• Javier Baez 9F
• Kris Bryant 9G
• Jorge Soler 8.5E
• Arodys Vizcaino 8F
• Duane Underwood 8G
• Albert Almora 7.5D
• Arismendy Alcantara 7.5D
• Dan Vogelbach 7.5D
• Dillon Maples 7.5F
• Pierce Johnson 7D
• Junior Lake 7E
• Gioskar Amaya 7F
• Paul Blackburn 7F
• Trey Masek 7F
• Jeimer Candelario 6D
• Ronald Torreyes 6C
• Rubi Silva 6D
• Rob Zastryzni 6E
• Logan Watkins 5B
• Yoanner Negrin 5B
• Brett Jackson 4A
• Josh Vitters 4A

Since so many love rankings, it's pretty easy to get based on these ratings. Multiply the upside by 10 and subtract 5 for each letter below A.

• 65: Javier Baez, Jorge Soler
• 60: Kris Bryant, Albert Almora, Arismendy Alcantara, Dan Vogelbach
• 55: Pierce Johnson, Arodys Vizcaino
• 50: Ronald Torreyes, Junior Lake, Dillon Maples, Duane Underwood
• 45: Logan Watkins, Yoanner Negrin, Jeimer Candelario, Rubi Silva, Gioskar Amaya, Paul Blackburn, Trey Masek
• 40: Brett Jackson, Josh Vitters, Rob Zastryzni

The post 2013 Midseason Top Cubs Prospects appeared first on Obstructed View.

Omaha Storm Chasers 5 @ Iowa Cubs 5 (Game Postponed in the middle of the 6th)

This game got rained out partway through. Thus far, Steve Clevenger has been the highlight, going 3-3 with a home run. Dave Sappelt was 1-3 with a double. Brad Nelson was 1-2 with a walk. Junior Lake finished up 1-2. Brent Lillibridge was 1-2 with a walk and two SBs. Everybody else is hitless so far, though Darnell McDonald had a walk.

Brooks Raley continues to be not great. 5 earned runs on 5 hits and 2 walks, with 2 Ks over five innings. Jeffry Antigua worked a clean 6th, giving up 1 hit and K'ing 1.

Mississippi Braves 4 @ Tennessee Smokies 3

A nice day for both Ronald Torreyes and Rubi Silva, both collecting 3 hits and a double, Torreyes in 4 ABs and Silva in 5. Torreyes also added a BB. Arismendy Alcantara was 1-2 with 3 walks. Bully for him. Jonathan Mota joined the 3-hit party with a 3-4 day with a walk. Pin-Chieh Chen was 2-3 with a triple. Matt Szczur was 1-4 with a BB.

Austin Kirk had a fairly meh start. 5 innings, 5 hits, 3 runs, and 3 each of walks and strikeouts. Tony Zych took the loss, giving up a walk and a run in his inning of work while striking out 2. Trey McNutt worked an inning and faced the minimum. Zach Rosscup gave up a hit and a walk in his inning, but struck out one and didn't allow a run. Frank Batista gave up a hit in the ninth, but was otherwise clean.

Wisconsin Timber Rattlers 5 at Kane Couny Cougars 1

Not much in the way of offense for the Cougars yesterday. Wilson Contreras had the best day of the group, going 2-3 with a triple. That was KC's only extra base hit. Albert Almora was 1-4 and had another caught stealing. As complete a player as Almora already is, he really, really needs work on the basepaths. Or to just stop running. Dan Vogelbach and Rock Shoulders were both 1-4. Bijan Rademacher walked twice. That was the extent of the offense.

On the pitching side, Michael Heesch gave up 5 runs on 8 hits in six innings of work. He struck out one. Nathan Dorris worked a perfect 7th, and Shawn Camp closed out the 8th and 9th, giving up a hit and striking out three in his rehab appearance.

Boise Hawks 7 @ Eugene Emeralds 0

Shawon Dunston led the way with a 4-6 day, including a 2B. Kevin Encarnacion followed up with a 2-4 day with a double of his own, as well as a walk. Jacob Rogers was 1-3, but his one hit was a home run, and he added 2 walks. Yasiel Balaguert was 1-4 with a double and a walk. Trevor Gretzky went 1-5, as did Carlos Penalver. Daniel Lockhart was 2-4 with a walk. David Bote was 1-3 with a walk.

The pitching was the story in this game, shutting out the Emeralds. James Pugliese threw 5 scoreless, striking out 7 and giving up 3 hits. Jasvir Rakkar's only blemish was a walk on 2 otherwise spotless innings. Matt Iannazzo gave up a hit and nothing more in his inning of work. And Michael Hamann was perfect in the 9th, striking out 1.

DSL Cubs 8 @ DSL Pirates2 9

VSL Cubs 3 @ VSL Phillies 5

The post JOT: Cubs Minor League Recap 6-14-13 appeared first on Obstructed View.

3. Pierce Johnson – The 22 year old supplemental first round pick from 2012 is probably a little too old for his level, but he's been dominating. He only logged 11 innings after the draft last year, but started the year in Kane County. He's made the most of it and will be due for a promotion soon.

In 62.2 innings, Johnson has 25.7% of the batters he's faced and walked only 7.1%. He's also kept the ball in the ballpark as he's only given up 4 home runs.

He has given up more hits than you'd like. To be precise, he's given up 63 of them and that's a higher number than you'd like for someone advanced for his level. Despite the impressive control, he's allowed more than 1.3 baserunners per inning due to the number of hits allowed.

There's plenty of reason to be optimistic regarding Johnson, but also reason to be concerned. The large number of hits allowed could be the result of a leaky infield, but I'd have to check out the other pitchers before we could even go there.

While Dave and I did not think that Johnson had the highest ceiling among the pitching prospects in the Cubs organization, we did rate him higher than the others. This was because we thought he had a higher floor and because he was older, would move much more quickly. I can't speak for Dave, but Johnson has moved up simply because some others have dropped.

Dillon Maples has performed poorly when he's healthy, which isn't often. Arodys Vizcaino is injured. The others on our list have yet to make an appearance. So these guys have either stayed where they were or dropped while Johnson's defense independent statistics have been quite good. We'll need to see how he performs at the next level, which we should get a glimpse of this year.

2. Kyle Hendricks – The 23 year old right hander was drafted twice. In 2008 he was taken by the Angels in the 39th round. He went to Dartmouth instead and it paid off. Three years later he was drafted by the Rangers in the 8th round.

He was a reliever his first year with the Rangers, but was so good they moved him to the bullpen and he's continued to be impressive. The Cubs acquired Hendricks, along with Christian Villanueva, for Ryan Dempster last July. He had a rocky start with the Cubs, but has been excellent so far this year.

In 71.1 innings, he's struckout 21.3% of the batters and walked only 5.6%. He has a 2.57 FIP and a more impressive 2.14 ERA. Hendricks throws a ton of strikes and hasn't been hit particularly hard. He's allowed 61 hits this year and only 2 home runs.

He hasn't been known as a top prospect or anything, but he's continued to put up impressive numbers since turning pro. He's not long for AA and should see significant AAA action this season.

1. Arismendy Alcantara – One of the youngest minor leaguers in the system relative to the league's median age, Alcantara has not disappointed. He hasn't just been as good as previously. He's been quite a bit better.

He's currently batting .289/.364/.478 with a .381 wOBA. His wRC+ is 141. While his BABIP is .341, that's right in line with his career average. His walk rate sat below 5% in his first two seasons and climbed to 5.3% a year ago. This year it's nearly double that at 9.8%. He has the best ISO in his career at .189 in large part due to the 9 home runs he's hit in 265 plate appearances.

That's a lot compared to before. Alcantara had hit 9 over the previous two seasons totaling 749 plate appearances. He's hit as many or more doubles than he has in any season in less the playing time too. His speed has not suffered with the addition of the power. He's stolen 16 bases compared to 25 last year. He's on pace to top that figure. He's become an excellent base-stealer.

He was successful 25 of 29 times last year and 16 of 18 so far this year. Since 2012 he's been successful 87.2% of the time.

He's done all this while playing shortstop. I don't see Alcantara pushing Starlin Castro to another position, but if Alcantara continues to play well, we could see him moved to 2nd base and Darwin Barney moved to the bench.

If Alcantara keeps hitting like he has been, he'll probably be due for a promotion around July.

Honorable mention: Christian Villanueva and Javier Baez. Baez hasn't moved up since he was the top prospect and a top 20-30 prospect in baseball. He really  has nowhere to go but down. He's being mentioned here because last month he was listed as the player who had fallen the most. He's had a monstrous month since then. I still have the same reservations about him that I did a month ago. He has shown more patience, but he still has a very low walk rate. He's also struckout less so there's been some regression to the mean in both areas. Both are a little higher than you'd like, but no player is perfect.

Christian Villanueva has quietly put together another quality season on offense in AA. His rate stats aren't pretty. You could even look at them and dismiss him, but it's good enough to be quite a bit better than the average hitter (119 wRC+). He's also hit for more power since coming over in the trade last summer. His ISO this year is .175. Vaillanueva has consistently been between 19% and 26% better than the league average hitter. I don't think he really has the tools for that to translate well to MLB, but if you factor in his well above average defense, he's still a nice prospect.

We'll have an updated top prospects list tomorrow afternoon.

The post Cubs Prospects on the Rise, June edition appeared first on Obstructed View.

Honorable Mention

Brett Jackson is technically a prospect, but I feel like we pretty much know what we're going to get. He's going to struggle to start on a good team, and might have 2 or 3 years as a starter on a team like the Cubs or Astros. He might find work for half a decade as a 4th OF, and if things break right he could be slightly better than that. The days of being a considerable part of the next contending Cubs day are essentially over, though. His development hasn't just stalled, it's gone in reverse. The Cubs said they changed his swing, which didn't solve his K% rate but instead sapped his power. He sits at 85 wRC+ in the PCL.

Juan Carlos Paniagua has essentially lost another year of development when time is already of the essence with him. He's had the world's worst visa issues which had essentially robbed him (and the Cubs) of the whole year. When he finally reaches the states, the "undetermined"-year old might start to define his value; until then, it's hard even calling him a prospect.

#3 Zeke DeVoss

It looked at the end of the first month this year that DeVoss was going to reclaim his spot on the fringes of the Top 10 lists. Then May came, and with it, a .198/.323/.198 month. He's started to turn it on June  (.308/.424/.577), essentially as soon as I starting righting this, but even his recent surge puts him under his wRC+ from last season.

It's not all bad with DeVoss. He's got an excellent walk rate and a manageable strikeout rate (15.4% and 18.3%, respectively). The probably is his absolutely anemic power. An ISO of .106 doesn't look that bad, but when it's attached to a player with the contact issues of DeVoss (as far as putting the ball in play for hits), it's going to get really hairy at higher levels. His line right now is .233/.386/.339 against A+ pitching. When he climbs the ladder, pitchers are going to attack DeVoss and he hasn't really shown the power to stop them from doing so. 

DeVoss plays 2B and is mega-blocked at that position. At second, he has to compete with Alcantara/Torreyes/Watkins/Amaya. At CF, he has to compete with Almora and Silva. Where does DeVoss fit?

He's not doing terribly as a prospect, and his inclusion on this list can be seen as a good thing. I just thought that DeVoss had a shot at reclaiming some of his past luster and he really hasn't.

#2 Dillon Maples

I'm not going to focus on the fact that Maples is probably not the most PC person on the planet. I'm just going to focus on the fact that Maples has been injured for the majority of his career, and not looking good in his return.

In 23.2 innings, he's walked 19 people. He was wild in Extended Spring Training, also. As a 19-year old, that would be understandable. As a 21-year old, it's a little sad. Hopefully he embarasses me and this is the king of all small sample sizes. I'm just afraid that an age-21 pitcher who has battled injury for parts of every season since 2011 that can't throw strikes is a really bad sign.

#1 Gioskar Amaya

This is the one that is clearly most disconcerting. Maples and DeVoss are slightly worrying, but Amaya has imploded completely. In 2012, his line was .298/.381/.496 at Boise, and a darkhorse candidate to really, really break out in 2013. 

Instead, he collapsed completely, to the tune of .243/.311/.358. That's an OPS drop of 208 points over a single year. His ISO dropped from .199 to .115. His walk rate went from 10.4 to 8.1, while his K rate climbed from 20.5 to 25.9. His BABIP is .329 and he STILL only gets on base 31.1% of the time. He went from curious power from the center of the field to fringe-prospect status in an awful hurry.

Part of it might be nerves. When the bases are empty, his OPS is .808. With runners on, it crashes to .475. RISP? .360. 

Whatever it is, it needs to change. Amaya's chances at being a good prospect are very reliant on speed and power, since even in the best of days he had swing-and-miss to his game. With his power eroded and his patience worse than ever, it's been a terrible, terrible year for him. 

The post Cubs Prospect Monthly Review: Falling June 2013 appeared first on Obstructed View.

• I'd be remiss to not start with this one: much-maligned Starlin Castro had a 3-7 day, including a 450-foot home run that the wind somehow knocked down into the ivy for a double. Even more than that, though, his at-bats looked really good today, and he seemed to be seeing the ball really well. Am I going to go through all seven at-bats pitch by pitch? Yes, yes I am:
  • 1st inning: Ball 1 in the dirt; Strike 1 low in the zone, swung on and popped foul; called strike 2 high, really, really close pitch, looked out of the zone to me, but the kind of ball old Starlin might've taken a hack at; Fouled-off breaking ball out of the zone low; belt-high fastball popped foul; another fouled-off breaking ball low in the zone; check-swing on Ball 2 in the dirt; low and away offspeed pitch that Starlin flicks into center for a hit.
  • 3rd inning: Starlin takes a first pitch fastball up in the zone and drives a hard fly-ball to right center that gets run-down by Choo.
  • 5th inning: First pitch slider at the knees that Castro hits hard right at Phillips. 
  • 7th inning: Called strike 1: a two seamer low and inside; Ball 1: fastball inside; called strike 2: slider inside at the knees that PitchTrax later reveals was indeed out of the zone; Ball 2 low and away; Strike 3: tough-looking splitter in the dirt that Starlin waves at. Maybe his worst at-bat of the day, and it maybe looks worse than it was because of the bad strike 2 call.
  • 9th inning: Ball 1: high and way outside; Ball 2: belt high and just as far outside; then a fastball leaking over the heart of the plate that Starlin just destroys. Any other wind conditions and that ball ends up on Waveland.
  • 11th inning: Called strike 1: slider at the knees; Swinging strike 2: two seamer tailing off the plate inside that Castro swings over; Ball 1: really, really high fastball; Ball 2: really, really high fastball again; then a fastball up in the zone that Starlin pops up to short. Worth noting that there was a big shadow over the plate and sunshine over the mound, adding to the degree of difficulty.
  • 14th inning: Fastball up in the zone fouled straight back for strike 1; Ball 1: a breaking ball outside; Breaking ball low and inside fouled off for strike 2; Ball 2, fastball outside; Ball 3: touuuuuugh slider diving below the knees that Starlin checks his swing on — that's the Soriano Strike, and it's really nice to see Castro holding off from it; then a belt-high fastball that gets smacked into center for a single

What's the takeaway from his day, then? When Castro's swinging early in the count he's making contact and hitting the ball hard. That seems to suggest that what Sveum & Co. are trying to get him to do — look for balls he can drive and wait for his pitch — is taking. If he's not getting his pitch early in the count, he's seeing a lot of pitches, working deep counts, and letting his contact instincts take over when he gets to strike 2. All of that strikes me as a really, really positive sign that he's through the worst of it and is succeeding at making himself a tougher out. It's worth noting that about half of these ABs were against Latos as well, one of the tougher right handed hurlers in the game right now.  Seeing the results show up in the box score is great for Starlin's confidence, but even if he'd gone 1-7, with the PAs he put together today, there's plenty of reason to be encouraged.

• Beef Castle had a 3-5 day, more than doubling his hit output for the month of June. Castillo's been in a nasty slump of his own, his season line dropping to .246/.294/.326 after a scorching hot start to the year. Castillo is what he is, but at .080 ISO seems like it's due for at least a bit of regression upward. Hopefully today's nice output at the plate is the sign of Beefy finding his way a bit.

• Good Marmol(TM) sighting! Three Ks in his inning of work.

• Cubs relievers put up 8 innings of 3 hit shutout ball today, walking 1 and striking out 13. For as much shit as we give them when they suck, it's worth acknowledging: damn good work today, boys.

• The Cubs won today. We should probably feel pretty good about that.

• The win today snapped an 11 game home losing streak against the Reds. Always good to end those.

• Aroldis Chapman sat unsued in a 14 inning game. This makes me happy, at least.

Minor League Performance of the Day:

It's early, but the I-Cubs are getting perfect-gamed through 4 innings against the Astros AAA-affiliate. Our AAA-squad is being perfect-gamed by guys not good enough to be on the Astros major league roster right now. Let that sink in. I was going to give this to the Oklahoma City food vendors, but they don't even seem to have any specialty foods designed to shorten your life.

Nobody else is really doing anything noteworthy so far in the system. So, I'm giving the Minor League Performance of the Day to the Snappy Burger, the specialty burger of my hometown Beloit Snappers, Midwest League affiliate of the Oakland A's. The Snappy Burger is a cheeseburger with a brat on top of it. It's fantastic.

EDIT: I take it all back. Albert Almora is 3-4 with a double and a triple. He's now hitting .413/.451/.547/.998 in 18 games at Kane County. He's really, really good, and much deserving of the Minor League Performance of the Day.

That said, you should still eat a Snappy Burger if you ever get the chance.

The post BS of the Day: 6-13-13 appeared first on Obstructed View.

Your kids will no doubt remember this as the Brian Bogusevic game. He had 2 separate 2-run blasts, and drew a walk for good measure. He was near the entirety of the offense and a Quad-A MVP. Logan Watkins had a walk and a strikeout and nothing else; his line sits at .237/.347/.382 for the season. The Brett Jackson we know and love is back: 1-4, 3 SO. Junior Lake did Junior Lake things: 2-4, run scored, 2 strikeouts, caught stealing, throwing error. The agony and the ecstasy and all that jazz. 

I've been banging the drum on DFA'ing Chris Rusin for quite some time now, but credit where it's due. He had another really nice game yesterday, scattering a walk and 5 hits over 7 scoreless innings. He only had 3 strikeouts, but his ERA now sits at 3.38. The problem is he's 26 and sits right around 6 K/9 and 3 BB/9. That's not going to work, and in any case is eminently replaceable. I'd rather have the spot go to someone with genuine upside, like Yoanner Negrin or Guillermo Moscoso. Can anyone really envision Rusin as part of the next good Cubs team, or even trade bait for a piece of it? No way. I'm sure he's a great kid, but he's on his 3rd trip around the PCL and he's never struck out over 17.8% of batters (and doesn't exactly have pinpoint control). It's probably time to part ways. Barret Loux got a relief inning in and allowed a run on a walk and a hit. He also struck out 3 batters. I know dmick89 hates him, but I'm still intrigued by him, he's got some talent that may or may not ever show up after his injury. Brian Schlitter is being groomed for a relief role in Chicago in the mid-near future, and had another solid inning of work. 

That's the most I've ever spent on the Iowa Cubs, I think. 

Fort Myers Miracle 6 @ Daytona Cubs 3 (7 innings)

I think I've come around on the idea of promoting Javier Baez to AA. He's not going to struggle at A+ anymore, I don't think, because he's just too good for the caliber of pitching in this league. He hasn't "earned" his promotion, per se, because his holes are exactly the same as they were when he was drafted, but he deserves a chance to fix those holes as soon as he can. I think the longer he stays in A+, the more detrimental it is to his development, because he's getting confidence that he really shouldn't be getting. I had a little exchange with the always-excellent Sahadev Sharma, but find it laughable that he insinuates poor 1B and fielding conditions are to blame for his errors, when a) the other fielders around him don't have the same problem and b) poor 1B play would generally be an error on them. I can buy it a little, but I think some of that is just unnecessary fluff. Baez is a great prospect, and we don't need to gloss over his deficiencies for that to be true.

Baez was 0-3 with a walk and no strikeouts this game. John Andreoli had a pair of walks but never scored. Jorge Soler had a double and a single, scroing a run and striking out once. Oddly, he was the only play not to draw a walk in this game. Chadd Krist had a single and a solo shot, and drew a walk to boot. Zeke DeVoss had an RBI and a walk, but no hits. I'll have a piece on him later this week.

Ben Wells had another poor outing, though a Ben Carhart error (fielding, his 5th, undoubtedly poor turf ) allowed 2 unearned runs to score. He only last 3.2 innings, allowing a pair of walks and quintet of hits. Sheldon McDonald was knocked around, recording an equal number of outs and baserunners, but allowed only one run. Larry Suarez finished with 1.2 uneventful frames. 

Fort Myers Miracle 5 @ Daytona Cubs 4

Javier Baez had a pair of walks in this game, which is good to see. Jorge Soler went 1-4 with 3 strikeouts, so he had a very Brett Jackson-like day. Zeke DeVoss had a two-run shot in the 7th to make a game of it, and had another walk and single as well. John Andreoli, the sort-of forgotten All-Star on this team, had double doubles and a single single, for an RBI and a run. Wes Darvill showed everyone what's up, and drew 3 walks and went 0-1. 

Matt Loosen has an excellent chance of being released after this class of draft picks signs. he went 4 innings and allowed a pair of runs, both on a 2-run HR. He struck out 6, walked 3, and gave up 4 hits. Austin Reed gave up a trio of runs in as many innings.

Cincinnati Reds 2 @ Chicago Cubs 1

I hate games like this. Even when we were up, I though we were going to lose. Sure enough, we did. Trade bait Nate Schierholtz continues to do good work, and Ryan Sweeney (who EVER thought he'd be our 4th hitter this year?) had a single as well. Darwin Barney had a single, and I just described everyone who reached base for the Cubs this game (Travis Wood's walk excepted). Everyone else sucked.

Travis Wood had a great game but lost anyway, because this is the Cubs. James Russell pitched a mediocre eighth (and has been worse than his 1.46 ERA would indicate), and Kevin Gregg had a decent ninth (and dropped his ERA to 0.96). I think there's every chance that he's a Detroit Tiger in the very near future, probably for a lottery ticket in the low minors. Fine with me. That trade makes a ton of sense to me; they need a closer in the worst way, but probably don't want to spend a lot for it, the two teams have had an open dialog in the recent past, and Gregg is eminently available and in need of being traded (both to open up space for Shawn Camp and to give Carlos Marmol another opportunity to close). It makes a ton of sense, so it probably won't happen.

DSL Nationals 2 @ DSL Cubs 12 (7 innings)

Adonis Paula was a double away from the cycle. 

VSL Rays 1 @ VSL Cubs 13

Cubs scored 9 times in the bottom of the 8th. 

Greyfer Eregua pitched 5 innings of 1-run ball, plunging his ERA to 0.93.

The post JOT: Cubs Minor League Recap 6-12-13 appeared first on Obstructed View.

• Fairly decent day for the trade bait on the major league club:
  • Nate Schierholtz was 1-3, with a home run that briefly gave the Cubs the lead.
  • James Russell, after giving up a leadoff double in the eighth, got through Choo, Votto, Phillips, and Bruce without giving up a hit (though Phillips did reach on an IBB).
  • Kevin Gregg worked a scoreless ninth, striking out Todd Frazier in the process. He's now thrown 18.2 innings in 19 appearances and has 21 strikeouts against 7 walks. I know Kevin Gregg is Kevin Gregg, and everybody's expecting him to turn into a pumpkin at the drop of a hat, but if he somehow maintains anything close to this form into July….well, teams overpay for relief pitching at the deadline all the time.

• Travis Wood isn't really trade bait, but he continues to be fun to watch, even if the offense shuts down behind him. No hits until the fifth, four hits and two walks in seven innings pitched, only 2 earned runs, and all of this without really impressive stuff at all. He scratched and clawed his way through the Reds' lineup over and over again, trying desperately to hang onto the lead. As the offense (hopefully) improves over the next couple of seasons, his starts are going to get a lot more enjoyable

• With the loss today, the Cubs fall out of an effective tie with Milwaukee for last place in the division, and giving them the third worst record in the Majors thus far. Why is this reason for optimism? We're currently set up for the third pick in a 2014 draft that's supposed to be much deeper than this year's. As long as this team is not in contention for a playoff spot, every top 5 pick we can get is a victory.

.

Minor League Performance of the Day:

There are a fair amount of options, but being the Baez-centric individual that I am, I'm choosing to focus on Javy's 3-walk day over 14 innings of doubleheader. No hits, but frankly, the walks are more encouraging than anything at this point. No strikeouts either, and a 3 walk day has the added benefit of being unlikely to cause a mass retweeting spree by the precocious lad in all of our twitter feeds, which can only be a good thing.

The post BS of the Day: 6-12-13 appeared first on Obstructed View.

What I'm trying to say is that the game sucked. Barney had a couple of really nice defensive plays that actually saved Garza from getting pounded in the 5th instead of the 6th, but that's about it.  The plate appearances generally sucked. In the 3rd inning I noticed that Cingrani ended the inning with 31 pitches while Garza was over 60. The Cubs made 4 errors and came dangerously close to a couple more. Scott Hairston is awful. Garza, of course, fell down while fielding a bunt. If the game were a sound, it would be this:

Now, all of that being said, Harry Pav and I sat there for the whole game taking in the awfulness. God bless Harry, he actually kept score of the whole game. To me that seems like it would be like taking detailed notes of your own root canal, but he stuck with it.

As the game result became more evident as the night wore on, the crowd started thinning as it tends to do when the Cubs treat their fans to a shit show like that.  Most of the crowd stuck it out until the 7th inning stretch for reasons passing understanding because it featured Arsenio Hall for some reason.  But nevertheless, most fans sang along, some did a few dogpound woofs (though thankfully these people were an extreme minority) and then the mass exodus began. More people left after the Cubs did nothing in the bottom of the 7th. By the time the 9th rolled around, maybe 20% of the crowd remained.

At this point, Cody Ransom made his third error of the night and a young man in a Theriot shirsey a few rows ahead of us jumped up, declared, "I can't take any more of this shit," angrily tossed his Lemon Chill cup to the ground and gathered his friends to leave.  Harry and I couldn't stop laughing.  It was 12-2 in the 9th, the Cubs were about to fall to 12 under .500 and 16 games back in the division and THAT was what got Theriot Fan all pissed off?  This is a guy who presumably went out and spent actual money on the shirsy of a player who personifies awful baseball, but Cody Ransom's third error in an unwinnable game suddenly made him lose his shit and storm out.

It got me to wondering where our breaking point is. 

I think we all knew this would be ugly, but the idea of a god-forsaken awful team in the middle of a rebuild is a bit different when you are watching it every day. MB has talked about his lack of interest in the major league team. Josh barely ever summons the Hope Monster, AC, B and I hardly even make appearances on our own blog anymore (and by the way, GW, sitrick and Myles have been doing a great job and I'm thrilled they have found the energy to contribute).

We're also seeing an effect in the comments. Ryno, when he shows up, pretty much only talks about the football draft. MO, Melissa, Mish and I'm sure a few other former regulars have pretty much dropped off the face of our little world here. Hell, we don't even get Dick Cheese around to troll us anymore.

The Cubs announced 30,000+ last night but I doubt there was more than 20,000 there and 15,000 wouldn't surprise me. The ratings on TV have to be awful. This team is just bad, it isn't even fun bad and there aren't even any good villains.  People have gotten tired of dumping on Soriano and he's not the biggest problem anymore. Castro is starting to get it, but nobody really cares enough to vociferously boo him like they did Soriano or Ramirez or Lee. Ryan Sweeney, Cody Ransom, Scott Hairston? The Cubs are not a who's who so much as a who cares (I can't remember who used it at a roast, but I've always liked the line).

The biggest news of the week in Cubs world involves a AAA back-up third baseman bitching the Cubs out on Twitter.

I know MB says it doesn't matter if Baez reaches the majors this year or next year, but it kind of does. I like to think of myself as a fairly reasonable and knowledgeable Cubs fan.  Remember, I'm the one who was expecting another 100 losses this year, so my expectations are pretty fucking low and they are still managing to underwhelm me repeatedly. I need… something.

Take Scott Hairston… please.  But seriously, I liked that signing. Not because I thought Hairston would hit 30 HRs or bat .300.  I thought he'd provide a nice right side of a platoon with Schierholz. He could bat .250 or so with a little pop. You know, be somewhat useful. But no, he sucks. He's fucking terrible. He's been worth -.6 rWAR in just 92 plate appearances with an 82% platoon advantage ratio. That's by far the highest percentage of lefties he has ever faced in his career so his career .808 OPS vs. lefties should make him a nice piece. But he's having such a bad year, I'd be satisfied with the .702 OPS he's posted in his career against righties instead of the current .572 OPS he is sporting so far (it's lower now because he just struck out again).

Kevin fucking Gregg is the best part of the bullpen right now. KEVIN GREGG! That's a storyline that would be rejected by any writer for simply being so implausible that nobody would buy it.

Don't we have to have something? In theory, we don't need Baez or Soler or whoever to get here in the next season or two, but holy hell our sanity probably does. A good deal of the pre-draft talk around here revolved around a consensus choice for the Cubs to get Appel simply because he'd be a part of the rotation sooner. We're craving something on the major league level and we're getting constant servings of Luis Valbuena being one of the best performers on the team right now. Luis. Valbuena.

So where is our breaking point? And what is the breaking point? If disinterest is an indication, most of us have already reached our breaking point. If it's slamming our frosty dessert cup to the ground and storming off, I haven't gotten there yet, but a lot of fans have. 

And what do we do when we get to that point where we just can't fucking take one more minute of this shit? Do we just give up baseball? Say fuck it and buy a Cardinals hat? A Yankees hat?

I don't know. I just don't know. And what's worse is I'm starting to not even care all that much.

The post Where Is Our Breaking Point as Cubs Fans? appeared first on Obstructed View.

I want to talk about something specifically. It's a comment I often hear and believe I read yesterday (may have been something Myles wrote, but I think it was a quote from someone else).

"He's got nothing else to learn at that level."

Obviously whenever someone says this, and I know I've said it a dozen times, it's obviously an overstatement. Every player has something to learn at every level. At no point is a player at a point where he has nothing ot learn from the level he's currently at.

Mostly though, this is actually something we can look up. A player with nothing else to learn will excel at all aspects of the game. This is simple enough to verify.

There's another comment that I know I've also said a dozen times that is not entirely true.

"The player will have to learn the skill or skills he's currently lacking in at a higher level."

It's going to be a lot easier for Javier Baez to learn some plate discipline at the easier level than it will be at the higher level. Theo and Jed have said they have some benchmarks for players to clear before they promote them and this is why. Obviously Javier Baez can hit for a lot of power, but he's shown little ability in getting on base via walks. To his credit. he's always had a high HBP rate. He's been hit by a pitch 20 times in his career and only walked 25 times. To some extent, Baez is making up for his low walk rate. At the same time, his walk rate can still be much better.

Promoting someone because he'll have to learn how to walk at the tougher level seems like a good way to ensure the player doesn't develop the skill. If a player hit all non-fastball pitches exceptionally well, but couldn't hit the fastball for shit, he might actually have pretty good numbers. For awhile.

At some point they'll just pound him with nothing but fastballs and those numbers will go down. Learning to hit a fastball is a necessary skill and it's best learned at lower levels. If you keep promoting a guy who can't hit a fastball because he has to learn how to do that at the next level, he's probably never going to learn.

If learning to be more selective is a skill the Cubs want Javier Baez to learn, they should probably keep him in Daytona. The Chicago Cubs aren't any good, won't be good next year and probably not the year after. There's no hurry. It's important that the development of these guys is done right and not just to get a player to the big leagues.

What the answer to this question is, I do not know.

The post Should Javier Baez be promoted to AA? appeared first on Obstructed View.

If Casten Starro and HR sheepishly admitting he confused Almora with Baez doesn't put a smile on your face, well, I can't help ya today.

"I shoulda stuck with what I knew insteada jumpin' out on a ledge like that!"

From the mouths of babes…

The post BS of the Day – 6-12-13 appeared first on Obstructed View.