CUBZ99

Thanks TT, I need to make better use of that site. Excellent work btw. That pretty much describes him. He won't hit for much power and will have to sustain good numbers BA-wise and OBP-wise if he wants any shot in the majors. He could make a decent 4th or 5th OF, but I don't see him becoming a starter down the line. Your analysis might be spot on. Just checked out TT's link and apparently his arm is rated as a 35, which according to the scouting report limits him to LF. It will be probably be hard for him to start in LF without much power.

Where is Ty Wright rated out of the Cubs prospects? It seems that Lou has taken a liking to him the spring. Just looked up his numbers and they seem pretty solid, if not spectacular.

This is clearly a precursor to a Jake Peavy trade. :-)) Marshall's trade value has never been higher, and he is having a terrific spring.

Lou took him out the other day too, after only 2 ABs for a pinch runner. I think they are easing him into things. BTW did he have any hits?

What more does he need to build on? Theriot is cheap and gives you above average offensive production at SS. Plus the Cubs haven't necessarily been adept at developing quality middle infield prospects. On a team filled with big contracts, I think Theriot is a nice little player to have. He won't be cheap for long and may not give you above average offensive production at SS for long. He may have in 2008, but he didn't in 2007. And at 29 we've probably already seen his best. Middle infielders generally don't age gracefully. He's fine for now, but this very well could/should be his last year as the Cubs starting SS. If his numbers look more like 2007 than 2008, he absolutely has to go. Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating him as a permanent solution at SS (barring some unexpected increase in production and range), but currently he is a good option for the team and not one of the problem spots. I would be thrilled if Theriot could put up a .350+ OBP this year at the bottom of the order.

What more does he need to build on? Theriot is cheap and gives you above average offensive production at SS. Plus the Cubs haven't necessarily been adept at developing quality middle infield prospects. On a team filled with big contracts, I think Theriot is a nice little player to have.

Where is Schilling going to fit in the rotation after the Peavy trade is final?

Nate, Thanks for taking time again this year to answer our questions. 1. How would you rate Rhee, in comparison with other pitchers that you have seen at that level? I realize that his season ended with injury last year, but is he a player to be excited about? 2. Is there a player not listed in most of the Cubs top ten prospects list, that you think deserves more respect as a prospect?

Guyer has some interesting numbers in the minor, albeit for only 1 season plus. It appears that he is not the most patient hitter, but he does have some interesting HBP numbers. So far in his 1+ seasons in the minors he has taken a BB 30 times and been HBP 20 times. That seems like a pretty high number. I don't know if this indicates that he crowds the plate or if his batting stance leads to more HBP's, but his HBP numbers seem to be pretty consistent (even throughout college). Has anyone ever studied whether these numbers are indicative of future performance?

Al Jefferson is all T'Wolves got. Everybody else was spare parts. Al Jefferson is a more valuable player at this point vs Garnett. The fact that Ainge and McHale are friends I'm sure helped facilliate the deal, but it was far from some lopsided exchange. Prolly, but maybe a handful of teams would take Jefferson over KG right now. KG still have alot of game left in his body. Thus, IMO, he's more valuable to a team like Boston then Jefferson is to Minnesota. With KG, Boston is a average team. With Jefferson, there's not that big of a drop off. 36 pts and 22 Rebounds?!?! That is an incredible line, and he absolutely destroyed the Bulls this month.

That's an interesting thought. It's possible. Sosa was on that list, I believe. Not according to the earlier reports. I would love for Sosa to have been clean during his career. (even if it is a fantasy).

Depth Chart: LF: Drew Rundle CF: Brandon Guyer (13), Ty Wright (25), Sam Fuld RF: Tyler Colvin (16), Nelson Perez, Kyler Burke, Brandon Snyder, Dylan Johnston 3B: Josh Vitters (1), Ryan Flaherty (8), Jovan Rosa (15), Marquez Smith (20), Jonathan Mota SS: Starlin Castro (7), Hak-Ju Lee (10), Junior Lake (14), Darwin Barney (19), Nate Samson 2B: Tony Thomas (23), Logan Watkins (28), Nate Spears, Josh Harrison, Marwin Gonzalez 1B: Micah Hoffpauir (12), Jake Fox (24), Russ Canzler, Rebel Ridling, Ryan Keedy C: Welington Castillo (5), Steve Clevenger (11), Matt Cerda (27), Carlos Perez, Luis Flores RHP Starters: Jeff Samardzija (2), Andrew Cashner (3), Dae-Eun Rhee (4), Jay Jackson (9), Chris Carpenter (18), Mitch Atkins (21), Esmailin Caridad (22), Su-Min Jung (30), Aaron Shafer (31), Larry Suarez, Casey Coleman, Hung-Wen Chen, Ryan Searle RHP Relievers: Kevin Hart (6), Marcos Mateo (17), Blake Parker (26), Alex Maestri (29), David Patton, Dan McDaniel, Jesse Estrada, Jose Ascanio, Rocky Roquet, Justin Berg, Jordan Latham, Alberto Cabrera, Randy Wells, Julio Peña LHP Starters: Jeffry Antigua, Jeff Beliveau, James Russell, Cody Hams LHP Relievers: Casey Lambert, James Leverton, Ed Campusano, Jeremy Papelbon, Luke Sommer What is the scouting report on Starlin Castro? I haven't heard much about him as prospect.

Raisin, thanks for sharing the list with us. I know the Cubs take a beating in overall system rankings, but they really do have some exciting young players. Looking at the top 10, it doesn't look too bad. I hope to make the trip down to Peoria and see Vitters play this year, but the scouting reports on him so far have been outstanding. It would be nice to see a pure hitter come up through the system and make his mark on the team. Surprised that Jackson is ranked all the way down at 9. Is he a Sean Gallagher type pitcher that has to continue to put up good numbers to get respect? Colvin at 16? Last year it seemed that he was working on patience and we don't know how long he was injured prior to his surgery. It would be too early to call him a bust, and I can really see him having a breakout season this year. Also surprised to see Caridad rated as low as 21. From everything I've heard about him, I thought the Cubs were really high on him and thought that he could contribute as early as this year.

Looks like now that the Cubs saved Wuertz's $1.2MM they can finally start discussions with the Fathers for Peavy again. ;)

Do we know anything about Robnett and Sellers? http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/R/Richie-Robnett.shtml Richard Pryer Robnett is a smallish LH OF who has done nothing in the minors since being drafted in the first round. http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/S/Justin-Sellers.shtml Sellers is a utility player who stinks. You got to love a guy named Richard Pryer. It looks like the A's really rushed him through the system. At AA and below he puts up semi-decent numbers, just hasn't figured it out in AAA yet. His power completely disappeared last year, wonder if there was some type of injury that he was recovering from.

Doesn't matter that Fontenot actually put up better numbers in his playing time last year than DeRosa. DeRosa is a veteran, dude, so you got trust the vets if you want to win. Maybe Fontenot won't be able to cut it, but I don't see the big uproar about giving him a shot. I still prefer Fontenot / Bradley / Fukudome to DeRosa / Fukudome / Johnson if Hendry really had to make the move to clear some payroll. With an unlimited budget clearly DeRosa + Bradley makes the team better than Bradley without DeRosa but Hendry is not so clueless that he does not know that. He must have been under some pressure to move DeRosa if he was going to be allowed to sign Bradley. Also, everyone was pretty excited about Fukudome coming over here last offseason. While I know he struggled in the second half of the season I don't know why it is suddenly inconceivable that he could provide pretty good production out of CF, especially combined with Johnson who is pretty darn good against LH pitching where Fukudome seems to have more problems. The guy always hit in Japan and he seems like a smart player so I am not so sure he can't make the necessary adjustments. The problem with your argument about DeRosa is that he was only set to make $5.5MM this year. If they wanted to give Fontenot a shot, great. But at least keep DeRosa. Instead the money saved on DeRosa goes to Miles $2.5, Bako $750K, Gathright $800K, and Heilman $1.2MM. The Cubs had decent in house options at all of those positions, and could have easily just let DeRosa play super sub.

Why does this mean Hendry is a failure? He didn't have to have Peavy, and when it came down to it, he likely didn't have the money to spend on him. Cmon, the entire offseason has been a failure. This ballclub did NOT improve in the offseason. We coulden't scratch out any runs in the playoffs for two years in a row. Jim Hendry is a giant failure. If 3 playoff appearances in 6 years is a giant failure, what do you call the previous 60 years of Cubs GMs? I have my serious gripes with Hendry as well, but theres no need for a massive overreaction. Obviously they weren't any better, but he has a point about the offseason. The Cubs were supposed to be able to increase their salary this year, and really haven't improved much. Every GM's job is to look to upgrade the team going into the next year. Instead Hendry is shopping in the bargain bin and picking up junk. It appears that he is flailing around hoping that by just making moves he will improve the team. Gregg < Wood, Miles < DeRosa, Bako < Soto, Gathright < Ward or Pie. The only upgrade so far appears to be Bradley, who is a monster when healthy. The problem is that Hendry paid him more than any other team was willing to pay and we have to pray that all is decent that Bradley miraculously stays healthy all year. Now we are hearing names like Looper and Wolf? So maybe cubbyvirus should have said that the great majority of this offseason has been a failure, to be more accurate.

I don't really think its Lou prefering "proven veterans" as much as it is Lou choosing his favorites and stubbornly sticking with his first impression. When the Cubs won the division in 2008, Lou was lauded for winning with players from the farm system who weren't exactly regarded highly. Theriot, Soto, Fontenot, Marmol, Samardzija, even Gallagher all played key roles. He just traded his .860+ OPS second baseman to make more ABs for Fontenot. However, the other side of the coin is players that he seems to not favor from the start for whatever reason. Players like Pie, Hill and Murton for whatever reason were out of favor from the start and Lou just never gave them the chance they deserved. Lou gave Hill every shot possible, including letting him start in the playoffs. For some reason or another Hill just completely lost it. I seem to recall Lou liking Pie very much his first year, but you are right his leash was very short and eventually Pie got into Lou's doghouse. Gallagher had a couple of rough outings, but Lou continued to give him chances. Overall, Lou plays whoever is producing. He wasn't shy about giving Hill the start over Marquis in the playoffs, simply because Marquis was a "proven veteran." He wasn't shy about benching Kendall for Soto. He wasn't shy about benching Izturis for Theriot. He wasn't shy about benching Fukudome at the end of last year. Lou is nowhere near as bad as Dusty used to be in regard to veterans. I agree, for the most part. But it's much more about first impressions with Lou than proven veteran. Also, yes, he was shy, and almost apologetic about starting Soto over Kendall. He had every intention of sticking with Kendall down the stretch until Soto made that option virtually impossible with a huge breakout. It's troubling that people have to be great from the outset in order to unseat such mediocre players as Kendall. I guess to hurt my first point, starting Tracshel over Marshall down the stretch in 2007 was pretty inexcusable, but then again so was even have Steve Trachsel to begin with. But he won a game. =D> I forgot all about that move. Another example of Hendry over GM'ing.

I don't really think its Lou prefering "proven veterans" as much as it is Lou choosing his favorites and stubbornly sticking with his first impression. When the Cubs won the division in 2008, Lou was lauded for winning with players from the farm system who weren't exactly regarded highly. Theriot, Soto, Fontenot, Marmol, Samardzija, even Gallagher all played key roles. He just traded his .860+ OPS second baseman to make more ABs for Fontenot. However, the other side of the coin is players that he seems to not favor from the start for whatever reason. Players like Pie, Hill and Murton for whatever reason were out of favor from the start and Lou just never gave them the chance they deserved. Lou gave Hill every shot possible, including letting him start in the playoffs. For some reason or another Hill just completely lost it. I seem to recall Lou liking Pie very much his first year, but you are right his leash was very short and eventually Pie got into Lou's doghouse. Gallagher had a couple of rough outings, but Lou continued to give him chances. Overall, Lou plays whoever is producing. He wasn't shy about giving Hill the start over Marquis in the playoffs, simply because Marquis was a "proven veteran." He wasn't shy about benching Kendall for Soto. He wasn't shy about benching Izturis for Theriot. He wasn't shy about benching Fukudome at the end of last year. Lou is nowhere near as bad as Dusty used to be in regard to veterans.

I think it's a huge reach. The guy is 27, he's been horrible in limited major league innings and his health means there's no way you can count on him for more than 50 innings. Hes been horrible while being used out of the bullpen. Hes never been in a 5 man rotation at the ML level that I can think of. Also like I said durability is his biggest issue, but if healthy Guzman has good stuff. That's because he can't stay healthy. The major reason for using him in the pen was to protect his arm. It would be a great thing to see, if Guzman could manage to put together a full season in the rotation.

He only threw 31 innings in MMP. He threw 65 in Petco. I see that now. :oops:

cherrypicked the endpoint? umm, if you want to include a 4th year, wolf is still better. and how is it roughly equivalent? because you say so? like you said that relievers ERA's are usually a lot lower than starters (they're not)? sorry, but you're going to have to give me something better than that before i'm convinced. Okay. So you want me to prove to you that parks effect ERA? no, i'm not an idiot of course they effect ERA. you cant just arbitrarily make up how much of an effect each park has. *sigh* I'm not. San Diego's pitching park effect for the last three years was 89. That means it deflates ERA by roughly 11%. Wrigley's pitching park effect has been 104, which means it inflates ERA by roughly 4%. Guess which parks the two pitchers we are talking about spent a plurality of their innings in the last three years? Wolf last year had a 2.78 ERA at home and a 5.76 ERA on the road. Overall, nearly every stat was significantly better at home. Unfortunately for your argument, his home park was Minute Maid Park, not necessarily a pitching friendly place.

The best we can hope is that Hendry is not allowed to sign a bum pitcher like Looper or Wolf to a multi-year deal and if we are lucky Ricketts will put new management in place as soon as he takes over.

Dumb play, mistake, flaw in judgment, like I said its all a matter of the adjective you want to use. I think the people that could best gauge his aptitude would be the people that he spent the most time with, mainly Lou, Hendry, other coaches, his teammates, beat writers, etc. Bruce is pretty reserved in his criticism of players, so I would tend to think that if Bruce was insinuating that Cedeno was viewed as not very bright, that would be closer to the truth than any of us posters on a message board. Where did I say anything about Cedeno and his intelligence or lack of? To try and insinuate that a player oversliding a base is somehow part of a mental flaw, I doubt that person has really spent much running the bases in a live game but if they don't overslide it while playing The show then it must not occur in real life. What is "The Show"? Oversliding a base, per se, is not generally a mental flaw. Not comprehending the situation in the game or understanding that the ball is live if you overslide, is a mental flaw.

Dumb play, mistake, flaw in judgment, like I said its all a matter of the adjective you want to use. I think the people that could best gauge his aptitude would be the people that he spent the most time with, mainly Lou, Hendry, other coaches, his teammates, beat writers, etc. Bruce is pretty reserved in his criticism of players, so I would tend to think that if Bruce was insinuating that Cedeno was viewed as not very bright, that would be closer to the truth than any of us posters on a message board.