craig

Yes.

The number of visas is limited. So Latin guys who aren't progressing might not get as large a window. Although, typically if you aren't one of the top-28 international prospects in the country, you aren't probably much of a loss. Certainly the reports last year were pretty negative, pretty fast but not exceptional, and straight with no command or breaking ball. I always wonder with latin kids if they don't improve. Bogus age, and he's really 23? PEDs before, and without them now his arm is really mediocre?

I read that as pretty weak view, in part because I'm thinking of Randy Wolf lately. But when scouts use comps, you often don't know what's really in their heads. A scouting comp is sometimes to the recent view on a guy, but often it's to a guy when he was a rising prospect and they were scouting him and evaluating him. Randy Wolf was a 2nd round pick who had won over 50 games by the time he turned 26. His ERA went from 4.36 to 3.70 to 3.20 at ages 23-24-25, with ERA+'s of 108 - 116 - 121. He had very strong K-BB ratios during those early years. And he won 16 games the following season. If Concepcion posts ERA+'s of 116 and 121 when he's 24 and 25, we won't be questioning this signing one little bit. But, young pitchers often have arm issues sooner or later, and Wolf has pitched most of his career without the arm he had when he was 24. The scout may be thinking of the young polished Wolf, who was never overpowering but had a good arm, good stuff, and good control to succeed like that. But, I'm hoping that Concepcion projects to throw harder more consistently and have sharper stuff than Callis is expecting.

Heh, fun comparison. I think Lemahieu was an excellent prospect. But he never did grow into any more effective power. Torreyes still has some time. On the other hand, Lemahieu had the height and levers where back when he was 18 or 19 it would have been very reasonable to project more power. Short Torreyes, not so much. Heh, if I've got two 18-year-olds who are elite contact guys, I'll normally take the power projection on the one who's over 6-foot rather than the short one! The other difference, I think, is that while Lemahieu didn't make many errors, I don't think people really thought he had the range or quickness or turn-the-DP-footwork to play a good defensive 2B. He was going to need to be a reliable defender but one who would make it on his bat despite his defense, at 2B. Torreyes, I think the Cubs believe he has a chance to be an asset defender at 2B. We'll see, of course. What management projects and what really happens often don't match, as we well know.

1. Often hard to know when a guy is getting switched to relief. This is true both for strong-armed guys, but also true for fringy guys. For this reason, I'm not confident that guys who were starters will remain starters, even if there are rotation holes that would permit them. Jackson, Raley, Rusin, none seem likely to become valuable big-league starters. But there might be some chance to make it in relief, especially for the lefties or a curveballer like Rusin. 2. My semi-confident starters: Iowa: Struck, Coleman Tenn: McNutt, Rhee, Beeler. Daytona: Cates, DelValle, Kirk. *With Raisin, I don't expect that Whitenack will be starting in Daytona in April. Peoria: Wells, Wang, Cruz. *I expect Simpson to start at one of the A-ball clubs. Probably Daytona, if he looks sharp in camp. But after last year's disaster, they might want him to experience some success. *I kind of expect Liria and Peralta in the mix. *Concepcion at Peoria.

I've got him 10th on my list. Only four spots ahead of Lake, but I feel like the superiority of Torreyes as a prospect is greater than that. The best defensive 2B prospect in our minors, and projects as a really good big-league defender, both in terms of reliability and range/DP/playmaking. A true gift for contact. Concerns are obvious: does he have any physical growth left and will he have any power/IsoP, and will he develop any IsoD? To have all of the offense rest on batting average is difficult, especially if that average needs to be sustained without any hits via un-fieldable HR’s. If we knew he could grow into 8-12 HR power, I’d rank him even higher. Or if I knew he’d end up with a solid walk-rate and could project as a leadoff guy, I’d like him even more. Again, I’m partly trusting that management isn’t dumb enough to so highly value a guy whose power ceiling is Campana/Pierre-like. I'm hopeful that he end up a little taller than we expect. I'm sure he's already much stockier than the list values. I also hope that he might learn/be-persuaded to take more walks. He's short enough, he's got a good enough eye, he's good enough at handling breaking balls, and he's not toasted by 2-strike counts; if he decided that it was worth it to work counts deeper, at the expense of more K's and some loss of average, his OBP could become strong and he could become a very valuable starting 2B and perhaps leadoff guy. I think he's an interesting case where, if management could persuade him that they want more walks, that perhaps he'd be able to accomodate. Of course, a fair chance that he'll never be more offensively than Barney.

Interesting comments, although the only surprising one was the one about Lake getting taller. Good point that combined with the Soto comment, it might suggest that Oneri may finally be ready to try Lake at some position where he belongs. Keeping him at SS has been just kind of Foxing him. The idea that he's gotten taller is very encouraging, to me. His only chance is as a power hitter, and if he's taller and fills out, he may be better able to hit some HR's without needing to sell out for power. Fun to start getting discussion about who'll go where.

I'm not a huge Lake fan, I've got him at #14 on my list. Junior Lake: As with Vitters, future depends heavily on HR output. His awful K/BB profile show tons of holes, and promise a future with low average and low IsoD. At 25 HR, that could add enough hits and slugging to float an anti-awful BA and to perhaps offset the bad K’s and low walks and low OBP. Seems unsuited for the alleged “culture shift” that Hoyer supposedly wants, given his reputation as a “play the wrong way” slacker, non-hustler, and ignore-coaches guy. But perhaps a new regime will institute some changes at the minor-league level that will help him. The other big question is his position, obviously he can’t play SS. But he's young. If he could reduce his K-rate somewhat, increase his walk rate somewhat, and boost his HR rate somewhat, all improvements that could happen for such a young player, you could end up with a useful offensive player.

Absolutely. These things come down to scouting. I'm not sure where the scouting data is coming from. But the Cubs have been scouting him repeatedly over the last couple of months, so they've got current info on his size, height, velocity, etc.. If BA is getting inside dope from teams who have been scouting him this winter, those scouts are telling him different stuff than what the Cub scouts are thinking. It's perhaps as likely that they are getting input from scouts who saw him a season ago. It's not uncommon that between December of 2010 and January of 2012, a teenager has gotten stronger and faster. So what may have been projection then, maybe it's been realized to some degree by the event of the Cubs recent views. Of course, it could also be that what he was throwing in real games in Cuba as a 17/18-year old is also different than what he's doing now as an 19 or maybe 18-year-old. If I'm pitching every week, and pitching for outs and location, that's one thing. Maybe if I'm pitching once every three weeks for scouts, my arm is never tired and I'm throwing harder to tickle the radar guns than to actually get hitters out. So maybe he's hitting 96 now in a showcase, but if he's pitching every five days against hitters he'll be right back down to working at 88-91 and touching 93. Who knows. But, I think all of that applies to Maples, too. I don't know how fast he'll actually be when he's trying to find the strike zone and he's racking up pitches over a full season. Anyway, as Dave noted, I think the very size of the contract offer and the 40-man roster deal provides pretty good evidence that, while they may be off their rockers, the Cubs see something more than fringy 5th-starter stuff. I think the offer itself is evidence that the Cubs reports might not jive with what BA has been telling. Not that differing from BA means that McLeod is right and BA's sources are wrong.

I think right in the Maples ballpark is appropriate. I'd maybe put him ahead of Maples. Right now he's perhaps just as fast and perhaps has better control, while being lefty. A teenage lefty who can sustain 91-93 and hit 96 on his last pitches of a 70-pitch tryout sounds fast enough.

Cubs have signed Concepcion, to a massive contract. I can't vouch for any of the accuracy, but there are rumors of $7M and major-league contract. They scout him very differently and much more favorably than the Yankee blog mentioned earlier, as pitching comfortably 91-93, touching well above that, and being 6'3". If their scouting is vindicated, he could be a high-ceiling guy with more than back-of-rotation potential. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Super exciting.

Did Callis say that? That's really surprising, if true. I didn't think he'd be remotely close to making any top-100 list, or top ten outfielder lists. I wouldn't have been sure he'd make a top-30 outfielder list. I'm still hopeful that he'll work out. But I wouldn't have thought many people liked him as a top-100 guy.

thanks, David. Interesting and that's good news, to me. It's common for simpletons like me to like walks in and of themselves, but for more sophisticated people to emphasize that it's a matter of pitch selection and being more selective for pitches you can drive hard. That hitters shouldn't be actually trying for walks, they are more just an accidental result. If walks aren't a target, then it may be that a good hitter who's good at hitting strikes might perhaps have good plate discipline even without many walks, and you can't necessarily judge a guy's discipline as poor based on a lowish walk rate. I think that walks in and of themselves are a very valuable tool and goal, that guys should at times be looking to work for a walk, and that a low walk rate is a problem in and of itself. So I'm very glad to see Theo articulating that walks are a value.

http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/white-sox/post/_/id/8422/cespedes-soler-on-cubs-white-sox-radar Weird, McLeod talking about Cespedes and Soler. Surprised he'd share any scouting info if he planned to pursue either of them. Here's the last line of the article, which was written by Bruce Levine: I'd read about OF Yasiel Balaguert and RHP Carlos Martinez; but had we known about two others? If, in fact, Bruce has it correct and we really did sign two other guys besides Balaguert and Martinez?

Lake has some really noteworthy tools, and an exciting combo of power, speed, and arm. Rob's BB and K improvement graph shows typical walk-rate improvements on the order of 2%. If Lake improves his 2011 walk rate (19W/445AB) by 2%, a 2% improvement on awful will still be awful. A 3% improvement on his K-rate will still be awful. He'll have to improve way more than normal to blossom into a bad K/BB guy rather than the awful we've seen. (Merely bad would be a big improvement.) Interestingly, in 2010 he walked 35 times, poor but hardly awful. His K-rate has improved in each of the last two seasons, despite promotions. Lake is almost certain to always have ugly K/BB profiles. To me his question is whether he can improve them enough in the anti-awful direction, and can do enough good things to counterbalance the bad stuff and justify himself as a big-league player. From my rankings writeup (I'm not done, but currently I've got Lake around 14 or 15 on my list...): 'As with Vitters, future depends heavily on HR output. His awful K/BB profile show tons of holes, and promise a future with low average and low IsoD. At 25 HR, that could add enough hits and slugging to float an anti-awful BA and to perhaps offset the bad K’s and low walks. Seems very unsuited for the alleged “culture shift” that Hoyer supposedly wants, given his reputation as a “play the wrong way” slacker, non-hustler, and ignore-coaches guy. But perhaps a new regime will institute some changes at the minor-league level that will help him. The other big question is his position, obviously he can’t play SS.'

Thanks for more elaboration on Wells, cal and toonster. Absolutely, toonster, a quality sinker at 91-93 is very, very good if it has control, probably a lot better than a 94-95 four-seamer. With sinker like any pitch, control is still essential. Sounds like Wells has strike-throwing control, but he's got a ways to go on his other stuff. Question: What do you guys know about Rhee's fastball? Is he a 4-seam or a 2-seam guy? Or does he work 89-90 with his 2-seam, and touch 93-95 on occasion with 4-seam? How heavy/sinky is Beeler, actually? And does he have much prospect of developing a good breaking pitch?

The scouts have seen him for more than a week, they've had fall instrux and his HS games too. But yes, if they can't really tell yet, then it's fine to try until he proves inadequate. Fleita is still the boss of the farm. fleita and his staff IMO have consistently been overly slow to make changes. Jake Fox catcher; Lemahieu and Flaherty at SS; Lake at SS. (I also wonder about Vitters at 3B....) Big-league defense is hard at any position. Waiting till AA or AAA to finally start practicing a guy at the spot he'll likely spend his career, not sure that's soon enough. Other thing, minor-leaguers have a grueling schedule and I'm not sure how much they practice once the season starts. So if a guy is going to move, I think it would help to be spending fall instrux and spring training working and practicing at a new spot, and then start a new year at the new spot(s). If a kid has spent all his life and all of his pro career at SS, to suddenly switch him to 2B or 3B in the middle of a week in June, that might be kind of disrupting.

3B and SS both demand super-strong arms. SS and 2B both benefit from extreme range. 3B requires some real quickness, because the ball is past you so fast; more time to see and react up the middle. A 2B typically participates in more outs than a SS, and much more than a 3B. It may be that 2B defense is undervalued, and that "settling" there is more problematic than compromising at some other spots. A SS with range, hands or bad mechanics problems at SS will probably have those same problems at 2B. I expect that Lake will be bad at 2B like he's bad at SS, although perhaps he won't make as many wild throws. At the same time, his quick reactions and his big arm might be better utilized at 3B. It may be that if Baez has quick but just isn't that rangy, that he'd be better suited at 3B also, certainly his arm is good for 3B. But if he's actually pretty good at SS, just not quite as rangy as the elite norm for big-league SS, perhaps his range at 2B will be fine. And his arm at 2B will be quite good, even if it's perhaps not quite as amazing as most regular SS's display. I don't think there is any overload of real 2B prospects. So if Baez ends up being only slightly underqualified for SS, but would be qualified at 2B, that might be a great advantage spot to put his bat. I'm hopeful for all of our prospects. But I don't think Cerda is really going to defend adequately, or have the power, to be a real factor. Watkins is too feeble offensively, and strikes out so much for a singles hitter, that he's a non-factor. My little-informed and admittedly premature understanding is that Devoss really has little aptitude for 2B, and is a remotely long shot to play big-league defensive 2b. Not counting the currrent SS's and Watkins, Torreyes is probably the one and only guy we've got who projects as a serious defensive 2B. So in a sense if Vitters is the only 3B, and Torreyes is the only real 2B, if Baez could handle 2B at a high level, I'm not sure that would be talent wasted or blocked. Plus, there's also the question of Castro himself. How likely that he stays at SS, and if he moves I wonder which way he'd more likely go? I guess to me it seems so unlikely that Baez will actually stay at SS, I'd really kind of rather he got practicing at his real big-league position(s) sooner rather than later.

Theo might be misguided (I think that he is on this point, because I think walks in themselves are both a valuable target and a good manifestation of plate discipline). But I think he was quoted as saying that plate discipline isn't about taking walks, that it's about swinging at good pitches. It may be that Vitters reduction of K's reflects that by the Theo or Mark-Peel definition, that he was indeed more disciplined and was swinging at fewer bad balls, even if he didn't actually take enough strikes to get into walk-counts. I'm not arguing the importance or walks and IsoD, I think it's huge myself. But I think there's a real possibility that we'll be very disappointed in finding that Theo's guys don't actually value or teach or coach our guys into taking significantly more walks.

That is pretty encouraging and exciting. Glad to hear some good encouragement on Malave; and about Candelario apart from just the DSL stats which are available to everybody, but which don't mean the when a scouting guy like Wilken watches the guy that he'll be equally impressed. And the continued enthusiasm for Hernandez. Would sure be sweet if those guys pan out as real prospects. Too bad that the there is no indication that the cba constraints aren't real.

Laura or Maddux, other than the comments on Rhee, Beliveau's control and body fat, and Baez, was there any other actual scouting comments made by management guys about specific players? Ha? Szczur? Antigua? McNutt? Castillo? Jensen? Golden? Wells? Dunston? Rosario?

Thanks much, maddux. Very interesting. Sounds like not much scouting info in the actual DOF session.

I'm glad to hear he was that fast. I hadn't gotten that impression from what I'd been told or read. Weren't some of the Boise games on internet broadcasts? I thought some of my friends said he was more like 89-93 when they were watching, or maybe that was listening to the radio or something. His stats didn't suggest he was overwhelmingly fast (low K, high hits, high ERA). Weird. I suppose 94-95 isn't really fast, although it isn't slow obviously. I'd guess that every org has a dozen guys who can hit 95. On Whitenack, I don't think anybody was spinning him as overwhelmingly fast, just as being no longer prohibitively slow. I think Whitenack was working because he had really good command, really good movement, and a really good offspeed pitch. Good command with a bad fastball gets you only so far, but good command with an average fastball adds up to an above-average guy.

I think we probably don't really have any right now, depending on how good we define "TOR" to be. McNutt I think is a longshot, although longshot is better than no shot and he's the best candidate in the full minors. I’m concerned that none of his individual pitches are special enough and that his control isn’t either, even when healthy. Pre-injury he was pretty fast, but he wasn't like Cashner/Z/Prior/Cruz/Wood/Guzman/Farnsworth in terms of velocity. His control was better than Archer, but it's not like Mike Mussina or one of these guys who's an ace at 91-94 velocity by virtue of command. I think he's got a chance to be very solid, and perhaps a if everything goes well a #2 type guy, but not really an elite #1 unless something changes radically for the better. For the low minors guys, I think Simpson and Maples. I know the board generally disliked Simpson's pick, and obviously he was awful last year. And even at draft time before the series of bad news-worse news since, his stuff wasn't touted as elite #1, more like good-but-not-great #3-#2 type. So as with McNutt, I'm probably hoping against the odds that he ends up being a good #2 rather than an overpowering dazzling #1. But I've still got him pretty high on my ranking list (relative to other lists I've seen). I was told that he was throwing 95 easily in Mesa recently, so I'm hopeful that he's going to have his arm back. No surprise that he wasn't good while pitching with a fractured elbow last year. Little can be evaluated when a guy is pitching hurt with 10-15 mph missing, so if in fact he's back 100%, I don't think last year's stuff really tells anything about his future. (I'm hoping that McNutt's struggles in spring, summer, and fall can likewise be dismissed based on a serious but completely recoverable injury. But his velocity was poor in spring training pre-blister; I don't think a blister last from April through AFL; and I'm not sure bruised ribs in May should have still been crippling him in October AFL. So I'm kinda worried that either he's just not very good even when healthy, or else that he's got arm problems that go beyond a blister and some bruised ribs, both of which seem like they should be injuries of limited duration). Maples sounds like he could have electric stuff. So in terms of TOR potential, he's the one guy in the system who seems to qualify. But, he's way distant and I think his control is lousy, much less his command. IF he can stay healthy, and somehow transforms into a coordinated athlete with good command, I think the sky is the limit. That's a remote IF, and it's not that often even for teenagers that wildmen end up transforming into TOR command. But a slim chance is better than no chance. Note: The good thing with pitchers is that they can develop in unpredictable ways. Some very good pitchers do it without being extraordinarily fast (Webb, Musina, Maddux, Glavine, etc..) And some guys who didn't look that overwhelming early can add velocity or add offspeed pitches over time that very much change their original profile. Dontrelle willis, who knew that he'd almost win the Cy Young award or finish near the top in ERA? Angel Guzman never actually made it as a starter, but neither his 7K/9IP as a 19 and 20-year old nor his velocity reports (good but not super-fast) really portended what he was later on, when he did become very fast and after he developed a good strikeout-inducing curveball. So maybe Ben Wells will end up faster, and will develop a strikeout-inducing breaking ball, even if neither his offspeed stuff nor his velocity was especially notable last summer. Maybe Willengton Cruz will still add a couple mph and become more consistently excellent. I had Whitenack at 15 on my list (post-Garza) last winter, but that was a reach and few others shared that; but with several extra mph that turned up over the offseason, he was a different guy. so maybe somebody who I don't recognize as being talented enough to be a TOR guy will surprise me.

Most of the thread has focused on trade possibilities that we'd like or dislike. My thinking is that Theo wants more than 2 years of control, whether that be with prospects or with a Garza extension. So I totally assume that they have worked hard for an extension, and have either been rebuffed or perhaps continue to work towards a resolution. It may be that trade talk has subdued because Hoyer is getting closer to an extension that he can live with. What do you guys think would be an over-under on an extension deal? Anything less is a good deal, but this is as far as I'd go, and anything over is worse than no deal at all? $60/5? $65/5? $75/6? $56/4? I think there are 5 basic outcomes possible: 1. A good trade for really good value. 2. A good extension for good value. 3. No trade, no extension, nothing at all. 4. A bad trade for poor value 5. A bad-value, bad-risk extension My preferences are 1 > 2 > 3. Clearly to date Hoyer has felt that options 1 and 2 haven't been available, so he's been choosing 3 over 4 +5.