craig

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.

Hatley's numbers are really good, too. Before today, I think: Hatlay: 35K/7BB/1HR/27IP Pugliese: 42K/6BB/1HR/30IP Rivero: 54K/16BB/2HR/34IP Vizcaino: 26K/7BB/1HR/23IP. Rosscup: 18K/5BB/0HR/13IP Cervenka: 35K/12BB/1HR/27IP Some pretty fun K-rates in that group of relievers.

It's a weird stroke. He truncates it at the end, doesn't really have a free/full/complete follow-through. Unusual. Am I wrong, and is that common or recommended?

cal, you may have analyzed this elsewhere or picked up insights from Az Phil's stuff? Have we gotten any indication of who'll be rotation for Boise? I'm guessing Clifton will start. So, Ihrig organizational type guy; Leal, soft-tosser who's not likely much of a big-league prospect; presumably (hopefully?) Clifton. That would leave two other spots. I assume both of those will be either Latins or organizational late-round college picks? Seems like all the top-10-round draft picks will be relievers at Boise, right? Frazier, relief. Garner, relief. Conway, relief. McNeil, relief. Masek, relief. Lang, relief. (Did he make that roster? I'd imagine he's probably not long for the system anyway, given how hopelessly wild he is.) Kind of a shame that six picks from two drafts, 5 of them college guys, are not healthy enough or good enough to be more than short-season relievers at this point. O well, that's life when the draft focuses on pitchers.

Paniagua's 15K/0 runs over his last two starts. He's allowed more than 2 runs in only 1 outing since May 1st. He's had four straight excellent starts. (I believe his recent two-run start may have been both runs allowed in his last inning? Hope he can sequence some more good ones. Fun.

Thanks for update, dave. Nice to see Brink in. I wonder if he just wanted the $100K and wanted to get moving, so signed for slot? Or if he got a little extra? I'd guess a lot of signings will get reports in the next several days. 1. I'm sure it takes a little time to get physicals arranged and have signings made official. So my guess is a number of guys have headed or are heading to Arizona to get all that stuff wrapped up. 2. With Boise starting this weekend, college slot guys will want to get going. 3. Often guys have signed without it being in the media, but we first realize when Az Phil or somebody reports seeing them in Mesa, or they just show up on a roster or in a game once the games get started. 4. They may punch through the "just-get-it-done" easy signings first, and perhaps anybody in the organization can handle those, without needing attention from McLeod or Hoyer or Theo getting involved. But Hoyer is going to be involved with Sands, Cease, guys like that, or 3rd-day overslots like DJ Peters or whomever. John Knighton, not that complicated if it's a straight slot offer. May be that with Schwarber signed, that will open up overslot negotiations, too. 5. Perhaps some have been agreed upon, but just haven't been signed. AFter two summers dealing with Boras, they've probably established a policy of never finalizing and submitting an overslot and going into penalty mode, even if you expect some other signing will pull you out. Only submit/announce overslots when you've got the existing space. 6. Hoyer has to put work in. If he was focusing his work hours on Schwarber, perhaps he wasn't talking hard with Sands. But with Schwarber done, he can redirect attention. 7. A finalized deal firms up the money situation. A draft-night phone call can sort of establish what a kid wants. But it's not a signed contract, it may not be precise, and parents/agents can get greedy and change their tune. For example, HOyer might come out of Boras/Bryant pre-draft discussions thinking they've agreed at 90% slot; but Boras has all the leverage and can change his story and say full-slot or no deal. So, whatever they thought they'd agreed on with Schwarber or Sands, having the guy actually signed for that is freeing.

Where does that 80% thing come from? It's one thing to come back. It's another to come back uncompromised. I don't think 50% come back with the same command they used to have, and not everybody even gets their velocity back.

Just a note, the Peters the Cubs drafted, DJ the outfielder, was ranked 196. The Peters at 112, Dillon the LHP, was drafted in the 7th round by Texas. The impression I got from the notes was that DJ may not be real schoolish.

We can wish. But the "light" part might be the key there. This guy is not much at all like Kris Bryant, other than that the Cubs drafted both from college. Bryant hit 31 HR's last year, Schwarber 13 this year. That's kind of a big difference! If you took away 2/3 of Bryant's HR, I'm not sure how popular Bryant would be? Schwarber may well be the best power-hitting guy available in the college ranks this year. But Bryant's HR hitting is kind of unique.

That's true enough. Kind of. Even by the Mets at 10, though, they'd have needed to pretty much commit all their 5% money to go overslot enough to beat that contract. Would have been tough even by pick 10 to go there. 7-8-9 all took pitchers. Any of them could have gotten past $3.125 if they wanted the guy enough, but if you're in a different place regarding TINSNIP or whatever the acronym actually is, easy to see why they wouldn't have done that. AGain, obviously if they thought he'd be Babe Ruth or Bryant, they'd have happily extended themselves beyond $3.125. But, I don't think it's really that surprising that other teams wouldn't have evaluated Schwarber as highly as McLeod did relative to the alternatives. A lot of teams like pitchers, a lot of teams like speed/defense tools, a lot of teams like up-the-middle tools, a lot of teams go for high-ceiling/upside. Personally I'm good with the avoidance of pitcher risk, and I'm good with prioritizing the rare power+bat tool combination. But yeah, it's all about scouting. If Cubs scouting is bad, and he ends up hitting like Mike Olt and playing LF like Brooks Kieschnick, it will go down as a very dumb pick.

Heh, I was WAY wrong and WAY over on this one. I was guessing $3.8 and wouldn't have been surprised at $4.0. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

Nobody seems to like the Zagunis pick much. We'll see. Pure scouting pick, as always. I very much like the strategy of going for a catcher over a pitcher, catchers are extremely rare commodities. I don't expect Schwarber is really going to stick at catcher. So need-wise a catcher made a ton of sense, and Zagunis seems to have the scouting to be good. Could be a case of "buy low". He had a down season power-wise, when you'd expect a junior should be getting more power-productive, not less. I was told that he had an oblique injury this spring; perhaps the Cubs felt that's what cost his power? Even so, though, even before this spring he'd been kind of a Vogelbach-like mostly-singles guy. Over 2/3 of his hits have been singles in each of his three seasons. Kind of curious, because the scouting reports all describe him as strong/solid. I suppose you get guys like Almora/Vogelbach/Soler and if they are just line-drive/groundball/oriented hitters, it is what it is and you're just not going to get a lot of balls lifted enough for HR's, perhaps not even a lot of doubles. College Zagunis was a strong contact-hitter. Over 3 seasons, his K-rate is exactly 10.0%. Somewhat different from Micah Gibbs, who was older (turned 22 draft summer), didn't scout as being that athletic, and had a 52K/238AB season on his record. Zagunis and Gibbs are also kind of flips because Zagunis is coming off a very down season, whereas Gibbs draft spring was way better than he'd been before as a hitter. Of course you never know when a guy is "on the rise", but kind of a buy low/buy high contrasts. Perhaps Zagunis will compare to a Darwin Barney style guy, only with less defense, a lot more walks, and more power potential.