craig

Did they send Dunston down to Mesa? Or just let them share CF duties and play less of the Gonzalez/Kim type outfielders?

right now he's my top prospect in the system. Just to confirm that he's a 6-tool guy, his next time up he walked and stole.

SS David Bote hits a 3-run HR in his second pro AB.

Vitters has a HR/K ratio of 12/45. That is very good. If he can sustain or improve that even further, he's going to hit for good average. When you're hitting over .200 on balls not in play, you can't help but hit for good average.

Austin Kirk, by contrast, has a 1:55 HR/K ratio on the season. No wonder he's having a great year. 1 HR, very few walks, very low WHIP. 2.26 ERA. I have no idea how he does it, and perhaps it's all luck. Particularly weird is that he has a very low GO/AO split. So I don't understand how a guy with supposedly no stuff and a minus fastball is living as a flyball pitcher and a non-nibbling strike-thrower, but yet only one guy all season has been able to square up one of his no-stuff non-nibble strikes. I guess it's all luck. But at some point I wonder whether there might be something in his stuff that is effectively better than his reputation. He's faster than we think? His non-fast fastball actually has very nice movement, and combined with his cutter somehow it works, even without leading to groundouts or K's?

Szczur is 22. I don't think age is a factor. And with three additional option years, I don't think options are a factor either. If three-and-a-half years isn't enough for him to get good enough to stick, nobody will care when he's DFA'd. But if he's going to end up useful, 3.5 seasons is more than plenty of time. There is no reason to accelerate his pace or to take any notice of the remaining options when considering if or when he should get promoted. Baez hasn't gotten an extra-base hit in thirteen days. A stat I love for hitters is HR/K. For a guy like Jackson, nobody will care how often he K's if he hits enough HR's to give a decent HR/K rate. Don't need a huge BABIP to hit for average if your HR/K rate is decent. 1/7 is fine, anything above 1/5 is great, and a guy like Rizzo (23HR/52K) where it's better than 1:3 naturally hits way over .300. Over his last 10 starts, Rhee has a nice round 1:2. 8 HR/16K's. Hitters normally have good average and good OPS on balls in play. But the overalls get depressed by AB's when the ball does NOT go in play. But in Rhee's case, opponents are batting .333 on balls NOT in play, and OPS'ing 1.333 on balls NOT in play, over his last 10 starts. Facing Rhee makes the whole Southern League better than PCL Rizzo.

Raley has really been throwing some effective games recently. No idea what he's got or how he's doing it. In 3 of his last 4 starts, he's combined for 21 innings (7 each start), 1 run total, and 18K/2BB. Selective sampling, because three starts ago was a bomb (2K/2BB/8 runs). But he doesn't seem like a guy who is always underqualified and laboring to get anybody out (the way it always seems with McNutt, for example.) Raley's been on his game more often than not lately, and when he's sharp he's really been effective, with no walks and decent K's and strong groundball ratios. He's still only 23, and having success in AAA. I think with him and Jokisch too, though, when you have one of these finesse lefties, they can do very well when they're on their game. But they aren't on every game. When they're off, they can have like Raley three games ago (8 runs), or Jokisch today (10 runs.) Not a lot of margin for being "off".

Lake hasn't shown any power lately, either. In June, he's got 16 singles and only one HR, one triple, and one double, to go with his three walks. 13 errors in 37 games, so he still hasn't been able to get his games/error ratio up above three. Step-by-step, so I think there's both performance reason and scouting reason to have good hopes for him. But it's going to take some time. I still kind of wish that given what a slow study he is defensively, that they'd move him over to a position he might play in the majors sooner rather than later.

Well, tuition wouldn't hurt the Cubs bonus limits. Anybody know what can all be included in these? "Tuition" is one thing, and can be enormous. Room and board can be a whole lot more. And expenses. I just wonder how or whether the cba has any constraints on how these values can be structured when supplementing the $100K dollars. Anybody know or have any ideas? uk?

Raley has been a notoriously low-K guy. But in 3 of his last four games, he's been: 7K/1BB/7IP (tonight) 6K/0BB/7IP 8K/1BB/5IP. Not so good in one of the other starts. But it seems to be becoming not so rare to have some good-K games. Obviously pitchers are all inconsistent, so if we only look at the good games and ignore the bad games can makes anybody look good. But I do kind of wonder whether he hasn't come up with something breaking-ball wise that is getting K's. IN this hypothesis, some days he's got it working, and that's becoming more common recently, but not always.

You may be right, I have no idea. Maybe you're right and good hard-stuff up-and-in will get him. But, given his bat speed, his enormous pull power, and that he loves fastballs, a pitcher may want to target the up-and-in-fastball with some caution. It might not need to miss by much to be in a place where Baez can kill it. Obviously a lot of HR's are hit on mistakes. So a pitcher may need to be taking a calculated risk; as long as I execute perfectly, I'll get him, but when I miss by a little, he might get me.

My friend went to all three games of the beloit series, so saw Jensen, Burke, and Rosario.

http://boisehawksradio.mlblogs.com/2012/06/16/its-a-76-game-season/ Boise's announcer seems to have a nice blob and some decent tweets. He touches on the 3 errors by Hernandez. Velocity hyperbole is pretty routine, so who knows. But if he's "sitting" at 92-93 on a slow day, that's a pretty fast guy. Most of the guys who "touch" "mid-90's" or "touch 95" don't "sit" at 92-93. Especially not on a slow day.

it's the 25th round, why not take a chance? it's not like bryce harper part ii is just sitting there ready to be selected. Oh. I'd thought there was, glad to know otherwise. :) There are guys after 25 that are valued enough to be worth signing. There are HS picks that are projectible and have possibilities who are signable for overslot at or after 25. The Cubs may try to sign some of them. Guys like Jensen, McNutt, Struck have been signable at or after 25 for modest overslots that are not unrealistic. So I don't think you should quit drafting at round 25 and just goof around. The chance that they sign some HS guy after 25 who becomes good are very unfavorable. But they aren't zero. Seems to me that while the likelihood of Wiseman signing is low, that it must be more than zero.

I also agree on Wiseman being a non-factor. I do wonder why they'd have wasted a pick on him, though.

Senior signs in rounds 8 and 9 were both $10K guys, so I assume that will be for Martin round 10 as well. Assuming Martin at $10K, given the known values for 7, 8, and 9, given the BA reported value for Conway, and given Prieto said he signed for $200K, we've got over $850K of discretionary. That's between the overage 5%, and the the known/reported deals for 4, 5, 7-9, and the assumed $10K for 10. Time will tell what/who that discretionary money is being saved for. But it seems pretty evident that by the time they were finished with day 1, it was very much in their plan to go with signable guys. And from rounds 4-10, mostly subslot, frequently severely so. Six of the 7 guys from 4-10 have signed, and the only one of those six who did not go at least $50K under slot was Bruno. I assume much of the $878K discretionary will be absorbed by Almora. Even though it doesn't really seem obvious that he has any leverage or reason to go overslot, or that he himself would really want to walk away from a $3.25 slot offer, or a little less. But it could be split up between Almora, Blackburn, Underwood, and McNeil in some way, too, who knows. I'm not really expecting them to save it all and to end up signing Wiseman or anything like that. But even if it's not all $878K, it would be fun if they could save at least several hundred K of that for overslotting in 11-40. To be able to sign a few guys at $200K or $250K, or perhaps less, would be pretty fun.

toonster, I see no "time is running short". He's got plenty of time to be patiently developed into whatever it is he has the potential to become. Whether a slow-track starting pitcher, or a slow-track relief pitcher, or a fast-track version of either. Given that he hasn't pitched much, I'd think slow-track patience would be my preference. Time: He's got 2+ months left of this summer to develop. Then he's got three full option years. So he could spend all of this year at Peoria, where he seems qualified but challenged. All of next year at Daytona, option 1. Tennessee, option 2. Iowa, option 3. That wouldn't be rushing him at all, and would provide more than plenty of time for him to refine his curve, introduce and develop a cutter, refine his changeup, become more adept at moving back and forth between two-seam and four-seam, perhaps work on a second arm slot that would be lower and more deadly on lefties, etc. I don't know really what he really needs to do to become an optimal starter, or reliever, but given that he's already good at Peoria, three-and-a-half years seems like plenty of time to get him ready. He may not need all that much time, but my point is that there is more than plenty of time to get wherever he needs to go. If he only needs 1.5 instead of 3.5, fine. But don't underdevelop him because of some urgency to get him up in 1.5 if he'd be a better pitcher if he had 2.5 or 3.5. I don't much care that he's 24. I'd rather get six really good years as a starter from age 27-33 than six years as a reliever from 25-31. If the time pressure is that he isn't good enough to justify a 40-man spot, that's a different question. But if he's not, then I don't think it matters much, because a guy who isn' good enough for 40-man isn't relevant for 25-man either. To me the real question is how good he is, and how good he can become. Scouting stuff. How much movement does his fastball have? How fast is he, and how consistently? Does he have a cutter that has promise? How sharp is his breaking ball? His ERA is nice for sure. But as you say, what stuff does he have? His 2.31 ERA and his WHIP are excellent, 57H/22BB/74 innings are very good. However, his K-rate and HR-rate are both not so great. (5HR/74 IP is mediocre in the low-HR Midwest league. And 52K/74 innings isn't eye-catching.) But, what he's got for a K-pitch now and what he might have projected over several years of patient development and improvement, I don't know. That's the real question.

He's hitting over .500 in June when he doesn't strike out.

My friend was at the game. He said the HBP was just a slow curveball. I'm inferring more than he actually said, but I got the idea he thought Baez recognized it was a slow inside curve and let it hit him, that he could have gotten out of the way if he'd wanted to. Said Geiger's HR was as long as Baez's.

Thanks, cal. That changes things. Maples/Dunston superslots have been rare, and won't be impacted. But there have been no HS/JC kids who have signed for $100K or less for years. Many have signed for list of $125-250. Jensen, McNutt, Gallagher, Pugliese, Geiger, Martin, Kurcz, Reed, Acosta, Fitzgerald, Struck, and many others who signed and never did much. But there has been a volume of signings, some of whom have merited real interest/hope for at least a while. I think routinely those deals included $25K/year, or something like that, for scholarship. So if scholarships are still included, HS guys like Crawford/Hickman and JC's like HOffner/Tomscha my well be signable at $200/$175 deals. Comparable to what's been slot for HS/JC guys in recent years, and if those have been attractive enough to sign many guys in recent years, I don't see why they wouldn't be attractive enough to sign many this year too. Even without costing against the cap. And if you could save a couple hundred K of cap money to spend on 11-40 guys, you might be able to sign even more. Kind of explains why we spend like 14 picks on HS/JC's after round 5. I'd originally thought that there might essentially be no draftings/signings of teenagers after the first five high-dollar rounds, and was surprised when we kept selecting guys. This helps to explain that. Also impacts the demographics of low minors. I'd thought we might not have any more teenage Americans other than superstuds. So that short-season/low-A might have a very different age population and the age-norm per leagues might jump a bunch. This will allow things to remain somewhat more status quo.

You guys may know better (if so, tell me, too!). But I have no idea about what kind of limits the new cba has on the types of contractual deals that are acceptable. At present all we hear is that about dollar limits. But in past all kinds of various individualized perks have been included in deals. Ben Wells goes on the 40-man at a certain time. Samardz got a big-league contract. Szczur became a free agent after one year. Kirk had a clause where his parents get like three team-paid weekend trips to watch him play. In the majors Boras has often included indulgences like private rooms, plane trips to visit family, etc. etc.. The most important draft one has been college tuition. Has all of that been ruled out? Even the scholarships? Or is there stuff that can be done to enrich the contract that won't count on the cap?

Has anybody seen Jensen lately, or have any current scouting observations about him? I'm not talking about what we heard last summer at draft, or last fall in instrux. I'm guessing he's evolving a big during this first season, so I'm wondering what the report is now when he's maybe tired after a dozen starts and 60+ innings and might not be throwing quite as hard as when April opens or during instrux. He's got a 2.32 ERA, with 2HR/23(?)BB/66IP, 1.6 G/A. Those are solid HR and K numbers. His K's have been modest, but in two of his last three starts he's been 8K/6IP and today 7K/5IP. I'm kind of hoping that some breaking ball is emerging as an improved knockout pitch. My guess is that he's probably been exploring and adjusting. In JC, fastball was pretty dominant and he probably didn't need perfect location. In April, hitters never hit much or show much power, so perhaps he used the same fastball-heavy challenge-them approach to good effect. But then maybe after a couple of weeks with warmer weather that wasn't working quite so well. But maybe now he's tightened his command some, tightened his breaking ball some, less willing to challenge down the middle and nibbling more for the edges to good effect? I'm just speculating. Maybe he's mixing in a cutter or something, I have no idea.

A bunch of local newspapers have stories about their local kid who got drafted. Many of them talk about how the Cubs called in advance, and either asked if they'd sign, or asked what their thoughts were. We'll see what the Cubs were kind of sharing or offering, but it could certainly work out that everybody from 4th round conway on through 10 could be subslot if necessary. Prieto said he'd sign. Lang talked as if he already has agreed, and will be heading for Mesa next week. Etc. Boras always wins, and he has his business and prospects in general to think about, not the individual guy. So I think he'll have no problem sending Almora to school. But I admit I have to think that the Cubs really could (should?) just toe the line, at slot or $3.0 or whatever. I'd think the same could go for Johnson and McNeil. Underwood seems the only one who really has much strong case for an overslot. It seems conceivable that if they're going super cut-rate on 4-10, and stayed firm with Almora, that they could really have a pretty good chunk of discretionary money to spend on 11-40 guys. I don't expect that, of course. Boras never loses. An individual player means much more to the team than to the agent. For the Cubs to lose out on a top pick who they've talked up so much, that would really hurt. If Boras had Almora go to school, that wold just reaffirm that he's tougher than you and that when he threatens, you better come to him because he really will walk away. So I totally believe that he'll leverage the Cubs into overslot of some magnitude. But part of me thinks that if they held firm, the chances are still pretty good that they'd get him, and could have a chunk of discretionary money later.

I don't understand all the complaint that the guys in rounds 6-10 weren't all the best. Why should we expect straight talent order to prevail now when it never did before? Did Dunston go in round 11 and Maples in round 14 based on talent, and all the guys in rounds 2-10 were considered more talented? The landscape has changed, but it's not like dollars and price factors hadn't totally dictated that a lot of guys went outside of talent order before. I don't see much new. I don't think the draft was as fun for me this year. In past, I'd always dream and wish for some big superslot guy, even though it rarely happened. But not a lot of suspense on Day 3 this week. Anybody who looks really exciting can't be signed, more or less.

There was widespread concern about Baez's promotion resulting in Marco Hernandez getting sent down. 1. In retrospect, Baez appears to be better prepared for Peoria than Hernandez, and doesn't seem to have needed the extra weeks at Mesa and then weeks or the summer at Boise. so the move seems to be well justified. I think it's evident that however much we may like Marco as a prospect, Baez is kind of on a different planet. 2. We'll see if he sticks. And maybe Marco was making great plays every day and nobody tweeted about it because why bother with a .450-OPS guy. But early returns suggest that Baez compares very favorably defensively. 3. Marco has not been bored or unchallenged and wasting his time and overqualified as a hitter for Mesa. By Az Phil's reports, he's gotten rather few hits and as usual with negligible power and few walks. He'd had a good streak at Peoria, but that does not appear to have carried over after dropping down. 4. Marco has had big splits vs RHP versus LHP. Two years ago he tried to switch-hit to give himself a chance versus lefties, and of course was much weaker that way. Last year and this spring he just went straight lefty, even versus LHP. I think he OPS'd up around .450-.550 last year that way (his split was over .400 points.) This year was worse, and he was OPS'ing below .200 versus LHP. So at some point during his slump, he switched back to switch hitting. According to Phil, he is continuing to bat RH versus LHP in Mesa. I think the return to XST/short-season is probably a good opportunity for him to get in lots and lots of BP swinging RH. But it's probably going to be worthwhile through his career to often be checking his splits, because he may end up being a pretty strong platoon guy who might be much better versus RHP than lefties.