karenmac

Totally agree. After watching him in Peoria a good chunk of last year, I was honestly surprised that Bautista was even listed as a C any longer. He didn't have much, if any, agility behind the plate, and was primarily used in that role when he was helping warm guys up in the bullpen (he DHed a decent amount). He was serviceable at 1B, but can't see him even getting game time behind the plate at Daytona or above.

I like North Dakota. You can see the slope of the earth there. Really.

I've been loving it since they started broadcasting too...I'm hoping that they devote some of their many hours available to minor league coverage. I *know* it's the MLB network, not the MILB network, but think they'd really be losing opportunity not to be talking about the AFL, the various winter leagues and minor league prospects on a regular basis.

It'll be interesting having a new coach in Peoria again - I was happiest to see Alberto Garcia get a job in the DSL. He played in Peoria for a couple of years and was one of the genuinely nice, good guys. Hopefully we'll get a chance to run into him at Spring Training. Oh, and BTW, Desi Wilson spent 2008 in Peoria :)

fyi, on-sale dates for Arizona-based Spring Training teams: Cubs - 6 January Brewers - 8 December Giants - 13 January Cleveland - 13 December all others are currently TBD...I'll update as I see additional info

I've been to ST the last 3 years, and in my experience, it is not difficult to get tickets to the games you want, especially if you pay attention to the "on sale" dates. Publication of the schedule also may be a little later this year, as I'm not sure that the White Sox have gotten the official release out of their lease in Tucson (allowing play in Goodyear at the new complex with the Dodgers) Between the team sites and this one: http://www.springtrainingonline.com/, you can stay up-to-date pretty well. Keep in mind when you buy tickets, that, as good as the AZ sun sounds right now, you may want seats with a little shade to protect your winter white IL skin from the elements. We have the first edition of the book from Spring Training online too, and it was worth it to keep track of things like where's good to sit, eat, park, etc for each field. We've been to several of the stadiums in AZ, so if you have questions, feel free to ask!

Hi All! The husband and I had a chance to go to the game at Scottsdale yesterday - it was the first time we had been to that stadium, and it was quite nice, although did seem a bit small for a ST complex. As Raisin has already posted, Clevenger and Barney were the 2 Cubs that saw action - not too much to report on those 2. Clevenger did an OK job behind the plate, but nothing spectacular. If anything, a couple of balls got by him that I was a bit suprised he didn't block. Clay Buchholz started for Scottsdale and there were several situations where he fooled Mesa. The majority of the Mesa runs came against Kevin Pichardo (Giants) who just didn't look much like a AA pitcher yesterday. The left-side of the infield was all Giants yesterday too, and they did not impress - doesn't seem that they have much in the pipeline to be improving their big club any. The couple of guys on the Solar Sox that did catch my eye yesterday - Quintin Berry from the Philly org was a little guy, but boy could he ever fly. Logan Morrison from Florida was a big drink of water, and is very impressive at the plate. Since the Phillies and Marlins don't have their low-A franchises in the MWL, we hadn't seen these guys before. Also interesting, they were both in hi-A last year. With Morrison, I'm not sure if he's always been at 1st base, or if they're trying him at that spot for the fall. He looked like he was still working to learn the position. There was one particular instance where he didn't cover 1st and just got caught watching the play. We're heading to the game today too so will do my best to provide a little info tomorrow too :)

now that we have 8 people expressing interest, I'm willing to set it up. Give me through the weekend...I'll try and work it so the draft is early in the week. Will PM those interested with the details.

once he does get healthy though, it would make sense for him to get somewhere and play winter ball. He should certainly still have some innings left in his arm, and it would likely do him more good to get somewhere and pitch than sit around stewing about things all winter.

have I mentioned I'll be there in a couple of weeks?!? I'll do my best to bring you all that I observe (which may not be much, but I'll bring the camera too)

hi all! I asked in the social forum if anyone was interested in Fantasy Hockey this year - we've got a few...are there others here? We'll need at least 8 people to play. Post here and once we get enough, I'll set things up and send password info, etc to those interested

no problem - I'll make a post in the Fantasy discussion forum to see if we have enough people interested. Sounds like we have 3 interested from this thread - would say we'd need at least 8 teams...we'll see what happens Anze, not sure if it's possible to "renew" the league from last year and pass it over to me or if it's just easier to start over from scratch - either way is OK with me.

I love Brian Campbell and his brand of defense - I'd guess that it will do a lot to boost the Blackhawks to the next level. That said, I'm in Peoria, so a few former Rivermen have ended up with the Blues, and ultimately I've been a wings fan for years, so guess that makes me apathetic hockey fan (or perhaps spread-too-thin!) Anyway, am anxious to be in Phoenix toward the end of October - hoping much to catch the Caps when there, as it's not hard or expensive to get Coyotes tix and it's an excuse to see Ovechkin. Oh, and someone mentioned that they were hoping to get a chance to see the wings / hawks game on New Years Day. According to the tour guide we had at Wrigley 6 weeks ago, he said that it will be *very* unlikely that tickets to the general public will go on sale at all - the hawks season ticket holders get first crack, followed by cub season ticket holders, followed by NHL and sponsors, etc...meaning it will be highly unlikely to get tix unless you know someone. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Are we doing a fantasy hockey league this year? I'm not tired of kicking butts yet ;-) Sorry for hijacking the thread, but I did stay on topic for 1/2 the post!

good lord - is this not Pawelek's 3rd season in Boise? The passport thing is just not *that* hard.

Panamanian TV has the right game on this afternoon...I tried my MLB.tv first, nothing, then turned the TV on, so have Ron & Pat on the computer and the TV muted. Life is good after all.

These are a total rip-off of the Peoria Buffet night shirts from the year that Jody was in Peoria. Conincedence?!? I think not.

I'm not planning on coming down for the ASG itself, but do think I'm going to catch the Futures game on Sunday. Here's the official 2009 ASG site Nothing up about tickets yet - just that MLB will be posting later. On the other hand, they're already selling 3 pages worth of different merch. Go figure.

glad to see Luis get a shot. I'm wondering what % of the orioles system is ex-cubs...I can't tell if Luis doing well is a failure of the Cub development system, the Orioles being desparate for help at the big leagues.

I know it's early, but there is mucho rain in Peoria....aaaand now we have hail too. Some of us get all the fun

It was indeed Pete Vonachen that helped with the 7th Inning stretch. He was the guy who managed to keep affiliated baseball in Peoria when it wasn't looking like we were going to get O'Brien Field built. Pretty sure everyone in Peoria and surrounding area knows him! We were right in front of Jemile Weeks when he got hurt. It happened very quickly, but the best I could tell was that, as he was leaning for the base, his foot hit it awkwardly, causing a stumble (making it look like he dove in late!). When the trainer was working on him, it seemed like they were treating it like a charley horse, so not sure what his prognosis actually is. Perhaps some sort of strained leg muscle? Knowing the cub game was on the monitors explains a lot. I couldn't always tell why things were erupting with cheers, as we were in row 7. Bad umps are par for the course in the Midwest League. I was sitting with a bunch of other booster club people and we were laughing at the fact there were 4 umps for the game (god forbid anything *embarrasing* like blowing a call happen!!!) Lastly, I totally missed that Clammy Sosa ate Bartman...I had seen the whole "eat someone else" thing before so wasn't paying attention. Figures. Believe it or not the music was tolerable compared to usual and we got to hear Gary Pressey on the organ!

My take from here in Peoria is that he's great with the bat, but they seem to be struggling a bit trying to find him a defensive position. He's listed as a catcher, but from what I've seen he's pretty awkward back there. He's a decent 1st base, but primarily the Chiefs have been making him a DH.

I'm definitely not smart enough to talk about stuff...but you're correct in remembering that I was the one that was only luke-warm on Carillo. That said, what I remember about him the most is that he was an innings-eater. He wasn't great, but when he started, you knew you weren't going to have to go to the bullpen ultra early (and, trust me, that can be an issue in Peoria!!!). He was usually the 4 or 5 guy in our rotation. That said, it wouldn't be the first time that a player has developed as he's gotten past Peoria. Here's the First Inning info on him.

I would guess that Castillo is going to get convicted. What I'm not sure about, legally, is whether he just gets deported or if he goes to jail then gets deported. Additionally, after seeing Carmello Martinez's reaction to things, I wonder how much time he'll have left in the organization. He was a last-minute replacement of Julio Garcia when Julio left for the Cincinatti organization. I'm not sure if Martinez had previously been doing other things for the Cubs, but if he's a first year coach / employee of the organization, he wouldn't be getting a great performance review from me. Yikes. I definitely don't envy George Spelius, Rocky Vonachen, or Oneri right now.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/help/jobs.jsp?c_id=mlb would be a place to start. I can only hope this channel is more robust than the current baseballchannel.tv that mlb.com puts on. That said, Reynolds has been working for them this year, so far, so would guess they will be trying to build a supporting cast around that. I'd love to see them pick up video of minor league games that they're already streaming online. While it might be unlikely that I'd go to milb.com to catch a few innings, it'd be more likely if such a thing proceeded their nightly wrap-up show...that said, it'd be really nice to do some sort of weekly minors show, the way XM does on Saturday AM with "MInors & Majors" I just want to be sure that I get it in HD...

according to MILB.com, it looks like Donaldson has actually been assigned to Stockton in the hi-A California League, so looks like the trade was good for him as well. Pretty sure most of the speculation I had previously seen was that he'd be assigned to Kane County, but he's gotten a bump up. Josh seemed like a good guy and am wishing him nothing but the best.