Right about now I should be saying to myself: “Just because I write a Cubs blog doesn’t mean I have to link to everything anywhere mentioning the Cubs. Resolved, The Clark & Addison Chronicle will only link to material worth reading.”
UPDATE (8:25pm):Here’s the feedback form at FOXSports.com. Here was my briefly stated complaint:
You currently have listed as one of your top MLB headlines a radio interview excerpt with Jack McDowell (http://www.foxsports.com/content/view?contentId=2281576). In the excerpt, McDowell insinuates Mark Prior has been on steriods. That you would publish such nonsense demonstrates a failure in editorial discretion, and suggests you are more concerned with creating controversy than being a respected sports news organization. I am sorry I wasted my time visiting your site.
The Daily Herald’s Bruce Miles reports that the Cubs placed Ryan Dempster on the 60-day DL. This opens a spot on the 40-man roster. Miles continues:
If the Cubs carry 12 pitchers, they could add Michael Wuertz and bring him north with the club this weekend. If they go with 11 pitchers, Wuertz likely would start the season at Class AAA Iowa.
The Cubs no doubt are scanning the waiver wire to see if they can pick up an infielder to replace Macias, who will be out 3-4 weeks as he recovers from knee surgery. The Cubs would prefer an infielder with minor-league options.
I haven’t had time to digest these yet, but I know any Cubs preview written by David Geiser will be worth reading. And speaking of Central Division previews, The Big Red C has the final installment of his Astros preview up, concluding the well worth reading “Know Your Enemy” series (see the links on the left side of his blog).
Reader Sam C. alerted me to Jay Mariotti’s column in the Sun-Times today. I had already read Greg Couch’s. It’s rare that a paper will have two columns on the same subject on the same day. But it has to be even more rare when the two columns allude to the same song:
“The heel cord’s connected to the … lum-bar. The lum-bar’s connected to the …” – Couch (ellipses in original)
“Was his elbow bone connected to the … shoulder bone … the shoulder bone connected to the … Achilles tendon … the Achilles tendon connected to the … Billy Goat … the Billy Goat connected to the … Bartman seat?” – Mariotti (ellipses in original)
The Chicago Sun-Times reports the Cubs had an MRI performed on Mark Prior’s elbow. In addition to his heel problems, Prior had apparently had discomfort in his elbow, though not in the usual spots that elbow problems develop for pitchers. Thankfully, the MRI “showed no damage to the medial collateral ligament or ulnar nerve.” While it’s disconcerting to hear anything about Prior having elbow problems, it’s nice to know the Cubs are taking every precautionary measure. The article quotes Jim Hendry as saying, “We wanted to do everything possible to make sure nothing was structurally wrong. Our doctors, Stephen Adams and Stephen Gryzlo, and myself felt that Mark should have every test imaginable. We didn’t want anything to be affecting his delivery or his mechanics. I’m going to go the extra mile for all of our players. Mark means a lot to us, and we aren’t going to have him throwing unless we know there are no problems.”
MLB.com reports “[r]ight-hander Angel Guzman, coming back from shoulder surgery last July, threw to live batters Sunday and had a successful outing.” The Trib says the outing lasted 30 pitches, and Guzman is “projected to return in May.”
“Joe Borowski’s velocity is down this spring but Cubs manager Dusty Baker wasn’t concerned. Borowski threw on the side Sunday after pitching two-thirds of an inning Saturday night.
‘You’d like him at this point to have a little more velocity,’ Baker said. ‘It looks like it’s the same delivery, same everything. The ball isn’t coming out the same right now. You hope it’s Spring Training and training and fatigue and heat and all that stuff.’”
The Tribune’s Paul Sullivan writes that Borowski’s “fastball has been clocked in the upper 80s this spring, or about 4-5 m.p.h. under last year’s velocity.”
Let’s hope this is just a temporary dip. Borowski throws two pitches – a fastball and a slider. He doesn’t have a sinker or changeup that would allow him to be effective (or at least as effective as he has been) without a low 90s fastball. Additionally, he already lives by painting corners. A slowdown in his velocity may lead him to try to paint the corners even more, meaning an increased walk rate.
Not only won’t Mark Prior be ready by Opening Day but the Chicago Cubs’ right-hander is doubtful for that first homestand as well.
Prior got a second opinion Saturday on his right Achilles and was given the same diagnosis: It’s inflammed, it’s sore, and it’s going to take time to heal.
An 18-game winner last year with the Cubs, Prior has not thrown off a mound since Monday. His spring went from bad to worse Saturday when he woke up and couldn’t move because of back spasms.
The article doesn’t mention anything further about the back problem, so presumably that’s minor. But we’re still left with this: Mark Prior is out indefinitely. And indefiniteness is hard to deal with. Right now, I’m just hoping he will be ready by early May. Ivy Chat thinks mid-to-late May.
UPDATE (10:30pm):Paul Sullivan confirms in Sunday’s Chicago Tribune that “there’s little reason to believe Prior could be ready before May 1, even if he restarts his rehab process Sunday.” This makes the timing of the Juan Cruz trade all the more strange. Is Sergio Mitre (4.65 ERA PECOTA projection) capable of holding his own in the rotation for at least one and possibly two months? We may find out.
Redbird Nation’s Brian Gunn analyzes issues facing the 2004 Cardinals. He thinks they’ll compete this year (I have no doubt they will), but this might be “the last year the team competes for quite awhile.”
The Journal’s Allen St. John provided his predictions on each of the divisions in Friday’s paper. Here’s his (short) take on the NL Central:
37-11: Andy Pettitte’s home record since 2000. Astro fans popped the bubbly when Houston signed the ex-Yankee, but Mr. Pettitte (7.04-run-per-game support in 2003) will miss New York. That hands the division to the Chicago Cubs – who added pop with Derrek Lee (.508 SLG) and Todd Walker (.428 SLG). But the Cubs’ 22-year-old Carlos Zambrano (7-3, 2.51 ERA after the All-Star break) should be the division’s difference maker.
He goes on to state that “[i]n October, the Cubs win a classic NLCS against the wild-card Astros. . . . And purists get the World Series they’ve wanted, with Kerry Wood exorcising the Cubs’ demons, while Boston’s wait endures.”
This is old news in blog time, but yesterday the Cubs traded Juan Cruz and Steve Smyth to the Atlanta Braves for lefthanded pitcher Andy Pratt and infielder Richard Lewis. (Commenter Eric S first alerted me to this in a comment to the previous post.) Like I was with Hee Seop Choi, I’m sad to see Cruz go. I still think he could be really good. I even predicted a month ago that “Cruz will finish with better starting pitcher rate numbers than Greg Maddux this season” (on the assumption that he’d get some starts due to injuries). That’s probably an unrealistic prediction, but how ironic would it be if Cruz ended up fulfilling that prediction, only in a Braves uniform, the team the Cubs took Maddux away from?
Still, the Cubs appear to have gotten a good lefty pitcher in return in Pratt. As The Big Red C comments, the trade essentially “boils down to an old-fashioned challenge trade of pitching prospects.” Jim Hendry indicates Pratt has a good chance to make the team with Mike Remlinger sidelined: “We felt that Andy was a guy who could really help us, not only now but in the future. He’s got quality stuff. He could pitch out of the pen. He’s got a good chance to come to our ballclub and stick right away and start the season out of the pen.”
Meanwhile, the Sun-Times‘ Mike Kiley thinks Richard Lewis was a big part of the deal: “Don’t think Lewis is just a minor-league throw-in. The Cubs view him as a young Grudzielanek.” But as MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo writes in an analysis of the trade, “Some scouts think he has Major League utilityman value in the future.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Lewis’s stats bear that out. After a solid last season in college with Georgia Tech, Lewis was a first-round draft pick. But he hasn’t done much with the bat in the minors, and had just a 646 OPS in Double-A last year.
As for losing Steve Smyth, Weeghman Park has the best line: “[I]sn’t it ironic that ‘Steve Smyth’ translated into Canadian is ‘Micah Bowie’? Consider the favor returned, Mr. Schuerholz.”
In other news, Jose Macias is out for about a month with torn meniscus in his left knee. Mike Kiley “reports” on who has the best shot to replace Macias on the big league roster: “Speculation is that one of two outfield prospects, Nic Jackson or Dave Kelton, is likely to replace Macias. Jackson might have the edge, giving manager Dusty Baker late-inning speed on the bases.” But as Cubs Now! understates, “Kiley has a tendency to use his own speculation as his reporting so take it for what it’s worth.” I think Jackson isn’t ready, and needs to play everyday in Iowa. But the Daily Herald’s Bruce Miles wrote in Friday’s paper that the “organization may view it more critical that Kelton and [Jason] Dubois get as many at-bats as possible in Iowa” (emphasis added). It certainly gives Cubs fans something to talk about other than Mark Prior’s achilles.
UPDATE (12:15pm):Baseball Musings comments on the Cruz trade: “[M]y first thought was, ‘The Cubs are relatively rich in pitching. Why didn’t a team like Texas try to make this deal?’ My second thought was, ‘Atlanta could turn Juan into a star.’”
And Baseball Prospectus’s Chris Kahrl writes: “[T]his is not a good deal for the Cubs. Pratt might turn into a useful rotation starter, but it isn’t a sure thing . . . . Worse still, they dealt Cruz when his value was lowest, and at a point where the guy on the other end of the phone had to know Cruz had fallen out of favor.”
As Cubs Now! notes, Scott McClain hit his sixth homer of the spring yesterday. He’s now at .357/.387/1.107. (See earlier post.) Barring an injury to Aramis Ramirez or Derrek Lee, McClain is unlikely to make the team, but he’s got to be having a blast right now, and hopefully will catch on somewhere.
After going 1-2 with a homer today, his fifth of the spring, third baseman Scott McClain has the following line with the Cubs this spring in 30 plate appearances: .333/.367/1.000. Nice. So who in the world is Scott McClain, you ask? MLB.com’s Carrie Muskat profiled him a couple of weeks ago.
All we need to know about the Colorado Rockies’ chances this year is summed up in the first sentence of this Denver Post report: “All signs point toward Shawn Estes starting for the Rockies on opening day.” (Link via Baseball Musings.)
Rooftop Report links to a compilation of top prospects lists, and lists Cubs in the top 599 prospects in baseball. Angel Guzman, to no surprise, is the top Cub at #37 (and would likely be higher if he had been injury-free).
Looking at the bottom of the list, we see outfielder Nic Jackson. At #585. In other words, Jackson’s prospects aren’t good. 2004 is going to be an important year for Jackson.
As everyone knows, the Cubs have little in the way of position prospects. Jackson is one of the few who conceivably counts as a legitimate prospect. He at least counts in the eyes of the Cubs brass. As the Chicago Tribune’s Paul Sullivan wrote in today’s paper, “[Jim] Hendry believes up-and-coming outfield prospects Jason Dubois and Nic Jackson, second baseman Brendan Harris and pitchers like [Sergio] Mitre, [Todd] Wellemeyer and Angel Guzman will keep the farm system pipeline running smoothly for years to come.” Jackson’s name is mentioned among the best prospects the Cubs have to offer in the high minors.
Jackson is in the big league spring training camp this spring, and MLB.com recently quoted him as saying, “Everybody wants to make the team. . . . I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’ll just wait and see like everybody else.” As much as Jackson would like to make the team this year, the days of Jackson playing in Wrigley Field have not yet arrived. Even if a position player roster spot was open, which there isn’t, Jackson needs to play everyday instead of sitting on the bench in Chicago. And how Jackson, who is 24, fairs at Iowa this year will tell the Cubs a lot about Jackson’s ability to help the big league club in the future.
The Cubs drafted Jackson in the 3rd round of the 2000 draft. In 2001, as a 21-year-old, he was a Florida State League All-Star with high-A Dayton, hitting .296/.355/.493, including 19 homers and 24 stolen bases. Despite an injury-riddled 2002 season with West Tennessee, the Cubs promoted him to Iowa for the entirety of 2003. Unfortunately, he hit only .253/.315/.384, with a 102/35 K/BB ratio.
Jackson is a tools guy, and he simply looks like a ballplayer. That is no doubt a significant reason why the Cubs (and many Cubs fans) have been so high on him for the past few years (not Corey Patterson high, but high). But the tools must translate into production. Given his minor league production, it’s unreasonable to expect Jackson to develop into a major league star. But he needs to play well at Iowa this year to provide evidence that he’ll be a servicable major league outfielder, and not another Scott Bullett or Terrell Lowery.
Looking at the bottom of the list, we see outfielder