craig

If he's 18, he's great, he's interested in signing American, and there's an October date where he'll become unavailable, then: a. Why didn't he sign back in May or June before the cap began? b. Why didn't he sign in July back when bidders still had money? Did he just turn 18 and Japanese rules hadn't allowed him to be signable back in June or July? If he was signable back then and he didn't sign when Soler cash was available, or when there were 30 teams with at least a few million to spend, then it's either because a) he didn't want to sign, or b) teams didn't actually think he was worth signing.

So what will be the Cubs international signing cap next summer? $4.4? It will be interesting to see how that works. Spend it all on one signature prospect, such that you can outbid everybody but Houston? Or try for a couple of high-dollar guys? More new landscape for mlb. How sharply does it drop from the Cubs to the 3rd, 4th, 5th teams? Like $0.1 million each? Or more sharply than that?

How you project Villanueva depends on how you scout the stuff in red. He's hit 17 and 14 HR's the last two seasons, this one in two strong pitchers-leagues, and while playing this season in an especially pitcher-friendly stadium. So as a youngish prospect, the HR stuff seems reasonably promising. If I bought the "short, compact stroke to hit line drives to all fields. He understands the strike zone" part, I'd be very optimistic. That sounds like a high-average/high-OBP contact hitter. A high-average contact hitter who's hitting mid-teens HR's already would seem like a very nice prospect. Except, he's not been a high-average/high-OBP guy to date. He's instead been a .279 and .278 guy the last two seasons, and hit .250 at Daytona. With quite a few K's and not that many BB's at Myrtle Beach. (83K/24BB/375AB, doesn't seem that high-average/high-OBP-knows-the-strike-zone-and-is-hitting-short-compact-swing line drives all over the place to me. I hope he becomes that, but I wonder.

http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?sid=milb&t=g_box&gid=2012_08_12_cubrok_royrok_1 Now lists McNeil with 2 innings, 2-2-1-1-2 line.

Good points. One difference for Watkins versus Theriot and Barney is that they were contact hitters. He whiffs quite a lot. Sometimes guys who are K'ing that often in AA have more issues stepping up to better breaking balls. But it's possible that he'll adapt well. I don't view Watkins as anything comparable to Szczur as a prospect. But they are basically the same age and have almost interchangeable stats (BA, OBP, slugging, OPS, are almost the same.) With Watkins having played at a higher league most of the year. And with middle infield being as or perhaps more valuable defensively. Obviously Szczur is perceived as having more improvement potential, given his smaller volume of pro AB's.

milb doesn't have any action in Arizona yet, but it has lineups for tonight's game posted. The listed starting pitcher is named Maples.

I'm not a fan of reputation pushing prospect up lists. One reason Alcantara flew under the radar was that he was promoted more aggressively than Amaya and understandably didn't do as well the past two years (at 18, Amaya made his US debut in the AZL while Alcantara made his US debut at age 18 in Boise; in their age 19 years, Amaya is in Boise while Alcantara was in Peoria). Alcantara plays a much tougher position defensively, is still young for his level and is (apparently also) doing well in a pitcher's league. Alcantara and Candelario are the only two Latin Americans I can think of in recent years who made their age 18 US debut in Boise and not Mesa. Yes. Guys straight to Boise are extremely rare, and that only happens when they are rather impressive in some way. Alcantara has defensive tools that are in a different world from Amaya. He's got range and arm that Amaya will never have. That said, tools are one thing, consistency on regular plays is another. If you make two errors on routine plays for every "extra" play that your tools enable you to make, where's the gain? Alcantara is also faster. I don't really get the thing that Amaya has more reputation or has been rated more highly. His non-hitting tools have been rated way lower than Alcantara's. That said, I do kind of think that "reputation" does factor to me. Because to me, "reputation" is built on either or both of two things: tools, and/or actual performance. Alcantara has a bigger reputation I think for good reason, because his "athletic" tools are much better. But Amaya had some reputation of his own because he's OPS'ing .950 and hitting .330 this year, and hit .378 last year. If his reputation is based on being a gifted hitter and he's a gifted productive hitter now, the same things that created some reputation will factor into his ranking on my list. If he hits like a hitter this year, and he hit like a hitter last year, and he scouts like a hitter every year, maybe he is a hitter? HItting is a valuable tool, and can get some guys onto prospect lists.

http://yfrog.com/5es72z Nice catch by Szczur.

A friend mentioned how hot Szczur has been post-break: Szczur since the break: .337, 22 BB, 17 K, 19 SB in 104 AB's .907 OPS, .445 OBP. 27 games. 22 walks and 19 steals in 27 games, that it pretty amazing. His BABIP has been high (hard to hit .337 when you're K'ing 16% of AB and have no over-the-wall HR's....) But the base-stealing volume is pretty interesting. I'm pretty interested in Amaya. Seems we've got some numbers of non-power-hitting non-super-stud 2B prospects. Lockhart, Amaya, Torreyes, Watkins, delaRosa, I'm not sure which will end up best. But there are some possibilities, and perhaps one of them will emerge as a capable OBP-style 2b. I'm surprised Amaya has K'd as much as he has. But I'm under the impression that he scouts as a very gifted bat-handler, and is an alert, smart, coachable kid. I haven't gotten the idea that scouts project power for him, though. My sense is that his 4 HR's this summer are maybe more a surprise than the tip of the iceberg. I'm much less buzzed about Alcantara than some of you guys. He's got some qualities. But I'm skeptical of utility-prospects who are massive error-makers. My sense is that to be a real high-use utility guy, you need to be kind of a naturally reliable glove-man. I think managers want to trust a utility guy, so Alcantara's prolific error-rate makes me skeptical. As a no-walk hacker with somewhat limited power-projection, I just don't see the ceiling being that high or that reachable. Certainly won't be in my top-10.

iirc, he said he'd be pitching in games in july. not a good sign I thought I read something somewhere (16th hand, of course) that July 29th might be the date.

I think he's pretty underrated, but Raisin brought up a great point with him probably getting a shot in the AFL this fall. That'll probably help dictate what our plans are for him. My guess is most see him as a utility type, but I can see him as a starter, since he's showing a bit more pop than previously. Player A: .290BA/.386OBP/.406SLG/.793 OPS. 25 XBH. 33 SB. 7/29/1989 Player B: .287BA/.374OBP/.403SLG/.777 OPS. 24XBH. 19 SB. 8/29/1989 Player B is in AA, while Player A is in A+. Given the difference in level, which guy looks better? The lines are so close, I might almost prefer Guy B's numbers at the higher level, if I didn't know anything better. Obviously Guy A is Szczur and Guy B is Watkins. I like Szczur better, and as a less experienced guy I think he's got more likelihood of changing his game more future. Plus he seems to be a little bigger, and there were originally some scouting reports of power, and he hit 10 HR last year, and he K's a little less than Watkins, and steals more. So I think his chance of improving his numbers future, or of sustaining his current numbers against higher level is better. But it's possible that Watkins could end up being a good-fielding 2B who has a good OBP and could be a nice leadoff guy.

Why are you thinking there won't be another Paul Maholm on the market this winter? Good point, Tim. The Cubs are going to have gobs of money this winter. Maholm-type guys don't have all the top teams chasing them and don't cost zillions in dollars or years. So if you take a swing-and-a-miss, little lost. And if you take a shot and they turn out, modest-dollar-short-years pitchers are assets that can be turned into young talent that might last into the contending years. Sign em in January, trade em in July. A good way to use money to create long-term young talent from nothing. All that said, Theo does need to field a team. I'd be shocked beyond belief to see him trade all three guys.

.... I knew the original report that cal shared, the low-90's fastball plus otherwise bad/blah offspeed. But I'd not seen the Rogers eye-ball report, so thanks for sharing that. I know Phil doesn't get a lot of respect, and for good reason. But if he saw mid-90's, he saw mid-90's. And if he was seeing gobs of kids and Martinez stood out above the others, I see no reason to belittle that. And 13K/2BB/2H/11P are some rather nice numbers lately. Anyway, I'm encouraged to read that there may be noteworthy velocity in the big guy.

I'm guessing there are enough offers on the table that even if Dempster goes out and gives up four runs in five innings, it's not like all those offers are going to suddenly get pulled. If he strains his oblique, different story. So I'm not super worried about a bad outing, but I am worried about an injury. Not sure that's a huge concern, though. You're putting a guy up for bid, and somewhat silent bid. If somebody else might still bid higher, wait. If the current top bidder isn't sure his bid is going to win, perhaps by waiting he'll raise that bid. So if a team has made a bid but it's not compelling, it certainly makes sense to give the opportunity to raise it. But at some point the auctioneer has to decide he's waited as long as he wants to wait and is going to call in the highest bid. I hope that's today. But if Hoyer thinks a bid might improve significantly enough that it's worth the small risk that Dempster gets hurt tonight, that's his call and I'll assume they know what they're doing. But I do kinda feel like this has been going on long enough. Shouldn't they have had opportunity to submit their best offers? Shouldn't Theo/Hoyer/McLeod have had opportunity to evaluate those? Shouldn't they have had plenty of time to call the other guys back andn give them the opportunity to improve their offers? I kind of hope they make a decision and get it done.

CubsInNC posted in the minor-league forum yesterday, was at the Peoria game, said there were Dodgers scouts there. Rosario was pitching, so he could have been viewed as a significant piece. Although he wrecked his arm in the game, so he's almost certainly out of the equation now. Although CubsinNC said

Interesting. Given the spending cap, that is a BIG bonus. Bader hadn't included him in his top-20 international prospects that he listed on July 2 (http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/prospects/2012/07/top-20-international-prospects-tracker/), but BA's list shows only two guys with bonuses bigger than $1.5, a LHP at 1.55 to Toronto and 1.75 for a Mets SS. I hope Paniagua's slider is good, or his fastball movement is exceptional. 93-95 sounds fairly good, but if a guy spends all month gearing up for a well-publicized showcase, and has the adrenalin pumping, that really isn't very impressive. Might be a guy who's mostly throwing 88-92 when he's 50+ innings into a season and he's pitching in Beloit or Jupiter. But, the Cub scouts know all that. So they must have liked what they've seen. Hope he plays out better than Concepcion.

Do you think that was real, or a gun fluke? Did Reed "look" that fast? Did he have several other mid-upper 90's clocks? Or eight 90-94's and then 100? The Rosario readings, sitting 91-94, didn't sound particularly out of line. Reed's still only 20. Blah stats (lots of walks, lots of HR's, lots of hits, WHIP 1.5). But if he's extremely fast, who knows with time.

It may be that players have much, much greater opportunity to work on skills at Mesa than they do in higher leagues. I'm not sure how much practice drill there actually is when you're with Boise or Peoria. A lot of the work requirements for the players are eaten up by the games themselves combined with travel, figuring out how to get places on the road, time spent finding places to eat on the road, etc. The Cubs didn't invest multiple millions of dollars in a huge training complex in Boise, or in Eugene, etc.. At Mesa, they've got a fabulous complex with tons of fields, and all of the games are very close so that very little of the work-week is spent on the bus. I believe they have hours of drill/practice, in addition to the games. I'm not sure that's at all comparable at Boise or Peoria. So it may be that while the balls don't come any differently during the Boise games, that a guy is getting way more practice balls in Mesa? May be similar for hitting. They've got so many pitchers in Mesa, there aren't enough game innings to keep them all busy. So I think there is a lot of pitching/batting practice that goes on in which real professional pitchers are throwing to hitters, BP that doesn't show up in the box scores. But which can benefit the pitcher and benefit the hitters. But with a limited Boise roster, and basically one field and one mound to share between the home team and road team, how much fast professional-pitching BP does a guy get? Or is the sum of batting practice one hour for the whole team, as thrown by a 50-year-old ex-position player like Bill Buckner? There might be a whole lot more productive BP in Mesa? Who knows, there may also be better video-and-charting technology in Mesa? For all I know, maybe they've got an electronic strike zone detector or something to help hitters learn the strike zone. Or permanent video equipment to record BP as well as game AB for analysis? Perhaps they have much better rooms and monitors for doing the video study? I have no idea. But I'm thinking there may actually be more advantages than we can even dream of for doing as much of the training/development as possible in Mesa. I'm just guessing, of course, I have no idea.

I haven't heard much of anything, actually. But two years ago there was talk of 95-96, and almost with the sense that he was a big horse where that and more could become routine. Last year I was hearing 88-92 with an occasional 4-seam 94. This year I've heard very little, maybe the most enthusiastic being a game where he topped in the 92-94 range. But there are many hundreds of prospects who top in that range or higher, so if that's his fastest stuff on his best day, that's pretty unexciting.

Is there reason to think that McNutt has any stuff that's still worth being interested in? Two years ago he was a rising prospect who was supposedly throwing mid-90's, and doing so consistently, while also throwing a promising developing breaking pitch. But at this point, his velocity has gone backward and neither his movement nor command have improved. At this point, isn't he basically a former prospect with fairly average velocity and nothing much in terms of command, breaking ball, or movement? Why is it that we still think he's a meaningful prospect?

Olt has a K-rate of over 29%, and is only in AA. So he's worse than what Brett Jackson was prior to the more challenging breaking stuff of AAA. So he's basically a good-fielding 3B version of Jackson? Are you intentionally leaving out the part where Mike Olt has a slash line of .292/.403/.574/.977 with 22 homers, 63RBI, and 51BB in 76 games? And a 14.7% walk rate vs. Jackson's 10.1%? Or an ISO of .282 vs. Jackson .226? Or a wOBA of .428 vs. Jackson's .366? Yes. :Dposting.php?mode=quote&f=6&p=2830374# posting.php?mode=quote&f=6&p=2830374# K rates are sometimes listed per PA, others per AB. 29.2% relative to AB's is really high. 24% per PA is also really high. And as was mentioned, it's not a fluke. He's been consistently a massive K-guy. I was thinking that Olt's rates seemed pretty similar to Jackson as an AA player. Per AB, Olt is 29.2% this year, Jackson was 30.1 Per PA, Jackson was 24.9%, Old is 24.4%. So the K-rates seem pretty similar as AA players in their 20's. Obviously no two players develop the same. So while Jackson's K-rate has gotten much worse in AAA, perhaps Olt's will hold fairly steady. I'm just suggesting that K-wise he's pretty much what Jackson was a year ago in AA. So while there may be good scouting reason to think that he'll handle the promotion to AAA better than did Jackson, we probably shouldn't be shocked if we get Olt and he K's almost like a Jackson. which may be fine, many posters like Jackson's future a lot. So whiffing like a Jackson may be no reason to temper enthusiasm. Or the superior power numbers for Olt, while playing a good 3b defensively, might also more than negate any concerns with K's. But just kind of interesting that thus far he's been very much in the Jackson-track in terms of a K-guy.

Marco Hernandez has been on a bit of a hitting binge. He's got his seasonal OBP past .250 now, and he's a robust .263 OBP now in Boise. He's lifted his Boise batting average up over .250, and his OPS over .650. Small steps, but getting past some of those nice round .250 and .650 numbers is refreshing progress. 8 errors in his 24 games, he's gotten some DH games so not sure how many he's defended, but his 8-errors reflects a reduced rate.

Interesting and unexpected selections. Sometimes selections aren't all made based on stats. I wonder if Caro looks better in person than we'd guess based from his stats. Stats alone, he seems like a no-power guy. And he's almost 19 and has only just begun his career, so he obviously wasn't some guy that scouts were itching to sign the minute he turned 16. But I wonder if he looks like a serious defensive CFer or something?

Olt has a K-rate of over 29%, and is only in AA. So he's worse than what Brett Jackson was prior to the more challenging breaking stuff of AAA. So he's basically a good-fielding 3B version of Jackson?

Lockhart has six consecutive multi-hit games, is momentarily hitting .333, and his OBP must be up near .400. Has only 4 K's in 60+ AB's I think. 6BB/4K. Vogelbach has 10K, so he's looking like a hitter who happens to have real power, rather than the prototype high-K slugger.