davell

Everytime I see a new post in this thread, I rush to rip it open like a kid on christmas, but its usually just tube socks. Man, I'm the exact same way and don't really want to post any type of responses to anyone either for that very reason: I figure we're all waiting to see something cool happen here. As far as McKirahan goes, cool I guess.

unfortunately, these are the players that are (relatively) really easy to find Scott Sizemore, and Andrew Miller, and Franklin Morales, and Cameron Maybin were all each just acquired for i don't know, a pack of Big League Chew, and here we are hoping all our minor leaguers develop to be these types of players [expletive] it, just go for broke and fill the system full of high potential guys; more Goldens and Burgesses and Lakes and Rundles, please, and just go reap the benefits of other teams' impatience to find your average starters or role players That's the thing. I think he actually just did that actually. Our draft this year was MUCH different than in year's past. We've got as much depth as any system in baseball, so we finally took the upside guys this year to give us a different look. Money may very well have been an issue as well previously, but hopefully we sign quite a few guys out of this draft, because it could give our system a completely different look. I do remember a quote from Wilken saying Hendry had told him to find him "major leaguers" in the past. To me, that implies finding guys with less upside but high floors and Wilken has done a solid job of providing that. My guess is that his philosophy isn't the exact same as Hendry's(even though they are really good friends evidently) and we'll see him with more drafts like this one, if we have a new GM or not...... In the end, for me, I like him and want him around for years to come.

When Easterling came out of HS, his stats imply he had some power anyway(13 homers his senior season). I'm not even sure I remember seeing him(or at least he did so little, I didn't take notice) the few times I saw FSU play over this past year. But, to sign a 22 year old and give him a decent overslot to keep him from football, tells me the Cubs probably see something in him, that gives him the ability to become much more than a slap hitter, if you ask me. That said(and I didn't look all THAT hard honestly) but I didn't see any scouting video on him whatsoever. If anyone has anything on him, I'd love to see it personally. But, I tend to agree with tspain here, because he at least showed some power at some point and this could very well be a case where he just needs coaching and to knock quite a bit of rust off. If this IS the case, he's an upside guy anyway, which seems to me, what tspain was saying for the most part.......

If there's any way we're overbudget when the time comes for the overslots, I agree completely here. Any money saved on Pena or whoever else, could wind up being extremely valuable down the road, with the players we drafted.......

Videographer has posted some very informative stuff on here at times. I'll get that out of the way now. And he's certainly knowledgable enough to know the small sample sizes that he's using here, so to me anyway, there's only one question here: Has Szczur done something that Videographer has heard of, that isn't common knowledge(and maybe not even true) that makes him think this is worth addressing, because this post is certainly coming WAAAAAAAAAAAY out of leftfield otherwise, if you ask me......

Del Valle wasn't all that good tonight in his debut at Peoria. On the other hand, Baez was moved over to DSL2, I guess.......Sanchez, who has struggled, is the only bonus baby left on DSL1, and he hit a homer tonight anyway.

Vitters is basically a lightning rod at this point. People love to throw out the "bust" card and it's definitely likely(as TT just said) that he doesn't live up to his potential. That said, if you take his 3rd overall pick status away, my guess is most teams wouldn't mind having someone in their system that's done what he's done to this point either. They might not be thinking he's a long term answer at a corner spot for them, but it definitely doesn't mean he's not a potential major leaguer who contributes a great deal either. I see where Law is coming from kind of.......He's not sniffing any top 100 lists or anything like that, but my guess is he'd be a top 10 prospect in just about every system(25 teams or so anyway) around.......Is that disappointing? Yeah, in many ways it is. But, I don't see how you right off a guy who's just 21 either, considering he's in AA. If he were stuck in Boise or Peoria, then sure. I wish he'd go on a nice hitting streak where he goes 15-30 or something like that, just so we could see what these "experts" would say then. His average would probably be over .300 by then and my guess is we'd hear complete silence honestly.......Just waiting til he slumps again to make another statement basically.......

Yeah, I remember reading the scouting reports on the Cubans we signed and wondering why we spent on them. Maybe it's just us trying to make an inroads there in order to get some high profile guys later on?

http://www.csnchicago.com/07/06/11/Kaplan-Cubs-agree-to-deals-with-intl-pro/kapman_article.html?blockID=539516&fee Here's the article, by the way. And while we all know Kapman is kind of a tool, the gist of this article is basically, quite awesome, for those of us who have harped about this kind of thing for a while. If they actually spend more than DOUBLE of any amount they've EVER spent between IFA and the draft, I think we all have to get firmly behind these guys for sure. I was certainly hesitant, after last year's spending in this area, but was coming around by the time we actually saw the IFA spending, since most of those guys were kept from us initially. But, you add up the types of guys we drafted, our splashes in IFA for the July 2nd period and also the Cuban guys we've inked as well, and it's proof positive we're making this a high priority, to say the least. While this pertains to IFA's more, I do have a question I'm hoping someone can answer: Have we already started building this 10 mill complex down in the Dominican? It kind of seems like we have, just not sure...... As for the little bit of draft news here, happy Baez looks to be in the mix soon and I really hope we don't miss out on Vogelbach. And yes, I'm greedy and REALLY, REALLY want at least one, hopefully two, and preferrably all 3 of Dunston, Maples, and Jacquez signed. The funny thing though, is with the recent actions of Ricketts, I don't even know if this is all that far-fetched anymore.

My guess is we get Hahn as our next GM. I also guess that we'll entertain Cashman, Friedman, and Beane. I don't think that ridding ourselves of Hendry right now does anything positive for us. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if it HURT our chances with one of these guys, considering how well liked Hendry is within baseball circles. As far as who else goes with Hendry? I don't really care, other than I want Wilken to stay put. Giving him a bigtime budget to do his job will probably produce very good results for us longterm.

Craig, AZPhil just posted a list of PED suspensions for Cubs minor leaguers and Peralta was NOT on his list, so I'm wrong abou that. I guess he just had some devdlopmental issues as to why he stuck down there for 3 seasons.

Stuck in Kaplan's article today about the signings of Malave and Mercano was a snippet that said Baez is expected to sign soon. Vogelbach will be much later, as he's weighing his decision.

Awesome!!!!!!! :yahoo: Thrilled to see us spending some serious cash down there. I doubt we sign anyone else down there, but I could still see us making another international splash. At this point, if we do, I kind of hope it's for a pitcher.

I'm hoping the reports we've heard are correct about Malave, because Ortega(the other C we were linked to) just signed with Tampa Bay.

Not sure if it's a misprint, but Iowa is listed with Cabrera pitching thru MILB right now.......

One thing that probably had at least a little to do with Peralta's 3 year DSL stint was serving a 50 game suspension for PED's. Granted, Contreras did as well, but Peralta wasn't a bonus baby, so maybe they waited on him as a kind of punishment? At any rate, thru 3, he's given up a walk and struck out 3.

I hope for the best with Struck, but I kind of think this is definitely a rush job and that either McNutt or Whitenack would have been there, if they were healthy.

Yeah, this isn't exactly a shock. If they want to rid themselves of Quade along with whatever else they do this offseason, so be it.

Considering Kim supposedly had pinpoint control, I gotta wonder what's happened to that anyway.......

Awesome for Kirk!!!!!!!!Gotta think this gets him his promotion too.......

McNutt may have tired. He was 4IP 6H 1R 1W 3K at one point and I'm almost positive he was at 63 pitches then. He obviously fell apart in the 5th. I was kind of surprised to see him out for the 5th anyway. Is Jackson back to low 90's now or has he been sticking in the upper 80's all season? I gotta admit, I haven't kept up with AAA at all this year, just because there were very few guys worth following there. Bruce did mention that the Cubs are probably just looking for Jay to have a couple or three good outings in a row and he'll get a shot at the big league rotation......

http://www.baseball-fever.com/archive/index.php/t-101808.html I've looked all day to find anything on Malave. This is all I've got. Found it on Twitter through a website called chicitysports.com that had this link. No idea who this Scaffolds guy is, but he's certainly a dude that follows this stuff, to say the least. It looks like he's got a few other guys signed as well that haven't been listed as official as well. At any rate, if you follow this link all the way to the bottom, it's got Malave to the Cubs for 1.5 mill. Until I see something official, I'll be wary obviously, but this looks like it has a shot at being real anyway.......

I'd rather sign the draft guys, because they're at least slightly more developed. That said, we've heard from basically everyone within the organization that we're spending more money in both areas, so I don't think they're connected in any way.

I'll admit to being super jealous of what Texas has done today, but if I put it in perspective, I'm not as envious as I could be......They just decided to spend big here instead of in the draft basically.......They've already signed their top 4 picks and the only true overslot guys they took are Derek Fisher and TJ Costen. And something tells me they're missing out on Fisher since they just gave this kid 5 mill or so. In the end, I'd actually rather have our draft possibilities still and the potential to get this Malave kid and maybe a few more guys, than what Texas has done in their combined draft/signing period....... If you really think about it, would we have been happy to sign a guy for 5 mill? Especially in a case like this, when very few think he's worth it or even close? Sure, there's the part of me that would be thinking "wow, we must REALLY see something in that guy" but a much larger part would be wondering how much better that money would have looked spread around to 4-5 guys....... Part of me wonders if we're still in on the Cuban kid that almost was draft eligible and was wanting 15 mill. I'm also wondering about that Korean pitcher and if we're in on him. We've certainly addressed the power shortage in our system. To me, it's to the point(assuming some of these guys look even remotely decent) that we're looking for pitching early and often next year in the draft. I'm extremely happy with how things have gone so far this year though on this side of things. We've got to make some tough signings obviously, but if we do, it's not going to surprise me whatsoever if we aren't a top 5 system here in 2-3 years. The commitment we're showing this year has been excellent and as much as I questioned Ricketts about all of this, I've got to say, I couldn't have asked for more right now either.(assuming we sign some of these draft picks and make another splash or two through IFA). But, right now, it's kind of hard not to think we won't be doing these things either.

Bonne's birthday evidently is 2/17/87 and I guess confirmation that he's signed is the fact he's now played 4 games for our DSL2 team already. Kind of odd he's down there and not in Arizona(visa issues?) considering he's thought of to be more than a Smaily Borges type guy anyway.......