Hrubes20

Outstanding! I didn't think we'd have a chance at him. Back a dump truck full of steaks to this kid's house. Love adding another exciting athlete, though.

Decided to not get the BA subscription this year. They just put out a J2 article for all 30 teams. Any of you have BA and are willing to share a blurb about what they said about the Cubs?

No Albertos again. That's an entire week without an appearance. Hopefully it's just the FO being really conservative with him, rather than an injury already.

Loving the combination of strikeouts and groundballs from Cease. And of course, most importantly, no walks.

He also continued the theme set by Cease and Hudson by inducing a bunch of grounders (6:1 GO/FO). 3 of the 5 hits he gave up were of the infield variety, and 1 other one was a grounder that made it through. No XBHs. Definitely a good start, but as a 21 year old repeating the level, this should probably be expected.

Skylar Szynski seems like a guy we may be interested in, if he's available. Fairly local prep arm from Indiana.

What are everyone's thoughts on taking either Kyle Funkhouser or Kyle Cody if they are there in the 3rd? Neither have improved much over their junior years, but both have some nice raw stuff. As seniors without elite production, they shouldn't be expected monster bonuses.

Has there been any recent news on the TJS recoveries of Wil Crowe or Cal Quantrill? Not sure either would make it to our pick, or that they would be affordable even if they did, but I certainly wouldn't hate to roll the dice on either.

McKinney has been terrible but Candelario hasn't really even been that disappointing, tbh. Power numbers are low, but it happens early in the season for some players. Other than that, it's just him getting BABIP'd. He's walking at a fantastic rate and is keeping his K's in check. McKinney, though, looks to be feeling the effects of the knee injury, or at least that is my hope. I've probably said this elsewhere, but with prospects I think you have to be careful about BABIP variation in both directions. It is less of an equal playing field than MLB, the prospects with promise should be creating a bit of their own luck, and those with horrific BABIPs are less likely to have the hitting ability to raise it significantly. In the case of Candelario we're at over 150 PA of him with a .635 OPS. Even if we can expect BABIP progression from him, the fact that he's had this stretch reflects just as poorly as the optimism does in the other direction. Because in this instance, Candelario getting neutral BABIP still isn't lighting AA on fire, and in order to be truly useful he needs to be good at that level, AAA, and then the MLB level, all escalating in difficulty(and chipping away at the expected BABIP he should have). A neutral BABIP wouldn't make his current line otherworldly, but it puts him in a great position for a good year once the power comes around. Candelario's power has routinely gotten significantly better in his minor league career as the season progressed. With that said, I completely agree with the gist of your post and I wasn't trying to say that Candelario's start has been amazing or that we should be truly happy with it. It was merely a response to TomtheBombadil's post which seemed to be overly pessimistic, IMO.

McKinney has been terrible but Candelario hasn't really even been that disappointing, tbh. Power numbers are low, but it happens early in the season for some players. Other than that, it's just him getting BABIP'd. He's walking at a fantastic rate and is keeping his K's in check. McKinney, though, looks to be feeling the effects of the knee injury, or at least that is my hope.

I was hoping Zobrist's poor defense in 2015 was more knee-related than age-related. That doesn't appear to be the case. He doesn't even try to go after balls that Javy would easily get to.

Gleyber with the golden sombrero. Ugly start for him early on.

I feel partly responsible for bringing notice to the fact he hadn't struck out in his first 8 PAs.

It was an exhibition game on Wednesday, but that makes 8 PAs without a K for Ian Happ to begin the season. No hits or BBs, either, but I'll take the no K's at this point.

Is this still the case? Last I saw from AZPhil had Baez getting plunked in the head down in EXST and that he hasn't seen the field since.

That may have been recently updated. AZPhil posted that INF Aramis Ademan, INF Jhonny Bethencourt, RHP Hector Garcia, OF Jose Gonzalez, RHP Jose Leidenz, 3B Rafael Mejia, SS Rafael Narea, LHP Pablo Ochoa, LHP Eugenio Palma, SS-2B Yeiler Peguero, SSF Yonathan Perlaza, OF Ruben Reyes, OF Abraham Rodriguez, RHP Andri Rondon, and OF Jonathan Sierra have been called up to participate in ExST. It was originally reported that there'd be a total of 18 so there may be 3 more to come. Yeah, I jumped the gun with my whining. Looks like the only big 2015-16 IFA signings still in the DSL are Henderson Perez, Brailyn Marquez, Yunior Perez, Jose Gutierrez and Christopher Morel, who is rehabbing some injury. And as you mentioned, 3 more are expected which could easily be one or more of these names.

A little surprised that more of the big money IFA signings aren't in EXST. Ademan, Sierra, Perlaza, Marquez, Henderson Perez, Yunior Perez, Morel and Gutierrez are all still currently slated for the DSL, per AZPhil.

No nothing from BA, Fangraphs or anywhere else for that matter. The following 4 were left with no team "favoured" to sign between either MLB and Kiley McDaniel. Keeping an eye on these 4. Name Pos Rank Alvaro Seijas P 6 Albert Guaimaro OF 11 Miguel Aparicio OF 22 Simon Muzziotti OF 24 MLB has Seijas likely signing with the Cardinals. :banghead: They also have the Red Sox in the lead for Guaimaro and Muzziotti, but other teams (including the Cubs on Muzziotti) are in the mix. Yeah they seem to have updated the list. Looks like we will have to be happy signing 6 of the Top 30. Did nobody else find it odd that he would list the Red Sox as the lead team for 2 top 30 prospects, yet they are subject to spending restrictions of $350K after signing Moncada? I just highly doubt that they are legit contenders for any top 30 types.

Per Kiley's update today, the Cubs are already committed for $3.5 million on only two guys. Kiley also alluded to the fact that they have several guys they are going to bring in. Sounds like the FO didn't want to chance the international draft becoming a reality, and are taking what could be their last chance to spend freely in the IFA market. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-international-signing-market-part-1/

The Boise website lists the probable starters as Ihrig, Leal, Clifton, Conway and Trevor Graham. I'm guessing some piggy-back starting will end up taking place on Ihrig, Conway and Graham days.

We can wish. But the "light" part might be the key there. This guy is not much at all like Kris Bryant, other than that the Cubs drafted both from college. Bryant hit 31 HR's last year, Schwarber 13 this year. That's kind of a big difference! If you took away 2/3 of Bryant's HR, I'm not sure how popular Bryant would be? Schwarber may well be the best power-hitting guy available in the college ranks this year. But Bryant's HR hitting is kind of unique. This. If you must equate Schwarber's bat with a 2013 draft pick, go with D.J. Peterson.

Had a "dead arm" period to start the year. Was sitting high 80's, and barely touching 90, so they sent him back down to EXST to work through it. He reportedly hit 98 in his last EXST start, so he's going to be sent back up to High A here shortly. Or at least, that's what the almighty twitterz says.

It doesn't help the perception of the #4 pick when the Pirates had 3 of the past 8 picks and reached quite considerably on each of them. Most had Tim Lincecum as the BPA when the Pirates took Brad Lincoln in 2006. Everyone had Matt Wieters as BPA when the Pirates took Daniel Moskos in 2007. Tony Sanchez was viewed as a late 1st rounder at best when the Pirates took him at 4 in 2009. Somewhat similar with Christian Colon and the Royals in 2010, although he was at least viewed as a legit top 15 option. Man, some terrible drafting FO's have had the 4th pick a lot.

Amlung's only previous start, I think, was when Paniagua was home in DR, right? Is he replacing Paniagua in the rotation, do you think? Or Tseng? Or Tseng hasn't pitched in 10 days. He was on a 6-day schedule, right? Tseng was supposed to start on the 16th, I believe. I am really hoping that it is just an early effort by the organization to keep his innings in check this season, but the Cub fan in me is thinking that he probably suffered a serious injury in a freak pogo stick accident.

Counting today, he's played 3B twice and 1B twice. Lots of position shuffling happens down in those leagues to get everyone ABs. I think I saw Galindo ranked around 50th on another list, and it stated that he possibly should be ranked even higher as he was sort of a guy that snuck up on people at the end of the period. Likely a little overrating on Mayo's part, but he was at least in consideration for someone else (forget who, though). Galindo with his 2nd HR of the year today, btw. And yes, I know, these stats are essentially worthless. Still fun to follow.