davell

This list also sheds some light on the overall top 100 in a way. If Vitters is 3rd here, what's the best we can hope for overall? 50-60 range possibly? With Carpenter down at 20, there's essentially zero chance he has of making it now obviously. 150-200 range seems more realistic for him I guess? Maybe Lee makes it though and possibly Brett Jackson as well?

I think Hicks at 1 is a joke. Vitters at 3? Who knows really, I thought he'd be 1, but oh well......I can even see how Carpenter fell that far, if only because of his age. Archer getting in doesn't surprise me, but seeing him higher than Carpenter certainly does. After thinking about it, I definitely see why Flaherty didn't make it. I'm beyond floored Burke didn't get in there though. I really hope that there is a question answered about him in the chat.

Jung is coming back? That's great news, assuming it's true.

I figure those 3 are locks, with Flaherty being a definite as well. But, if I had to bet, I'd say at least one of Archer or Huseby makes the top 20 as well. You're right though, with all the teams, Jackson and LeMahieu are probably going to miss out due to lack of playing time....... My guesses on numbers will be Vitters at 1, Burke at 8, Carpenter at 10, Flaherty at 16, and Archer at 20.

Tomorrow should be extremely interesting. Peoria was loaded this year and the Cubs should be VERY well represented in this top 20. Vitters has a very solid shot at being 1 overall. It'll be interesting to see if Jackson makes this list as well. (only reason he wouldn't would be because of lack of at bats)LeMahieu will have a chance, but I could see him missing out too. Because of the lack of time mostly, in his case too. Does Ridling have an outside shot here? I wouldn't think so, but I guess it's at least a remote possibility anyway. I fully expect Flaherty and Burke to make it. Hopefully Burke makes the top 10 here after the season he just had. I guess that we now realize BA isn't high on Antigua yet, so my guess is he has zero shot on the pitching side. On the other hand, Carpenter should be showing up in the top 20, maybe pretty high, unless they look at his age as a deterrent for this league. Even then, he'll still be in there somewhere. Will Archer and/or Huseby make it? It wouldn't shock me if they both do personally, but I guess I wouldn't be totally shocked if neither did. Because of his velocity, I'd think Archer would be the higher ranked of the two at this point.

AZ Phil made an interesting observation on LeMahieu, saying he has a hard time turning DP's and mentioned that CF may be his best option longterm, unless he develops enough power to hit at third or one of the corner OF spots.

Antigua evidently is our Rodney Dangerfield of prospects. He just produces, but gets no respect. He's got to be doing alot right, or else his K rate wouldn't be as good as it is, if his FB hovers around 89-91. Pretty disappointed he wasn't under much consideration for the top 20 here, especially since that means he almost certainly won't make the Midwest League top 20 either. Maybe BA won't even have him their top 20 Cubs prospects. I'm sure he'll make the top 30, since Callis or someone already admitted that omitting him last year was a mistake. At any rate, I still think it's 50-50 he starts next season in Daytona.

Hopefully a question about Antigua gets in there. It'd also be cool if someone directly asked the question as to whether or not Lee or Jackson make the top 100......I'd say it's got to bode well for Lee being the number 1 at his league, right?

Do players get ranked in multiple leagues? I didn't include Jackson solely because I fgured he'd be ranked high in the Midwest League. If he's ranked here, I could see him at 1 possibly. I agree that Ross will be top 3 and depending on whether or not Jackson is on this list, Wheeler could be as well.

Northwest League's top 20 is tomorrow. My fearless prediction is Lee is number 1, Watkins makes the top 10, Ha makes the top 20. If they put Antigua on this list, I figure he's top 10 as well. May not have pitched enough innings though.

It was in the other thread, but going by value, Cameron has been worth 18M per year the last 2 years, 13M the last 8 years. Rowand has been worth 7M the last 2 years, 10M the last 8 years. Going forward, the difference in value between them makes it about the same to pay all of Bradley's contract and sign Cameron as it would be to trade Bradley for Rowand. If you get anything of value at all for Bradley(which is likely considering the rumored suitors and that he'd be completely free of salary) OR if you sign Cameron for less than 2/20 OR get a suitor for Bradley to take on at least part of his contract. Then you come out ahead. Furthermore, when you talk about a lesser outfielder(compared to Cameron) like Rowand, there isn't a huge dropoff between the likes of say, a Fuld/Johnson platoon, so it's another reason to stay away from his big contract. Oh, and signing Cameron would make it only a 2 year commitment, compared to 3 for Rowand. Thanks man. I knew you had brought this up somewhere, but I thought it was in this thread and couldn't find it. Is the difference in age from Cameron to Rowand of any concern in looking at it from this perspective?

The biggest problem I'd have with acquiring Rowand for Bradley is that he's worse than Bradley and is signed for a year longer. Bradley is signed through 2011, while Rowand is signed through 2012. That extra year is pretty significant when we're already downgrading. I don't think Rowand is awful, he's just well down the list of options I'd like to replace Bradley. Cameron is at the top of my list with making an effort for Crawford/Upton right behind it. As for why Cameron would be better than Rowand, Cameron's a better hitter, better fielder and would cost similar money for a year or two less. Past 3 years OPS (decent sample size, still recent enough to be relevant): Rowand: .889, .749, .744 Bradley: .947, .999, .775 Cameron: .759, .809, .793 UZR past 3 years: Rowand: 10.3, -6.5, 0.6 (CF) Bradley: -2.3 (RF, DH in 2007-2008) Cameron: -10.2, 11.3, 13.0 (CF) Bradley's the best hitter of the three, while Cameron is better than Rowand. Cameron is easily the best fielder of the three. Thanks a bunch. I agree with pretty much everything you just said as far as how to rank these guys. I would honestly much rather have Crawford or Upton than Cameron, because of the age factor, even with them costing an arm and a leg's worth of prospects most likely. That said, the ONLY reason I think Rowand could be a decent answer for us, is because he could be dealt straight up for Bradley. Yes, he's a downgrade. But, is there an option potentially out there better that he can be traded for straight up? Yes, it's an extra year that we'd have to absorb, but we have lots of money coming off the books between now and then too. I'm really only saying this because I am of the belief that we will have to pay all or damn near all of Bradley's contract, unless we take on someone else's problem. And trading for Rowand, or someone else for that matter(up for suggestions here) fills the hole created by losing Bradley(not really adding to the payroll for the upcoming season either) and would then leave us money to add a second basemen or starting pitcher. Like I said, I'm not a fan of Rowand and I hate the 3rd year as well. But, trading for him(or preferrably someone else actually) really seems to me a better allocation of funds, than trading him for a B prospect, paying all/most of his salary AND then paying Cameron or someone else to play the same position as well. To me, it seems like by finding a trade for Milton, absorbing a guy like Rowand in the process, could still leave us the money to go after Hudson, Figgins, or even a Reyes, if he were to be made available. All of this hopefully winds up as useless conjecture anyway and Ricketts comes in and gives us the OK to go after Holliday and whoever else we could possibly want too. :D I'm just expecting the worst.

Seriously, can someone please tell me what makes Rowand an awful baseball player? I've looked over his stats and truly can't figure it out. I admit he's not worth 12 mill a year, but I really don't see how he'd be a horrible acquisition for Bradley. Please, not being an ass either, I just want to see what stats are being used here. Go ahead and include Cameron as well, since he's the 3rd guy in this discussion. Thanks in advance.

I'm perfectly fine letting Harden go. But, not offering him arbitration is just stupid. Someone will give him more than a year. It's very possible someone who's got a protected pick will take a chance on him. It's also very possible that someone makes him their second type A signee and therefore only on the hook for a second rounder for him as it is. We're trying to replenish our system right now and doing a good job of it. The extra picks here could go a long way towards this and Hendry had better take advantage of this. I mean seriously, what's the downside here? He accepts arbitration and we pay him 8-10 mill for one year, while he tries to impress someone into giving him a longterm deal? He's one of the most talented pitchers in the game, Hendry, the only way you lose here is if you don't offer him arbitration. And the really sad thing is that's exactly what I figure will happen.

While those statements are true if everything is equal, it's not that simple in this case: It's really this here as to what you're comparing for us. Is Cameron at 7-10 mill on a one or two year deal AND eating all or most of Milton's contract better than Rowand at 3-36 and trading Milton without eating any money? Personally, I hate to say it, but I'd take Rowand. He may be better once he gets out of San Fran anyway, but it'd give us the Cameron money to either re-sign Harden or some other starting pitcher. Or fill some other need possibly.

Eh, after I looked at Upton's stats from years other than this, I guess I'll strike my previous comment.

I really don't want to trade Castro under almost any circumstance. Crawford? Yeah, assuming he'd give us a long term deal. Upton? Nope, not right now anyway.

Jones kind of got a raw deal, in my opinion. He hit a ton in Arizona last year and I guess he got caught up in a numbers game this year. Putting him in Daytona was probably too much, too soon for him. And he never got a consistent amount of AB's either once he was there. Probably doesn't matter in the long run, but I was hoping he'd succeed too.....Mainly because of his name. :D)

For what it's worth, Bruce said in his blog that Hendry made the right decision in sending Bradley home.

I thought Toby Matchulat, Julio Pena, Jose Rosario and Cody Hams were the most interesting guys there amongst the non-2009 draftees. Any idea as to why Pena repeated? Was he hurt early this year, I can't remember. I guess Rosario could be someone to watch, we just need some info on him, as I'm not sure of anything he throws. All I see is a nice K rate to this point, which is obviously a start. If either Matchulat or Hams resolve their control issues, I could see them making noise.

Possibly both. But, we spent some higher picks on high school kids this year actually. Springfield and Darvill both struggled pretty badly though. And Kirk signed too late to get himself enough innings. Same with Burruel for that matter, we probably overslotted him by a good bit, and he's someone to keep an eye on. It's true we haven't spent big bucks in Latin America recently, but we are spending bigtime in the Pac Rim to compensate. Some of the guys we signed this year will probably hit the AZL next year anyway. Although it wouldn't surprise me to see some of them bypass it either.

We didn't have many guys who got a full season's worth down there. I guess Jesus Morelli was about the only guy we had that even we would classify as someone to watch, that actually got enough playing time to qualify. And unless he would have shown some sort of extra base power, I wouldn't think he'd have been close to making it either.

Because he would have fought the move to the DL, the MLBPA would have gotten involved and it never would have worked. That would create a hell of a lot more animosity and a "there's no coming back" situation than the current team suspension. Hmmm, I wonder if that's part of the reason he was suspended. Hendry went to DL him due to the knee issue, Bradley told him no he was able to play, and then when called upon said he couldn't. Definitely sounds like something that could have happened. I could see Milton and his agent not wanting to run the risk of losing the 3rd year and making life harder on Hendry from that aspect.

If he were on the DL now and was again to start 2010 through the 15th of April, his 3rd year option wouldn't vest, making the total outlay of money owed to him to be cut in half or a tad more actually. Which would make trading him at that point a whole hell of a lot easier. I wish we had DL'd him instead of suspending him and I bet Ricketts does too.

Until we know what kind of budget Ricketts is going to have for us in 2010(or if he even has control by then) we DO NOT KNOW whether we can field a better team without Milton than with him. With our current budget, does it make sense to trade him and pay his entire contract? Probably not, but then again, we truly have no idea what goes on behind closed doors either. If literally everyone wants him gone, including himself, we may not have much of a choice but to get rid of him. The apology could very well just be a small PR attempt to try and increase what little trade value he may have. In all likelihood, this is going to end badly and we will be worse off for it, but we just won't know for sure until more information is available.