craig

Seems to me that by the 6-15 range in the rankings, it's just really hard. Constant conflict about how to value projection/ceiling/scouting. Paniagua, Maples, Underwood, Johnson, they're all a mile away and it's totally a matter of projection and assumptions. But Candelario too, and Alcantara, can he learn some plate discipline, will his power grow, can he learn to throw straight, can he gain defensive consistency? No shortage of projection/assumptions there either. Even a Brett Jackson, it's kind of a massive assumption to imagine a guy dramatically rebuilding his swing. Very hard to differentiate among the projection pitchers. I included all four of them in my top 10 (Johnson, Paniagua, Underwood, and Maples). You split them up (the teenagers in second 10, the older Johnson/Pag in top 10). Callis with a somewhat different split. Seems like all these guys are so close, it doesn't take much to slide guys up or down quite a ways. Fun to have some fascinating arms around, though.

Understood. His injury was on July 18. Most pitcher surgeries are done within a couple of weeks of the injury. By the time instrux began, it would have been almost or over 2 months since the injury. So it seems likely, (although not certain), that if he was going to have surgery, it would been done well before instrux. But, maybe I'm way off, and the scheduling for a surgery is widely variable depending on the surgeon's schedule and on the details of the injury.

Thanks, CubsWin. He's young and competitive, and would seem to have a lot of potential if he gets better and improves. We'll see if he does. He certainly has plenty of time, and by all accounts he seems to be an alert, hard-working type of personality. The reports are not too favorable about his 3B defense. But they are extremely favorable about his arm. A key question for him will be where he ends up: 3B, 1B, LF, or RF. Not sure if he'll have the speed for the OF spots, but who knows. Maybe something of a Vitters: hope that he'll hit enough so that if he develops enough defensively, to the point of being mediocre/average, his bat will be more than good enough to justify mediocre defense. I do wonder if his tools might perhaps profile well at catcher? Big arm would be plenty sufficient. No need for big range or running speed. And supposedly smart/alert with the good people skills that are important for catchers. In a system with essentially zero catching prospects, it would be fun to try. And obviously however good his bat ends up, it will play lots bigger at C than anywhere else. But, obviously lots more to catching defense than having a good arm. Takes a lot of quickness, coordination, and there must be some body-build/flexibility issues to enable the legs to crouch and spring, year after year.

Wow, thanks. I'd just assumed it sounded like a surgery case when he went down. I think his injury was early July, so I'd think that if it was going to be surgery, they'd not have needed to wait multiple months to get to it. The Cubs seem like they are looking for every cutting edge that they can get. I can't imagine they aren't looking for the most informed current intelligence on injury management. Curious that now both Wells and Rosario, both "I-assume-he'll-need-surgery" guys, have not had it. I wonder if they think they've sometimes got a better way in some cases? It's certainly not like they are afraid of TJ, either, given that their two most recent pickups have been TJ Vizcaino and TJ Rondon, and they drafted the TJ guy with a 4th-round pick very early in his TJ recovery, well before he could have evidenced that he'd be able to come back successfully. So I'm somewhat hopeful that, given that they believe there is at least a reasonable chance of coming back successfully from TJ, that they must believe Wells or Rosario have even better chances of coming back successfully without it.

yes, you're probably right! So his 14-18 spots, are unspecified, probably populated by Szczur, Vitters, Lake, Underwood, and Maples in some order or other. Fun. Somehow, there is often some surprise. I recall the board being surprised at how high Barney was two years ago, and I recall Mateo being a surprise. So maybe that will happen again. But I'm guessing we've got his first 21.

If he's outside the spending cap, I hope we get him. The more the merrier. But agree, "Sure, he'd be a nice add, but...." Clearly he isn't anywhere in the scouting world with Soler, Puig, or Martin. Seems more like a 3rd/4th round draft pick kind of guy than a 1st round draft pick sort of guy. (If that.) But, we'll see. If we get him, we'll know more, and how much he signs for will also give an indication. If he's on the unrestricted market and gets only $1 like Rubi Silva got, or $0.5 like Del Valle, you know he's not super serious. I'd guess the going rate for an unrestricted guy is probably at least double, or perhaps many times more than that, compared to what he'd get under the cap. Still, there could be some valuable prospects who come a lot cheaper than Cespedes, Soler, Puig, or Martin. I don't think the SS landscape would block him, though. Not many guys signed for SS end up playing SS, and if the Cubs do like him, my guess is it might be as much for 3B or 2B as for SS, perhaps more so. From his side, I think it would make sense to sign with a team that has a major Cuban presence, and where he'd likely intersect with some other Cuban prospects. Between Concepcion, Soler, Silva, Del Valle, he's likely to have at least one Cuban teammate on almost any full-season club. So if the Cubs offer a good deal, I don't see why he'd avoid the organization. Might also help that the agent has a lot of other guys with the Cubs, so the agent should have a strong working relationship now and in future with the organization. I'm sure the agent garbage about perhaps being big-league ready right now is agent garbage.

Heh heh. So I took a look at our running poll, *Torreyes is the one guy in our top-20 that callis won't have on his top 30. (Swap in Fuji for Torreyes...) *Of the 15 non-Fujis who he specified from his top 21, all fifteen are in our top 20, even if shuffled a bit. *Of our top 20, (other than Torreyes), it's Maples, Vitters, Lake, and Underwood that Callis hasn't said where they'll fall on his list. But, he's got only 5 spots in his top-21 that he hasn't already given away. So I'm guessing our four names will all fit somewhere into his 14-18 spots. *I wonder who the other guy is outside our top 20, but who Callis has in front of Watkins-Marco-Amaya? Who is your guess, cal?

From chat, he has Paniagua-Villa-Cabrera at 11-12-13. He's got Watkins-Hernandez-Amaya at 19-20-21. (heh, so he was right on the bubble with Hernandez/Amaya too, just like our poll, and likewise gave Marco the nod...) Mentioned some that didn't make it: Ha, Torreyes, Bruno, Jensen, Dunston, Ryu. Pretty sure that Szczur, Underwood and Maples will be in there, probably all three in the teens. Vitters and Lake will still show up somewhere, says some scouts still see Vitters as a .275/20HR guy. His Blackburn eval was unchanged from basic draft writeup, so he'll probably be in there, back ten. Sounds like Martin, probably. He was pretty positive about pre-surgery Whitenack, so I'm guessing he'll fit onto the back ten somewhere. No mention in the chat, but I've got to assume that Zych and Rondon will appear somewhere on his list, they usually fit Rule 5 guys in there somewhere if there is anything good scouting-wise.

toonster, you've been a strong Alcantara guy, so you called this one. I've never ranked him that high, I admit I've doubted: a. Is he big/strong enough to actually hit for useful big-league power? b. Is he actually fast enough to steal or anything like that? c. Will his tiny walk rates improve significantly? d. With so many errors at SS, is there something missing defensively that will not be "fixed" with time. But my questions can't be any different than the kind that BA and their sources are considering. So if they think the answers are favorable enough to get him into the top 10, that tells me a lot and is really encouraging. I thought the 2b reference made a lot of sense. Obviously Barney is great defensively and has years to go before free agency. But, if we add Alcantara to the list, and think he could be good enough offensively and perhaps a big value defensively at 2B, that gives me a lot of guys who might be possibilities for 2B. Baez, Watkins, Alcantara, Torreyes, Amaya, Marco Hernandez, DeLaRosa Other then DeLaRosa, four years till Barney's free agency is probably time enough for any of the others to get themselves ready.

Jose Rosario was a "hot" prospect for a while last summer. Before he went down in July. Did we ever get confirmation what was wrong, and whether or not he had surgery?

Thanks!

In the prospect rankings, there have been recurring uncertainties about how to rank guys like Wells and Whitenack, given their health uncertainties. Or rondon, who is unfamiliar to most of us. Or many of the distant low-innings pitchers (Maples-Underwood-Paniagua-Johnson-Blackburn....) In past years, the minor league session at the convention has often provided some interesting info. Sometimes updates on how rehab guys are doing. Velocity input. X has been showing good progress with change, Y is adding a cutter, Z was throwing both slider and curve but this year it's going to be all curve. We'll continue to work Q as a starter for a while longer, but we probably think he'll end up in relief. P has added 20 pounds of muscle. T, U, and V showed really good progress in fall instrux. Questions: 1. Will there be a minor league session again? Or might that be something that Hendry thrived in, and his successors Stockstill and Fleita continued to do, but the new guys won't? 2. It's been Fleita and Wilken for years. If they have it, I wonder who will be the management guys who represent? Hyde as the new boss, even though he hasn't gone through a season with the players yet? McLeod? 3. It used to be an hour with just Hendry, which gave him time to answer a ton of questions about a bunch of prospects. Later less articulate Wilken joined, and Fleita is so gushy that it was hard to filter through the hyperbole. Plus recently they have a handful of prospects who aren't very articulate and waste a bunch of the time that Hendry used to have. If they still have it, I wonder if they'll stick with the recent diluted format? 4. Anybody going? I'm hopeful that with the new regime and it's emphasis on farm and development, that they'll consider this to be a very worthwhile section, and maintain it. I hope that, if anything, they make it better. If they canned the prospects, and just gave it to McLeod, or McLeod and Hyde, I'd love it. If they moved it up to a better spot, on Saturday instead of Sunday, or perhaps in a bigger room, that would be nice too. I'd love to have it such that WGN would record it and post it. I'm also hopeful that we'll get some happy news. You know, "Our doctors have been really thorough with Ben Wells, and we don't have any concerns that his issues last summer will carry over. After the rehab program he's gone through, his arm is very strong and he's at no greater risk than any other pitcher his age." "Jose Rosario did not need surgery, he'll be 100% go when camp opens." "A couple of Latin pitchers to keep your eye on are X/Y/Z..... X was not a big-dollar signing, but he's been really progressing...." "Maples is 100% physically, and we've made some mechanical adjustments this fall, his release point is now consistent...." So hopefully some guys will rise in our expectations.

I went Rondon, Zych, Whitenack. I think relievers are somewhat undervalued. I agree with comments by others on wells. If I wasn't worried about his arm, he'd be way higher.

Agree. You can go with scouting potential and youth for only so long. Time to produce.

I like him as a prospect. "Ideally" I see Villanueva doing .750-OPS, perhaps even a shade higher. But there are 50 prospects the Cubs have who, if they reach their "ideal", could be wonderful prospects. Valuation factors in my perception of likelihood. I hope Villanueva can become a .750-OPS guy, but I don't expect that or think it's very probable.

No. But I don't see either as especially good prospects. I see neither with high ceilings or high probabilities. I like Villa, but he was only in A-ball, so he's not close. I see him as a guy who ideally could become a plus-defense .750-OPS type 3B. But becoming an .800+ OPS hitter seem way less likely than that he ends up being a <.700-OPS guy. I realize that the offensive norm at 3B has gotten quite low. So my good-defense .750-OPS picture, while probably not an all-star, could be a solid asset starter. Vitters I think needs to be an .800+ OPS guy, because I don't think his defense will ever become more than average and is likely to remain variably shy of that. His baserunning will always be below-average. So he's got to be a strong hitter to make the composite worthwhile. It's possible. I've long been fairly patient with Vitters, hoping that HR's would come. When many posters faulted his low walk rate, I always figured that if/when the HR's would come, the combo of HR's with his previously low K-rate could make him a very high average and high-slugging hitter. Central to that was the premise that his pure hitting/contact gift was strong. ('He hits everything, including off the plate, which is why his BABIP and slugging and IsoD aren't higher.....") But I'm doubting that his "pure hitter" gifts for see-ball-hit-ball are so special; may really be a more limited see-fastball-hit-fastball gift. So I still hope that he'll hit enough to make the composite worthwhile, but I don't think he's likely to hit so well that he'll be a major asset, And there's a fair chance that he'll never hit well enough to justify himself as a regular starter. I do understand that if he could continue his HR/power growth, and continue his walk-rate growth of last year, all while returning to the contact-guy-that-rarely-K's of 2011 (54K/229AB), then you'd have a really productive bat. If I had a choice between signing a 4-year 3B versus a 4-year CF, I'd prefer the 3B I think, and take my chances with my CF prospects or with DeJesus. But the FA market is what it is, and CF is where a player of Bourn's caliber and age is available, perhaps at a non-horrific price. I don't think 3B, C, LF, or RF have anybody of comparable quality/age.

Some things never change. Wow, surprisingly high. Heh, Callis always has them too high, so I guess this is no different. Always hard for me to analyze. I think the year ahead could vary heavily. Obviously, Baez/Almora/Soler/Vogel could shoot us way up, if they all rock, or if Baez flops and the other three aren't that great, it could be a big letdown too. But I think a lot will ride on the pitchers. We don't have a lot of reputation for having very good pitching, and what we've got is primarily on the "potential" side, very unproven. Vizcaino will presumably be a nonfactor, because either he'll be no good or he'll have graduated. Otherwise, Paniagua, Maples, Johnson, Underwood, Blackburn, none of them have pitched hardly at all. Arias and Scott haven't gotten to A. Whitenack was rehab, so he's like a totally unknown now. Wells pitched only a few innings in A, and with his rehab, he's another totally unknown. Jensen and Zych have pitched only a season, and Burke essentially the same. That's a significant volume of guys with variably interesting potential. They could all be blah, but there's a chance that several of them could break out this year, or else could validate interest that was previously scouting only. If so, they could help elevate the reputation of the system. One other factor that could elevate the ranking a year out: few of the top guys will graduate. Usually when a team is ranked really high, it's because it has some big-ticket prospects that are valued really highly because they're both gifted and already advanced. Usually an advanced guy either graduates (so he's a non-factor next year) or he flops (in which case he's also a non factor next year. For us that Vizcaino, Jackson, and Vitters. But otherwise, there's hardly anybody else in out top 30 who should be graduating if they develop well.

Apparently in some discussions, Hoyer also suggested that he's pretty comfortable with the position situation in the minors, but not so the pitching. My impression is that Soler, Baez, Almora, and Vogelbach are really good prospects. But that that they are all fairly distant; that there aren't a lot of other good position prospects; and that given their distance, that there aren't many position prospects close to the majors. Of those who are in the upper minors, Jackson, Szczur, and Ha are three of the possibly better ones, and each at the CF position that is currently unblocked. By contrast we don't really have any good corner outfield prospects closer than Soler. So I found it interesting that of the three outfield spots that Hoyer is looking at, none of which are strong, that it's the CF spot, the spot with some depth of decent-if-iffy prospects in the high minors that Hoyer is looking at. Maybe it's just because Bourn is there and they like him, whereas there are no 3B/LF/RF who are available. Maybe the Win-Now priority is stronger than we think. Obviously none of Jackson/Szczur/Ha are ready now, and while DeJesus is adequate as a necessity CF, Bourn would be a big Nowacrat defensive upgrade. It may also be that they don't take Jackson/Szczur/Ha very seriously at all. If they aren't very comfortable with those three, though, it's hard to see how Hoyer could be very comfortable with the position landscape in the minors. The only other position guys north of Baez/Soler are Lake and Watkins. Or, maybe I took the third-hand comments way out of context. Rizzo, castro, that's two young long-term positions. Possibly Barney, and perhaps they like Watkins/Torreyes/Almora/Baez as down-the-road 2B. 3B, maybe they still like Vitters, or else figure that will be for Baez? OF, maybe they figure that CF is the present hole, but down the road if they added one, that between Soler/Almora/Jackson/Szczur/Ha/Lake/Dunston/Martin, that they've got some numbers there.

Sounds like trade bait if he gets good. We've rarely (ever?) had enough good young players for a good one to be blocked, such that trading a valuable young player would make sense. But perhaps that day will come. Could be Marco, if he gets good enough to be valuable. Could be Baez himself. Maybe Vogelbach. Perhaps some day an outfielder?

It's kind of ridiculous to talk about the percentage difference between percents like that. Out of curiosity, why do you think that's the case? The difference between rates very meaningful. Expressing it as a ratio itself seems to be fine. A 1.6% rate increasing to a 2.9% rate being called "80% higher" is purposefully done to make it seem much more extreme than it is. In that example above, you are talking about a guy hitting 17 HR vs a guy who hit 10 over the course of a full season. A difference, but not that huge of a difference in real terms. It's just unnecessary and purposefully misleading to describe the percentage change between those percentages. I see your point, although it was not "purposely misleading." The raw numbers (8 HR to 7, 33 walks to 19) didn't seem to reflect how much better Amaya's rates had been, so I popped the rate ratios in for convenience. And of course I was just grabbing them from a stats page, which did not have them listed in rates (1.6% or 2.9%). So you did more rate work than I did to come up with those. (Or use a better site....) I guess partly a purpose of writing in a forum like this, at least for me, is to process ideas myself. (Not to mislead others or be disingenuous.) Last year my take was that Marco had power potential, but Amaya had no ceiling because he was a barney (no-power/no-walks). This year he walked quite a bit, and showed power, so perhaps his "ceiling" is somewhat respectable. If he could be a good-fielding 2B who hit 10-15 HR's per year and takes walks, that would be a good starting 2B. I could live with a Todd Walker offensive player who could play defense and run the bases.

Rondon Zych Whitenack. Rondon's fast, has control at least of his fastball, will already be in the majors this spring, and has plenty of untapped ceiling in terms of developing his slider and his already excellent change. Zych is fast, young, has a sharp slider. Anti-HR guys (only 1 HR allowed) with 64K/19BB appeal a lot. Has plenty of ceiling left. I'll be curious to see if his splitter develops into anything useful. Whitenack was pretty promising. I trust that the team rostered him because he was flashing some real promise in Arizona this fall.

Amaya. Sure, when in doubt, pick the SS. But slugging, HR's, getting on base, and scoring runs is part of baseball. I'm not doubting in taking: .502 slugging versus .373 .885 OPS versus .660 .383 OBP versus .287 8HR/272 AB versus 7HR/426 AB. (80% higher HR rate for Amaya) 33BB/272 AB versus 19BB/426 AB. (172% higher walk rate for Amaya) 1.103 OPS versus .487 OPS versus LHP. (Amaya's OPS versus RHP was also higher.) Amaya had 9 errors versus 32 for Hernandez. The present offensive profile for the two guys is not really close. Marco is an excellent prospect, but there's quite a bit of projection/imagination required to transform a .287OBP/.373 slugger with .487OPS-vs-LHP into a top-50 prospect. As a good-fielding 2B with who can hit, I'm going with Amaya. My understanding is that Amaya also scouts really favorably as a hitter, and that he is viewed as being really good as a bat-handler. It will be great if hernandez breaks out as a hitter this year, and starts to show some hint that he'll be able to do at least a little something versus LHP.

Sure, but sometimes replacement-level spots perform BELOW replacement-level, as was obviously true last year at C and CF. And at present, it looks to me like we've got five such lineup spots. Catcher: Castillo, Navarro, and Clevenger; 3B: Stewart/Valbuena/Vitters; CF: DeJesus/Jackson/Campana/Sappelt; RF: Schierholz/DeJesus/Sappelt 2B: Barney. Maybe that's exaggerating hyperbole or overly unappreciative, or DeJesus shouldn't be included. But it seems we're flipping a coin on a bunch of positions to get respectable replacement-level output. With that many coin flips, there's a good chance we'll lose a few and get sub-replacement output. We'll see. I hope you're right, and that we'll be .500 or better when August rolls in. You'll certainly be entitled to give me an "I told you so" if that happens with the present roster. And certainly if, as Dave was hoping, we'll be pulling in Bourn, Upton, and Olt before the year begins, that could also boost the shot at .500+.

Thanks. That would seem to fit with the hypothesis that Whitenack was flashing some serious velocity at times in instrux, and that's why the Cubs protected him. Because they knew other scouts had seen it too. And because with serious velocity coming back, he might become a good prospect again if both the good velocity became relatively normal rather than exceptional, and if command returns. My understanding is that it's easier to do the surgery such that the strength/velocity come back, but it's much less routine for the fine "feel" to come back that is integral to big-league command. So it's maybe one thing to get nice velocity reports on Vizcaino or Whitenack or Rondon or Ryu, but it's another to see whether the touch ever comes back. For Ryu, that seems to have never happened.

I don't think we should be shocked if, again, some of the guys we're hoping for end up playing pretty bad, though. Sure, the cliff-fall for Byrd and Soto was pretty extreme. But until Garza got hurt, weren't we actually pretty lucky health-wise? Garza out, stewart of course, and Dempster missed some starts? Stewart, Castillo, Navarro, Barney, Valbuena, any of those kinds of guys could go sub-.600 without it being much of a shock. DeJesus, Soriano, Schierholz, no surprise if any or all of our outfielders were to go sub-.700. When looking at this roster, Garza and Baker are obviously at risk. Will they be healthy? If/when they are pitching, how effective will they be? And certainly any pitcher is a health risk, so if Samardz or Villa or wood show up with a sore arm, hardly a shock. Of the 7 "starters", the odds are probably low than all 7 will ever be healthy at any one time. Which could also reduce how many leftovers are there for the pen.