davell

They're off the charts defensively this year. Soriano is? Then how is he so low? I see Barney's deal now, I guess. Am I wrong to think the two measure defensive metrics differently? Maybe bWAR uses a different one than fWAR does, plus maybe puts more emphasis on it as well? fWAR uses UZR (Total Zone Rating prior to 2002). bWAR uses something called "Defense Runs Saved with Batted Ball Timer" by Baseball Info Solutions 2003 and after, and TZR before that. This table is very handy http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_comparison.shtml Yep. Thanks a bunch.

In Toronto's case, they're loaded with prospects. If they're strapped a bit monetarily, they can send a little better prospect over to make the team cough up more cash obviously, and it not even hurt them. But, my guess is they're in "wait and see" mode. They're very injured from a pitching standpoint and while they're still kind of "in it", they could easily stand pat and make big moves over the offseason. They're young and don't have to rush things. I think they'll add in a stopgap or two personally, to try and piece something together. But, unless they really get on a roll, I don't see them making even a Dempster type move. As for Soriano? A decent return for me involving him would be a top 20ish type prospect from an average system, and maybe another top 30ish guy or bullpen arm with control years. Maybe something like Reggie Golden(if he was healthy) and Kevin Rhoderick from our system. Talent-wise, if we can accomplish something like that and save even a couple mill per year, we've done a good job, in my mind.

Yeah, I probably needed to give Castillo a bit more credit there. Moved grade to D+ for catchers. As far as the CIF went, I put a ton of stock in Rizzo obviously, plus a little in Vitters being conceivably close to the majors anyway. Love Candelario's bat, probably as high on him as anyone here. Think he'll be a top 100 type as soon as midseason of next year. To me, the bat's just much more important than the eventual position. I have to admit, I'm souring on Vogelbach, but he certainly needs to play some, before that becomes permanent. I'll stick with my grade on CIF, but can definitely see some going a bit lower.

Raw brought up a great point about exactly HOW loaded our system was with hitting, so I wanted to try and break things down positionally, to see where we need to improve. C- Castillo, Brenly, Gibbgs, Cabezas, Contreras, Rosario/Marra Yuck. Castillo may indeed wind up as a starter for us very soon, but after him, it's dreadful. No actual prospects in full season ball whatsoever. Grade: D+ CIF- Rizzo/Vitters, Bour/Cerda, Ridling/Rohan, Hoilman/Geiger, Shoulders/Candelario, Vogelbach/Gretzky Bigtime prospect in Rizzo, solid prospect in Vitters. Geiger has done things, to make us at least keep an eye on him, Shoulders and Vogelbach both have major power and Candelario has caught everyone's attention. Without looking, this could be as good a group as their is in the minors, on the corners. Obviously, that goes away as soon as Rizzo moves on, but there's plenty of talent even when he moves up. Grade: A- MIF- AAA is barren, Lake/Watkins, Alcantara/Torreyes/Silva, Baez/Darvill/DeVoss, Amaya/Bruno/Hernandez, Penalver/Lockhart Lake will move off, Baez will as well most likely. Unsure if DeVoss or Amaya truly have a position, although it's looking like Amaya does. Alcantara and Hernandez both have the ability to stick at SS defensively and Penalver has been said to have that ability as well. Silva looks like he's a future utility guy, Torreyes has the ability to be much more than that, from the looks of things, now that's basically gotten it together in Daytona somewhat. One bigtime prospect in Baez, another guy who has the tools to make it there soon, in Lake, very talented, upside guys in the lower levels with breakout potential, including Alcantara, Torreyes, Hernandez, and Amaya. We've done an excellent job here. Grade: A- OF- Jackson/Sappelt, Burgess/Ha, Andreoli/Szczur, Balaguert/Chen/Easterling/Golden/Zapata, Dunston/Kim, Martin/Schlect, and Soler and Almora. A fairly pedestrian group, after Brett and Szczur, who each have plenty of issues of their own. until you get to Soler and Almora, who crank this group up quite a bit. I don't see many breakout type guys here, other than possibly Dunston or Martin. 4/5 OFers? Sure, we've got some of them, but so does everyone else. It's great to get an influx of top flight talent here in Soler and Almora. Grade: B+ RHSP- Jackson, Beeler/McNutt/Rhee/Struck, Cates/Loosen/Francescon/Whitenack, Jensen/Peralta/Rosario/Wells, Arias/Pugliese/Simpson/Scott, Maples/Kim. With Johnson, Blackburn, Underwood, McNeil, Conway and others getting drafted. Awful- McNutt has regressed, as has Rhee and Beeler. Whitenack is trying to get healthy, while Wells just did the opposite. Maples has yet to pitch, so we have to pray on guys like Rosario, Jensen, and Arias for now. We certainly addressed pitching in a very large way this draft though, so hopefully that makes a dent into things. But, it's still a deficiency of the system, even if some of these guys work out well. Hopefully, a Dempster deal and if we decide to trade Garza, really improves this area as well. I have hope for guys like Scott and Pugliese, but it's way too far away. I think if I could, I'd actually place a bet that there's not a single minor league RHSP in our system that's ever made a minor league pitch for us, will EVER make more than 25 starts for our major league club. That's sad to say. Grade: D(Oonly that high because we addressed it in the draft as well as we could) LHSP- Rusin/Raley, Jokisch, Burke/Del Valle/Kirk/Rosscup, Concepcion, Cruz, Smith. Drafted Prieto, even though he probably winds up a reliever. Not good at all. But, a few 5th starter types that may wind up pitching for a while for someone in the bigs. Rusin, Raley, and Kirk all have that kind of ability at least, if they get the shot. Concepcion and Burke are wild cards at this point. We could certainly use a guy that's got more upside added here, either next year through the draft, or this year via trade. Very poor group overall. Group: D RP- Beliveau/Caridad/Dolis, Antigua/Cabrera/Rhoderick/Batista/Harman/Hatley, Morris/Searle/Zych, Cervenka/Liria/Wang/Reed, Pretty much listed any actual pitching prospects in Boise or Arizona as starters. Lang is almost definitely a pen guy once he gets going. Hard to really rank, as all teams have bullpen arms and also convert many starters as well, once things don't work out. Still, I really like some of our power arms. Cabrera, Rhodrick, Zych, and Hatley in particular. Dolis is probably going to wind up a fixture at some point still, I'd imagine, Could see a guy like Jay Jackson or Struck being sent to the pen as well and it working out, on some level. Beliveau will get his shot pretty soon too. All in all, I guess we're OK here, surely we can develop 3-4 of these guys into major league pitchers, maybe even a closer, if we're lucky. Grade: C In the grand scheme of things, I think our system winds up somewhere in the 8-10 range next year, unless we trade Dempster AND Garza, where the deals are both for prospects alone, no major league talent at all coming back. Maybe we could move up a bit further that way. But, I'll put Toronto, Texas, STL, Seattle, and Arizona ahead of us, no matter what we do. With Boston, Pittsburgh, SD, KC, Baltimore, TB, and us being in the next group, trades helping us surpass a few of those teams.

Really? Even that still seems a reach for me. It'd be one thing if he played great or even good defense, but he doesn't. Most reports now are saying he looks like he can be an average 3B defensively. I'd like to think with the lines starting 3B are putting up, Vitters will be able to at least accomplish that.

They're off the charts defensively this year. Soriano is? Then how is he so low? I see Barney's deal now, I guess. Am I wrong to think the two measure defensive metrics differently? Maybe bWAR uses a different one than fWAR does, plus maybe puts more emphasis on it as well?

I'm certainly aware people know who he is, but I don't get why he's considered some failed prospect basically, when he's 22 and having a solid season in AAA. I'm not even a supporter of his, for the most part. But he catches too much flack considering his age. He's not going to be a stud, but he can still wind up an occasional AS possibly. It's like some people watched him fall off top 100 lists and immediately labeled him a bust.

bWAR goes off of production alone, right? If so, what the hell is up with Barney and Soriano offensively? Plus, I don't really see why Shark and Garza are AS low as they are either. Oh and big thanks to CCP for his previous explanation.

Are you guys talking about Josh Vitters? The 22 year old that's been promoted waaaaaay too agressively every single time he's hit a hot streak, by the previous regime. The guy who's having a very solid season, both offensively and even defensively as well in AAA. The guy who may never be a superstar, but certainly appears to be capable of being at least a league average starting third baseman at this point. Sorry, but not every highly drafted high school kid becomes A-Rod. We should all be pleased with his progress right now. Again, this is IF, we're talking about that guy?

I nominate Boise for most fun to follow affiliate of 2012.

Another unexpected pleasant surprise is Rock's plate discipline. What TT posted is unreal and he's walked again since then.

I just asked Badler if he thought Cabrera goes for over 2 mill and he said it'd surprise him. That seals the deal for me. Perfect IFA period for me is Cabrera at 2, a 500k pitcher, a pair of 200k pitchers, and filling out the rest of whatever we sign with 50k guys that don't count against your budget. Can't remember for sure how it works, but teams can spend 3.2 without paying penalties is all I remember.

I say we go for the killshot and blow our IFA budget on Gustavo Cabrera. i've thought about that too actually. I can't decide between that or spreading it out between 5-6 pitchers. But I'm leaning towards Cabrera too. That said, my guess is we do neither and get a couple of higher end guys, to go along with lots of low hundred thousand bonus types.

I say we go for the killshot and blow our IFA budget on Gustavo Cabrera. i've thought about that too actually. I can't decide between that or spreading it out between 5-6 pitchers. But I'm leaning towards Cabrera too. That said, my guess is we do neither and get a couple of higher end guys, to go along with lots of low hundred thousand bonus types.

I haven't really looked at everyone's farm in depth, but we may actually have the best position player talent in the minors. Maybe even if we assume Rizzo's graduating. Assuming Almora signs, we've got 3 top 50 types in Soler, Almora, and Baez, 2 other possible top 100 guys in Brett and Szczur, 2 guys showing progress and very talented in Vitters and Lake, a potential young stud in Candelario, young middle infielders with potential in Hernandez, Amaya, Torreyes, and Alcantara, and a pair of bonus guys in Acosta and Malave.

Torreyes 2-2 with a double and a homer.

Close to midseason, figured it'd be interesting to see where some of our guys stand and what we can take from it. Some aren't surprising at all, some are a tad confusing to me, to be honest. I'monly putting guys on here that have been in the majors for the majority of the season. Soto-(-.1) LaHair-1.5 Barney-1.1 Castro-2.1 Stewart-0.2 Soriano-1.8 DeJesus-0.3 Campana-0.5 Clevenger-(-.1) Baker-(-.4) Johnson-0.5 Mather- 0.1 Garza-1.0 Samardzija-1.8 Dempster-1.8 Maholm-0.4 Marmol-(-.3) Russell-0.1 Camp-0.4 Volstad-0.6 T Wood-(-.1) Dolis-(-.5) Wells-(-.1) OK, my first question is why is Dejesus so low? I understand WAR is not an end-all, be-all stat, but my eyes have told me Dejesus has been pretty decent. The other thing I have a hard time seeing is Volstad vs. Wood. I understand Volstad has appeared to be relatively unlucky, but I guess these things even out over the course of the season. I guess this is why WAR isn't perfect, because I'm quite content with what DeJesus has done, same with Travis Wood. Meanwhile I thought Volstad sucked.

No, but we have a Barney, we can discuss with you. :D

I'm extremely curious as to what we do with Johnson and Blackburn. Whether we just let them get their feet wet, or if we actually let them pitch throughout the summer. I'm thinking it's the former and I definitely have confidence with this group. Yet, irrationally, I also want to see these guys surprise us and immediately become guys we get excited about.

Here's a recap on guys that haven't signed, that we've heard at least SOMETHING out of. Almora-Obviously it's going to be taken down to the wire. Underwood- Went on vacation with his family to discuss things after getting drafted. Haven't heard anything else, other than he has retweeted a few Cub fans hoping he gets signed. McNeil- Supposed to meet with the Cubs soon and has said if the money is the same as they've talked about already, he wants to play pro ball. Bote- appears ready to sign. Tomscha- Marlin at PSD said he's a likely sign Hickman- weighing his options. If he were drafted as a pitcher, he would have went much higher, but wants to catch. Drossner- someone tweeted congrats on signing with the Cubs, but nothing since. Could have been meaning congrats on just getting drafted. Wiseman- Pretty much zero chance. Bonnell- playing summer ball and deciding. Pitched well recently and said he hoped the Cubs saw that. Pannone- yet to decide between Cubs or Miami. Said he'll make decision in couple of weeks. Crum- tweeted pics of college facilities recently, said he was showing his mom around. My guess is again, he's very doubtful to sign. Sveum- not signing Bremer tweeted he's signed a while ago, but haven't seen him listed yet as being official. Same thing with Pentecost. Haven't seen a single thing on the other guys. Again, everything I HAVE seen basically comes from Yagyu, over at PSD, who's done phenomenal work compiling info.

Thanks for the info, UK. I had never thought about a time restraint on the tuition or that most guys flail around the minors long after getting cut the first time.

Levine said on Waddle and Silvy the other day that the majority of his information comes from other teams. Sounds like there are little to no sources inside the front office nowadays, a major change from the Hendry regime. As I said earlier, Levine has no inside information whatsoever. Feel free to disagree with me davell but you'll be hard-pressed to find any information out of Levine that isn't a) pure speculation on his part -- or-- b) not widely known by anything that follows the team to any extent. If you choose to continue to suckle from the Levine teet, be my guest. Uh, at what point did I say Levine has inside info at this point?

On a side note, about inside info......It'd be pretty interesting to find out how the best guys locally have had to re-establish connections and gain new ones with the new regime. Levine was certainly a favorite of the Hendry group, but I haven't figured out who gets the most stuff from the new guys yet. In fact, part of me thinks they prefer sending stuff to the national guys over the local ones.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/prospects/2012/06/cubs-jeimer-candelario-hits-first-home-run-in-boise/ Blurb from BA on Candelario hitting his first stateside home run. Saying he likely would have been a 1st rounder this year if he had stayed in New York is pretty cool. Obviously, they're quite high on him.

Marlin at PSD said it a week or so ago.