fan_in_China

Justin Turner comes out of nowhere and has the highest WAR of any of our pitchers. Lester struggles during the first half and isn't dominate in the second half. He looks like a slight bust at the end of of the year. Javy struggles for a month, and then puts up a Soriano-esque 6 weeks, causing people to call him the biggest All-star snub. Unfortunately Alcantara becomes more Sean Rodriguez than Ben Zobrist. Almora somehow changes his approach completely and becomes patient. He struggles at first, but puts up a couple of months of .300/.400/.500 ball to end the year. The cold war ends, and Cubans come flooding in. The Cubs land pitchers Yadier Alvarez and Norge Ruiz, but are unable to land Gourriel Jr, Despaigne or anyone else of consequence. Torres has an incredible year and ends up a top 10 prospect in all of baseball (top 5 if you don't count the Cubans). The Cubs are in the wild card hunt with 6 weeks left, but experience a string of injuries that knocks them out of the race (Kyle subsequently spends all of his time calling people idiots when they consider the year positive that just ran into some bad luck).

Yoan Moncada has apparently made it off the island. This is the kid I want the most out of all the Cubans (other than Despaigne). Moncada is a 19 year old switch hitter, who already has 2 years above average hitting in Series Nacional (at 17 and 18!). And at 6'2" he still has room to fill out. He will probably be a 3B in the MLB. Unfortunately, unless it takes him more than a year to establish residency in another country, he is not going to the Cubs. He is so young that he would be subject to the International Spending limits, and the Cubs can't spend over 250K on a player. If he does wait until next year I hope the Cubs would be willing to go over their limit, just for him. If I were him though, I would sign a 3 year deal in the Dominican or Japan or maybe Mexico. He could then be a regular Free Agent. If he dominated those leagues, he would get a giant, giant deal. If he wasn't that great, I bet someone would still give him 3 or 4 million more than he would make this way. But I am not sure a 3 year deal in those countries is even possible.

You had me at Daniel Norris. Is he Chucks kid? Aren't we all?

This conversation is suspended until you read better. I wrote a big retort and then remembered Gray. I'm sorry, you could say "botched" for that one. Otherwise there is just the silly semantic battle on whether Correa was an actual "botch". But my point was: drafting is very, very difficult

No. This isn't a case of Steve Trout in the mid-20s becoming the best player in the draft several years later. Both of the last two Astros picks involved prospects who were better in ways that either were obvious at the time (Very few people seriously thought Correa was the best pick in that draft) or should have been seen (Kris Bryant has been mashing since he set foot in pro ball in way that says he probably should have been realized to be the No. 1 overall 11 months ago). Few people had Bryant as the No. 1 guy overall last year either. You are revising history if you think otherwise.

Yeah, Correa is definitely a bum. Correa doesn't have to be a bum for it to be a botch for them. He would have been a fine No. 2 or No. 3 pick in that draft. Then it has been since 1993 (Arod) since the first pick hasn't been "botched".

That has zero chance of happening. I think the Cubs can get one - I think they'll insist, in fact, as they'll need a guy who's close to the big leagues. One of those two, Harvery or Rodriguez (not both) and Sisco is a realistic deal, with maybe a decent A-ball prospect to pad it out. Throw them Russell or Wright as part of the deal. I still like that deal. I don't have a preference between Gausman and Bundy, but I really like Harvey over ERod. I think the Cub's could throw in Christian Villanueva also. Machado is moving to SS next year, and Villanueva would give them a cost effecient option at 3rd. (Bryant deservedly gets the bump to AAA in the scenerio too).

Olney makes a reasonable point that San Francisco has a history of midseason acquisitions to improve their playoff odds (Beltran and Pence), so they could be a potential landing spot for Shark. Are Crick/Susac or Crick/Escobar good enough centerpieces? I can't see them moving all 3. After those guys they have some interesting pitching prospects that would be good fillers. (I really like both Susac and Escobar, but I would think the Cubs would need Crick's ace ceiling to make the trade.)

The Valbuena love made me think. If he and Olt were in a strict platoon they would be OPSing right at .870. That would put them just behind Donaldson (.874) and Solarte (.870) among all 3B in the majors.

The new market inefficiency is pitchers who don't care enough about winning to throw their arm out. I think I am being about 75% sarcastic.

They also have the first trade able pick in the draft (#35 I think), in a draft full of pitchers.

I hope all potential recruits are following this. Coaches are going to keep getting away with this crap as long as they keep getting recruits. I totally agree. At least they kept him under 110 pitches today . 1 unearned run, 9 Ks, 1 BB. A nice day for him

Taillon, Bundy, and Sano all take hits for their injuries (loss of development time and possible position shift for Sano). I like his list better than Law (he doesn't justify his sleepers very well), Parks (way too tool heavy), and BA (seems to try to make fan bases, especially Yanks and Red Soxs, happy). But my favorite list is always the community prospect list over there.

He should be the small side of 1B platoon in the future. Rizzo handles everyone not named Kershaw, Geiger gets Kershaw.

Is there any way we could convince the system to stagger Black and Blackburn's starts? I find it confusing.