jumbo

nobody likes you. Gee Kap, I sure didn't see this coming. it takes a big man to mock another man's charitable cause. And a small one to cruise a funeral looking for work. Right, why else would he be at Santo's funeral?

OBP is at 370, though, so that's nice. Unfortunately his SLG is also 216 to match his BA

Just guessing but it wouldn't surprise me if szczur was... told... to take more walks and is trying to find a balance b/w instincts and discipline. Just a guess, tho. I was just looking at his career line and thought the same thing: 2011 Peoria 7.0% BB rate, 9.4% K rate 2011 Daytona 2.8% BB rate, 11.0% K rate 2012 Daytona 18.4% BB rate, 18.4% K rate Small sample, of course, but that screams approach change.

Regarding my earlier comment, understand no offense was intended. I guess I'm old fashioned when it comes to that kind of thing. Carry on

I don't mean to be a jerk, but if you're going to copy/paste AZ Phil's posts and comments you should acknowledge that he is the source. If I'm out of line on this I'll show myself out.

I just wanted to say how excited I am about the Minor League forum for the upcoming season and extend my thanks to those of you who keep all of the box scores and projected starters up on those threads. It is greatly appreciated and makes this my first stop for news on the farm system. Cheers!

It has to be White Sox and Orioles as the other two. Aren't the Tigers supposed to be in on him, too?

I posted this here on 1/8/12 ----------- I posted this on another site about Torreyes: Player Age Level KRate BB Rate AVG/OBP/SLG/OPS Player A 19 A+ 10.6 4.9 299/334/388/722 Player B 18 A 6.3 4.6 356/391/457/848 Player B is Torreyes (fueled by a 375 BABIP) Player A is Starlin Castro (with a 331 BABIP) I'm not saying Torreyes will be in the majors in two years like Castro, but they both possess a great contact tool. Torreyes may have a better contact tool than Castro if you believe that his strikeout rate can indicate that. Maybe someone else can provide some insight there. I also was impressed that his slugging was so high, but I guess that is also impacted by his high BABIP. My main point is that I'm excited about Torreyes ------- I still am really excited about this guy

Why on earth would the Pirates reject a deal in which they's acquire an established starter, who could potentially be a front end guy for them if the price is Garrett Jones and the Yankees paying a big chunk of A.J.s salary? I'd take that deal for Bryan LaHair without thinking twice, and that's basically what Jones is. The Pirates are a dark horse for the division, but they could still contend and adding a veteran starter, who'd be going from the AL East to the NL Central could really help their cause. That really makes no sense why they would turn that deal down if all it was, was Jones straight up for Burnett with the Yankees eating a big portion of Burnett's salary. Does Jones even factor to start at an OF position or 1B for them this year? He basically has been a bench bat and has gotten 2-4 starts a week for them the last few years, iirc. Didn't it say the Yankees were offering less than 1/3rd of his contract? You are talking about Pittsburgh taking on $11m per year for two years for a guy who has been pretty crappy the last two years. Why would they want to do that? I read that the Pirates were looking to only take on $8MM in total salary, but Yanks were looking to make that $10MM. Then Yanks asked for Jones which cooled discussions. Pirates must have been thinking of just a minor leaguer going back. I think it was from Rotoworld

I don't agree with that at all. Success at the lowest minor league levels doesn't tell you much of anything (although it's better than a lack of success). You misunderstood. The point is that he was young relative to his competition. This is as important as any other factor in evaluating a prospect.

I saw that. If I remember right, it said that some guys on MLB Radio said it. I don't know who, but my guess is that it was just one of the shows hosts and not a legitimate rumor. Seems to be the only place I've seen it mentioned.

Can't remember but isn't Vogelbach around 240 maybe even 230 now? Someone said that he's trimming down, but that could have been related to his drop from 280-240 pre-draft. His twitter account says "going for a run" frequently. It also says "God, family, friends, baseball" or something like that

I'm hoping that the trades for team-controlled starting pitchers in Wood and Voldstat, along with a Garza extension, will lessen the internal pressure on our pitching prospects and give us some time to develop options from within. We may still need to sign a #1/2 to complement the mid-end rotation depth, but that should give our upper level guys refinement time and see who of the lower level guys will step forward. For the draft, you obviously go with best talent available. I can't wait for the minor league system to be stacked with talent from AAA-rookie league at every position. Think of our CF situation, you've got Jackson/Ha/Szczur/DeVoss/Chen/Dunston/JeBaez (maybe DeVoss goes to 2B). There's a lot of depth at C throughout the system, too. Just wait till the new front office fills out some of the other positions. Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I think we're definitely on the right track and I can't wait to see what the future of the system holds, even if the major league club isn't successful this season.

I'd like to know what people think Vitters' slash line will look like at Iowa. I'm assuming that he'll be at Iowa all year playing 3B everyday for the most part. Given the hitter friendly environment coupled with a solid year at Tennessee I'm thinking he'll go 300/340/480/820 Any thoughts?

Yeah, okay, I was trying to play along with this like without treating you like you're dumb, but you are making that more and more difficult with each post. A player's minor-league performance, especially high-minors, can be reliably translated into a Major League Equivalent. That MLE is just as predictive of that player's future stats as a major league performance would be. A .260/320/400 MLE is predictively equivalent to a 260/320/400 MLB stat line. Where most prospects flame out is that their MLEs are close, but not quite, up to par. The teams hope they will continue to improve and they don't. Take Felix Pie. At age 21 in 2001, he put up a .283/.341/.451 line at Iowa. Plugging that into the handy online MLE calculator, that is the equivalent of a 230/274/352 line in the majors. Despite that, the Cubs called him up in 2002, hoping he'd continue to improve because of his age. He didn't, posting a 215/271/333 line, eerily similar to his MLE the year before. He improved a small amount but mostly stagnated and became a .249/.298/.374 career hitter. Again: It's a long-proven sabermetric tenant that properly-adjusted MiLB stats are just as predictive as MLB stats. The problem is that most people overestimate how predictive MLB stats are (even established players are pretty volatile) and they underestimate how harsh MLE adjustments can be. The idea that we have to just throw up our hands and pretend like we have no idea what to expect from these guys is lazy and wrong. Very nice description of MLE, including an example. A+

I'm not the best for this, but everything out there suggests that if he hits his ceiling, he could be a dominant hitter with a plus contact ability and plus power. Of course, it's the exception that hits the ceiling. It's early for comparisons, but maybe an Aramis Ramirez type hitter. Oh, I think the ceiling for Baez, if the reports about how he looked after he signed are true, might be superior Aramis. But that's ceiling. On draft day Baez's quick wrists were compared to Gary Sheffield.

http://www.thecubreporter.com/cubs-depth-chart AZ Phil is a very respected writer at TCR, which I frequent. I had been trying to put all the prospects where different prospect lists were calling for them, but then I found out how many players there are in the system and how little I knew about some of them. Just one man's take on the system

I was looking at Sappelt's minor league numbers earlier today to make the same comparison that you're suggesting: Would he outperform Soriano. He has some pretty good years. Then I looked up Soriano and found something pretty interesting. Baseball Reference gives you his summary stats with each team he's been with: NYY 284/322/502/824 TEX 274/316/498/814 WAS 277/351/560/911 CHC 266/320/498/818 Granted, his numbers the last three years are declining, but I was amazed at how clear of an outlier his season was in Washington. And to think that his 5 years with the Cubs are (by OPS) nearly identical to his non-Washington career was also stunning. Doesn't really change anything about your post, but I found it interesting

http://firstinning.com/stats/?type=batting&min=350&lg=NL&season=2011&t=exp&asc=so Last year, Jose Reyes had the lowest K rate in MLB at 7.0%. Link above is players with over 350 PA. Only 9 players under 10%

I posted this on another site about Torreyes: Player Age Level KRate BB Rate AVG/OBP/SLG/OPS Player A 19 A+ 10.6 4.9 299/334/388/722 Player B 18 A 6.3 4.6 356/391/457/848 Player B is Torreyes (fueled by a 375 BABIP) Player A is Starlin Castro (with a 331 BABIP) I'm not saying Torreyes will be in the majors in two years like Castro, but they both possess a great contact tool. Torreyes may have a better contact tool than Castro if you believe that his strikeout rate can indicate that. Maybe someone else can provide some insight there. I also was impressed that his slugging was so high, but I guess that is also impacted by his high BABIP. My main point is that I'm excited about Torreyes

They'll have a top 6 pick this year and higher draft $ total given their draft position. Then they'll have another offseason of moves. The 2013 draft could be pretty promising if they're as bad this coming season as a lot of people think they will be. I realize draft picks take time, but the system should be much improved by June 2013.

I had thought that Theo told Wood they would sign later in the offseason so he can maneuver around the 40 man roster limits. Since the 40 has been full since the Reed signing, I don't think they could sign Wood now if they wanted to. I could be way off on that, but I'm not gonna look up anything at the moment

This made me look up the schedule for our South Bend Silvehawks. Peoria comes here for three games in July that I will probably go watch and hopefully see some good future Cubbies. Went to one a couple years ago and saw Ha, among others.

I think they could be just waiting to clear space on the 40 man for Wood. Helps them make a trade if they have more than one player coming back to the 40. I think we're at 39 or maybe even 40 already. Too lazy to look it up right now

Good eye - I didn't see that. Pretty funny to include that in the design documents...