craig

Even if Maples was 100% healthy and they weren't tinkering with his mechanics, I never expected to see him in any box scores till short-season. It would have been a shock if he'd opened with Peoria. There was every indication that the Cubs pursued him with the understanding that he was wild and inconsistent and that they'd want/need to rework his delivery. Now is the time, and arizona is the place. The wrinkle is to what degree the "minor arm issue" is impacting. In the BA article, they mentioned the delivery first and the injury second. So hopefully the injury really is insignificant and will have no impact down the road. I love the farm box scores, so as a fan I love to see guys get to full season. But objectively, I totally think that XST makes much more sense for most of the younger kids. With Peoria, you play for three hours, but there is one single hitting coach and one single pitching coach, you're trying to find your way to the hotel, you're unpacking your stuff, you're trying to find where a Burger King is in Beloit, a day or two later you're spending hours getting ready for a bus and riding for hours to Grand Rapids. I don't think there's that much time for coaching and teaching. I don't know, but I'd guess most guys don't do any extended coached batting practice more than once a week, other than a few hacks before the game. In XST, the dorms are right near the fields. Multiple coaches. Classrooms set up for instruction. All the workout equipment, rehab stuff, medicals, nutritionist, etc.. I'd guess you can get tons more practice and instruction in XST than at Peoria. We can mock "Cubs way". But if "Cubs way" means that you practice and learn and spend hours on baseball every day and get lots of batting practice and coaching and fielding practice, instead of just going out and practicing all of your bad habits for 4 AB a day so that they become uncorrectable, mark me a big fan.

Maples not being healthy is common knowledge? What's the issue? BA had the following:

In the comments, responding to a toonster Q, Phil said that Acosta looks very stiff at SS and won't stay, compares him to what Lake looks like now, but said that he is a beast offensively with big-time power.

It was possible that Lake would be AAA and Szczur would be A+, but it had been hinted that both would be at AA. And this doesn't necessarily mean one of them might not get demoted once more (at least Szczur could) after they arrive at minor league camp. True. But it's usually fairly solid once they get optioned to that level from major league camp at this point of the spring. Not too surprising for Lake. He hasn't been able to hit in small-sample camp (hitting down in the .100's in Arizona while most guys are in the .300's), and he had only a 2-month can't-hit stretch in AA (.300 OBP, .600's OPS). He's a nice athletic body, as Sveum noted. A good dancer, but he's still shown no indication that he can either hit or field. Hopefully this year with a repeat at AA, he'll step it up and start to show some hint of transforming tools into production. This would seem to be a could opportunity to show he's getting there. Last year he showed progress when he repeated at Daytona, riding a nice .392 BABIP to get his OPS over .800 and his OBP at .336. I'm hoping that he can reduce his K rate a little bit this year, maybe get it down below 23%, and hopefully add more HR's so that he can get his K/HR ratio down below 7. I'm not sure that he'll be sustainably a .392 BABIP guy, so I'm hoping he can improve in the HR/BB/K departments so that even when assuming his BABIP does decline, that his overall numbers won't sag that much. I still think his game is as a toolsy power hitter. If a guy can hit 25 HR and play a rangy rocket-armed RF, he can afford to whiff a lot and walk not so much. With 25 HR, you can hit .280 even if you're BABIP is "only" .330 and even if you're still K'ing 23% of your AB. And if you hit 25 HR, you might get a few more "respect" walks. So if he could improve his walk rate in the antiawful direction up to 6%, combined with a HR-enabled .280 average, you could have an OBP over .320. Big year for him, and I'm really eager to see when they finally get around to putting him at a position that he might play in the majors, and whether if they get him off of SS he might look good somewhere else. At 3B or RF, will he still be erratic and non-instinctive, and play below his tools? Or in RF might he actually look really good, like a significant asset guy? Or will he be like a defensive Soriano before Alf's legs went bad? My understanding is that Szczur has looked very good in camp. I think I'm more optimistic about him than most of the board, since I'm optimistic about everybody and I think what struggles he's had have been too brief to conclude that they are enduring. But I don't at all like the prospect of him starting at AA. He had only a .270 BABIP at Daytona. If he looks like he's AA-ready based on camp, that's beautiful, and I hope it's true. But send him back to Daytona and let him produce there for at least a couple of weeks. If it's May 10th and he's producing like we optimists think he can, then move him up, he's earned it, and he'll still have most of the full summer to figure things out against the superior AA pitching. You've learned that your favorable evaluation is justified, and then see how it holds up in AA. But if he starts at Tenn, and he struggles again, what do you learn? You'll just be back to the "he's really inexperienced, at 22 he's still relatively age-young so give him time, he's still learning the game and how to apply his tools to baseball....". So I hope he starts at Daytona. Or if he does start at Tennessee, that he is hitting (and walking) so well that I have no reason to second guess. It could be fun to have some good hitters in AA/AAA this spring. Jackson/Rizzo/Vitters/Castillo (if he's there), that's the best group of Iowa guys in a while. Perhaps Ridling, maybe Flaherty will be back there too, supplemented by decent-hitting vets like wright, Adduci, and Lalli, that could be a very good lineup. And if Szczur is at AA, Szczur/Lake/Ha, those guys probably won't be all that productive relative to the competition, but still those are three real prospects, any one of which could emerge as a really substantial prospect if in fact any of them really does hit like a star, given that Lake and Szczur are only 22 and Ha only 21, and that with Szczur's lack of experience he's probably a very "young" 22 in terms of development.

Ok that sounds like when all is said and done he will have a good shot at ending up in Daytona when camp breaks. Also likely considering the similar climate in Daytona verses Peoria come April. Plus, he'll likely have a few fellow countrymen for teammates in Del Valle and Silva. Add Del valle to the injured list. We'll see with Concepcion's assignment level. Earlier I'd assumed he'd just go to XST (for instruction), or Peoria (to get the extra options year). But as you say, if they really are putting with the Tennessee group, combined with the Daytona weather and the Cuban camaraderie, Daytona does seem pretty plausible. It may be that they aren't at all concerned about the options factor. Hoyer said he's 20, (I'd been under the impression he was 19...), and repeatedly alluded to how advanced he is. So they may not be worried that it's going to take him five years to develop. Three years to work things through in the minors may be plenty, and if he's not ready to stick four years out, one more year probably won't matter anyway? They probably aren't giving him $6 million and a big-league contract with the view that he won't be ready within 4 years. Personally, given his late start, and given that I think they have some mechanical issues they want to adjust, I'd perhaps keep him in XST till May. By that time Peoria will be warm enough, and I'd maybe ship him there. If he looks great there, move him on up. But if he's struggling, or the mechanical adjustments or breaking-ball adjustments aren't taking quickly, maybe I'd leave him in Peoria to get that extra option year, just in case.

I'm not that surprised on ... .. - that's a lot of corner guys that need PT. I wonder if this suggests that Marco Hernandez and Gioskar Amaya are impressing so far, or have a higher chance of starting at full season than many expected. I wonder because ... b) The potential downward pressure is ... Arismendy Alcantara? Wes Darvill? Dustin Harrington? Pierre LePage? (I'm assuming Torreyes is locked into a spot in Daytona). Hard for me to see one of those guys displacing Hernande or Amaya if either shows enough in spring. I'm excited. I know I was far higher on Marco Hernandez than ... well ... anyone.. I wonder if part of the "Cubs Way" will value at least one extended spring training as the default for teenagers. Once you have daily games in full-season, there isn't that much time for practice and skills training and fundamentals. I think XST is much more training/instruction oriented. Hernandez has already experienced a full XST, plus a full year of training in the DSL academy. So he should be much better prepared.

Are we sure that means injured and it's not a catchall for something else? With some of those names, it could be that the Cubs want to be careful because they're changing mechanics or are strictly monitoring pitch counts and the like as a precaution. No, I'm not 100% certain what it means, and perhaps there are some exceptional circumstances. I do recall looking with both interest and trepidation at Phil's list for many springs past, and "LIMITED PARTICIPATION" IIRC always or usually was somebody with injury issues. For all we know somebody has a blister or a sprained ankle, and it's no precursor to shoulder surgery.

http://www.thecubreporter.com/2012/03/09/cubs-minor-league-camp-rosters Maybe mentioned in some other thread, but Arizona Phil with minor league camp rosters. The most interesting aspect is always the "LIMITED PARTICIPATION" guys, which means guys who are injured. Maples is the headliner. Anybody know anything about that? How serious? Whitehurt, no surprise, although Fleita had duped some of us into wondering. Gretzky (I understood he wasn't 100% last year, but hadn't expected him to remain disabled this spring...), Schlecht, Urban, Elias, Easterling. A pretty big chunk of our superslot/overslot pool from last summer that we were so excited about.

How fast did Corpas or Parker look? Somebody has to be the 12th man, and I have no idea who that's going to be at present. Some guy I hardly think about might get that job.

Zero, did you see Lendy Castillo also? Any thoughts or observations on his stuff?

Were you actually watching, or just get that from box score? If you were watching, any scouting observations on him? Fast? Sharp breaking ball? Would love to see some young pitcher emerge as being legit.

http://muskat.mlblogs.com/ Stupid place to put this, probably. But Muskat has lineups for today's intrasquad game. I'm sure it doesn't mean anything, but an interesting thing is that on one team it's Szczur in left with Sappelt in center. The other team has Ha in center with Campana in left. Always just trying to look at guys, I'm sure. Ha's ability to play great CF might impact his career. Whether or not Sappelt can play a decent center field could impact his chances to make this roster or a future roster as a utility guy. (Or perhaps as a platoon guy some day, if for example Jackson gets eaten alive by big-league lefties...) I think whether or not Szczur is an asset CFer or is below-average or below-Ha or below-Jackson defensively might also impact his future.

Good: 1. Szczur is somewhat better at everything. Under new direction of the new regime, he walks a lot more, with another year of maturation combined with the more patient/selective approach he hits with more power, he's healthy from the start so he's stealing more, and his defense is better too. K's a lot more too, of course, but he emerges as the real deal. 2. Torreyes keeps hitting, and he too adds some walks while playing excellent defense. 3. Vitters surprised everybody and has a pretty good year. Hits .330 with over 20 HR's, improves his selectivity a bit, and looks OK in after a move to LF in mid-season. 4. Vogelbach is not sensational, but he has a good season. 5. Ha hits 18 HR's, makes some anti-awful strides in his walk rate, and starts to look like hie could hit enough HR's to make it in a corner or CF. Bad: 1. Baez whiffs too much, walks too little, hit too few HR's, and makes too many errors. 2. Dunston can't hit at all. Looks like a wasted million. 3. Jackson doesn't hit as many HR's, K's more than ever, and with so many K's and not so many HR's, he struggles to hit .260. 4. Reggie Golden gets completely overmatched in Peoria. He starts out whiffing, and by the time the weather warms up he's got no HR's and his batting average is .150. 5. Marco Hernandez is a disappointment at Peoria. No progress, no speed, no power.

I'll be borrowing from some of the others, but use a different format: Beliveau: Good, remains excellent. He goes up to the Cubs by July, does well, and establishes himself as a keeper. McNutt: Bad. He's again mediocre, too many HR's, too many walks, too few K's, not really that fast, not really any signature breaking pitch. Kind of the 2012 Jay Jackson. Any top-100 consideration is long foggy history by October. Hayden Simpson: Good. He's a new man, he flashes 95's and 96's on occasion, he blends in some good breaking pitches, and works in the 88-93 range comfortably. Neither his fastball nor any individual pitch is exceptional, but he commands his arsenal well enough to look like a a realistic rotation prospect. He reaches Daytona for sure, and perhaps even Tennessee. He is a candidate for top-100 lists by October. He's one of the big breakout guys. Whitenack: Bad and Good. The stuff about being back and starting the season is baloney. By August, he's pitching pretty regularly, and hopes are reasonable that he'll be good again in 2013. But too soon to tell. Rhee: Good. Is effective in AA, and looks like a decent back-of-rotation prospect, perhaps even does so well that he emerges as a fringy top-100 prospect. Dolis: Bad. Wild as always. Maples: Good. Control shows some progress, and he flashes at times at Boise. Wells: Bad. Doesn't show much progress. Concepcion: Good. Looks smooth, has good control and consistency, gets velocity reports of 95-96 on occasion, and there are flashes of a good breaking ball. Top-100 guy next winter. He's a big breakout guy. Zych: Bad. Wild, inconsistent. Cates: Good. Everything improves. Velocity is good, command improves, changeup improves, and slider shows some promise. Very effective at Daytona, but struggles in late-season Tennessee showing. Kurcz: Bad. As inconsistent as before, no sign of progress. Allows too many HR's. Struck: Good. Forgotten prospect, he has a good year at Iowa. Doesn't emerge as any thriller prospect, but looks like a major leaguer in some role. Breaking stuff gets more consistent, command improves, and he remains an anti-HR guy. Antigua: Bad. Too many HR's, not consistent enough to get by with his fringy stuff. Beeler: Good. Not dramatically knockout good, but everything is somewhat better. A little faster and more consistently so. A little more command with his fastball. Slider is sharper. Adds a cutter that really helps him. Becomes less aggressive, so he walks more but more nibbles get more K's and cut way down on the HR's. Rosario: Bad. Not enough control or command, too inconsistent. Jensen: Good. Lacks the big name, but outpitches everybody at Boise. Heh, this is fun. If half of the pitching prospects come out "good", that's probably pretty unrealistically optimistic, isn't it.

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.