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craig

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Everything posted by craig

  1. craig
    Blackburn pulled mid-first inning. He'd allowed a bunt single and three walks. He'd gotten a 7-day rest since his last start (10H/4IP in that one.) Tired arm, or worse?
  2. craig
    Cervenka 5K in 2 innings. Lefties with good stuff don't grow in bunches. He's 29K/22IP thus far. I wonder how Rosscup is doing, and whether he'll be back and as good as ever, or will either need surgery or never be the same.
  3. craig
    Yeah, would be interesting to give him a shot. Although Kane rotation seems kinda full. Nobody compelling it at Daytona, though.
  4. craig
    Tennessee started some pitcher I didn't know was part of the organization. Did they sign him out of an Indy League, to help roster-fill with Pierce, Edwards, and Pineyro all injured, and Daytona having no pitching to call up?
  5. craig
    Interesting. I don't doubt the essence of the piece, but he did play in the Cape last summer. So while the Cubs may not have played him after he signed at the deadline, it's not like the injury was so extreme that he couldn't play baseball at all.
  6. craig
    Amlung's only previous start, I think, was when Paniagua was home in DR, right? Is he replacing Paniagua in the rotation, do you think? Or Tseng? Or Tseng hasn't pitched in 10 days. He was on a 6-day schedule, right?
  7. craig
    I can't believe he's been at AA for so long, I don't understand. I'd love to see him jump AAA and go to the majors. His approach isn't going to get exploited by veteran minor leaguers. This has probably been discussed in threads previously, so apologies in advance. But what do we know about his defensive abilities? Awful, or simply below-average relative to major-league norms?
  8. craig
    Is Kolek not like a Kerry Wood or a Josh Beckett (at least at draft time)? No. They had good/great breaking balls pre-draft, Kolek doesnt. Beckett also had better fastball command than either Wood or Kolek. That may not all be a bad thing in the long run for Kolek. All those big-time curves/slurves by Wood might have made him a better ace-prospect, but it may also have made him more likely to need surgery. Kolek with mostly fastballs and a very controlled workload might be a much better health risk than Wood was.
  9. craig
    Almora 0-4 today, down to .253. Vogelbach up to .253 after 3 hits. Almora's OPS isn't much above .600, and his OBP is in the .260's.
  10. craig
    .. Cal, thanks for the links to Phils articles. Getting it linked from here, where we go anyway, is really nice. Torres at Boise, that would be pretty shocking. (During the winter, I had my doubts he'd even stay Arizona, much less go straight to Boise.) I still doubt it. I think the facilities at Mesa are so elaborate, I'd think he'd get more teaching and coaching and practicing and weight-room working and English-learning in Mesa than he would in Boise. But, I didn't think Tseng would start straight at Kane County, either, so maybe Torres will go straight to Boise. The Torres news is really encouraging. Well, 5 errors in 11 games isn't, but the defensive perspective has generally been very positive. And hitting .300+, including 26 PA without a K, that's terrific. It would be awesome to have a true-hitter with good infield defense.
  11. craig
    Clifton. I want some major-league potential here, not just somebody who hopes to get to PCL someday.
  12. craig
    Alcantara's BABIP is up around .370 or so, I think. He's needed that, with only two walks that's barely enough to nudge his OBP up around .300.
  13. craig
    I'd love to get his GB/FB stats. We know he has some power, from batting practice and from some of the balls that he does hit over the wall. But no ground balls go over the wall. Last year a high percentage of his hits were singles. (Higher than Barney last year, for context). This year he's been almost exclusively a singles hitter, 14 of his 17 hits thus far are singles. So whether or not he'll lift the ball often enough to hit HR's, I don't think that's can't-miss. I think his power is often being used on sharply hit ground balls.
  14. craig
    Pitcher who can't throw the ball versus a hitter who can't hit the ball. Classic. Easy choice for Masek. No known surgery that can repair can't-see-and-recognize-fast-enough-to-hit problem, but sometimes surgery can re-enable the ability to throw.
  15. craig
    at this point, I'm pretty comfortable that Rhee and Loosen are just roster fillers. You've got to have at least five starters, and somebody has to fill in that 5th spot. A lot of progress has happened with the pitching, but not enough to be 5-prospects deep at Tennessee. Iowa has that too, and Daytona's rotation is almost all roster-fill.
  16. craig
    Yeah, those two are on a different planet from Johnson-Edwards-Pineyro-Black. How Rhee is still getting starts after all these years of bad pitching is kind of amazing.
  17. craig
    Alcantara's two-day binge has helped his numbers. His OBP is now up to .284. He is a high-K guy, like a slugger. Hopefully he'll hit enough HR's to partially justify the high K's, and to keep his batting average adequate or better. Interesting, he's reverted to his no-walk ways thus far. For 4 years he was a low-walk guy; then last year he made an adjustment and walked a lot; now he's 2 walks/70 AB. 19K/2BB is a great ratio for pitchers, but not for hitters! I think he's got a lot of learning left to do. So I'm in no hurry to rush him up.
  18. craig
    Arrieta? Yes.
  19. craig
    Clifton. Nobody else on this list shows much/any hint of being more than a below-average major leaguer. He's got a good arm, and hasn't proven he might not put it to good use eventually, so by process of elimination he's my guy. I might also be interested in some other DSL pitchers, probably. On Masek, we know he was viewed as an injury-risk entering the draft thus the fall; that the Cubs used him very cautiously last summer, even relative to the other college guys; and that we haven't heard a peep from him this spring. Do we know yet whether he's had surgery yet or not? If so whether it was elbow or shoulder surgery? I can't really remember any Cub prospect pitcher who had bad arm problems that made him sit out for months, and who came back really effectively and better than ever. I know Wells has never had the surgery and he's been able to keep pitching, but he's been not much good since. I guess I'm thinking that a surgerized Masek probably isn't a top-50 prospect. And a Masek who's so hurt that he hasn't been able to pitch probably isn't going to just rest/rehab a bad arm into an above-average big-league arm with the control to become an above-average big-league pitcher.
  20. craig
    Hendricks: 19K/4BB/0HR in 18.2 innings, with GO/AO > 3. Not sure where all the K's are coming from. But those are VERY nice numbers thus far. Not the kind you'd expect to give a 4.82 ERA. I'm pretty encouraged. I thought his K's might fall off in AAA, and the flyballs and HR's escalate. So far, so good. Alcantara finally with a notably good game. I'd like to see him stay hot for a bit. He's got his average up, now, and his OBP over .300. No HR yet, though. He'll probably need either some HR's or some walks, or both.
  21. craig
    Friend at the Kane/Bowling Green games said Arias was 88-89, touched 91 once.
  22. craig
    Paulino Mejia
  23. craig
    Friend was at Kane games in Bowling Green, got to first game in the 4th, and watched part of second. So he saw Tseng, Blackburn, and Godfrey, as well as Bowing Green lefty Snell who'd been a sandwich 1st rounder a couple years ago and is a milb top-10 guy for Tampa. Said Tseng and Blackburn both worked at 88-89, Godfrey and Snell were up to 91-93. Said T+B actually looked much alike, build and pitching, although he said Blackburn was a super quick worker. Said it was super cold, and wondered if it might be a slow gun. Blackburn always says he doesn't throw hard. And I'd hope they'd not try to throw too hard on an icy night where your arm can get hurt. I think it's Johnson's program to work at a controlled velocity where movement and strike-throwing is maximized, and where you can throw a handful of mph faster as a change up once in a while. So I'm not sure 88-89 on an icy night is inconsistent with having touched 95 a couple of times on a warm and psyched-up night in Boise.
  24. craig
    1. DeJesus. 2. Schierholz had value last year. He may still have some this summer, but it won't be what it was. 3. Russell had some value last June too. 4. Barney had some value two July's ago. I think there are definitely some guys they held, whose value subsequently dropped. But, can't sell high on everybody, I don't imagine. And I don't think they wanted to sell everybody.
  25. craig
    Opinion Question: 21+wild (Beede) vs 18+control (Holmes). Which is more likely, that 21+wild finds control, or that 18+control's arm survives till 21? (Once 18+control hits 21, then presumably both guys have the same injury risk after age 21.)
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