Outshined_One

holy [expletive] christ it's like they are doing this ironically I'm convinced it's a Producers-like scheme. The worse the Marlins fail, the more money Loria will somehow make.

The major league contracts are gone. I was talking about signing a guy to a minor league deal, but including language in there that if a player reaches the 40 man roster by a given date, the player gets a multimillion dollar bonus. There also was supposedly some provision in there about penalties for teams attempting to circumvent the rules, but I haven't been able to find a copy of the new CBA yet.

I think we probably don't really have any right now, depending on how good we define "TOR" to be. I agree. Now, in fairness to the Cubs, most teams lack pitching prospects who have true ace upside with at least some potential of reaching that upside. It is incredibly difficult to identify, acquire, and coach those sorts of pitchers to that point. Health also plays an important factor. This isn't the sort of problem that is easy to remedy. What intrigues me about the crop of guys down in short season ball is that they are relative unknowns. Most of them come with promising scouting reports and/or statistical success. It's possible none of them ever see AAA. However, as craig said, they also could develop in unpredictable ways. These guys could easily surprise us. I also like the fact that there are so many of those guys in our system. In previous years, there usually would be two or three of those kinds of guys at best in the short season leagues. Quantity matters in building a farm system.

Frankly, I'm hoping the Cubs are looking to exploit every single loophole they can find in the new CBA. As you said, the first year will have a lot of trial and error. Why not test the limits? For example, if there's a guy with questions about signability, would it be possible for the Cubs to sign him to a deal for slot that includes escalator clauses (i.e. if he makes the 40 man, he gets a $1m bonus)? What about opt-out clauses? Renegotiation clauses?

Honestly, I have no insider information whatsoever on those guys and I pretty much go by what I've read in places like BA, BP, etc. There's not much on Youtube, either. Also, I haven't seen any of them first hand, so it's pretty hard for me to get a handle on which of the low level intriguing guys are the best or have the most upside. Maples and Wells are my favorites among the short season guys right now. I feel comfortable saying Maples has the highest upside of any pitcher in this system. Wells seems to have enough projection left that he might have a better upside than a work horse 3/4. Out of the rest of that group? My personal favorite would be Michael Jensen, who was drafted out of CC and signed despite a strong commitment to Southern Cal. I also like Willengton Cruz a good amount, since he's a lefty with projection. Jin-Yeong Kim fascinates me since he's dropped off the face of the planet after a rocky first year stateside as a 19 year old. Despite looking awful in Boise, he rebounded in the AZ League and clearly has talent.

Long story short, the problem with the pitching in this system is that most of the best prospects haven't even been past short season ball yet. The depth of potentially high quality pitchers in the low levels is really impressive, to boot. I think there are potentially useful pitchers in the high minors...but that's about it. I'll split this post up into three parts: AAA/AA guys, A+/A guys, and the short season names. AAA/AA I don't think there would be a whole lot of argument with naming Trey McNutt as the top prospect in this system. He crashed a lackluster Top 10 last year and drew comparisons to Andrew Cashner. Unfortunately, much like Cashner, McNutt struggled with injuries. Making matters worse, McNutt was not particularly effective when healthy. I don't think the talent is gone, plus he might need an offseason of rest, but his past season makes me wonder if he'd be better suited to relief. If he can stay healthy, he could be a quality #2. After McNutt, there are a lot of guys who could be potentially useful relievers who also have their share of issues: Jeff Beliveau (prone to flyballs and HRs), Rafael Dolis (low strikeout rate), Kevin Rhoderick (great stuff, but wild), and Chris Carpenter (low K rates, wild). The starters are a mix of C/C+ guys. Jay Jackson has fallen off the planet, but he could always rebound. Brooks Raley and Ryan Searle might have some upside left, but probably won't be better than #4 starters. Chris Rusin might end up as the LHP version of Casey Coleman. Alberto Cabrera and Nick Struck were both rushed to AAA and seem like intriguing candidates for relief work. A+/A I'm inclined to agree with toonsterwu that Dae-Eun Rhee is the next best pitching prospect in the system. Most people had left him for dead after last season, but he put up impressive numbers this year across the board, especially in the second half of the season. I'm still a bit concerned about his size and his ability to pitch 180+ innings in a season, but his recovery has gone better than expected. Robert Whitenack will likely end up in Peoria/Daytona on his return from TJS. He already had high quality secondary stuff coming into the season, but the velocity spike was encouraging. Even if he makes a full recovery, I have to wonder if his improved numbers were just a fluke. If it wasn't, he's a potential 2/3. Dallas Beeler also merits some mention here. He was pushed to AA after having a strong start to the season in Peoria, but he clearly was overmatched with Tennessee. Still, he's another year removed from Tommy John Surgery and is young enough to refine his secondary stuff to augment his quality sinker. Assuming AA didn't kill his confidence, I like his potential as a middle of the rotation anchor. Zach Cates is a guy I really like from the Cashner trade. He's relatively new to pitching, has a live arm, and his peripherals were excellent last season. I'm curious to see how he looks next season. After those guys, it gets ugly. The most intriguing names include Aaron Kurcz (potential setup man/closer, but is still a ways away), Jeff Antigua (not a fan; maybe a 4/5 at best), Zach Rosscup (intriguing, but injury-plagued), and Austin Kirk (season fell apart after the no-no). Short Season This is where it gets fun. Dillon Maples received a huge overslot and has a fantastic fastball/curve combination. He's my #3 pitching prospect behind McNutt and Rhee. Not much to say since we haven't seen him in action in the minors, but I'm excited. Ben Wells has slowly been building momentum since the Cubs gave him an overslot bonus despite being a largely unknown prospect out of Arkansas. The sinker is deadly, plus he apparently can rear back for a little extra. He had some issues going deep into games with Boise, but I think he can overcome it with more experience. After those two, there's a glut of really intriguing pitchers. That actually could merit another post altogether. While the Latin American guys (Starling Peralta, Jose Rosario, Amaury Paulino, Luis Liria, Willengton Cruz, Jean Sandoval) seem to have gotten the most coverage here and elsewhere, the Cubs have actually stocked up on pitching prospects from other areas. The 2010 and 2011 drafts brought in Tayler Scott, Michael Jensen, Austin Reed, Arturo Maltos-Garcia, Austin Urban, Tony Zych, and Brian Smith. The Cubs' Asian forays have netted three pitchers who could make a splash in Yao Lin Wang, Jin-Yeong Kim, and Su-Min Jung. As for Hayden Simpson...talk about rotten luck. I'm seriously hoping he makes a full recovery and proves everyone wrong who ripped him when he was selected, but between the mono and the injuries, holy hell does he have a long way to go.

ah, so you do care at least a little bit about what he says. http://incompetech.com/Images/caring.png

Maybe Wood and Volstad will piggyback.

In fairness, Cates is pretty new to pitching full-time. Most of the intrigue for me with Cates is that there still might be a good bit of upside in terms of honing his secondary pitches and in terms of cutting down his walks.

Zach Cates is actually a fascinating prospect. His peripherals in the MWL were solid last season (despite the walks), where he racked up Ks and kept HRs down. I love pitchers with good fastball/changeup combinations. With a better curveball, my guess is his walk numbers will decrease. I'm tempted to put him in my Top 20. I'm sad to see Cashner go, but I really like this deal for the Cubs.

They just had a pretty solid draft. If guys like Purke, Goodwin, et al. pan out as hoped, the Nationals should have a decent number of chips by the deadline, even if they'd have to go the PTBNL route.

Nothing has been made official yet, but the deal appears to be Zambrano + $15m for Volstad.

Really weird to think that he's 2 weeks younger than Cashner. Volstad's HR rate is one thing that's downright bizarre to me. He's a pretty good ground ball guy who didn't give up many HRs in MiLB and played half his games in Pro Player, but he's had some crazy high and crazy low HR rates in his short MLB career. I don't know what to make of it. pitch selection? His performance collapses when pitching out of the stretch, for whatever reason. I'd be curious to see how many of his HRs were given up with men on base and how that stacks up across baseball.

Curious to see the official announcement; remember we originally thought the Marshall trade was just for Travis Wood straight up. I'm not expecting anyone great, but I wouldn't be surprise if Volstad came with a lottery ticket or two.

Why do you care about salary relief? We don't have anybody to spend that 5M on. Banking cash is fine with me if it's used to sign draft picks, international FA's, make trades to add veterans, or to ink future FA's. I'm not thinking it's going to be used immediately. We can't overspend on draft picks anymore Technically we can; it'd just cost us in future drafts. I haven't read the specific language of the new CBA yet, but I'm curious about what kinds of workarounds could be used in future contracts with amateurs. I didn't read anything about escalator clauses (i.e. player's annual salary jumps X amount if player is added to 40 man roster), so there may be wiggle room for spending in creative ways.

Only 21. Power could still develop. What's his perceived ceiling? John Sickels compared him to Pedro Feliz. That sounds about right if he doesn't improve his walk numbers.

Deal might be Volstad and/or Dominguez for Zambrano I'm lukewarm on Dominguez. Good glove, but I'm not sold on his ability to hit.

Career high strikeout rate last year along with a career low walk rate. The improvement was masked by what looks like some moderately bad luck. There's a hint of potential there, but the best case scenario looks like a typical Ryan Dempster year. Given he's not even under club control for long, I think I'd have rather held on to Zambrano and prayed for a resurgence (culminating in a deadline deal). He has serious issues with HRs. Even if you throw out his ERA and W/L, you're still looking at a pitcher whose best case scenario at this point seems to be either as a 4/5 or as a good, but not great, setup man. Maybe he just needs a few tweaks to help his mechanics/delivery. But, I'm not exactly thrilled with the Cubs picking him up if he's all they would get for Zambrano.

Does Volstad have some really great stuff or something? He's 26, hits arbitration in 2013, and has been less than stellar so far in his ML career. I don't have a problem targeting him, but I don't see enough potential there to pay all of Z's contract unless he's got some really nice stuff. I don't expect stars for Z (as great as the LoMo talk is, it's almost certainly a pipedream), but if Volstad is it and we're paying the entire deal, I'd have rather kept Z and hoped a good first half would boost his value some. That said, after the Marshall/Wood trade, I'm not criticizing this trade until we find out all the details. And Volstad is 6'8, which is kind of cool ...... He once was a worthwhile prospect from 2006-2008, when BA had him as their #97, #40, and #58 prospect in baseball each of those three years, respectively. He's just never panned out the way everyone hoped. FanGraphs liked him as a bounceback candidate.

FanGraphs on Garza

The similarities between him and Andy Reid are a tad horrifying for me.

Yay college OT.

Toonster just posted his Top 30. You might want to fix your link to the Callis Q&A, though. There's a period at the end of the url that results in a 404.

I was thinking Jed & Theo asked for two of the three (which is what I would ask for) but all three? Wow. Maybe old rivalries die hard? A package built around Betances/Banuelos would be nice, though.

So, with Santo in, who's the most deserving eligible candidate? I'm thinking Alan Trammell has to be up there.