ChiefsVoice

I was told they are NOT a piggyback tandem and that Bristow is just in our bullpen like Harman, Antigua, Shafer and Gonzalez

That is correct. He was in Vermont and Hagerstown (South Atl League) last season. Had 6 walks last night which was also an issue for him last season. He is a lefty who was the Nats #16 prospect before the 2010 season. Former 4th round pick out of high school in Lakeland, Florida. If he can get the walks down, should be very good this season. Same kinda issues Chris Archer had when he joined us in 2009 after the DeRosa trade.

Well, all Cub minor leaguer starters are on pitch counts. I don't know whether his pitch count might be lower than other starters or not but it's not surprising that he didn't make it through 4 since he struck out 7. Also, Simpson threw 3.2 last time out. At first, I thought his start got cut short due to a rain delay. There was a 56 minute delay in that game. But the opposing pitcher went 6 IP, then I didn't know what to think. At least we know he's not hurt. Speaking of which, has anyone gotten confirmation that McNutt only had a blister? That is entirely possible regarding the rain delay. I was not aware they had had one. Rain delay had nothing to do with it. The delay was a suspension after 8 innings with the game resumed the next day. All our starters are on 70-75 pitches the first few times around and Hayden threw 67 pitches in 3.2 innings on Thursday with 43 strikes, hence the 7k. He will be in the same boat today followed again by Eric Jokisch.

Flores took a foul ball off the chin in one of the final Spring games, so he is in "Deep Rehab". Not sure about any of the others.

A slight correction... Peoria vs. Cedar Rapids, not At. First 4 at home...then 19 of the next 22 are on the road...which is tough for the team, hopefully good for the box office. Should have the roster Monday, look forward to contributing here again this season. And our Listen Live has changed online, check it out at http://www.peoriachiefs.com/listenlive right now we are streaming interviews in a loop with Quade, Kasper, Oneri, Kopitzke and Kevin Goldstein from Baseball Prospectus. Nathan

Wayyyy under rated. I'm not going to call any of these young kids that I work with over-rated. Thats not good for business! I've said on here before that I will not be surprised when Cerda is the 1st or 2nd position player from this year's Chiefs team to make it to the Majors. He can play 2B or 3B and plays both well. More power than I expected, drove in nearly 80 runs. Good speed, a gamer in every sense of the word. He just "gets" baseball and was a definite leader of our 2009 team. Had Ha been with us on Opening Day instead of still experimenting behind the plate he would have been qualified for the top 8 in average. Plays a very good corner OF, can play center if needed, works hard and is a clubhouse goofball always having fun and keeping things loose. Struck is a bulldog and very confident. He just needs to continue to learn and mature. He was really an interesting guy to be around. Very solid interview and was really the first time he had ever been away from home on a regular basis since he played summer ball in Oregon in 2009 and went to CC right by home as well.

1. Brett Jackson 1a. Archer 1b. Vitters 1c. Lee 2. I'm going to skip this one 3. Cerda, Struck and Ha. I also agree with the previous poster on Batista being a sleeper. Though a 5'8 pitcher is never going to get a ton of pub or have a lot of expectations.

we did?? Ha. that's news to me.

best defensive shortstop I've ever seen at this level. On any team. He could play SS in the Majors right now. Remember BA only sees him 1-2 times a season. Everything else is just word of mouth.

i hate this list. Turner and Hicks are not top 10. I like McNutt more than Miller though I get the ranking. Lee is way better than Segura and Franklin can't play defense.... Davell to your other questions: Will Cerda ever be a 20 homer guy? No but he will add some pop. And will not be out-worked. Cabrera is a very good comparison for Lopez. Both struggled to throw strikes their first time through Low-A. Archer too. Hopefully that will improve. Another thing to keep an eye on is that Lopez is one of the few pitchers I have ever seen to wear glasses while he pitches. And they gave him trouble on humid nights in August here. Hopefully that is something that can be worked on and in the future. Casey was fantastic. The guys seem to really enjoy playing for him and being around him. He takes the losses hard and does a lot of teaching. We were such a young team all season pretty much at every position so he had a lot of teaching to do, not just baseball but about living away from home, maturing, how to act off the field, etc. I think all Casey needs is more experience. Its great having him with two older and experienced coaches in Rosario and Garbey and Casey is very hands-on in learning from them. I think the AFL appointment tells you what the Cubs think of him and that he is on the fast track.

i don't know if it was Ha's walk rate or his lack of pre-season pub. Hopefully Callis mentions him at some point. Antigua and Jung were both shoulder injuries. If we had more than a week left in the season they both would have stayed in Peoria. Neither seemed overly serious. Antigua was getting ready to come in the game and asked out. Jung followed the next day. Struck was always low 90s. probably peaks about 93. Which could grow as he gets older and stronger. Cerda can definitely play 2nd. His hands are very good as are his instincts for 2nd. He can't play the SS that Watkins can IMO but can play 3rd. Both could play the OF if need be too and Watkins did for us in both LF and CF this season. Honestly I think Cerda, Lee and Watkins will have a great race to the Majors. I didn't see enough of Lopez to accurately comment. Two of his outings were abbreviated because of Silva's starts. And his first two were 30 pitches only cause of his blister. Both struggled to throw strikes with us. There is a lot to like about Wallach though. New to pitching and already looks like a pitcher and that he knows what he is doing. Receptive to learning, has the makeup of a major leaguer with the background and knows what it takes. When he threw strikes he was very good, mixed his pitches well and racked up Ks. Struggled with us a big when he didnt throw his off speed stuff for strikes and fell behind in the count. Hope that helps!!

Jim Callis telling me over twitter that "Two of them will get some pub! @nbaliva: MWL Top 20 is Friday? Hoping we see some of this year's @PeoriaChiefs getting some pub!" Guessing that means Lee and McNutt. No doubt Trout will be #1. I hope McNutt gets above Turner and Miller but we'll see. If any of you join the chat on Friday I'd love to hear what Jim thinks of Cerda and Ha who are both drastically under rated. And Struck and Whitenack too. Seriously its impossible that anyone thought in March that Cerda would have over 70 RBI and he walked as much as he K'd in the 3 slot. Will excel even more when he doesn't have to bat 3rd. And what Ha did in 3 months was phenomenal. Had he joined us in April, Jae-Hoon would have finished in the top 5 in Avg. Hope your off-seasons are all going well. Thanks for the support all season and if you get a chance head over to Milb.com and vote for the Chiefs (and Iowa) as Promos of the Year! We are nominated for having Maddux jersey retired and Iowa for a unique bobble head!

You are correct that we didn't make it in the first half. However, we are currently in the Wild card spot for the 2nd half. Quad Cities and Cedar Rapids are already qualified for the playoffs so when looking at the standings for the 2nd half just pretend they aren't there and take the next 2 teams. Which means right now Kane County is the Champion, 3 games up on us and we are the Wild Card, 1.5 games up on Clinton. So we are very much in the thick of things for the 2nd half playoff spot.

Wow, either he's bumped his velocity up (which is possible...and awesome) or that gun is a bit hot. MiLB.com made a bit of an error and combined Antigua's and Jung's numbers for a little while, making it look like Antigua went 6 scoreless innings with 11 Ks. I was beginning to wonder what the hell was happening in Beloit. honestly, the Beloit scorer didnt notice that Jung was on the hill and not Antigua...hmmm one is Korean and right-handed the other is Dominican and left-handed. way to pay attention Beloit. And that gun is a bit hot...

I'm not really sure why Suarez was demoted. He's struggled of late but it didn't seem like he was doing so poorly as to get demoted. Rogelino Carmona was demoted from Boise to Mesa as the corresponding move to this. I'm not sure either. He's got some fire and emotion, very similar to Zambrano. I wonder if there was an expression of that, which didn't agree with management. There was no such expression, Larry is a great kid. Not much fire/emotion off the field at all really. A quiet guy. He just wasn't throwing strikes. Lot of 3-2 or 3-1 counts and running up his pitch count to where he only threw 1 inning a few times in the middle of games.

I thought Walks just clogged the bases \:D/

Hmm. Starlin Castro had a SLG of .569 in 109 AB with 9 walks thrown in. In the Southern League. At 20 (only 3 days older). As a SS. Starlin looks to have more filling out to do, than does Lake also. Granted Castro hasn't shown the HR power that Lake has, but he's also never spent an entire year at any 1 level. Just saying, don't rule out Castro yet. Hanley's 18-20 year old minor league seasons look a lot like Castro's. I don't think Castro will get there with the power, though it is certainly still possible. And without a doubt, he's proven one heck of a lot more than Lake at this point. But I love the ceiling that Lake provides. as long as he never needs to throw to 1st, Lake is in good shape. Not sure the Chiefs have had an infielder I trusted less with the game on the line and a simple grounder hit his way...

Sandberg was in Cooperstown, New York so it wasn't his call. From the Iowa website: "In his absence, the rest of the full-time staff will "manage" their area of the team with assistance from Cubs' Catching Coordinator Marty Pevey, who will also be in uniform tonight."

Shoulder and yes Sunday he will follow Jung.

I don't have Martin's scouting report off the top, but the chances are high that he was given a quick call-up to AAA because of proximity. It's probably the same situation for Yohan Gonzalez. exactly. Cause we had a day off Tuesday and they need pitching for the DH until Coleman threw a CG in game 1. Plus there isnt exactly a direct flight from Knoxville or Daytona. Gonzalez is already back with us after throwing 5 pitches last night.

For everything below AA the official scorer calls in to MILB's New York headquarters after every half inning. They just say Ramirez flies to right, Jones groundball single to center, Lee infield single to shortstop, Perez 3 run homer to right etc...there is no designation for calling anything a linedrive. Hell even the groundball ones are misleading cause I bet half the scorers get it wrong if the ball bounces right on the edge of the OF grass... Plus not everything is keyed in right by the MiLB people on the other end of the phone. We have to email in ER/scoring/hit/error mistakes 2-3 times a week...

Jung not Antigua. Jung's start was rained out Tuesday so he jumps back in tonight. Antigua is getting skipped. He will re-enter the rotation on Sunday at Cedar Rapids. So we have Jung, Struck, Searle, Antigua and Whitenack before the 7.13 offday for the MLB All-Star Game.

Not exactly sure why he was sent down although his numbers for the 2nd half last season were not good and he struglled ina couple outings last season. Maybe some one who is more into Sabremetrics than I am can tell us if he was just getting lucky the 1st half of last season (kinda like Jung this year in April) and the numbers just evened out. The thing I do like about him is that he isn't afraid. Runners on base don't bother him like they do some pitchers at this level. He also changed some mechanics in working with our pitching coach after he arrived in Peoria and saw immediate results with a quicker delivery. Two outings ago he developed a blister on his middle finger and got shelled. As for the attitude issue, I've always heard the exact same things both last year and this year. He and I get along fine when I've talked to him. Ryan has been approachable and friendly and surprisingly doesnt have an Australian accent.

Sorry I slacked on getting this answered. Suarez has been outstanding. He throws strikes, throws hard and doesnt get rattled with runners on base. I've been very impressed so far in his few weeks on the team.

91 pitches. thats his problem, lot of 3-2 counts. We just got home, im off to bed...