craig

Most positive comment on his defense that I've ever seen, even if Law or Callis's scouts may not agree. Also interesting that Hyde, unprovoked, brings up the idea of trying him in a different spot later.

http://vineline.mlblogs.com/2013/01/20/cubs-convention-live-down-on-the-farm/ Down on the farm session from the convention summarized. Mostly administrative/philosophy type comments. (Vogelbach was the only guy commented on, by Hyde.) Some I found interesting were about the Kane County move; what they look for in a rotation prospect versus dropping a guy to relief; and comment on the difficulty of teaching plate discipline were interesting. Of particular interest to me is that they've now installed cameras now at ALL of the parks. I think that's huge. So they can get video on every pitch, every AB. Hyde and McLeod and Johnson etc. can watch everything or anything they want from their offices without needing to travel or rely on scouts to describe it. They can keep records on how many non-strikes a guy is swinging at, etc.. I think having all of that data should be invaluable for coaching, or for nagging prospects about what they're doing wrong, or for analyzing what's different between the hot periods versus the slumps. And of course that will all be available for prospects to study their AB's. Really cool.

Theo was asked about the draft at the convention tonight. He said that study shows that players tend to give better value than pitchers in the first round, and also in the second. But that good pitchers can last much deeper into the draft. Said they might draft a pitcher, but they might also do like last year and get a player with the first, then draft arm after arm after arm like they did this year. Obviously depends on the scouting and the talent. I agree with that. High-pick players can often be really good for years and years. Pitchers are pitchers, so even if there arms are still good when they reach the majors, the odds aren't high that they'll stay special for years and years. If we draft a pitcher, of course I'll hope he's the special guy whose arm lasts for years and proves a big-time ace. But I'd prefer if a player emerges who's good enough to justify going #2, and go for pitchers after that.

Arias-Jensen-Zych I've voted for Zych and Jensen before, first time adding Arias in. Zych is fast and had excellent stats for a 21-year-old in A+/AA. Serious anti-HR profile. Had individual games and stretches where he was really good, but inconsistent. Some of the walks and runs came in bunches. Young and inexperienced enough so that if the consistency improves, he's got a high ceiling (as a relief pitcher). Jensen had good stats, has a good arm, has good fastball movement, seems to have a diverse arsenal emerging, and most importantly seems to be a natural control pitcher. Arias requires a whole lot more projection. But he's big, strong, and fast, with a heavy fastball. After placing vote, and checking their stats, I was surprised to rediscover that Arias is pretty much the same age. All three are 22, and will pitch the whole minor league season at that age. As a Latin guy, I'd kinda just assumed Arias was young with lots of projection/time left. But he's only a few weeks younger than Jensen, and a few months younger than Zych. But while age may be comparable, there's a chance that he's got a lot more untapped potential to still realize.

I can see that. For me, I'd put Zych well ahead of Ha. But that's probably because I value a reliever a lot more than a utility outfielder. Relief pitchers throw over 1/3 of the innings, but backup outfielders don't usually get nearly 1/3 of the AB's. Ha looks like a 5th outfielder prospect to me, until/unless he shows some hitting and power tools. He had a .737 OPS this summer, with 96K/6HR. This winter, 26K/1HR/73AB in Venezuela. Doesn't look like enough bat to become a big-league starter to me. Kind of a shame he didn't work out at catcher, where the hitting standard is lower.

That's interesting scouting, toonster. How do you reconcile those scouting evaluations with the statistics? If his fastball is as fast and his breaking ball has far better action and break, why is his K-rate poor while Zych's is excellent? And why is his HR rate very high while Zych's is very low? Seems to me that if McNutt has a better breaking ball, his K-rate should be more than 2/3 of Zych's. And he shouldn't be giving up 12HR to Zych's 1. Maybe McNutt's stuff is just as good or better, and it's just that Zych has better control?

Rondon-Jensen-Zych. Arias would be next on my list. I like Zych better for a number of reasons: Fastball velocity Fastball movement Movement on primary breaking ball Control on primary breaking ball Projection for development of a good third pitch GO/AO HR (this is huge. Anti-HR versus HR-oriented...) Age Developmental trajectory. Health Zych is on a very healthy trajectory, IMO. He's younger, has been successful wherever he's gone and has yet to hit a bump. He's got a big arm, he's got a sharp slider, it's too early to say that his splitter might not become good, he's got good GO/AO and K/BB and anti-HR record. AA at 21 is fast movement, but there's lots of projection left. Has a chance to be a high-ceiling pitcher with two plus-plus pitches. There have been no red flags thus far. I'm not super high on McNutt. He had a reputation for being fast, but I'm not sure that his fastball is really that good or projects as a plus big-league pitch. Movement and location as well as velocity determine fastball effectiveness, and I'm not sure the combo is that plus. And my sense is that the package of movement/location/consistency for his breaking stuff has been effectively sub-average. So he's flashed some red flags for sure, and has kind of been plateaued in AA. Zych's K/BB/HR were win-win-win; McNutt's have been lose-lose-lose. Fortunately development isn't always linear. For a while Samardz wasn't that fast, and didn't seem to have any go-to breaking pitches or any K-stuff. But then somehow his velocity stepped back up a notch, and he came up with several good, K-quality breaking pitches, and control got better besides. So I'm hoping McNutt is just about ready to surge forward after kind of getting stuck for a while. Although I have no reason to expect that.

Jensen\Rondon/Zych Blackburn and Arias would be my next two. I'm a hopeless optimist I'm sure. But I think this is a really fun part of the system. Nobody's got sure-thing superstars hanging out in the late 20's. I think the volume and quality of legitimately interesting pitchers still left this deep into our system is pretty nice. I'm very optimistic about some of these pitchers. Blackburn is a tough one for me. The reports from Arizona Phil and others on his stuff were not very impressive. But as CubsWin mentioned, the fact that management picked him so high says somebody was impressed. If they project a reasonable big-league fastball, I'm fine to trust their judgment, at least for now.

I didn't vote for him, but I agree on Jensen. Like him quite a bit. None of his numbers were great, and none of his stuff scouts great. But all of his numbers seemed very good, especially for a guy in his first full year out of JC. And his stuff sounds good, even if it isn't great. And its maybe getting better. My understanding is that he came up with a changeup midyear, which was looking like a very good pitch by the end of the year. Callis didn't put him in his top-30, said his ceiling was #4 starter, and envisions Jensen ending up in relief, with his low-90's fastball that has natural cutting action. Callis gets his info from scouts, so I take that seriously. Still, a 90's fastball with cutting movement and control, what's wrong with that? That's a very useful first pitch. It's not like every team has 3-5 big-leaguers actually working faster than low-90's with good movement and with good control. The "cutting action" would seem to explain Jensen's strong GB rate, modest HR rate (6HR/140 innings), and good success versus LH hitters. I think the earlier reputation was that he was fastball/curve, kind of a 2-pitch guy, which might explain the relief projection. Either that or being only 6'1". (Or just that he's not good enough.) But if he successfully integrates the change, that might give him the more complete repertoire that he'd want as a starter.

Thanks. If his defense is solid/average, then he's interesting. There aren't many utility infielders who don't play SS. So for a guy to carve a long-term career as a utility 2B/SS, being decent at SS helps. If you're fighting for the last roster spot, the true SS who's also proficient at 2B will obviously be defensively preferable to the decent 2B who's going to be a problem if he needs to start more than 3-4 games a year at SS. But certain for us, Barney does have that capability anyway. The CF probably helps a little bit. And could help a lot if he ended up hitting so well that you didn't mind him playing, or maybe even liked it. I guess we'll see with the offense. I'd written him off prior to last year, and the early season I didn't even pay attention. But he was only 22, and has now gone 1>5>9 for HR's, he added an extra 5 doubles, his slugging was no longer Barney-esque. I tink an .800+ OPS at age 22 in AA is pretty interesting for a decent-fielding middle infielder. And his second half was over .850, I think. Probably got hot, hit a few HR, and it won't be sustainable. But if it's real improvement and maturation, but physically (for the power), and in terms of actual hitting, if he's got enough improvement left so that he could even remotely approach those numbers in the majors, you'd have a useful starter. .383 OBP, those don't grow on trees. The curious thing was that all of his number got better. BB-rate jumped a bunch, and HR's/slugging, but very weirdly his K-rate actually dropped a little. Usually more HR means swinging harder, and K's go up. Or more walks mean working count deeper, getting into more 2-K counts, and K's go up. His SB volume also went up, which I don't normally see versus better defensive catchers. And his errors at 2B went down. So really a nice year for him, progress in every aspect of his game, and no cost to making the changes. (Contrast to Szczur: his walk rate went way up, but that brought his K's ways up, and his HR's/slugging way down.) Watkins is 23 now, so not that young. But, I don't think there is a super long baseball season or a high level of competition in rural Kansas. Not sure how many quality pitchers he faced, or how many games he actually played. As the HS QB, I'm sure his baseball season didn't run very long. So maybe a kid like that had more to learn and isn't as far along developmentally as the typical 23-year-old all-baseball top-prospect kid from California or Florida. Maybe the recent improvement is real, and maybe he's still got some more left? He's LH, which might also help him make a big-league roster in a bench role initially, then perhaps later get some starts versus RHP, and perhaps play his way into some partial-platoon usage. He had pretty strong splits, .846 to .667 or something like that.

Rondon Zych Wells

Watkins. .383-OBP in AA at age 22 is very good. Showed improvement in every area My questions are: 1. How good (or bad) is his 2B defense? What have you guys seen or heard? 2. Will he be able to sustain his second-half surge, or improve further? Or will he revert to what he'd been before? 3. Will he ever have opportunity to do much good for the Cubs? 4. Does he really play SS adequately enough to be a useful big-league utility guy?

That's usually the problem, management usually waits until it's too late. Becoming a good catcher takes a much longer commitment than converting from SS to 2B, or even converting to pitcher. Even for that, sooner is better. Marmol was 19, that was good. Randy Wells. But think how much better it would have been had Burke converted a couple of years earlier? Or Junior Lake, perhaps the best arm in the system, but he'll be 23 this year. Getting kind of late to start pitching.

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!