After what felt like months of chatting about compensation, GM's, presidents and managers, the new powers-that-be finally get around to some player juggling. The deadline to protect players from the Rule 5 draft is soon approaching and the Cubs had some decisions to make. The lucky 4 deemed worth protecting were Josh Vitters, Matt Szczur, Jeff Beliveau and Junior Lake. The Cubs cut some dead weight by outrighting Esmailin Caridad, Luis Montanez and Kyle Smit and according to the press release, their roster stands at 34 at the moment. Ideally AZ Phil will come along here shortly and remind us who that leaves unprotected, although I do believe the big surprise is Ryan Flaherty being left off. I wonder what the Cubs brass knows that I'm not seeing.
UPDATE: I recovered Phil's work and on the lower right sidebar, you'll see an updated list through 11/4/11 with whom is eligible, including such names as Ryan Flaherty, Jay Jackson, Blake Parker, Dae-Eun Rhee and Marwin Gonzalez.
AZ PHIL UPDATE: I have updated the 2011 Rule 5 Draft eligible list, the post-2011 Minor League FA list, and the current Cubs Roster & Contract Status lists on the right side-bar to reflect today's roster moves, and I have also updated the 40-man roster file in AZ PHIL'S CORNER.
True.
just when you think the Cubs are starting to look like a major league team, they go and lose 2 of 3 at home to the Mets.
Scott Feldman though looking good as trade bait.
RIP St Rita alum and great musician
http://www.tmz.com/2013/05/20/ray-manzarek-dead-th...
grant balfour + live TV...what the hell was the MLB Network thinking?
he only let 1 swear fly (not bleeped)...that's about 3-4 times less than i expected.
as an aside...the worst SS i've ever seen in my life is/was bj upton.
words cannot describe how awful he was...it blows my mind he actually made it to AAA playing the position...and that he wasn't moved earlier in his minor league or AAA career. even when he wasn't making plays that would count as errors he was playing really bad SS.
they gave him an enormous amount of leeway trying to get him to stick at the position.
True, but if he's at least decent defensively, and could put up a .270/.350/.390
he'd be worth at least a utility spot.
Come on Soler, Almora and Baez!!!
That is kind of damming with faint praise. :)
That may be true. But is he any less of a prospect than Darwin Barney was?
Barney: .288/.337/.378 in the minors, 35/45 steals 1724 PA's
Watkins:.281/.372/.389, 88/124 steals, 2205 PA's
http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/cubs/post/_/id/170...
It seems unlikely to me that Watkins will be able to keep up his walk totals in the majors, which kind of makes him a non-prospect.
Per the Baseball Cube (http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/profile.asp...), Derek played the part of two seasons in A ball. He had 56 erros in 128 games in 1993, and 9 errors in 11 games in 1992.
I remember a conversation at TCR years ago with reference to Starlin's propensity for errors, and it was brought up that Jeter once committed 59 in A ball. It was a mini-point of discussion because different sources were reporting the number as either 59 or 159, but it was determined to be 59. Edit: I guess it was 56, funny we both thought of the same thing.
Not sure if it is a record, but in 1993 at Greenboro Derek Jeter had 56 errors.
Anybody know the record for errors at Single-A? Javy Baez with 2 more yesterday - now with 19 for the season.....
I was listening to the "live" audio on mlb.com when the Cubs drafted Dustin Geiger back in 2010, and they announced him as an "outfielder" when they drafted him. So although he had played 3rd base in HS, the Cubs Area Scout projected Geiger as a corner outfielder. But to get him to sign (he had signed an NLI with Central Florida), the Cubs had to give him an overslot bonus and agree to let him play 3B (at least for a while).
So look for Geiger to be moved to a corner OF slot (probably LF, what with Soler holding down RF) sometime soon.
Outstanding effort Phil. Thanks for the updates.