Scotti

I agree. The problem, however, is that Hendry has not had the Yankee nor Boston resources to spend over time. For 2003-2005 the Cardinals actually outspent the Cubs at just over $86M per for the Cards to just under $86M for the Cubs. (BOS averaged $117M per year and the NNY spent $182M). I did a study a while back that showed for the first 6 years of Hendry's being the Cub GM the Cubs salary averaged 7th per season in MLB where the Cards averaged finishing 8th. Not a huge advantage and the Cubs won three divisions in six years. Hendry HAS had a large payroll over the past three years ($133M), no doubt about that. But the payroll has also been virtually frozen during that time frame (with Hendry having to move/not resign pieces just to back-load guys like Bradley). While $133M falls short of BOS ($141M) and the Yankees ($208M) it isn't just the dollar amount difference that is stark. Hendry has had his hands tied for several seasons while the appropriately named Cashman and Theo spend their respective ways out of bad deals and under-performing players (Dice-K, Giambi, etc.). Cashman was able to reinvest the money he "saved" from expiring contracts (signing both Teixeira and CC Sabathia in ONE season) while Hendry has numerous expiring contracts this season and next and his payroll is being CUT. For Boston, Dice-K didn't work out and Josh Beckett isn't the guy you've paid him to be? Keep spending and throw $82.5M at John Lackey (John Lackey!). Julio Lugo didn't work out and JD Drew has just been a part-timer for you (who didn't see THAT one coming)? Just spend $142M on Crawford and lord knows what on Adrian Gonzalez. Cashman and Theo were never constrained by Andy MacPhail/Tribune (again, being outspent by the Cards for three seasons) nor have they been constrained by Zell/Ricketts on the back end. That is how Cash and Theo make, in hindsight, poor decisions and yet keep on winning. Signed a free agent that didn't work out (or had to stop using roids)? Here, go spend some more. They outspend their mistakes. That's a great gig if you can get it and Hendry has not had it. Again, I agree. The team should have used it's resources to fund replacements for Prior, Wood, Lee, etc. That is what NYY and BOS have done. But the team did not extend those resources to Hendry except for 2007 (and his teams followed that with 2 division titles). The Cubs have the largest American fan base in baseball (the Yanks have a larger worldwide fan base but the Cubs are larger here). They have an excellent market (Chicago) and on top of that their radio broadcasts reach 45 stations and their televised broadcasts are national. They have the 1st or 2nd most expensive tickets. As such, they SHOULD be consistently in the top 1-2-3 salaried teams in baseball. But the team has had poor ownership that has failed to capitalize on these facts. They didn't reinvest in Wrigley, the Triangle project, Mesa, etc. so greater revenue would come in. They were content with the lopsided WGN deals instead of branding their own network. I think that it is obvious that the reason that the Trib and, later, Zell didn't reinvest in the infrastructure was that they knew they were looking to sell. But it doesn't matter WHY Hendry didn't have a consistently high budget like BOS or NYY--he just didn't. So, of his 8 years as Cub GM, Hendry had a modest 7th place budget (average) for 3 years (especially modest given the team resources). It climbed in 2006 but mostly to pay the players that he had brought on/developed (Lee, Ramirez, Zambrano, Wood, etc.). The payroll was still reasonable at $99.4M and even after the big FA year of 2007 it was still just at $99.7M. The combination of Zell and Ricketts have, since then, put the kibosh on adding to payroll beyond programmed ups. So, 8 years and he was able to spend like Cashman/Theo for 1 of those years. Cashman and Theo get to spend nearly every year. Theo has outspent Hendry by $188M since 2003. And that has been spread out over time. For Hendry to have had continued success with just one "spending year" he'd have had to have been Nostradamus.

I doubt the Garza deal goes down because nearly all of Hendry's trades are made quickly. He is know by his peers as being a GM who you can do a deal without him trying to hold out for a an even better deal. To me this means that Hendry has already offered what he thinks Garza is worth. Either Tampa budges or Hendry gives more than he thinks Garza is worth. I can only recall the Pierre deal as one where it dragged on and it was actually completed.

The author of the article made a big deal of Tony LaCava's work with the Blue Jays. LaCava wasn't even with the Jays until '03. Our very own Tim Wilken was the man behind those picks.

When I say something like that though I'm the bad guy. That's what I don't understand. High schoolers drafted in the same draft as Vitters, who are pretty much the same age as him are succeeding in Advanced A. That is something to be more legitimately excited about. I mean you expect more out of Josh Vitters than Nick Noonan, right? I don't know. I think if Brewers fans were being obnoxious about a prospect of theirs like that that's the first thing I would point out. How many top high school position prospects drafted so highly were in short season more than one full calendar year after the draft? Noonan... If Vitters were hitting .277/.312/.403/.716 in High A this year folks would go cataleptic. .335/.369/.524/.893 (SS/Low A combined) hasn't been enough to earn Vitters (18 y/o) a reprieve. For many, Vitters hitting .277/.312/.403/.716 would not be considered "succeeding" regardless of where he was doing it and at what age (see earlier in this very thread). No bridge would be safe if Vitters were hitting .258/.296/.357/.653 in the second half (as is Noonan in 213 AB). Moustakas (full season league)... Moustakas is a FULL year older than Vitters (09/11/1988 - 08/27/1989). Either age means something or it doesn't. If Vitters had started out .228/.285/.386/.671 in the first half of the year (as did Moustakas over 259 AB) he would have needed a Secret Service detail if not the Witness Protection Program. His age is very league appropriate (and then some) and his success this year has kept some fans off his back. Some. And about power... Moustakas has almost exactly double Vitters' AB this year (465/233). Moustakas has 47 Xtra base hits--a good total for a 19 y/o in Low A. Vitters has 32 Xtra base hits--also a very nice total for a 18 y/o kid in SS and a far better ratio than Moustakas. Even with Moustakas' extra HR's his isolated power is .198 and Vitters' is .189. I think the jury is out on who will hit for better power. "Boise is a great place to hit"... Vitters is hitting .333/.361/.541/.902 on the road and a nearly mirrored .352/.397/.519/.915 at Boise. 38 hits at home and 37 hits on the road. Vitters has hit the ball Home (.352) and Away (.333), Left (.382) and Right (.329), Day (.385) and Night (.340), June (.357), July (.315) and August (.356). The kid has hit. Period. This isn't taking away from other team's prospects. Putting up less than awful numbers as an 18 or 19 y/o in full season is really pretty good. It is, however, a reflection of Vitters' talent. Putting up awesome numbers in SS is pretty darn good too.

State Farm, Boeing, Sears, Walgreens, Motorola, Allstate, McDonald's, Sara Lee, Exelon... Moo and Oink Field...

I disagree. Andrew Miller is case in point. Clear #1 as HS kid but with signability issues he dropped to round 3 and went to college. IIRC Prior was a legit 1st rounder who dropped to 2nd and didn't sign. In fact many HS guys who fall do so because they want high/mid 1st round cash and teams picking in the late 1st and supplemental round are unwilling to fork over the cash to take them/risk a kid not signing (and, in the past, lose their 1st round pick). This generally does NOT happen to college players unless they have other legit options (Samardzija). Returning to college for a senior season is generally not a legit option as this player then has no bargaining option. So it really only happens to guys like Veal (concerns about his commitment to education) or Prior or Miller who ALL had legit options left (college). Signability for a college player generally means "Boras" (or similar) and that player usually doesn't slide far. Signability for a HS often means he has a solid option of going to college to improve his status--college players cannot go back to HS. Scrolling through Brewerfan.net I ran across this diddy re Wieters, "Had Wieters not made it be known that he intended to honor his commitment to Georgia Tech coming out of high school, he likely would have been a first-round pick in 2004." And this on Price, "In high school Price was also a very talented hitter, and would have been selected in the first three rounds had he not made his intentions to attend Vanderbilt clear to scouts." And this for Moskos (they rate him 6th), "Moskos stands to be the best left-handed pitcher drafted out of Clemson since Tyler Lumsden, a first round supplemental pick in 2004." And Brackman, "Brackman was well known coming out of high school, where his two-sport star status made him an incredibly tough sign." So all four of their top college players for this year were either picked in the first, or dropped considerably as high schoolers as "tough signs."

I disagree. Andrew Miller is case in point. Clear #1 as HS kid but with signability issues he dropped to round 3 and went to college. IIRC Prior was a legit 1st rounder who dropped to 2nd and didn't sign. In fact many HS guys who fall do so because they want high/mid 1st round cash and teams picking in the late 1st and supplemental round are unwilling to fork over the cash to take them/risk a kid not signing (and, in the past, lose their 1st round pick). This generally does NOT happen to college players unless they have other legit options (Samardzija). Returning to college for a senior season is generally not a legit option as this player then has no bargaining option. So it really only happens to guys like Veal (concerns about his commitment to education) or Prior or Miller who ALL had legit options left (college). Signability for a college player generally means "Boras" (or similar) and that player usually doesn't slide far. Signability for a HS often means he has a solid option of going to college to improve his status--college players cannot go back to HS.

From everything Wilken and co. have said, it looks like Samardzija is going to be starting at Daytona. Wilken recently said: “Spring Training will tell us more and more about where he’ll end up starting,” Wilken said. “I don’t think it’s such a bad thing for him to start at Daytona, but after five weeks of pitching in Arizona, maybe all of a sudden we’ll see a more advanced version of Jeff because he’s gotten into a routine and it’s not as inconceivable that he’ll be somewhere else.” AA is "conceivable."

A "bad hammy" is an injury. "The grind" is being tired from playing a lot of games.

No current MLB player has had any success by being as impatient as Kendrick. I can’t think of any recent player who has. Pierre and Ichiro are both “contact” guys as well but they have succeeded (with higher BB ratios) because they bunt a lot due to their fantastic speed and pitchers simply don‘t want to walk either of them so they throw both hitters strikes. Kendrick has decent but not fantastic speed. In most situations no veteran MLB pitcher will think second about throwing ball one, two, three or four to a guy who doesn’t take walks and doesn’t have plus, plus speed. If he wants strikes he'll need to take some more walks.

:shock: When you have a BA of .359, your OBP should be higher than .404. a .404 OBP with a .359 BA is better than a .404 OBP with a .290 BA. Kendrick will have neither a .404 OBP with a .359 BA nor a .404 OBP with a .290 BA--he simply will not have a .404 OBP. History doesn't have much to say about guys with sub 5% walk ratios keeping their BA up and that was my point. Either his walk ratio must greatly improve (you correctly point out that isn't likely) or he will (eventually) see fewer strikes than Corey Patterson on an 0 and 2 count. Remember, Kendrick has only seen a partial year in AA. Guys in higher leagues will eventually take advantage of his free swining ways. IMO, Kendrick's CEILING is .861 OPS (he would need to hit .310) for a reportedly defensively challenged 2B without great speed or power--I don’t believe he is likely to have an .861 OPS. IMO, he will NOT be a successful MLB hitter with a 4-5% walk ratio.

Kendrick has a minor league career .359 BA and 32 HBP in only 1185 AB but only a .404 career OBP. He walks only 5% of his AB (and only 4% over each of the last two years--Pie walked 7% and 9% over the last 2 years). His speed and power aren’t great and his defense is suspect. His MLB value is mostly attached to his elevated batting average. Of the 18 active MLB players who have a .303 career average or better all but 2 have been assisted by home field advantage (Helton and Walker/ Coors), plus, plus speed (Ichiro, Pierre) or at least plus power (Pujos, Vlad, Nomar, Manny, Piazza, Frank Thomas, ARod, Magglio Ordonez, IRod, Mike Sweeney, Chipper Jones and Bobby Abreu). Kendrick fits none of those categories. Jeter and Sean Casey are the two outliers and both walk 10%. Even Ichiro (7%), Pierre (7%), Nomar (7%) and Vlad (10% and even 7% non-intentional) have significantly higher walk rates than Kendrick. But even if Kendrick bats .310 (really, really high considering his free swinging ways) you STILL lose 49 OBP points and 49 SLG points (.355/.506). IF his other numbers remain the same (Kendrick has never been age challenged for his league) he’d be at an .861 OPS. An .861 OPS is still good but not all that hot for a guy stuck at 2B (can’t play SS, CF, 3B, C or P and an .861 OPS isn’t all that special for a non-toolsy LF, RF or 1B). Kendrick should be a nice player but I would not trade Pie for him.

A few corrections about Pierre’s game: Last year Pierre was among the MLB leaders in TAKING the first pitch (8th among the 341 players with 200 or more AB). Last year Pierre only swung at 11.4% of first pitches where 27.6% was the MLB average). Pierre swung and missed pitches 2.5% of the time (4th MLB. The average was 8.0%). Pierre was about league average at Pitches Per Plate Appearance (with 3.69 while 3.75 was average). That is a very high total given that he swings and misses so rarely. Pierre was NOT among the MLB leaders in foul %. As a rule contact hitters do not foul of a high % of pitches. http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2006/02/swinging_taking.php Also, Pierre’s WORST seasons occurred when he had the most K’s: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/stats?playerId=4486 Finally if fewer HR are hit because fewer players are doing steroids then speed and SB have added value.

Zito has a great curve, less of a fast ball than Hill and a decent change. Zito's never had really good control. There's no reason to think that Hill can't take the stuff he has and learn to pitch really well as a starter in the NL.

Everything was all happy and then someone has to spoil the party by mentioning Haggerty.

If it was a top list Cedeno would have made the list without a doubt. It wasn't a list as much as an all-star team. Cedeno was behind Wood.

You may want to review Oakland's 2005 draft if you actually believe this. You might just open your mind about how close-minded their approach is. I don't think that Oakland's drafting 7 high schoolers of their first 20 picks in '05 had anything to do with being "open-minded." I think they finally looked at the mirror and saw how foolish taking 0 of 20 and 3 of 20 the prior two years was. That philosophy was really the silliest sports related philosophy I've ever heard. It speaks to arrogance that they ever did it in the first place. I think it was more about the fact that they needed to make sure the money they spent on draft picks translated to MLB success, or at least contribution, and saw college players at the time as being a better investment. 5 years later, or whatever, that may have changed, to the point that HS players might be more undervalued than before, and thusly a better investment. it's way more fun to just trash the a's for being different though. Heh. If I wanted to "trash" someone for being "different" I don't suppose I would have needed to look up each of their last 3 drafts and count how many h.s. and picks they had in their top 20 picks for each draft. Your argument makes about as much sense as arbitrarily eliminating half the population of draft eligible players from contention. 3 players in their respective top 40 speaks for itself. And so does a nearly balanced 7 in 20.

You may want to review Oakland's 2005 draft if you actually believe this. You might just open your mind about how close-minded their approach is. I don't think that Oakland's drafting 7 high schoolers of their first 20 picks in '05 had anything to do with being "open-minded." I think they finally looked at the mirror and saw how foolish taking 0 of 20 and 3 of 20 the prior two years was. That philosophy was really the silliest sports related philosophy I've ever heard. It speaks to arrogance that they ever did it in the first place.

When Depodesta came to the Dogers BA ranked their system 2nd. That was mostly due to their prior two drafts--White's drafts. The LA org as a whole may have been weak but that had nothing to do with what White and his scouts were doing.

Talking about players the Cubs couldn't sign....too bad they couldn't sign Matt LaPorta. Yep, back at the time of the draft, Callis said in a chat right here at NSBB that he was the one late round pick that the Cubs should make every effort to get signed. Ironically he left out LaPorta in his report card: The One Who Got Away: OF Sam Fuld (24) fell in the draft after a disappointing junior season at Stanford, then rebounded with a banner summer in the Cape Cod League. C Landon Powell (25) could rebound to become the first college senior drafted in 2004 after using the summer to get himself in better physical shape. 3B Jefferies Tatford (46) could be a high pick in 2006 after three years of refinement at Louisiana-Lafayette.

You're welcome. Top 6 picks may seem to be special since they are high but here are seven successive players drafted 6th (Craig’s criterion based presumably on Harvey being drafted 6th): *’93 - Steve Soderstrom *’94 - McKay Christensen *’95 - Jaime Jones *’96 - Seth Greisinger *’97 - Geoff Goetz *’98 - Ryan Mills (yes, THAT Ryan Mills) *’99 - Josh Girdley Even Corey Patterson’s meager career stats eclipse the entirety of that list. In fact, only three of the seven have seen MLB playing time. I’m not suggesting you can’t draft a guy 6th and get a good player. The guy drafted 6th in ‘92 was Derek Jeter and he’s been excellent. And the guy drafted in ’00 was Baldelli and, while he hasn’t been a star, he’s been good as well. But the entire league bombed drafting 6th for seven drafts in a row. The ’01 and ’02 6th picks—Karp and Greinke respectively—have languished in the minors (Karp) or struggled in the majors (Greinke was 5-17 5.80 last year with an impossible 233 hits in 183 IP—the average batter against him was an all-star .309/.362/.483/.845). The jury is still out in regard to Greinke but it’s certainly still out with Harvey, right? So of the ten drafts prior to Harvey’s only one of the 6th picks has made a consistent, positive mark at the MLB level (certainly only one better than, say, CP’s career) and that guy (Baldelli) missed all of last year with an injury. I also think it good to remember that since before his Sr. year of high school was finished Harvey was likened favorably to a career .265 hitter who AVERAGED 129 K’s per 162 games. No one should be expecting a .300 hitter out of the guy. It’s perhaps a bit too soon to go all “Nate Spears” on Harvey. If the odds of a 3rd round pick “becoming good is slim” then why would you include the 3rd round in the equation, Craig? Again, the Cubs first rounders favor pitchers over hitters 10 to 3 (and Johnson was their first pick in his draft). Including rounds “where the odds of any pick becoming good is slim” doesn’t seem to illustrate anything in an evenhanded manner. The Cubs drafted Mark Pawelek in the first round last year and Mark Holliman in the third. Beeg difference. The Cubs have CLEARLY selected pitchers with the vast majority of their top picks and we really shouldn’t expect to see results as if they hadn’t. However, as I said before, the position prospects haven’t been, and aren’t currently, bad at all. The Cubs did draft and develop Hinske for all but one of his minor league years and he went ROY with Toronto. The Cubs traded the likes of Choi, Hill and Harris for parts of Lee, Ramirez and Nomar. The system picked up Murton and Moore from other teams and as Cubs both have exceeded what the other teams were getting out of them (by far). One would have expected them to tank if the system didn’t have good instructors. There’s Cedeno (who has Jeter-esque tools). Certainly Pie is a guy any team would love to have. As I said Harvey is progressing as well as one should expect. I think Sing is very underrated (both he and Dubois were 24 in AA and Sing went .276/.404/.538/.942 to .269/.367/.458/.825 for Dubois). Erik Patterson was passed over by the league many times and he hit .325/.400/.517/917 in his first year (as a middle infielder!!!). Dopirak had a bad ’05 but didn’t he have a great ’04? Is ’04 all credited to his skill and ’05 all credited to awful instruction (“Hey Dope, why not swing at pitches you can’t hit this year”)? And I almost forgot that CP got us Nate Spears.

Simple. Since Andy took over the Cubs have focused on using high round picks on pitching. The Cubs have used their top picks for pitching 8X to only 3X for hitters. If you include the extra 1st round picks of a couple years ago you add more pitchers (Hagerty, Blasko and Clanton). That's 11 to 3. The system HAS produced Hinske (who spent the majority of his games in the Cubs system) and Cedeno. Murton has also blossomed as a Cub. Other players (Choi, Harris and Hill) were dealt for some very good players (Lee Nomar, and Ramirez). The Cubs believe that you can always use more pitching (Hill, Guzman and Marshall are getting ready for the call) and that you can trade pitching for hitting (Mitre, Nolasco and Pinto for Pierre). Regardless of whether you agree with their philosophies it would be silly to expect ice cream from a butter churn.

Craig, are you suggesting that Harvey/Dopirak swing early to avoid K's?

Straight up and on it's face--no. Their 3-year avg and OBP are nearly identical. The SLG is just .050 or so off. Lugo more than makes that up in Defense (he's a SS/2B and Walker is a 2B/DH--and hits allowed are just as important as hits created), SB (the 3-year differential is, IIRC, Lugo 70SB and 15 CS over Walker's totals) and Speed in general (stats don't pick up bases advanced). The rest depends upon what you have to give to get Lugo. That we don't know the answer to.

Kennedy's 3-year splits for AWAY (.298 .366 .408 .774), DAY (.310 .375 .442 .817) and even GRASS (.285 .351 .396 .747) are all good. I would be very interested if all the Cubs had to provide was Walker and a B prospect.