Outshined_One

The weird thing is, I remember people being excited last offseason for Dopirak going to Daytona since apparently one of the best hitting coaches in the system was there. I'm not demeaning Von Joshua, not by ANY stretch. Hopefully he can help out Dopirak offensively. What I think everyone has to understand regarding Dope's struggles this year is that the FSL was a pitcher's haven for the most part this year. League batting average was at .261 and the average number of HRs per team was below 100. Also, as I believe Nate Baliva (and if it was Bo Fulginiti, my bad!) talked about how the jump from the MWL to the FSL is one of the hardest in baseball because of the numerous adjustments hitters have to make. Heck, Scott Moore sucked wind his first go-round in the FSL. I think Dopirak will have a good bounceback year, but that's just me.

Is he a cancer because he's one of those guys who really wants to win and would turn into a productive and chipper guy if traded to a contender, or because he's a jerk?

Molina's are strong breeding stock! :wink: Personally, I think they're clones.

This game is taking an excrutiating amount of time. It feels like it's been going on for the past 10 hours.

Gotta love the Molinas. Knock one down and another one springs right up to take his place.

Ya gotta feel for the players. The weather absolutely sucks out there right now with the wind and rain. If this weren't a playoff game, it would have been called hours ago.

There's something to be said for a well-executed squeeze play.

We only saw one replay of it from one angle. That was it. And from what I saw, Cano's foot looked to be off the bag. But that's me.

Nice botch, guys. Bases loaded, no outs, and the Angels up 8-6.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand one of the Molinas gets plunked. He's down and in pain. Yeowch.

He's still in my Top 10, although now towards the bottom of it. If he repeats Daytona next season, he'd still be age appropriate and would be fast-tracked if he shows any sign of improvements. Some top prospects struggle; it's a fact of life. Hopefully he can get himself together next season and post good numbers in Daytona and/or West Tenn.

Sheffield gives a ball a slide kick that would be impressive in soccer. However, thanks to one of the Flying Molinas hitting a HR, it's now 5-0 Angels.

Gotta love pools of standing water on the warning track. Messy game, imo.

The Twinkies declined his 2006 option. Anyone have any interest in him as a fallback?

And here come the boo birds.

And now the Red Sox will completely and utterly fall apart. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

Ballgame.

I don't really know what it is about our farm system that's caused so many problems in attempting to develop positional prospects into decent everyday players. Maybe it's a product of focusing heavily on pitching in the draft, maybe it's something else. Taking a look back at Tim's Top 30 Prospects in 2003... 1) 1B Hee Seop Choi - Big hole in his swing, but still has potential and room to grow. Might become a decent everyday guy down the line. 2) OF Nic Jackson - Injuries derailed his career. 3) IF Brendan Harris - Traded to an organization that's pretty much set at 2B, where he would have been most useful. Couple that with him not having the range at SS or the power for 3B and you have some issues... 6) CF Felix Pie - Should see the majors next year; the jury's still out on him, though. 11) OF David Kelton - Seems destined for a utility role. Can crush fastballs, but breaking balls give him fits. 20) OF Jason Dubois - On a team that's set at DH (Hafner) and has a bunch of supremely talented OFs. Still could be an everyday guy, but not in Cleveland. 22) 1B/OF Kevin Collins - He only has one good tool and that's his power. Other than that, there's not much else. Should be in AA next season. 26) OF Ray Sadler - Currently hanging out in Pittsburgh and hasn't exactly done much there. 28) 3B Alfredo Francisco - Moved to a relief role, still in the Cubs' system. 29) 2B Ryan Theriot - Seems destined for a utility role, but had a nice season at AA and could be a decent bench guy next season. 30) OF Adam Greenberg - Scrappy 5th utility fielder. Probably won't be a full-time starter. Nice guy to have in the clubhouse, though. 31) OF/1B Brandon Sing - Mono set his career back, but he put up really good numbers at AA. I like his patience and power. He may yet amount to something, but that remains to be seen. Yeah, I can't exactly say I'm thrilled at what's happened to those guys.

Yes, because clearly Ryan Jorgensen and Jose Cueto blossomed into perrenial all stars and the Marlins completely and utterly fleeced the Cubs. Look, I did not make the claim that these guys were flawless; they've made their share of screwups and I'm more than happy to hold them accountable for it. Bringing Jose Macias back and giving him a raise, for example. But, in that particular instance, I think the the vast majority of people out there did not think that Willis would become a Cy Young contender. At the time, he was a throw-in. He had horrible control issues and excessive wildness. Most people saw him as becoming a 4/5 starter or a LOOGY when all was said and done. His delivery didn't exactly inspire confidence about his long term health, either. Clement gave the Cubs three good years and helped propel them into the playoffs in 2003. Has Willis stayed with the Cubs, I'm almost positive he would not have seen the majors that year. Remember, at the time he was called up, the Marlins were seen as being out of it and ended up calling up anyone with any degree of promise. Had he stayed with the Cubs, I don't know if any of us could quite say what his career would look like right now, whether he'd be in the pen or the rotation or injured or whatever. Plus, if anything, Willis gives those guys their share of credit. The Cubs actually did draft him and help him develop, ya know? You don't think other teams out there are looking at the Cubs' farm system right now wondering if there's another Dontrelle Willis in there? It definitely makes the Cubs farm system look a lot better. The Cubs didn't end up becoming the winners of that deal, I'll grant you that. But there were enough positive results out of it that I wouldn't call it an utter disaster like some people on this board would.

http://bostondirtdogs.boston.com/Headline_Archives/dividson2.jpg Is that Moran Man's wife? :D

Brendan Harris and Francis Beltran were also involved.

If anything, I think this is a testament to how well Jim Hendry and scouting recognize talent in a young player. Most people saw Murton as an after-thought in the Nomar deal, yet somehow he's managed to blossom into one of the best young players with the Cubs today. Want more examples? The Kyle Farnsworth deal got the Cubs one decent reliever with a nice upside (Novoa), a third baseman who broke out this year (Moore), and an intriguing young guy down in Low A (Flowers). Shipping Matt Lawton to the Yankees got the Cubs a guy who has one of the best GB/FB ratios in the system (Berg). I could also point to the Aramis Ramirez and Derrek Lee trades as an example of seeing a young player with a lot of talent. So, to put this into perspective, I do think this organization has people in it who are able to spot these players. When it comes to homegrown players, I think a combination of things have to be taken into account: 1) Injuries are always crippling. They have caused major setbacks for the following players, among others: Chad Blasko, Billy Petrick, JK Ryu, Angel Guzman, Nic Jackson, Mark Reed, Brandon Sing, Sean Marshall, Aaron Krawiec, Bobby Brownlie, and Luke Hagerty. These guys would be so much more highly regarded if they were healthy. Unfortunately, these things happen in all systems. It's just been rather bad for the Cubs recently, from what I have seen. 2) The visa crackdown. This one especially hurt last year, as memory serves me. Now that things have finally been worked out, the Cubs can finally bring over a lot of the guys they've been trying to get in through the Dominican Republic, among other places. 3) I have to wonder how the Cubs psychologically evaluate players. Given the struggles of some of their guys as they approach the higher levels of the systems, I'm curious as to whether it's because of the nature of baseball or if it's something in some guy's heads. I don't know how the Cubs do things at this level, so I'd like to hear an answer as to what they do. 4) You have to admit, the farm system has churned out some really good pitching. We've seen these guys produce really well (Wood, Prior, Zambrano) at various times and levels. Other guys have the potential to become effective in the near future (Hill, Wellemeyer, Wuertz, Leicester, Mitre, Ohman) in various capacities and have produced in the major leagues. Yes, I know it's trendy to trash these guys for whatever reason, but the bottom line remains that they are young players with a heck of a lot more upside than most other pitching prospects out there. Once the Cubs get a manager who's willing to actually coach and who actually knows how to use a bullpen, I think we'll be looking at our farm system with much better eyes.

Here's an article on the new D-Rays owner: Link Hart as their new GM would be...interesting.

Just going over the 2003 Draft because I'm bored. Boras clients rarely sign out of high school as it is, so I looked over some old reports and found three college guys who are in the 2006 draft who had Boras as their advisors. Whether or not they have retained Boras is anyone's guess, but... Jason Donald, SS, U of AZ -Overall solid tools, but nothing spectacular. Might have to move from SS. Ian Kennedy, RHP, USC -Can't find much current info on him, but in HS he was a 6' 180 pound bulldog type. Also listed in the Top 10 above, so I'm guessing he's pretty good. Colin Curtis, OF, ASU -Power hitter with other tools that range from mediocre to decent. I'm curious as to how well Kennedy performs this season. However, having him drop to 12/13 might not be out of the question. Hmmmmmmm...

I'm curious as to what the source is. If it's any newspaper in the NY area, I'm not going to buy it as legit for even a nanosecond.