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If you get ESPNU, Kentucky and Western Kentucky are playing a really good game. There's nothing good about this game. UK is going to be terrible. They were not good enough when Joker the RC, I don't know why they thought they'd be good enough with him as HC. Unlike BB, they settle for non-terrible for FB.

At this point, probably below average. Bad across the board, looking forward '13 though. Beerhere, As far as Illinois prospects.... Brent Lilek of Marian Catholic, Koziol of Prov. Cath. (ineligible for '12 at this point), Goldstein of Highland Park, Funkhouser of Oak Forest, and Hickman of Simeon are the best HS and overall draft prospects of '12. Not much as far as Collegiate.

The obvious problem with all this is, the scout's "grade" is hugely dependent upon the player development system he's sending kids into. That's not to say it's an impossible evaluation to conduct, only that it's got a gigantic complicating factor that would have to be dealt with for the findings to be valuable. You would have to account for injuries as well. look at the Cubs '02 draft with Brownlie, Hagerty, Jones, Blasko, etc. But the larger tenure the scout has, the larger the sample and likely the more organizations has around him. If you have 10 years of data, you also have the other scouts to compare with within the organization as well as scouts in general. If the Cubs have Scout X who has been here for 7 years and Scout Y who has been here for 8 years and scout x has 6 guys in the majors and most doing well in the minors and scout y has 2 with many cut before AA, if both have had similar amount of signed players mixed in throughout the draft, it's an accurate assumption that scout X has been more successful and deserves a higher grade. What round were each scout's players taken in? Were they HS or college guys? What positions do they play? Etc. etc. In other words, if scout Y got two late-round HS pitchers to the bigleagues, that might be more impressive than Scout X getting 6 highly-drafted college kids there. Bottom line, you can't draw the conclusion you're suggesting with such limited information. Variables tend to even out over a period of time as far as picks, positions, and rds. selected.

They would seemingly have to have been around a very long time to get that sample size, no? No, most scouts typically turn in 30-40 reports a year and as I forgot to mention (which Tim mentioned) they turn in reports on all guys in their area. Obviously, they would have to be there at least 5 years given the avg. HS'er takes 4.9 years to reach the majors, while it is 3.2 years for college guys. But, many guys careers have been determined in a bad way by then. In 3-5 years, they'll have 150-200 reports, which is fair.

The obvious problem with all this is, the scout's "grade" is hugely dependent upon the player development system he's sending kids into. That's not to say it's an impossible evaluation to conduct, only that it's got a gigantic complicating factor that would have to be dealt with for the findings to be valuable. You would have to account for injuries as well. look at the Cubs '02 draft with Brownlie, Hagerty, Jones, Blasko, etc. But the larger tenure the scout has, the larger the sample and likely the more organizations has around him. If you have 10 years of data, you also have the other scouts to compare with within the organization as well as scouts in general. If the Cubs have Scout X who has been here for 7 years and Scout Y who has been here for 8 years and scout x has 6 guys in the majors and most doing well in the minors and scout y has 2 with many cut before AA, if both have had similar amount of signed players mixed in throughout the draft, it's an accurate assumption that scout X has been more successful and deserves a higher grade.

In a thread in the draft/college forum, I suggest the stats of the scout drafting the player is more important than the stats of the player, especially with HS players.

An organization will grant a promotion, if someone like Hahn or Logan White gets offered the position, they'll get it even if they're under contract by the Sox and Dodgers. In Oakland, they mentioned that Beane would likely be granted to interview if he desires despite the fact Oakland is not obligated to do so. Even with that, there's a time crunch, it's much easier to hire one person and have him a growing year and then assemble than expect him to have his staff. The Cubs already know that their scouting and development staff is coming back, I'm sure the next GM will bring in a couple of guys next year (assistant GMs, etc) but I would expect to see Flieta and Wilken in their roles. After '12, I expect many changes. I don't believe in drafting based on position or tools, rather than BPA.

They can narrow down the candidates, but flying them in, interviewing them, and hiring them is another process. But it sounds like you want a GM that hasn't been interviewed yet to have a staff assembled, ready to go, and expect key components of that staff to be hired despite the fact they don't know if they've been hired.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/sportsmoney/2011/08/30/cubs-need-a-dynamic-duo-instead-of-cashman-or-epstein/ Editorial article mentioning the author's desire to see Gillick as team president and the desire to be innovative by hiring NG as GM. Nothing new.

There's a difference between making a couple key changes and overhauling a staff. They should be able to have a good idea of who they will eventually hire by the end of September, they should make that hire in October and he should be able to bring it, at the very least, a Fleita replacement in October as well. I'm not sure why a new guy would need a month to work on his top lieutenents. How are they going to interview/hire a GM that currently holds that title while the season is still going on?

They would wait to do this because once they find their GM, whether or not the scouting director and player personnel people are not under contract by another MLB club is another story. Scouts and player personnel developments guys sign contracts (usually 1-2 yrs), it's not like you can put a two week notice to change organizations, they have to grant you out of that contract. That is usually done between October-November and wouldn't make sense for someone to wait and see if a GM candidate actually gets that position because they have a good relationship with them. As far as Wilken, he drafts BPA. Colvin projected to have avg. power as does Jackson, etc., but he does value the total package of a position player more than just one tool. If you're going to make that commitment of a early pick towards someone with plus plus power, they still need another tool. Dopirak and Harvey had plus plus power, yet once they advanced and couldn't translate it, they were virtually useless b/c they has nothing to fall back on.

There's nothing fluff about it (at least for next year), expect almost all of the scouting and development to be the same. if ricketts enjoys hiring yes men and being involved in the day-to-day operations of the actual baseball team, then the cubs are in trouble. if ricketts has his sights set on hiring one of the big 3, he's going to keep his mouth shut about fleita and wilken. although i agree if the plan is to get gillick in there, wilken will surely be retained and i will be raging anus. How are they going to do this? Their window is too small to overhaul the staff. They're not going to start really narrowing down until the end of the season (October). By the time they find a candidate, it'll likely run around Nov 1st. Nov 1st is the date when most scouts, management, etc have their contracts renewed. If I'm a scouting director or a highly rated national crosschecker, you're going to get offered another 2yr contract within this month, why would you turn that down in hopes of getting it in Nov? Knowing that if you don't get it, the chances of you retaining a similar position are very slim.

And also, you cannot pick your own assistant, you must use Jim's old one. I know it sounds silly, but this isn't an uncommon practice in the business world, especially when dealing with an executive admin/assistant who has been with the company for a long time or who has a lot of responsibilities (it sounds like this person has one of those). There are significant monetary and productivity costs associated with firing good and/or knowledgeable employees. not if those people have a different organizational philosophy then your own. sure, the lower-level scouts will probably keep their positions and then will be replaced accordingly if their work isn't up to par with the expectations of the new regime. the heads of departments, especially in departments that directly influence the performance on the field, will almost certainly be replaced. If you're talking about scouting, there's always going to be a different philosophy if you're interested in a more analytical approach once it goes from GM to scouting director. STL has a more analytical scouting director and one of the most poorly run set-ups in the game, but their crosscheckers and area scouts have the same beliefs as any other crosschecker and scout. Going from Hendry to Wilken is a much more similar philosophy than Epstein to Wilken, it's up to both parties to embrace and combine those differences to get the both out of each other.

There's nothing fluff about it (at least for next year), expect almost all of the scouting and development to be the same.

I wouldn't be surprised if Fleita sticks around for a year for the same reason. I just want the right GM hired. I'll give him a year to put his staff together after that. Same here, I expect the entire scouting staff to be back with a few exceptions depending on who is hired and the contract situation of those who he wants hired (if they're still under contract for next year).

I don't think the Bears did anything wrong, they're keeping til Saturday b/c of Barber's injury and Taylor misunderstood their intentions. This is basically a tryout for Taylor. I feel sick for defending a contract procedure by Angelo and the Bears.

If they brought Gillick in, it possibly would be to groom the path for Wilken to eventually become GM.

I'd be surprised if Wilken isn't back for next year. Regardless if they go after a current GM or an up and comer, the time to assemble a staff isn't there. While they'll be in full GM search mode, other teams will be signing or re-signing their scouting and development depts.

If you're going to pay attention to college stats, pay more attention to Friday stats than the combined total as far as hitters.

He was bad, there was no pash rush from him. It was John Theirry (sp?) all over again, just that the Bears didn't use the 1st on him this time.

The new GM doesn't get to hire his own assistant? What kind of nonsense is that? I dunno, thats what she told me. She worked her way up from an intern at the company serveral years ago so I don't think they'd just let her go because Hendry was canned. Her offical title (on the website) is Executive Assistant to Vice President/General Manager. I have no idea what the role of Executive Assisant is, but I assume their job isn't baseball related. Its all about being organized and being able to effectively communicate and such. So I don't think its absurd to say the GM wouldn't get to choose, at least to the extent that they would retain the previous person at first. Regardless, my point was that she's not going to be let go because Jim Henrdy was let go. She'll still be with the Cubs in some capacity. I don't know what she does on a daily basis, but from looking at the Cubs website, she is one of 17 people listed under the "Baseball Operations" heading. I honestly think she has a bigger role than answering the phone for the GM, but I could be mistaken. She started as an intern with the Cubs in the marketing department 6-7 years ago and worked her way up to the role. Is she an attractive blonde? I get confused whether that Hendry's assistant or his companion.

The stats of a player (whether it be HS or more so College) or the stats of the scout drafting him? I don't understand how some FOs can override a scout on the basis of a player's stats, the moneyball movie had me thinking about it again. If there's a scout that has a successful track record and demonstrated a very good job to find players, shouldn't that account for something? Organizations don't grade scouts accordingly, they grade on whether or not they get along with the scouting director, work ethic, and the network. The stats are there to grade scouts, the longer they've been scouts, the larger the sample size is. I just find it odd that an organization would continue to operate this way. If a scout has a productive track record and loves a kid that hasn't performed as well statistically as his tools project, that overrides whatever stat the FO might use to draft a kid.

The new GM doesn't get to hire his own assistant? What kind of nonsense is that? The scouting staff will be there for one more year and then, who knows?

That exists. I don't have it, but I know it exists. People referred to it as the Horny Wagon. Ha! http://www.flee.com/ltd/gueststars/78_horny_ltd_wagon.jpg !

I guess it depends on what you mean by poorly. 2012 will be a grace period where almost any result would be accepted by Ricketts. But if they aren't winning 85 games by 2014, I'm guessing the new guy will start to have pressure. If they go out and win 81 games every year, that would be a poor job, but he'd probably keep it for a long time. I think that would be what separates Ricketts from the Tribune and Zell (they won more under Zell's tenure and his intentions were clear) with long-term expectations, although I think the Tribune gets a bad rap for this as they wanted to win & just operated it as a subsidiary. Obviously going 66-96 for the next 5 years will end a tenure sooner rather than later but, what if they have a mixed bag without the grand prize similar to Hendry? Would Epstein, Beane, Friedman, or Cashman get the same leash as Hendry? If so, can't a franchise direction be gauged at a similar rate with someone like Cashman as someone without any GM experience?