Thrilho

BA also said Vitters had "the second best strike zone judgement" in the 2007 draft. So...based on a sample size of one, high school strike zone judgement means little. As a side note, Nick Gordon is at .507/.581/.920 with 5 HR 8 BB 3 K in 74 PA. Based on what I know so far, I'd take Jackson.

Josh Vitters agrees. In his senior year he had 14 BB and 6 K in 91 PAs. His .390 avg and 9 HR look fairly similar to Jackson as well. Maybe he'd have progressed differently with the development team we've got in the minors now, we don't have a lot of highly selected HS position players to make that case with yet. You certainly can't use Almora to make any claims about instilling patience. Yet, at least.

His whole career is pretty impressive. He had 17 HRs in 130 PAs as a sophomore, has been very patient all along, and this year had cut down on the Ks a lot. To summarize the above link: 2012 .400/.538/.1010 15.7 K% 16.2 BB% 2013 .343/.479/.805 15.5 K% 20.4 BB% 2014 .415/.600/.1000 7.3 K% 21.1 BB% Also, at 6'2" 215 he looks like a beast. There's no Kris Bryant wireyness here. Here's a video from last year (hitting starts at 1:18).

I'm really hoping Hoffman checks out physically and falls to 4, but in case he ends up on the shelf here are Alex Jackson's numbers so far: http://www.maxpreps.com/athlete/alex-jackson/t4nN-PTtEeKZ5AAmVebBJg/gendersport/baseball-stats.htm .415/.600/.1000 95 PA 10 HR 2 3B 4 2B 20 BB 7 K Not Baez crazy with the XBHs but a good looking approach.

Some notes on today: - Bryant's ABs went walk, FO to left, FO to right, swinging K with the bases loaded in the 8th. Would be interested to know how deep the fly outs were. The bright side of all these errors he's making are that it's an easier conversation when they move him to right to get him to the majors quicker. - All three of Javy's Ks were swinging. - Nice to see Blackburn keeping his BBs down and Ks ticking up at 6:1 K:BB. Continues to keep hard contact to a minimum, as he only let up a 2B and 3B among his 6 hits. - For Black, his control sucked but at least he didn't give up tons of hard contact en route to the 6 runs. Only 4 hits with a HR and a 3B. - Hannemann starting to walk in bunches with his third in the last four games. - more impressively, Raphael Lopez has drawn 5 walks in his last 4 games, with the two today. He also picked up Bryant with a 2 RBI single in the 8th. He's currently sporting 13% K rate and 20% BB rate with a .310/.456/.521 line in 86 PAs. A poster at BN called "AA Correspondent" was talking up his defense and overall game the other day, saying he's definitely major league backup quality, and probably soon. - Candelario walk off HR the day he gets inserted into the 2 spot. I like him and Amaya at the top of that lineup.

Nice ending to the Underwood start. He had runners at 2nd and 3rd with nobody out and worked out of it with 2 strikeouts and a fly out. He didn't allow an extra base hit, and one of the three singles was an infield single.

Other good news: Candelario 2-4 with a triple after hit a HR in his last game.

Bad news: Zastryzny gave up 4 runs on 6 hits, including 5 doubles. Good news: Most of the doubles appear to have been lined at Rock Shoulders, and who knows what kind of doubles he's giving up these days? Also, 6 Ks, 5 ground outs, and only 2 outs through the air.

I had a feeling someone would call that out, so I'd like to define it further. When I say flash I'm talking about some form of prolonged performance. Not "he flashes X type of stuff" or "he flashes a couple good innings then has a bad one." In this case I'm talking about three 5 inning starts to start the season and two in the playoffs. So 27 innings out of a 58 inning season.

Also, 3 HRs in 58 isn't bad. If he gets ground balls and prevents HR, he's less dependent on developing MLB strikeout stuff. Still obviously needs to get the walks down.

A big factor in me voting Blackburn here is the playoff starts. We don’t have much data to work with on him (or Z, Skulina, Frazier, Underwood, etc), so when looking at these guys sometimes the best we have to go on is flashes of talent. He totally lost his control through July and August, but when the playoffs started some switch flipped and he had 17K/1BB in 12 innings. In July and August he had 18K/27BB in 31 IP, and in the 3 games leading into the playoffs it was 8K/12BB in 11 IP. He goes from that to his 7IP 2H 0R 0BB 8K outing in the playoffs. And then to 5IP 3H 1R 1BB 9K. It makes me think they were working on something with him, and that was affecting his control to some extent. The way I look at it with my rose colored glasses is that hopefully the playoff performance represented the “final product” of his work with the coaches throughout the year. That thought, together with the 20K/3BB June, is enough for me to dream on his control. The one thing that never really got away from him was his G/F ratio. For the year it was 2.33 (6.1 in June, 1.89 in July, 1.59 in Aug). After the 20/3 ratio he put up in June, he was pretty consistent, and the only two games he really got blown up were the only two where he had more fly balls than ground balls (7/12 and 8/18). And something that gets lost in the peripheral discussion is that he had a 3.18 ERA in August. For a month in which he had a 2.00 WHIP and 10 Ks in 17 IP, that’s a pretty good job of stranding base runners. That might speak to the “feel for pitching” stuff Arguello had from DJ, or it might have just been luck. Or I might just be reaching to find bright spots. Anyway, my next three are Blackburn, Vizcaino, and Hendricks.

My next three are: Candelario, Olt, and Blackburn. I think Candelario will tap into his power potential because of his approach. He had 35 doubles and 11 HRs this season, but his power was pretty down in the first half of the season. It looks from the splits that he started out with a patient approach in April, got bad results all around (.669 April OPS), then lost some patience. In the second half of the season the approach got better and he turned on the power. IsoP BB% Apr .084 17.0% May .124 7.9% Jun .110 9.1% Jul .206 12.6% Aug .178 13.0% Although, a part of the increase in IsoP was that he hit 8 HRs in July and August vs 3 in April-June. His XBHs by month were 7, 11, 7, 12, 10. Pretty consistent, so maybe the above approach/power correlation isn't as strong as I'm suggesting. I voted for Villanueva at 9, because of the power he showed this year, the defense, and proximity to the majors. But choosing number 9 was the hardest choice yet, because I think Candelario's approach is really going to help his power play up. Regarding Blackburn, BP wrote about him last week as an "on the rise" guy in their Cubs top 10 article, and they think his fastball "has the potentional to develop into a true plus plus offering." I don't have a BP subscription, but here's the writeup on bleachernation: http://www.bleachernation.com/2014/01/23/baseball-prospectus-releases-its-top-cubs-prospects-list-for-2014/comment-page-1/ Also, here's an article from Arguello on July 29 that says he was "regularly hitting 95." Good read. Arguello calls him our 7th best prospect in the midst of his July/August tailspin. http://www.chicagonow.com/cubs-den/2013/06/paul-blackburn-has-all-the-tools-to-be-an-impact-starter-in-the-majors/ I'm not putting him at 12 because I necessarily buy the potential for a plus plus fastball, but if he was regularly hitting 95 you put that together with the rest of his repertoire and frame and he looks like a pretty high potential guy. His strikeout to walk ratios early and late in the season show potential for some pretty good command. 20K vs 2BB in June and 12 IP 5H 1R 1BB 17K in the playoffs. I don't know what was going with him in July and August, but I'm giving him a pass based on the rest of his profile. If it was an injury he seemed to come out of it pretty well for the playoffs. And you'd think they wouldn't have let him pitch 7 innings in the first playoff game if they had concerns. This is an easy thing to say, but they may have had him working on something in particular in the middle of the season and that's why he sucked. I'd go into why I prefer Blackburn to Hendrix, but it's mostly that at this time next year I think I'll be happy I took Blackburn.

I think I'm OK leaving him where he is. Let things play out over the winter and spring. If his stuff looks good, start him in Daytona next year. He gets a playoff run if he stays at Boise.

Underwood starting to find some control. He had 1 walk no hits no runs in 3 innings tonight. That makes 3 walks in his last 10 innings vs 12 walks in the previous 16.1.

Armando Rivera with 2 IP 1 H 0 R 0 BB 5 K tonight. No runs allowed his last three outings. Hopefully this is him starting to act his age.

Love that AA is at the point where a 1-2 night with a 3 RBI double & a BB is ho-hum. #consistency #patience

If you want a silver lining, after double and HR in the 1st, the rest of his 6 hits were singles. Went 4 innings and had a 8/2 GB/FB.

He had a 13/2 GB/FB and only used 83 pitches to finish those 7 innings. He's gone at least 6 innings in 9 of his last 10 and gone 7+ in 5 of 10.

Here's the fourth one. In this swing it looks like he doesn't have the pronounced load, where he tips the bar forward before swinging. For those who have seen all four, did he not do that in his other at bats? That would be a huge change in his swing. This one looks much smoother and more controlled than the ones I saw in spring training spring training. http://www.sportsgrid.com/mlb/cubs-prospect-javier-baez-smacks-four-homeruns-in-four-at-bats/

last 28 days: .374/.437/.725, 5.8% BB, 14.6% K, .386 babip great to see his K rate so low there BABIP and home run rates will have their spikes, but <15% K-rate over (an admittedly arbitrary) month-long sample is pretty hard to ignore. If he doesn't hit 4 HRs last night your response to this has to do with arbitrary end points. 1) I posted something about being intrigued by his turnaround after the first home run. 2) My response *did* mention arbitrary end points. Your post mentioned the arbitrary end point. You went on to dismiss it by saying the 28 day period was noteworthy. After a month of you dismissing his turnaround using the arbitrary end points argument it seemed a pretty sudden flip flop to see his K rate improvement as meaningful. I just want to know what counts as a valid time period to evaluate K rate improvements going forward.

last 28 days: .374/.437/.725, 5.8% BB, 14.6% K, .386 babip great to see his K rate so low there BABIP and home run rates will have their spikes, but <15% K-rate over (an admittedly arbitrary) month-long sample is pretty hard to ignore. If he doesn't hit 4 HRs last night your response to this has to do with arbitrary end points.

A 28% K rate in AAA is pretty close to disqualifyingly awful, even if it's slightly better than last year. Largely injury riddled, adjusting to a new swing, and with half a spring training. I'm giving him a little longer with the new swing before making any judgements on whether he's fixed. In the last 4 games since he came back he's K'd twice in 17 PAs.

Great day for Lake in the leadoff spot, 2-5 with a 2B and HR. His last game he went 2-5 with a HR in the 9th spot, then sat a game, then had the game today. Here's hoping he stays in the leadoff spot and has a good run. I'm still a big fan of his tools if he can cut down on the strikeouts. Boise had a ton of walks today. I'm wondering if the young guys will take the recent quotes from Wilken about drafting "intelligent" players who get on base to heart and start taking more walks. DeVoss probably has that Rogers article taped up on his locker where Ricketts is raving over him. PC Chen is one guy down there who had a walk today and could stand to take a few more. Evan Crawford also had a decent day, going 3-5 out of the leadoff spot. I mostly write him off because of his strikeout rate, but it improved significantly from May to July. April 22% 13K / 58 AB May 29% 31K / 108 AB June 21% 19K / 92 AB July 13% 12K / 91 AB Aug 29% 13K / 44 AB Total 22% 88K / 298 Last year he had 126 Ks in 486 ABs for 26% K rate, so there's some decent improvement there, particularly considering the .681 to .791 OPS bump. Not to mention the SB rate improvement. Searle had a great looking game too. He's becoming very interesting again.

he walked again (making it 0-1 with 2 hbp, 2 walks) and then stole 2b, so ended up with the fun line of 0-1 with 4 runs and 5 SB. frankly if he's a fast guy and a marginal power hitter than i like the shift he made this year, making lots of contact, hitting for a high average, seeing a lot of pitches and running a lot. if some XBH power comes along, great. but his tools seem more suited to the speed game and i'd rather have him playing that way than trying to hit 15 home runs a year but ending up hitting .250 with not enough walks. I agree, I don't mean he should develop Eric Young syndrome. But to your point from earlier, if he doesn't at least have some extra base power the walks are going to stop coming at higher levels. If he follows the same sort of development arc Cerda seems to be on, only he can steal a bunch of bags and play good 2nd base defense I think I'd be good with kind of guy at 2nd if Flaherty can't stick there.

DeVoss actually stole home yesterday in his last game at Arizona. It was on the back end of a double steal, but still pretty nifty to steal home the fourth game into your pro career then steal four bags the first game after your promotion. I like the DeVoss pick a lot more now that he's at second than when we was yet another center field prospect without the pop of the three guys occupying the spot at our top three levels. He showed enough power his freshman year to think that there's an outside chance some coach can help him meld his freshman year approach with his sophomore approach. (Insert Colvin joke here)