The prospects we hear the most about these days have little relevance to a season-ticket holder at Wrigley this season, unless that fan also plans to take in games at Fifth Third Stadium in Geneva, IL, where the Kane County Cougars, the Cubs’ new Midwest League affiliate, will play their home games. Almora and Vogelbach [...]
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Posted 18 February 2013
† Phil
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prospect
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Also tagged: austin kirk, brett jackson, brooks raley, chris rusin, dae-eun rhee, dave sappelt, frank batista, garrett jones, geovany soto, jae-hoon ha, jay jackson, jeffrey antigua, junior lake, logan watkins, nick struck, rob whitenack, trey mcnutt, ty'relle harris
We hear a lot lately about the Cub minor leagues being barren of talent except at the lower levels. This note is struck mainly in the blogosphere but it really started in Boston when the Red Sox and Cubs were negotiating compensation for Theo Epstein. This was Nick Cafardo in the Boston Globe last October: [...]
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Posted 22 August 2012
† Phil
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prospect
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Also tagged: andrew cashner, brett jackson, chris carpenter, chris rusin, dj lemahieu, hayden simpson, javier baez, jeff samardzifa, john stockstill, josh donaldson, ryan flaherty, tim wilken, tyler colvin
This old Colvin watcher picked a good night to take in a Nats game. If you watch Colvin nowadays, you get an answer to the question, what could he do if he had an approach? It looks like somebody with his new team advised him to stop “protecting the plate,” or whatever euphemism you like [...]
If fans were expecting a shakeup after Tom Ricketts took over as chairman of the Cubs late in 2009, they had to wait until the third week of August 2011 to learn that general manager Jim Hendry had been terminated a month earlier. (Hendry was held over for a month to attend to unfinished business, [...]
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Posted 26 September 2011
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prospect § Ricketts
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Also tagged: andrew friedman, brett jackson, darwin barney, gary hughes, hak-ju lee, jae-hoon ha, jim hendry, oneri fleita, starlin castro, tim wilken, tom ricketts, tony campana, tyler colvin
Saturday night, the world-leading (38-12) high-A Daytona Cubs had a nice win at home. Down 5-0 in the sixth, the D-Cubs scored a couple, and the score stood at 5-3 in the seventh when Junior Lake homered with two on, two out, giving the Cubs the lead. With two outs in the eighth, Lake tripled [...]
On the powerhouse Tennessee Smokies, a team with a hitting line of .303/.362/.489 and an .851 OPS, Josh Vitters’ .229/.278/.390 (.668 OPS) sticks out. The playing time granted to Vitters demonstrates the difference between a good prospect and an important prospect. Vitters is very important to the Cubs, a team whose owner (if not the [...]
We are always looking for clues as to how the organization is doing and who’s up/down within the organization. One daily clue, of course, is who is playing at what position, both in the batting order and in the field. Since opening-day lineups represent a little more thought and planning than do the ones that [...]
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Posted 08 April 2011
† Phil
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lineup § prospect
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Also tagged: alberto cabrera, blake parker, brett jackson, chris rusin, greg rohan, jae-hoon ha, junior lake, kyle smit, marwin gonzalez, matt szczur, michael brenly, rafael dolis, rebel ridling, richard jones, rubi silva, ryan flaherty, steve clevenger, trey mcnutt, welington castillo
Here are a few predictions about various Cub players and about the team as a whole in 2011. Some of this might sound more like admonition than prediction, more a question of what the team should do than what it will do. But I am prognosticating, not giving advice. I have confidence in Cub management [...]
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Posted 01 April 2011
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Hendry § prospect § Running § soriano
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Also tagged: aaron shafer, alfonso soriano, brett jackson, carlos zambrano, david cales, jeff baker, jeff beliveau, kosuke fukudome, marquez smith, michael brenly, rebel ridling, ryan flaherty, sam fuld, tyler colvin
I believe that, ultimately, Tim Wilken saves the Cubs, so my assessment of the 2011 Cub roster coming out of spring training would have to begin with the question, How did the Wilken guys do? They did pretty well. Of course, I would prefer that Brandon Guyer, fifth-rounder in 2007 and Cub minor-league player of [...]
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Posted 27 March 2011
† Phil
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Hendry § prospect § Running
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Also tagged: andrew cashner, brandon guyer, brett jackson, chris archer, d.j. lemahieu, darwin barney, fernando perez, james russell, jeff samardzija, marquez smith, marwin gonzalez, ryan flaherty, sam fuld, starlin castro, steve clevenger, tim wilken, tony campana, tyler colvin, welington castillo
Maybe it strikes you the same way: prospect-ranking websites seem to me to be overly numbers driven and amateur-draft driven, and insufficiently eyeball driven. I write about Cub prospects on a regular basis, and never set eyes on any of them unless they happen to show up on WGN on a Sunday in March during [...]