craig

"He has such a severe collapse on his back foot that it's tough to imagine he's going to be able to hit for power" Is that something that can be corrected by coaching? I'd think that bat-to-ball skills reflect innate ability to track pitches and coordinate a swing to hit them. Which is not exactly a coachable skill. Might some team get the good but coach away the bad?

Is it "Al-contra," because I think that's how I've heard it a few times now, when it looks like it should be "Al-con-tar-uh" Hoyer pronounces it Al-can-tra.

Pre-draft, some scouts didn't see a lot of power. The Cubs projected that he would hit plenty of HR's. That expectations seems to be becoming more the norm and less the exception these days.

Heh heh, I haven't voted yet for any of these three names. So here's my chance. Skulina. All three have some good talent. I'm voting Skulina because the other two have struggled thus far, and Skulina being the newer guy hasn't yet. (He might struggle, who knows. But we know that offense is a challenge for Contreras, and that thus far Underwood has struggled with control of fastball as well as curve.) The tailing action on Skulina's fastball gives it a chance to be a really, really effective big-league pitch. His fastball/slider combination has the potential to be strongly anti-HR. He's got a chance to be a good starter, but his fastball/slider combo also profiles well for relief. Scouting reports were very positive, and generally viewed his talents as being 3rd/2nd round caliber. Cubs scouted him heavily, and paid 2nd-round bonus to secure him. So I think he's pretty talented. Challenges will be control/command/consistency, and LH hitters. Lots of guys can look really good on their good pitches; but they get beat on their mistakes. will he hang too many sliders, and get too many fastball up? Not sure he's got anything at present that will work well against LH hitters. He may need a solid change or cutter or both to handle lefties well, but I don't recall hearing that he's worked with the cutter at all, and I don't get the sense his change is very good yet.

Paniagua is indeed a wildcard. I assume he was injured; but did we ever get any word on that? Obviously he was awful, wild, and there were reports of horribly slow velocity. I think one possible explanation was that he was hurt. If so, I think there's a chance that if he's healthy, he might be a different guy. Of course, it's also possible that he was hurt and is still kinda hurt and will be as bad. He was inactive for many weeks of the DSL season, then came back on a very cautious pitch count. Exactly like a rehab guy, but I suppose not dissimilar to a spring training buildup. Didn't seem like he pitched that much that he needed to be deactivated for that many months, but who knows.

wekim, I'm a ways off on Underwood, too. He's hit some high velocities, but speed without control doesn't get you too far. And he doesn't actually pitch very fast very often. Working in the low 90's and occasionally touching higher isn't that amazing. Still, he's only 19 and only had one year. So maybe it will all be better this year. Hopefully he's going to start to find some control and find some pitches to get guys out with. No indication that he has any notably good support pitches yet. 6K/9 isn't very good, especially against the lowly Northwest-league. If he had an OK breaking ball, I'd think he'd be K'ing more guys. He's obviously wild thus far. 41 wild things/36K's (Wild things including HBP and WP).

1. For those of us fringe posters, TINSTAAP is acronym for what? :) (The idea is obvious from context, I just don't know what the acronym is actually abbreviating! So I'm curious.) 2. Has Turner gotten an extra-base hit yet? Any other than ground-ball-down-the-third-base-line types? 3. Turner seems very unlike the list of successful players in earlier post ("successful: Upton, Gordon, Zimmerman, Braun, Longoria, Wieters, Posey"), in that they all have serious power. If Turner is a very different player, without one of their most central success factors, I'm not sure how predictive their success ratio is for how he'll turn out. he may be very successful, in a very different way. But their is obviously individuality here. This isn't a typical draft for college hitters.

Agree that the first pitch stuff is suspect. Stats show superior production on first pitch hitting. I assume the actual coaching is a little more nuanced. Unless they simply want to see Baez hitting in more challenging counts for developmental reasons. The real goal, I think, is to develop pitch recognition so that good decisions are made while pitch is in flight, rather than before the pitch is thrown. Perhaps taking more and seeing more real game pitches is helpful in that regard, developmentally. (Recognizing what some 45-year-old coach is throwing in BP is maybe not so helpful.) But in the majors, where good pitchers don't give you many easy pitches, pitch one is often the best or only good pitch you'll see.

Heh heh! :)

Heh, that's kind of why I'm not voting for him in the top-30. He's been around forever, and should be as developed as he's going to get. But the developed version isn't good. If he's no good now, why should I think he's going to get good later?

I like Tseng a lot, but not sure he'll skip Arizona League? Boise could be pretty thin. When you draft all college pitchers, that leaves Boise dependent on international arms. The DSL Cubs had some outstanding pitching. They don't normally skip them to Boise, but this year you never know. Could be kind of a hodgepodge at Boise, I think.

This is the best list in years, by far, I think. Not sure we'll lose a couple of guys, though. We'll have to expose some of those guys, yes. But you only lose them if somebody else wants them. Andreoli, Zych, Silva, Cates, Amaya, Hernandez, Wells, Pineyro, not sure many (any?) of them will be desirable if they don't have really impressive seasons. And if they do, the Cubs may be able to protect the best of them. There are certainly still plenty of guys on the existing 40 that could be dumped with negligible pain, as it stands now. And perhaps with even less regret if they don't step forward this summer. The roster is just crawling with guys we might be happy to kiss goodbye before next October. Brett jackson, Vitters, Szczur, Watkins, Olt, Murphy, Barney, Russell, Ramirez, McDonald, Hammel, Fujikawa, Cabrera, McDonald, Beeler, etc., that's 15 names right there, and there's a bunch more. A lot will be "who cares" guys by next year.

Possible, although improbable. If he is as wild as he was at Kane, perhaps yes, break. (Between walks, HBP, and wild pitches, he had 45 wild things in 34 innings.) And if he carries his Boise effectiveness up through A- and A+, (ZERO HR's, G/A 2.35, K/inning, 2.15 ERA, and included a 4-game stretch with only 2 walks…), then he'll certainly be ranked way higher than #22. Make, not break. My guess is that a year from now he'll neither be made nor broken. He'll be somewhere well below the 0/10/3 HR/K/BB good dream extreme, and well above the walk-per-inning nightmare. Probably somewhere in between, still too wild and inconsistent to make top 7, but still anti-HR enough with enough speed/movement/K's to stay top 30. Certainly he's one of the guys best positioned to make a huge jump, though.

Rivero, Maples, and Tseng. Heh heh, from the old to the young.

I wonder what the Cubs thinking is. 1. Very unlikely he makes the team out of camp, even if other guys don't stay healthy or don't look good. 2. He might "start" some games just to get innings in. Given 3-4 years largely lost, they might simply want him throwing innings every 5th day, and getting to use all his stuff against real hitters. Developmental plan to accelerate readiness for big-league pen. 3. They talk lots of ideas that they don't end up pursuing; good chance he doesn't start at all. 4. There may also be a philosophical principle in play: give your best arms a chance in rotation, until they show you that they shouldn't stay there. Maybe Rivero has pitched too little to know what he can or can't do? Maybe they already know. Perhaps his "rail-thin" frame already makes it obvious he can't do rotation. Maybe his repertoire is already observed to be too limited, or his control too erratic to handle innings. And even if those things aren't certain now, six weeks at Iowa might make it clear soon enough. But it ail be interesting to see how it goes.

http://www.csnchicago.com/cubs/cubs-getting-close-look-cuban-pitcher-armando-rivero Rivero piece. Sounds like he's looking good, and I liked the note that he's trying to learn English. Also said that Vizcaino threw well again, and hasn't had any setbacks.

Simple enough. That would explain why people are voting for him this high. My perception had been that he's not as fast as those numbers would suggest, which is why I was surprised the voting was that favorable. Hopefully my perception was misinformed, and his fastball is that fast.

I have to admit I don't really get the high support for Pineyro this early. *He had a nice month at the beginning, but his overall season numbers were not that great. ERA's have been 3.29 and 4.26 the last two years. *He'll turn 23 this year, so he's probably not very projectable for increasing velocity. *He's got a strong fly-ball profile. For Daytona he somehow managed to allow only a couple of HR's despite all the flyballs, but over his career he's been HR-vulnerable. I'm not sure his HR-containment at Daytona is likely to continue long-term in the upper minors and majors, while allowing so many flyballs. *His velocity is mediocre, certainly less than average for a big-league RHP. Yes, I understand he can occasionally pop a 94-mph change up, and he's probably a little faster than Hendricks. But his average working velocity is going to be less than the 91.7(?) big-league average for a starter. And even if he bumps it up a bit, it won't probably be faster than the 93+ average for big-league RH relievers. *Washington traded him for Hairston. I love his low-walk control. And his K rate has been solid. But I think his stuff might get increasingly exposed with each of the next three steps up. Hope I'm wrong, and he can be a serviceable 7th inning reliever, or 5th starter. But at least for me, I've got a lot of guys I like more. Hope he's one of the control overachievers who out-performs his stuff.

Tseng, Rivero, Maples. I'm going for the big-stuff big-arm guys. Maples hasn't done much pitching yet. May always be a wild guy, so who knows. But guys with movement like that, and throw so fast so easily, don't grow on trees. He's got a chance to be one of the big surprises this year. Or, of course, to just be Chris Archer wild. It's a lot easier to coach and tweak a pitcher than a hitter, I think. I've got to imagine Johnson has spent a lot of time analyzing Maples's mechanics, and Maples arm is worth all the attention/help that Johnson can provide. Given that he's only pitched for one year, and he made tremendous progress, I'm still optimistic. He's only allowed 1 HR and had G/A well over 2 at Boise. So his anti-HR profile looks great. HR/K/BB, he's great at one, good at the second. 2/3 of the way to being a very good pitcher after only one actual pitching season. My understanding is they're expecting to start Rivero this spring. I'll be interested to see how he looks as a rotation guy.

Agree. The chance that Olt's hitting is sufficiently anti-awful to make him useful are better than zero. And certainly better than Jackson's.

Tools are great, but guys with lots of tools often fail due to anti-tools. For pitchers, lack of control is the anti-tool. Maples, Rivero, Black, Ramirez, Vizcaino are all pitchers who appear to have good arms, fast fastballs, and plenty of good stuff. For players, it's usually hitting. Jackson and Olt have beautiful defense, power, and walking attributes, and Jackson has speed too. But are they so bad at hitting that none of the good stuff matters?

This whole ranking process has often revolved around several issues: 1. Proven record (often including proven limitations) versus absence of record. 2. Reliever/Role player vs starter. 3. Decent/Average in volume versus excellence limited. 4. Tools vs anti-tools. 2 vs 3 sometimes conflict. Vizcaino chance for excellent/greatness/well-above-averge as a reliever is larger than for Hendricks as a starter. But Hendricks ranked ahead. Vitters' splits history suggest he might be a really good RH platoon bat; but how valuable is that? Rosscup will never be more than a role-player reliever. But his chance of being excellent in that role is significant. LikewiseVizcaino and Rivero, only much more so. I'm appreciating guys who I think might be really excellent pitchers, or platoon hitters, even if they aren't regular starters.

Heh heh. Not many. Maybe 4 or 5? Frandy, Rodriguez, Marco, and Ha? Maybe Watkins?

Yup. Subjective, but that's how I do it too.