue really was pretty problematic, or else they'd not have given up Aiken, Nix, and a ton of reputation. Their concerns may be wrong or ill-informed, but I doubt that they are insincere and all pretension.

I can't imagine he's really 94-95 as his rest velocity as a starter. How many starters in mlb average 94-95 on their fastball? I think he probably hits 9-95 every start, though. Black has very good stuff, no question there. And his recent good-control games are super encouraging. With good control, he's a really good prospect. We'll see how the control shakes out going forward. But we might have something pretty good here. Duane Underwood has also been on a good run. He's been inconsistent; some days he K's, some days he doesn't. Early on some days he walked too many, but many days he doesn't. Most days he's a fly ball guy, but yesterday he was 12/0 GB/FB. To me that suggests that he's got some good stuff, but again it's a question of control/command. What is and isn't working well probably varies from game to game. But if he someday gets consistency on all of his stuff, it could be pretty good package. I'd heard a couple starts ago, for example, that his delivery on the breaking ball was easily distinguishable from the fastball, arm slot or arm speed or something like that. Perhaps that's been improved the last several games. A friend was at Underwood's game at Lansing last night, and said that on the stadium gun Underwood was 94-92 for most of the night, with some 95-97 early. Said he looked great, threw mostly fastballs.

The Dempster and Garza trades were fine, but aren't really the foundation for the "great farm system" reputation. (I like Hendricks and think he could be effective; Ramirez has been surprisingly good; and I'm still hopeful that Edwards will be pretty good in whatever role, although I no longer think it will be as a good rotation starter. Olt, Villanueva, Grimm, busts or insignificant.) I don't think McKinney is either, and conceptually I see him primarily as the "other" pitcher, Russell as the Samardz value. So I kinda see Russell as really being the only big-time core guy that came via trade of inherited pitchers. Bryant, Baez, Soler, Alcantara, non-trade guys. Arrieta was a pitcher trade, non-inherited.

Did he strike anyone out? Sam Wilson did the striking out. He's 15K/10IP at Boise, after 5 tonight in 2. Lefty relievers, some patience doesnt' hurt.

Until Almora's HR tonight, he'd been one single in his last 18 AB. So whatever beautiful adjustment he'd learned, he'd kinda forgotten again. If Almora had really "figured something out", then why did he forget it again? Likewise if Vogelbach had really "made some adjustment" and "figured something out", then why did his brief burst of power cease and he go back into cold mode? Heh heh, so I think I'm with Kyle on this one. Guys have ups, guys have downs. Every time a name prospect has a little hot run, I want to believe they've "figured something out" and "made some adjustment". But usually it's just a crest on the season-long ocean of ups and downs.

VandySportscom's tomorrow is now yesterday. Either VandySports was wrong, or the signing has been kept surprisingly quiet.

Guys have ups and downs, so often composite stats are more indicative than "since X" stats. But Paniagua is one case where I think the seasonal stats probably are less representative than the more recent stuff.

Has anybody heard anything about Zastryzny? He's vanished again for a couple of weeks, after pitching effectively for most of a month.

.... I know I shouldn't read too much into these stats at low levels for a college bat who just finished his college season, buuut, those are some pretty good stats ….. Schwarber is 13 months older than Almora. Funny how Schwarber is perceived as so old that whatever good he does is to be expected and nothing to be excited about; while Almora is considered to be so young that whatever struggles he has are only to be expected and nothing to be worried about.

Clifton might be good.

.850 OPS is lots better than before. But few .850 OPS Pacific Coast league players are big-league ready. Most are bad hitters in the majors. He's going to need to improve to become effective.

Not really what I was asking, but I generally agree with you. That gives Hannemann two years beyond this one to get ready for the bigs. Would that be "quick"? I think that two years after this would be pretty quick. But I think that is reasonable, and that's the kind of timeframe that we should expect. If he's going to make it, he should play well for the rest of the summer. As he has for this last month of June, where his numbers are terrific. I thought he looked pretty bad through April and May, with lots of strikeouts, and nothing notably impressive. But this month, his strikeouts are way down, and he's showing some power. And the walks have been good. So if he can perform like this more or less, for the rest of the season, I'll be pretty enthused. I'm not sure I get the extenuating circumstances argument. If a guy actually does have big league hitting capability, having missed two years should not make that go away. But it may delay how long it takes for him to figure out how to put it to maximum usage. This player has started, so it seems reasonable that he may develop in a healthy and appropriate way, while naturally being old for his level all along. Not a problem with the age, if in fact he actually has the talent, and is developing it. But if things were moving well for him, two more years after this would be a good timeline. If this year and then another year in Daytona in Tennessee, followed by year in Tennessee and Iowa, don't have them looking ready, he's probably never going to be very good. In any case, it's fun that he's having a really good month. In May, I had pretty much written him off as a wasted pick.

Interesting. The money for Mitchell who is not significantly rated by baseball America, versus the money spent on, say, the 11th rounder, speaks to how unreliable the rankings are. The same goes for Norwood who is ranked top 80. But really interesting that they like Michel that much. I wonder whether Willis also got some over slot? He talked about the negotiation being complicated, or something like that, which might imply more than just a standard fixed 100 K plus college.

Agree there, Dave. That's how I see it too. We've got around $1.2 in overslot, and if we spend it all on Cease we can get up to $1.5. But if we don't spend it on Cease, the only reduction in discretionary is 5% of Cease's slot, less than $15K. So we can spend up to $1.5 on Cease; up to $1.3 on Gilliam. Good middle-of-the-order hitters who are just plain good hitters and who have good power besides are the rarest and most valuable commodity in the game. Not likely that Gilliam is that or will become that, of course. But if Cease said no and forced you to settle for Gilliam, and in the unlikely event that Gilliam worked out, that might be one of those hugely lucky breaks that sets up championships. (Heh, perhaps kind of like wanting Appel but getting Bryant?) (I think of Cardinals with Pujols, Red Sox with Mo Vaughan, Texas with Josh Hamilton, Packers getting Aaron Rodgers after nobody called them to offer a decent trade for that pick, all of these are kinda lucky breaks that made huge impact.) It says something about how much the Cubs like Cease, though, that they want to focus so much money on him even while expecting him to need TJ. A healthy back-of-first-round guy still gets "only" around $1.5. If they liked him so well to schedule that kind of an offer for him, that clearly suggests they like his healthy stuff as top-half-of-first-round quality.

Thanks. Other than Gilliam, picks 1-27 were all guys they expected to sign. 28 and on is where they started all the no-expectation-to-sign rounds. So Gilliam is curiously out of place. Seems pretty likely that he was viewed as a more highly prioritized Cease-alternative than the later picks in the no-sign rounds. Hope it doesn't come to that, and Cease signs on. But in case he doesn't, it's nice to read that Gilliam is looking better than ever. Who knows, maybe they'll end up signing Gilliam and he'll become a good middle-of-the-order producer for years. Seems like an interesting fall-back plan.

Dont' think so. That was the Maples/Dunston draft, so maybe he got $100K or something, but I don't recall him being anything noteworthy. Low-minors baseball is so funny. Boise is winning 6-1, but the other team has already gotten three base runners thrown out stealing.