Named After Maddux

Sure there's not a reason I can think of to prevent him from getting called up. It's late but IIRC he should be on the 40man. He's been hitting well. He shouldn't take time away from Jackson, but yes he's a likely call up in September. Why not? He was really pouty on twitter every time someone else was called up from IA so I cant speak to any possible personal issues, but I don't know of any.

This is interesting. I checked and they didn't have any more info on micubs.com . The location in the suburbs of Chicago is an unbelieveable coup for the Cubs. I know I've enjoyed my time at the Chiefs games (going again this upcoming Sunday), but man just driving to Kane County would be amazing! And here's the report from the Sun-Times: http://www.suntimes.com/sports/14636291-419/cubs-plan-to-move-peoria-chiefs-to-kane-county.html

This is interesting. I checked and they didn't have any more info on micubs.com . The location in the suburbs of Chicago is an unbelieveable coup for the Cubs. I know I've enjoyed my time at the Chiefs games (going again this upcoming Sunday), but man just driving to Kane County would be amazing!

We can definitely start talking about giving him an invite to ST. What he's doing is great, but he needs to be way down on the depth chart.

Hit? I do vaguely remember that... I'm excited to be filling our catching position between Castillo and Clevenger next year for the minimum. We've already talked about the inexpensive infield- couldn't be a bigger fan of it.

Probably should tweet that to KG

And now Fox Sports will have a broadcast set-up so complicated that no one running the show will understand... resulting in an ultimate 2nd place in the Ratings at the end of the year.

I strongly believe at least one will be moved for a young pitcher. I tend to believe Vitters is more likely to be moved because of the way they are planning to "mix and match" with him for the rest of the season. I don't mean to overreact to that statement by Dale, but that sounds more like making him look as good as possible in the winter as opposed to totally finding out what he's got. I agree. In addition there was the report from ABTY about teh Braves and Cubs resuming discussions about Delgado to the Cubs for Vitters and/or Jackson. If it ends up being Vitters + for Delgado, it would make a lot of sense for both imo.

I was actually going to drive there too. I was about to reserve tickets this weekend. Oh well, it's still exciting he's getting promoted regardless of timing.

We've made a horrible mistake... In all seriousness, this is going to be an exciting infield to watch going forward!

I dunno. I'd say he finishes at Daytona, starts there in 2013, and if he ends up in Tennessee then he goes to the AFL that Fall. He's been killing it before the promotion but I think that might be a year away.

Yikes. Wow. ABTY brought up that Epstein would have taken Bauer, Skaggs, and Corbin for just Castro. That would be a lot closer to what I'd take.

Well if you would have told me we'd get a top 50 prospect (40th per BA pre-2012) for Maholm and Johnson, I would have lost it. Even with the injury/durability issues I couldn't be realistically happier about a deal. We'll see what happens tomorrow...

It doesn't take much evaluation to point out that a guy has thrived at each of the lower levels, plays a premium position, and is very young. As for the Castro comparison, the one thing that Amaya has on him, and seems to have had going for him all along is OBP, which this organization values highly. Second base is a premium position? In the only league Amaya and Castro have both played in (AZL at age 18), Castro walked 14 times in 215 PA while Amaya walked 13 times in 227 PA. Castro had a better IsoD wen you compare their rookie ball seasons. Castro showed better patience; Amaya had a higher OBP because he hit for better average but I think we all know Castro had and has a better hit tool. Up until this season, he's played as much SS as anything else. Between Castro and Baez, we seemingly have SS locked up long term one awy or another. With all of the other high ceiling MI prospects we have: Amaya, Hernandez, Alcantara, Torryes, and Lake, who is still considered high ceiling in my book, they can't all play SS. Again Amaya is a quality prospect- glad we have him, excited for what could do, and interested to see what happens along the way. A MIF prospect in SS ball in your top 20 is not bad whatsoever. Very few good farm systems will have a short season prospect in their top 5(that wasn't a recent draft pick like Almora)-Sano for the Twins comes to mind because he had/has ELITE potential. It just comes down to how far away that really is. I'm very excited for Amaya, but I tend to agree with the posters that included him in the top twenty and had players like Jackson, Vitters, Szczur, Alcantara ahead of him. That isn't a knock on Amaya. He will get every opportunity to succeed. The reason Candelario is ranked higher by many is because his ceiling looks higher, but even he isn't top 5 for me. If you want to put Amaya top 5 for you, that's cool. It just seems like this is the gist for why he isn't as high for other posters/publications.

It can be quite startling, but frequently just a combination of inexperience, over aggressiveness, and minor league field conditions. Remember even superb defensive players in the bigs have had seasons where it looks like they must be playing drunk from all the errors they ring up.

At the same age, with the same amount of pro experience, Starlin Casto was at AA Tennessee. Amaya is having a nice season but second base is not at all a valuable position and the NWL is an extremely hitter-friendly league. Amaya isn't even in my top 10 Cubs prospects. huh? the team OPS's in the NWL are: .705, .704, .702, .692, .676, .675, .629, .625. Odd - my recollection of the league factors is in line with Raisin's, though I hadn't looked so far this year. Yeah, color me surprised. The rest of my post still stands. There's no reason to compare Starlin Castro to Gioskar Amaya. I have Amaya as the Cubs' 4th best prospect... that plays on the Boise Hawks: Candelario, Pierce Johnson, Vogelbach, then maybe Amaya. He's a quality prospect, but not fourth overall in the system.

It seems like a good trade on both sides. Pretty fair value and benefits both teams. Good luck Jake. I'd prefer Pittsburgh to win instead of the Cards and the Cincinnati Votto's any day.

Saw on an earlier tweet that it was a ground ball that took a bad hop, not a straight line drive to the noggin. Ah, that makes sense. That makes him human I guess. Whoa, whoa, whoa. This doesn't prove he's human. Let's not jump to conclusions. :)

I know it's been mentioned before, but thanks for all the work you do, Fred!

I think we needed to start him last game. Coming off DL, no one would have offered much of a package if he didn't prove that he could pitch.

Washington could really benefit from capatalizing from the excitement of this team. However it will piss me the hell off if they rebuild and win a WS this fast. I get what you're saying because I want that to be us, but let's face it-they won the equivalent of the lottery by getting Strasburg and Harper back to back. They've made other good moves, but getting those two in back to back years cost-controled... that's pretty big.

am I misinterpreting this? Peoria , AZ sports complex

On my phone, but according to Almora he's rooming with Soler in Arizona. That's pretty cool. Who knows maybe they're bring them up together initially to get him acclimated.

To cover the CF and starter options, would Garza and DeJesus (I know he's a corner, but he's done well and they were going to trot Werth out in center) be a decent combo for some pitching specs?

I hope in the off-season he enjoys "bare-knuckle boxing".