craig

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.

...I'm a big, big Bruno fan. ... This isn't ... Theriot, IMO. That said, his bat is intriguing. On the surface, he should offer a good approach, hit for average, show average, if not more, power. It's a nice, all-around package - think ... uh ... Adrian Cardenas' offensive potential with a touch more power potential perhaps. Or if we want to stick to an undersized white guy comp, perhaps Mike Fontenot with a better potential to hit for average. Again ... on paper, he has this potential. He may not get there, but it's a fascinating package. I don't see the above average power projection, but hope you're right. Seems unlikely for so short a guy and having hit only 6 college HR's this year. He doesn't walk at all, so I'm guessing he'll be heavily a batting average guy, with low IsoD and limited IsoP. But guys who can hit the ball on the nose, and have good hands/arm/quickness, they've got a chance. Cerda, Clevenger, Chirinos, etc.. He sounds like the kind of smaller athlete who they routinely try at catcher. I wonder how long it will be before they do that with him? I'd like to see them do it fast. His bat has a better chance at catcher.

40% rule: I've got it in my head that you can't sign a draftee for less than 40% of slot value. But I don't know where I got that idea from, whether from nsbb or psd or somewhere else. Q1: Is that 40% limit true? Q2: If so, is that common knowledge here? Did I find about that here or somewhere else? Q3: Any link or place to confirm? Thanks in advance.

Don't see why. 1. It seems it will be very effective at capping spending. 2. It seems it will be very effective at keeping some teams from superslotting like mad. 3. Because some teams can't superslot like crazy, they won't be able to drive up the prices so much. 4. It will make it more a game of scouting smarts and less a game of $$$. The fact that some guys at the back of 1-10 are being drafted for the 40% minimum is just part of it. So what. I'm not so sure it's that bad for the game for guys to go to college. Is college that bad? If the only HS kids who sign are top-200 guys, that's fine. Let the norm be to go to college. I've actually been pretty impressed with how well structured the rules are, and how leak-proof they appear to be. If there's some loophole, I haven't heard it yet. I think the loss of future 1st round pick, singular or plural, is huge. I don't think teams will go there. That will probably be a safe and sure protection, kind of like teams signing NFL free agents at the cost of 1st round picks. It never happens.

If I'm understanding it correctly, slot for round 10 is $125K, and for eleven-forty it's $100K. Anything over $100 comes out of your budget for rounds 1-10. But, the talent should go up a little for two reasons. 1. In round 10, you're trying to draft a guy who'll be happy to sign for $40K. That way you can free up $75K to spend. But I don't think paying $40K in round eleven adds any cash to your spending pool. So from now on, you can draft guys who you really would be willing to spend $100K on. 2. Suppose we want to sign Underwood, for example, but anticipate that he's going to cost $300K overslot. So we have $300K discretionary kind of "budgeted" for him. But, what if he demands a million, and we don't have enough overslot to sign him? We'd lose his "slot" money, but we'd still have the $300K discretionary. So that could now be applied to guys in rounds 11-40. Maybe you've got a couple who will sign for $150 or whatever. 3. We can't have the budget exactly. If we're able to get all of our guys in rounds 1-10 signed, and are still $250K underneath our cap, then we can use that on guys in rounds 11-40. This could be kind of tricky. From the club's perspective, I'd think they'd want to really hammer things out with the 10-round guys a few days prior to the deadline. Then quick use whatever might be left to snag one or two of the later picks.

Whitenack hasn't pitched in at least a week. Anybody know what's up? Anybody hear anything about what's wrong with szczur and how long he'll be out? Any updates on Wells?

Agree. I'm pretty confident they've got an idea on signability for everybody they've taken and are taking now. I'm thrilled that they've had the signability confidence to take HS guys in 2nd and 3rd. That suggests they aren't concerned that Almora is going to kill the budget, or that any of these three HS picks are going to require prohibitive superslots. Maybe they're ready to try get replacement picks next year instead, but I doubt scouting directors really like that. I don't think it's smart to focus it all on one big superslot, and then be going at 40% the rest of the draft. Pitchers are hard to project. Hard to know which 17 or 18-year-old is going to get stronger and faster and get command. And even once we get to rounds 4-10, there are still a lot of college pitchers with 90's velocity and some version of a breaking ball, or like conway have had their clock impacted by surgery.

http://web.usabaseball.com/news/stats.jsp?eid=26043214 15 G, 68 PA, .365/.392/.492/.884, 6 2B, 1 3B, 3 BB, 6 K, 10/13 SB, 20 Putouts, 3 Assists, 0 Errors 3 walks in 68 PA? Yes, sounds like the Cubs we know and love.

I expect Blackburn should be pretty signable. There were indications that he was, and he's not a guy who's been ranked as a first-rounder for the last 12 months and will be disappointed to be "only" picked in the 50's and getting "only" a million. Plus they research all this stuff. I'd like for him to be so superior to the others that he's worth big superslot. But my guess is that he wasn't that superior a prospect to other guys, and that if he projected as a big signability problem, they'd have just taken somebody else who would sign at or near slot. I expect that Johnson will be around slot. He's pretty talented, and was discussed as having mid-1st round talent. When he's on, he's very good. And players typically don't expect to get injured. He's also young; just turned 21 last month. So if he doesn't get a legit slot offer, he may not sign sub-slot. May figure that he knows he's fine health-wise, and that if he pitches to his ability he can be one of the best in the country and earn a top-20 selection next year, and he still won't be that old or anything. Of course he'll be signable, but I don't anticipate any major sub-slot bargain there. And again, perhaps if there had been indication that he was willing to go seriously sub-slot, probably he'd have gone even sooner. Unfortunately I expect that Almora will be expensive. He's a Boras guy, and Boras always gets a bunch. It's the first Theo draft, and I assume there is pressure to not come out empty with the top pick. Cubs have said Almora was top on their board, so I think Boras will be able to leverage them into some overslot. I'm hoping that they'd already pre-arranged all this, and talked it out in advance, and gotten some assurances. Per dollar, I think in past traditionally slot picks give the best value. Teams have had to pay superslot to get extra talent later. But this year with no extra money to spend, I suspect that you'll get the best value in the draft if you basically work within the pool of guys who like baseball enough that they are fine to sign at or around slot. I think that's probably what's happened thus far. I expect a LOT of college pitchers taken today by the Cubs. By the 4th round, I doubt there are a lot of smart high-ceiling HS pitchers who will want to sign for slot.

Almora is relatively young. His birthday was in April. So if he's good enough to make full-season out of camp next year, he could get some AB's in Peoria when he's still only 18. I'd wondered if he wasn't one of these almost-19-year-old guys.

Almora has good reports on his plate discipline. I think by that they may mean that he can recognize breaking balls and doesn't look bad or swing at a lot of junk. I don't think it means he takes many walks, though. I believe he doesn't. As a senior, he took only 13 walks in like 78 AB. Great for a pro, but not great in HS when you're the Barry Bonds of your conference. I think Baez's walk rate was at least double that last year as a senior. And I don't think Almora played in a super big-school power conference did he? So I'm not expecting Almora to be an IsoD monster or anything like that.

I find it hard to believe that the front office that has been mostly silent and difficult for any reporter to get information from, would all of the sudden be telegraphing what their first draft pick is going to be. I'm guessing this Almora talk is simply posturing hoping that someone they like better falls to them. The baseball scouting community is pretty small. McLeod, Wilken, Hoyer can't go to an Almora game without being seen and recognized. And I'm sure other 15 other Cub scouts whose names mean nothing to us would be recognized by other scouts, too. So I think the "telegraphing" is simply showing up at Almora games to watch. Hard to hide that. I suspect the "might draft him even if they had the first pick" is not coming from Wilken or McLeod, but is coming from some scout from a different org who sees Cubs at all of Almora's games. At the top of the draft, where no teams will pick again until the 30's and trades aren't allowed, there isn't much purpose in "smokescreens" and subterfuge and all that. Each organization has a large pool of scouts and comes to it's own internal decision. I may be wrong, but I doubt that Twins are coming in with Buxton-Correa-Almora 1-2-3 on their HS list, but then some Twin scout calls in, "Hey, I just read a twitter where somebody said the Cubs might actually like Almora better than Buxton! Lets jump Almora up to the top, and pass on Buxton and Correa!" If the Cubs like Buxton and Correa better than Almora, I hardly think they've playing some grant conspiracy program thinking that they're going to somehow trick the five teams above them into taking Almore first. I think it's part of the recognition of other scouts that may have factored in the Simpson pick. Wilken saw him at the late tournament weekend, and thought he looked like one of the 14 best prospects. And he recognized other scouts at the same tournament, so he knew he wasn't the only guy who saw how good Simpson was at that point in time. I think it's maybe different in the sandwich round area. Cardinals 36, Cubs 43, Cardinals 52, Cubs 56, Cardinals 59, Cubs 67, Cardinals 86, Cubs 101. If there's an under-the-radar kid we love, and just can't let slip away, best not make that obvious or St. Louis will have a chance to grab him first, if they also love him but are also assuming he'll last longer.