The Cubs went into 2010 with quite a few shortstop prospects vying for four minor-league spots. Hak-Ju Lee was the frontrunner at Peoria, ahead of Logan Watkins. At Daytona, Junior Lake held a slight edge over LeMahieu. Castro started the season at Tennessee, with Flaherty forced over to second or third. Barney was the incumbent [...]
This is a new prospect-rating system, adapted from my recent player-value ratings that yielded dollar values for major leaguers. In that system, an offensive player earned points for total bases, walks and stolen bases. Why those particular numbers? Because, as I explained at the time,
They are the means by which a player gets around [...]
The Cubs would score runs in more innings, and thus do better in low-scoring games, if they had hitters who were better adapted to the top of the order. Obviously, Byrd is not a leadoff hitter, nor does Baker belong anywhere other than six through eight. Can either of them bunt, or hit [...]
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Posted 20 April 2010
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Running § prospect
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Also tagged: bobby scales, brad snyder, brandon guyer, brett jackson, james adduci, jose valdez, josh vitters, kyler burke, logan watkins, matt camp, starlin castro, tony campana
I fancy myself a bit of a scout–a scout of the armchair, box-score persuasion, one who never set eyes on any of the players mentioned in this post unless they happened to be on WGN on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon in March.
The results of my scouting are tabulated, weekly during the season, in the [...]
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Posted 12 March 2010
† Phil
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prospect
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Also tagged: alex maestri, alfonso soriano, andrew cashner, aramis ramirez, blake parker, brad snyder, brandon guyer, brett jackson, carlos marmol, chris archer, chris carpenter, chris huseby, david cales, derrek lee, dexter fowler, dustin sasser, geovany soto, greg reinhard, james adduci, jay jackson, jeff beliveau, jeff stevens, jeffry antigua, john gaub, jose valdez, josh vitters, juan pierre, koyie hill, kyler burke, logan watkins, manolin de leon, marlon byrd, matt camp, micah hoffpauir, michael bourn, nyger morgan, ryan buchter, sam fuld, starlin castro, tony campana, tyler colvin, willie taveras, xavier nady
When it develops its own players, a solid baseball organization also produces tradeable veterans. Tradeability is something of a foreign concept to Cub fans. It does not apply to high-profile flops, players you wish had never come in the door. Cub fans are quite familiar with players of that sort. Recent examples are Soriano, Fukudome, [...]
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Posted 21 February 2010
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Hendry § Ricketts § prospect § trade
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Also tagged: d.j. lemahieu, geovany soto, jim hendry, john mcdonough, jose serra, marlon byrd, oneri fleita, rebel ridling, ryan flaherty, ryan theriot, starlin castro, tim wilken, tom ricketts
Tyler Colvin had a decent half season at Tennessee (AA) and got called up in September. Starlin Castro had a good half season at Tennessee and is expected by many people to join the Cubs soon. (He’ll be twenty in March.) It’s hard to predict the future of any prospect but we can say with [...]
So far, Josh Vitters looks like a beta version of the player he will become. By contrast, Starlin Castro, Hak-Ju Lee, Brett Jackson and D.J. LeMahieu have shown polished two-way skills that may propel them to the majors while Vitters is working on his glove, his plate discipline, his power stroke. Either way–whoever gets there [...]
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Posted 05 November 2009
† Phil
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Hendry § bradley § prospect § trade
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Also tagged: brett jackson, casey coleman, chris archer, chris huseby, darwin barney, dj lemahieu, jay jackson, jim hendry, josh vitters, junior lake, kosuke fukudome, kyler burke, logan watkins, milton bradley, ryan flaherty, starlin castro
Here is a list of Cub prospects ranked according to stolen bases per game, also showing games, steals, caught stealing and success rate. I include only regular-season games played at Boise or above, no higher than Iowa.
I would isolate two important groups here, those with SB/game ratios higher than .30–I’ll call them rabbits–and those below [...]
The story of the Cubs’ minor-league affiliates this year is that while pitching has been good across the board, only the team with dynamic players at the top of the order has won consistently. Peoria began the season with Campana and Harrison hitting one-two. First Campana and then Harrison were promoted to Daytona, but [...]
Harrison is the player Tony Thomas was supposed to be. He hits for average and has extra-base power: 20 doubles, 8 triples, 5 HR–plus he has 26 stolen bases at the end of July.
The problem was the competitive environment he found himself in around second base. At 5′8″, he was not going to get much [...]