The Cubs made a move today to clear some much needed....minor league roster space? Rotoworld says the Oakland Athletics have acquired pitcher Rocky Roquet for the ever popular player to be named later.
Roquet, a 26-year old right-hander was always a favorite of Arizona Phil and was a non-roster invitee to camp this spring. He pitched in the Arizona Fall League the last two years and Scout.com had him at #18 in their 2008 prospect rankings.
I'm not sure why the move was made unless the Cubs felt they were full at the minor league levels or Billy Beane really liked Roquet and promised a decent return for the Cubs on that ambiguous future player they'll eventually receive. Or the Cubs know they're going to have to bite the bullet on Chad Gaudin's salary and the deal will just end up being for cash...an unlikely but possible scenario.
UPDATE: Muskat also says the Cubs have released LHP Ed Campusano. I believe over the last month the Cubs have cut ties with their top picks from 2003-2005 (Ryan Harvey, Grant Johnson and Mark Pawelek), plus pitchers Ryan Acosta, Campusano, Micahel Cooper, Jim Henderson, Jordan Latham, John Muller, Audy Santana, Harol Tolentino, catchers Mario Mercedes and Tony Richie, 1B Bryan Jost and SS Erick Almonte.
UPDATE #2: The Cubs VP of Player Personnel Oneri Fleita says the trade was simply due to a minor league roster crunch.
“He’s a great kid with a chance to pitch in the major leagues,” Cubs Vice President of Player Personnel Oneri Fleita said of Roquet.
“We were simply full and had to create (minor league roster) space.
r.vogelsong (SF) broke the hell out of his pitching hand getting HBP on a swing tonight. the trainer threw a towel over his hand as soon as he saw it...already scheduled for surgery tomorrow...expected to miss 6 weeks.
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.