CubsWin

Is anyone else noticing the nice turn around Junior Lake is putting together? For a guy who never seemed to have a clue about plate discipline, his numbers since the FSL all star break are .281/.425/.500 over 11 games with 32 ABs, 6 BBs and 12 Ks. In June, he's hitting .259/.403/.389 in 19 games and 54 ABs with 11 BBs and 20 Ks. He's still striking out a lot, but for a guy who walked only 18 times in 463 ABs last season (with 138 Ks) he's showing meaningful improvement. Considering he's still just 20 years old and playing above his age in the worst hitters' league in all the minors, there's still hope for him yet. He's got a long way to go, but at least there's progress.

Well, the Cubs haven't had a rash of injuries but for all intents and purposes, they've lost their two best hitters (albeit not to injury) and had to replace them with horrible versions of themselves. Zambrano and Wells have been pretty freakin' bad compared to last season, that's 40% of rotation right there. Throw in the struggles with the pen in April and May and the Cubs record is not an anomaly. Freakish injuries or freakish underperforming, it's the same result.

Winning baseball games, preferably several in a row, solves all of this. If there even is anything to solve...

He seems to be being stretched out for exactly that. His last three relief appearances have been for 3 innings each. Perhaps he starts pigging backing first and if he continues to do well, gets put into the rotation. In his last three appearances, he's pitched 9 innings, given up 3 hits, 2 earned runs, struck out 7 and walked none. Keep it up, Ronny!

This will certainly pale in comparison to the tear that Brett Jackson is on, for Junior Lake fans its not a small matter that he's walked 6 times in his last 27 ABs (10 games). For a guy who, by all accounts has a world of raw talent, and walked 18 in 463 ABs in the MWL last season, he's now walked 15 times in 138 ABs this year in the FSL. Even for a guy who just turned 20 a few months back, he's still got a long way to go. But this is a positive development.

You're welcome to your opinion, but I don't share it because the dude's 20 and at AA and was making plenty of good contact earlier this season at High-A Daytona in a league he's still underage for. If we were talking about a 24 or 25 year old then I might agree with you. I don't think anyone views Burke as a sure thing to make it. But what you claim doesn't ever really happen, he accomplished just last season. His production was pretty bad up until last year, when he seemed to figure some things out and had his "tools somehow magically materialize". It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. And after Burke's '09 results, I think it's reasonable to have had some excitement about him heading into this season. If he keeps struggling like he has, that will obviously change. You're welcome to right off the 22 year old. There is an argument to made for doing that, but I've seen too many lights turn on in a lot of minor leaguers later in the season than this for me to give up on him now. If what you say is accurate, how do you explain Geovany Soto?

Really? While I've never been a huge Vitters fan to begin with, one month of struggling in AA doesn't make him a no-hope guy to me, by any stretch. Burke has certainly struggled and it's very disappointing, but I'm definitely going to give him the whole year before I make a judgment on him as well. Lake? Yeah, he's kind of hopeless. I agree that it is disappointing to see Vitters struggle like this, but he's done poorly before and then learned how to adjust to the higher level. After being aggressively promoted to Daytona last season, he struggled there. In 189 ABs he had a line of .238/.260/.344. But he started off this season going .291/.350/.445 in 110 ABs. After being aggressively promoted a second time, it is no surprise that he's struggling again at the higher level. In 76 ABs, he's hitting .211/.250/.303. It is possible that he will never figure out AA pitching. But let's give the guy more than just 76 ABs before giving up on him. The Cubs obviously believe in his maturity otherwise they wouldn't be promoting him so aggressively and putting him in positions where he going to struggle. With the special ones, it seems the player has so much confidence in their ability that they can struggle for a while without it affecting their confidence. I say let him learn. He doesn't need to spend the bulk of his season succeeding in order to have confidence in himself. Burke may be a slow learner or just not as good as he looked last season. It took him more than one pass to figure out low-A. maybe, he's going to need more than one go around to figure out high-A. He still possesses his throwing arm, decent speed and some power. He either doesn't have the bat we thought he did or it just takes him more time to adjust to a higher level of competition than most. Junior Lake is kind of the exact opposite of the other two. Absolutely no performance history (outside of exhibiting some pop to his bat) to provide fans with a sense that he can make it. I mean he has absolutely sucked at the plate...up until about 10 games ago. Lake's main problem has been his plate discipline, striking out way too much and not hitting for average. Historians mark the change in each epoch with every time Junior Lake takes a walk. But over his last ten games, Lake has walked 4 times (5 times in his last 11). He's hitting .296 with a .412 OBP since May 25th. Now, it's just ten games, but I don't remember ever seeing a stretch for him where he got on base like that last season. Given his history it's probably not, but the evidence suggests there's a chance this is the beginning of Lake's light turning on around plate discipline. Vitters is still just 20 and he's in AA. Lake turned 20 in March and he's at high-A. For those reasons alone, it's too soon to give up on them. Burke is on a shorter leash. But if he is just a slow learner, I have no problem with someone figuring it out at the major league level at 25. That's not too late or too old to contribute for me.

6' 175lbs. Not your standard size for a pitcher taken in the middle of the first round...

The host on MLB actually just said, "Guys, educate us. Who is Hayden Simpson?" That can't be good.

How much of a difference is there between Grandal and O'Conner. Is Grandal clearly the better catcher or is it debatable? O'Conner hasn't played much C yet and Grandal has 3 years more experience at Miami. I think there was a sizable difference. Grandal and Sale go back-to-back. :( So...ouch, then. Got it. Should I be rooting for Castellanos to fall over O'Conner?

There goes Sale... To the Southsiders.

How much of a difference is there between Grandal and O'Conner. Is Grandal clearly the better catcher or is it debatable?

Did Rotschild help with with something in the way that he helped Dempster when he became a starter? I guess Larry helped him develop that glove motion he does during his windup to hide the ball longer. Could it be something like that? I started this thread with a post about a side session Larry had with Carlos and I think Greg Maddux after his first (and disastrous) spring training start. In that session they adjusted his stride towards home plate such that he would finish more on the 3rd base side and give him a different angle. Carlos said he was very excited about the results of that side session and was eager to pitch his next game, a feeling he hadn't felt since shortly after signing with Seattle. Linky - Cubs.com

7 IP, 4 hits, 1 earned, 1 walk, 5 Ks. This is just getting weird. His ERA is 2.93 and if this lead holds up, he's about to be 8-0. Meanwhile, Aramis Ramirez is batting .168. What the hell is going on? I would easily trade this Carlos Silva for the previous Aramis Ramirez. Can we do that?

If you disagree with someone, maybe you should actually address their post as soon as you read it. You could maybe even have an intelligent discussion instead of just typing some douchey one-line response a month later. I'm attempting to have an intelligent discussion with you about this, making the obvious point that one can't comment on the result of a prediction until enough time has passed to see whether it was accurate, but that intelligent point seems lost on you. Perhaps because it begins to unravel your criticism of my post. Apparently, however, it's okay to make "douchy" comments on a post, so long as you do them soon after the post was made... I've messaged you on this subject once already and you've yet to respond. This is my last public post in this thread on this subject. If you'd like to continue this discussion, for the sake of everyone else, let's do it via private message.

That all depends on what you mean by "last"... You had a month to come up with a clever response and that was the best you could do? No, we had to wait 5 weeks in order for the comment to be valid. I wasn't trying to be clever. Get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning? I'm having a fine day, thanks for asking. My problem with your post is that I think it's incredibly annoying to wait a month to respond to a post only to point out that someone was wrong(but in this case, he isn't technically wrong yet). In order to comment on the post's result, one would have to wait a decent amount of time. What amount of time would you prefer I have waited in order to not annoy you? I think commenting on a Cubs fan's freely offered prediction, be it overly negative or overly positive, is a commonly accepted experience on a Cubs message board. If you it's unacceptable, that is fine with me.

That all depends on what you mean by "last"... You had a month to come up with a clever response and that was the best you could do? No, we had to wait 5 weeks in order for the comment to be valid. I wasn't trying to be clever. Get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?

I'm all for seeing what the Cubs can get for him. If he can keep this going through June, they might get a taker...

Show me another Cub who's struggling and reports having a breakthrough session with their coach and I will!

That all depends on what you mean by "last"...

Thanks. As always, O_O, you remain 5 steps ahead.

Ill be honest, I dont know anything about his defensive skills, but offensively, hed probably do what your average backup C does. Next year If rather just give him the job rather than pay Koyie Hill or someone similar $1 mil or more. the book on him defensively is that he has good skills but makes too many mistakes. he had a .275 OBP last year in AA. he's off to a better start this year offensively, but i don't know that he's a better option next year than robinson chirinos (though i don't know if chirinos has progressed enough defensively). As good as Chirinos offensive numbers have been the past few years, I have to think that defense is whats keepin him back. IIRC, BA listed him as the Cubs best defensive catcher last season. He's a converted infielder who is still learning the position so BA's choice was surprising. He has bounced around A ball and AA ball for years, and just now is his bat coming around. But it's coming around in a big way. And at 25 (about to turn 26), he better be able to hit AA pitching if he's going to have a chance at making the bigs. If he were anything other than a catcher, I'd be looking at him as a Jake Fox/Micah Hoffpauir type reserve, but if his catching skills are truly the best in the organization as BA says and his bat translates to the bigs, he's got a shot, remote as it may be, at being an average starting catcher in the major leagues.

In a previous post I answered that by saying they would need to be likely, possible or have a slight chance of being at least an average to slightly above average starter in the bigs, and by starter I mean a starting position player, starting pitcher in the rotation or possible closer. Reserve position players and bullpen filler are not what we're talking about here. So they must have a high enough ceiling and be showing us in their current or recent past performance that they can reach that ceiling. For that reason, I can't see putting Campana on the list. He's got the stick, but it's a light stick and to be at the very least an average starting OFer, you've got to have some power. His ceiling tops out right now as a reserve. Castillo could be put into the "worth following" category in your list, but he hasn't earned that distinction for me yet. Until he starts hitting AA/AAA pitching consistently and the reports on his defense also show consistent effort, he also tops out as a reserve. I'm close to putting Thomas Diamond on the list somewhere, but I need to see more. I'm still searching for a scouting report on him. And I'm close to putting Darwin Barney somewhere on the list, but I waiting for him to distinguish himself as a starter at the major league level, much less an average to above average one. For me, he's hasn't done that yet. But I can see someone making an argument for putting him on their list somewhere. As far as Oswaldo Martinez, he was signed out of the Mexican League last season as a starter and converted to a reliever. I see his ceiling as a bullpen filler at best. He doesn't strike me as a closer. I haven't heard of him possessing an overpowering pitch of any kind. Until I hear differently, I'll leave him off. But that's the beauty of a minor league discussion board, your list can be totally differently.

See above.

Excellent point.