Thrilho

While Vitters' fielding percentage has never approached good, this season it has really fallen off a cliff. Same for his range. Do you think it could have anything to do with the Cubs playing him at first? Here are his numbers for the last couple years: Year Fld% Range 2008 .909 2.65 2009 .918 2.25 2010 .905 2.18 2011 .859 1.88 Last year, he had a .912 fielding percentage and 2.48 range factor at Daytona before going to .902 and 2.07 at Tennessee. Are there any factors that could have contributed to this? Any idea of how well respected the coaching staff at Tennessee is with regards to infield defense? I understand playing Vitters at first in a third of his games, as they have, if: 1. They think he's an option there over the next two years AND 2. They are seeing clear signs that he can't hack it at third 3. They need to get another guy ready to play third next year (not even convinced this is a good enough reason) If they still think he's got a shot at third I think they need to play him there every day to give him a chance to learn the position. I'm much more confident that he could play third on a contender than first, so why not give him a chance to fail until the dream is completely buried? I can see moving around guys like Lemahieu and Flaherty, because they likely will both outgrow the positions they have enough bat for. But unless 1 and 2 above are true, this seems more like a Jay Jackson "let's see if he can do it" or "we need to get Lemahieu some reps at third in case he can't hack second." As a couple have noted above, Flaherty's bat seems much closer to being able to hold down third for a year, but they're not even playing him there. So unless they plan to play Lemahieu at third next year, I really don't know what they're doing with third at Tennessee. But that's a bit of a tangent. The question I've got is does anyone see any reason for Vitters' defensive nose dive this season other than him just sucking?

Micah Gibbs is showing a real good eye, with 9 walks in his last 5 games and a 28:20 BB/K ratio. Not much slugging to speak of, but the .148 isoD looks pretty good. Jeffry Antigua had his first outing at Daytona last night, with 3 innings of 1 hit no walk ball, and no fly outs. I was real high on him two years ago and while last year wasn't very good he's still only 20 (for another three weeks.)

Thanks Raisin. I didn’t have a lot of hope left for Suarez, but if he keeps up this performance level with that kind of velocity he could be worth following. For the record, I did try to post that message before I saw the Suarez one from toonster, but the it had to go in for admin review. I wouldn’t normally waste a post making that distinction, but I thought making a post on relatively off the beaten path guy would be a good way to break in with the first post. Instead, it posted a while later and it looked like I just grabbed his Suarez post and looked up the guy’s first couple outings, which wouldn’t have a lot of value. I’ve actually been a lurker here for about 5 years, checking out the boxes for all the minor league teams every day and getting some good information from you guys. So looking forward to finally posting something.

I can live with this. I don't care that it turned into what looks like a mediocre start, he pitched well and ran into an unlucky inning. I'm extremely excited to see how well he's doing this year, especially his ground ball rate which I assume means he's throwing his crazy split finger/change up and throwing it effectively. Agreed, definitely a promising outing. And he finished up strong with two ground outs after the four straight singles and run-allowing error. His next start is going to be one of the more interesting things in the next week. Larry Suarez also had a nice outing with 3IP 0H 0ER 1BB 5K in his second outing at Peoria. In his first one he had a line of 2IP 3H 0ER 0BB 3K, and in the only EXST game I could find he went 3.1 IP 1H 7K. He's still only 21, but I haven't seen much on the velocity he's throwing with now. The only thing I could find on his injury was "unknown-type injury." Does anyone know what he's coming back from or what he's throwing these days?