TCR: No Good Will Come of This

Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Rob G. on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 2:22pm

A quick look at how some of our minor leaguers are doing with less than a month to go on the minor-league season. My apologies in advance for any typos in the stats.

Iowa - AAA (70-52 1st place by 6 games)
(note: assuming they hang on, it's likely that most of the September call-ups will wait until the Iowa Cubs playoff run is over, although I think Koyie Hill will get called up immediately to give the Cubs a 3rd catcher.)

Name Age BA OBP SLG OPS PA HR SB
Micah Hoffpauir 28 .362 .384 .751 1.135 237 19 0
Jason Dubois 29 .323 .417 .715 1.132 218 22 1
Josh Kroeger 25 .305 .374 .520 .894 412 13 9
Felix Pie 23 .289 .332 .478 .810 276 8 7
Koyie Hill 29 .281 .355 .492 .847 355 14 3

Pitchers

Name Age IP K BB HR ERA
Justin Berg 24 83 43 45 10 5.75
Randy Wells 25 97.2 82 29 13 4.74
Michael Wuertz 29 12.2 20 6 2 4.97

Notes: Hoffpauir was just named PCL player of the week. Felix Pie was out with another injury to his hand for about a week but has recently returned. He has hit .359 over his last 10 games played. Justin Berg was acquired in the Matt Lawton trade to the Yankees in 2005.

Tennessee - AA (25-25 in the 2nd half, 7 GB in 2nd place; 52-68 overall)

Name Age BA OBP SLG OPS PA HR SB
Nate Spears 23 .303 .398 .437 .835 406 6 5
Blake Lalli 25 .286 .324 .486 .810 74 3 0
Welington Castillo 21 .291 .353 .430 .783 175 4 0
Tyler Colvin 22 .247 .307 .410 .717 516 12 7
Sam Fuld 26 .244 .343 .360 .703 304 4 2

Pitchers

Name Age IP K BB HR ERA
Greg Reinhard 25 59 58 24 5 3.51
Donald Veal 23 126.1 100 72 14 4.27
Jose Ceda 21 24 30 12 2 2.63
Casey Lambert 22 21.1 16 6 0 2.95

Notes: Reinhard was acquired in the Jae-kuk Ryu deal last year from Tampa Bay. Spears was acquired from Baltimore with pitcher Carlos Perez for Corey Patterson. Lalli had a .913 OPS in 261 PA's for Daytona before being promoted and has played split duties between catching and first base. (UPDATE:) He was demoted back to Daytona yesterday. I have no idea what's wrong with Sam Fuld's legs. While never a burner, he'd steal 10 to 20 bases and keep it above 75%. He's been caught five times in AA with just 2 successful swipes.

Daytona - Hi-A (27-20 in 2nd half and tied for first; 62-55 overall)

Name Age BA OBP SLG OPS PA HR SB
Marquez Smith 23 .250 .336 .400 .736 113 2 0
Tony Thomas 22 .265 .317 .408 .712 426 7 20
Ryan Harvey 23 .231 .309 .394 .703 182 6 1
Russ Canzler 22 .278 .332 .458 .790 316 9 6

Pitchers

Name Age IP K BB HR ERA
Jeremy Papelbon 25 64.2 49 24 2 2.92
Marco Carillo 21 115.2 71 33 9 2.88
James Russell 22 30.2 17 9 3 3.82
Jordon Latham 21 7 5 2 1 5.14
Blake Parker 23 14.1 15 6 0 5.02
Jay Jackson 20 4 9 1 0 0.00

Notes: Carillo is now up in AA and has had one start where he threw five innings and gave up four runs. Russell got sent back to Daytona after putting up a 6.36 ERA in AA. Marquez Smith had an .838 OPS in Peoria in 241 PA's before being promoted with 14 HR's. Latham threw up a 1.93 ERA in Peoria before getting a promotion with 59 K's in 60.2 IP. Parker had a 1.33 ERA in Peoria with 51 K's in 47.1 IP and just 2 HR's allowed. He also had a brief emergency call-up to Iowa earlier in the season. Jay Jackson (full name is Randy Jackson) was the Cubs 9th round pick in the 2008 draft out of Furman University and struck out 37 in 24 IP in Peoria before being promoted. The righty now has 60 K's in his minor league career, against just 7 BB's and 4 HR's in 37 IP.

Peoria - A (25-25 in the 2nd half, 5.5 GB tied for 5th place; 55-63 overall)

Name Age BA OBP SLG OPS PA HR SB
Luis Bautista 23 .325 .373 .545 .918 279 11 3
Brandon Guyer 22 .278 .345 .533 .878 291 12 18
Jovan Rosa 20 .290 .349 .438 .787 459 7 1
Rebel Ridling 22 .183 .235 .349 .584 119 4 1
Josh Harrison 21 .241 .279 .259 .538 61 0 4

Pitchers

Name Age IP K BB HR ERA
Jake Muyco 23 24.1 14 2 3 2.22

Notes: Ridling was drafted in the 25th round out of Oklahoma State in the 2008 draft and had a 1.061 OPS in 80 PA with 4 HR's for Boise before being promoted. Harrison, the Cubs 6th round pick this year, had a .971 OPS in Boise before being promoted and stole 12 bases along with 11 doubles in 144 PA's.

Boise - Short-Season A (31-23, 7 GB in 2nd place)

Name Age BA OBP SLG OPS PA HR SB
Drew Rundle 20 .300 .387 .567 .954 141 5 2
Ryan Keedy 22 .366 .455 .488 .943 203 2 0
Ryan Flaherty 22 .316 .396 .537 .933 154 5 2
Josh Vitters 18 .337 .373 .512 .847 185 4 0

Pitchers

Name Age IP K BB HR ERA
Dan McDaniel 20 22.1 34 11 1 0.40
Andrew Cashner 21 5.2 5 12 1 12.71
Mark Pawelek 21 24.2 21 19 0 6.20

Notes: Cashner has had three appearances for Boise; 1.2 IP with 4 BB/3 K, 1.0 IP with 5 BB/0 K, and 3.0 IP with 3 BB/2 K.

AZL Cubs - Rookie League (7-6 in the 2nd half, 3 GB in 4th place; 25-16 overall)

»

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

#1 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by crunch on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 2:34pm.

not to nitpick too much, but one important set of stats missing from hoffpower's numbers are the so/bb which raises a bit of a warning...

32k, 11bb, 221ab.

he's a swinger. not in that scarey 70s way either...at least i hope...

quality of contact is going to be pretty important to his game.

then again i dunno if anyone expects him to do much more than pinch hit, spot start, and put the ball in play with a touch of power anyway.

#2 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Rob G. on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 2:37pm.

yeah, it was already getting too time consuming, but BB/SO ratio for hitters is always worth looking at.

#3 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by crunch on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 2:38pm.

yeah, not critiquing the piece you wrote, really...just adding to it.

he's an exciting player who's had some interesting pro ABs.

#32 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by The Real Neal on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 11:29pm.

32K's in 237 PA's isn't much to worry about when you're slugging .700+.

#33 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by crunch on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 11:52pm.

it's the 11bb i'm more woried about.

that along with the low K totals points to a guy who's entire hitting game is gonna rely on quality of contact.

that said...usually what people are looking for in bench riding late inning power hitter is a person who can put a ball in play and/or put it in the OF deep enough to move runners. he seems to be that.

#4 Gotta love Jay Jackson

Submitted by Rob G. on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 2:39pm.

have to imagine he'll show up on most top 10 lists with those peripheral numbers.

#5 Paul Byrd to Red Sox

Submitted by navigator on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 2:44pm.

Cleveland unloading

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080812&c...

#6 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by John Beasley on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 2:48pm.

Also, Freddy Garcia signs with the Tigers.

#7 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Raisin101 on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 2:59pm.

Couple of notes: according to Daytona's web site, Blake Lalli was demoted to Daytona yesterday.

Brandon Guyer is only 22, not 29.

Ryan Flaherty only has 136 at bats at Boise.

Thanks for the write up. It's great to see all those stats at one place. Nice and easy to compare.

#11 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Rob G. on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 3:48pm.

thanks...typos as I said, just kept cut and pasting the previous table and modifying.

It's 154 PA's for Flaherty fwiw and thanks for the Lalli note. 

#8 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by billybucks on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 3:07pm.

Very small sample size, but Cashner's BB totals are disappointing, given that my impression was that he was a fairly polished college pitcher. Hopefully, it's just nerves and/or an adjustment to being on his own after college life.

#9 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Dmac on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 3:35pm.

Did I miss Guzman's numbers in there?

#12 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Rob G. on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 3:54pm.

sorry, Guzman has only pitched 5 innings in Daytona so I didn't think it was worth mentioning, but 5 IP, 6 K, 1 BB, 3.60 ERA, 0 HR.

Just got promoted to AA and will start tonight, certainly on a limited pitch count. 

#10 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Cubs Win on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 3:46pm.

Great writeup....thanks!

It seems to me the cupboard looks pretty bare compared to other teams top prospects. At least we have a few young players on the team (Soto, Theriot, Cedeno, Fontenot, Smardzija) that we can control for a while. Seeing the stats, do you have a top 10 list in mind when accounting for this years performances? It seems like we still are hoping for Vitters to come up big but the rest have serious flaws (Colvin, Ceda, Pie, Cashner) at this point....very interested in a top 10 projection.

#13 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by big_lowitzki on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 3:55pm.

Cashner has thrown 5 innings. I am pretty sure that we cannot say that he has "serious flaws" after just five innings.

#15 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Rob G. on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 4:12pm.

my usual forays into prospect lists turn out ugly, but whatever. If we're going to ignore Samardzija and Pie as prospects, then yeah, it's pretty slim, especially for upper-level talent. And lower-level talent has a way of flaming out.

Here's a top 11 and the order doesn't mean much. Think of it as 11 guys I'm going to keep my eye on...

Josh Vitters
Jose Ceda
Jay Jackson
Andrew Cashner
Ryan Flaherty
Rebel Ridling
Blake Parker
James Russell
Jordon Latham
Welington Castillo
Tyler Colvin 

If I was giving letter grades, I'd say Vitters is an A-, Ceda a B+. If I I was just looking at Jay Jackson's numbers, I'd give him an A- as well, but I don't know a damn thing about the guy. Everyone else is B- to C talent imo, but we'll see, Ridling's power looks impressive.

I'll give honorable mentions to Marquez Smith, Jovan Rosa, Dumas Garcia, Jake Muyco, Alex Maestri, Micah Hoffpauir and Casey Lambert based mostly on what AZ Phil says. 

And while Hoffpauir's numbers sure have been impressive lately, the fact that he's just got nothing going for him defensively, has shown sketchy plate discipline and is 28, makes me skeptical. Maybe he'll be a good bench bat next year, but it's a dicey proposition. I think he could do just as poorly as Ward with 1-2 AB's a week minus the IBB's.

As for the Ryan Ludwick comparison someone made earlier, Ludwick was injured most of his career. Hoffpauir doesn't really have that excuse to lean on. 

--edit--

I'm selling Cashner short. Guys who can throw mid 90's or higher are better than B- to C talent. Give him a B+. I don't really care about the first five innings of his minor league career.

 

#18 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Timmer on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 4:45pm.

Hoffpauir's "just got nothing going for him defensively"

In the outfield, true. But I thought he was supposed to be better than average defensively at first base. Maybe AZ Phil can confirm.

#14 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Cubs Win on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 4:08pm.

Serious may have been a bit overblown....just trying to say we don't have any 5 star prospects that are rated as future stars by any of the publications. I'm guessing Vitters may be top 50 in baseball but the rest will not be in the top 100.

#16 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Cubs Win on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 4:21pm.

Thanks Rob -

That list looks a bit disturbing as you described....bare at the top and ok at the bottom but that seems to thin out REAL quick when they go to high A or AA ball. My guess for Baseball America next year will go like this (if they exclude Smardzija and Pie).

1. Vitters
2. Ceda
3. Cashner
4. Colvin
5. Veal
6. Flaherty
7. T.Thomas
8. Hoffpauir
9. W.Castillo
10. One of the pitchers we drafted in 08 (Shafer, Carpenter).

BA tends to give "credit" to the most recent draft class when an org doesn't have enough good players in the system to fill out the top 10 w/ strength.

#19 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Raisin101 on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 4:46pm.

I don't see Samardzija hitting 50 innings, he should make BA's list (and rank #2).

They're also in love with Welington Castillo. I suspect he'll be top 5. I think you could see Dae-Eun Rhee make their top 10 despite the Tommy John.

#24 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Rob G. on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 5:02pm.

is Samardzija going to hit the service time limit and does BA consider that?

But if Samardzija and Pie were on that list, they'd be 1 and 2 imo. 

#27 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Raisin101 on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 5:34pm.

He won't reach the service limit and, either way, BA doesn't consider it (look at Joe Mauer who was the top prospect in baseball according to BA going into...2004 I think...even though he wasn't even considered a rookie).

#17 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Dmac on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 4:41pm.

Sickels would doubtlessly agree with most of your analysis here.

#20 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by falcon on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 4:47pm.

How about some respect for the guys that have worked their buts off in Mesa (baseball hell)? These guys face a different pitcher almost evey at bat and play a 9 inning game in that oven in Arizona (after a 2 hour practice).

#22 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Rob G. on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 4:58pm.

AZ Phil has that covered....

But I put almost no stock in the numbers down there. 

#21 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Cubs Win on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 4:56pm.

You are right....Smardzija won't hit the limit and everyone will turn from skeptics to love-a-thon for the kid. I'd agree w/ the #2 ranking after seeing his fastball/splitter combo. If he can polish up a slider or curve he will be extremely tough!

It will be very interesting to see what they do with him - it will probably depend on what happens with Dempster......I'm personally hoping to resign Dempster and give Smardzija one more year in the pen. He can replace Marquis after his last contract year next season since we won't be able to trade him without eating a chunk of his contract.

#23 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Cubs Win on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 5:00pm.

Where is Az Phil these days....I miss his insights on the farm system?

#25 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Rob G. on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 5:03pm.

*Shrug*

There's a contact form if you hit the writers link up top. He seems to stop by when time allows 

#26 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Cubs Win on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 5:10pm.

Know anything about recent Dominican, Australian or Pac Rim signees.....it seems as though Searle may be a good prospect too?

#28 Re: Minor League Stat Gazing

Submitted by Raisin101 on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 5:37pm.

I saw Searle in his last start off the Boise web site (5 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 6 K) and he looked impressive. His fastball has nice movement and sink. His slider looked good too. I'd guess his FB was in the low 90s.

I really recommend the Boise Hawks videos for their home games. Vitters has a sweet swing, so does Flaherty and is brutal on the field, Carpenter throws really hard, etc. Sadly, Cashner hasn't pitched at home yet.

Return to Homepage

Syndicate content