The Cubs Chronicle

The Des Moines Register reported Jan. 17:

Despite a rotator cuff injury that slowed his career for most of 2003-04, Cubs minor-leaguer Angel Guzman remains the top prospect in the organization. ‘He’s finally back to where we want him to be,’ Cubs director of player development Oneri Fleita said of Guzman, who went 0-3 with a 5.60 earned-run average in 17 innings last season at double-A West Tennessee but is 28-19 lifetime in the minors with a 2.90 ERA.

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.”

Off the Mark: Prior still hurting (Carrie Muskat, MLB.com, 3/27/2004)

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.

Mike Remlinger’s rehabilitation from offseason shoulder surgery is going to keep him on the disabled list until at least mid-April, MLB.com reports, confirming earlier fears. This will at least make spring training a little more interesting, as there are now two bullpen jobs up for grabs. At this point, I’m reading a little too much about Jimmy Anderson. Thankfully, Dusty Baker had this to say: “I looked up his stats and both righties and lefties hit him pretty good in his career. . . . That shows me he’s still trying to figure things out.” Indeed. The Cubs simply have too much young pitching talent to waste a roster spot on Jimmy Anderson.

I’ve added a few new links to the left: GoCubs.org, which I previously noted was offering Cubs fans free e-mail, now has a blog (the free e-mail remains); and Cubs Kingdom, a Cubs message board; and Eamus Catuli, another new member of the Cubs Blog Army.

In Cubs news, in an article mostly about Mark Prior’s achilles heel problem (which he’s apparently had since September; my wife is a physical therapist, and she informs me that with proper care and rest this should have been fixed by now), the Chicago Tribune’s Paul Sullivan reports: “General manager Jim Hendry said reliever Mike Remlinger, rehabbing slowly from off-season shoulder surgery, is 50-50 to start the season with the team.” Kent Mercker appears confident that he’ll be ready to go after having some back problems, but if Remlinger can’t break with the team, there’s a second spot open in the bullpen. The Cubs will likely want a lefty, and “Baker mentioned lefties Carlos Vasquez, Renyel Pinto, Felix Sanchez and Jimmy Anderson as possible candidates.” Please, no Jimmy Anderson. And given Remlinger’s significant reverse-split, there would be no harm in going with a righty like Francis Beltran.

Going back into the Cubs past, here’s a link to an interview with author Howard Rosenberg on Chicago Public Radio discussing Cap Anson’s taking the Cubs south for spring training before it became the thing to do. Rosenberg is the author of Cap Anson 1: When Captaining a Team Meant Something: Leadership in Baseball’s Early Years, which I haven’t read, but appears interesting.

Finally, as Aisle 528 and Al Yellon have noted, the number of tickets the Cubs have sold already is just absurd.

There has been some question about whether Corey Patterson would be ready to go by spring training. The last I reported on this was in September, when the Daily Herald reported Patterson should be ready. Today, the Rocky Mountain News‘ Tracy Ringolsby reports that Patterson “has received a clean bill of health.” Ringolsby doesn’t cite a source. Two weeks ago, MLB.com quoted Dusty Baker saying he was going to treat Patterson “gingerly.”

On another note, there’s a quote at the bottom of the Ringolsby column from Cardinals GM Walt Jocketty saying that he’s “irritated” with how much hype the Cubs and Astros are receiving.

The x-rays were negative, but his hand is sore after getting hit by Mark Prior last night. Darren Bragg will get the start in right.

There have been some rumors that Corey Patterson would be out until after the All-Star Break next season. The Daily Herald reported today, however, that Patterson is about to get rid of his crutches and that the Cubs say he should still be ready for Spring Training.

Cubs’ $80 million payroll not all spent wisely (Bruce Miles, Daily Herald, 8/31/2003) (thanks to reader Michael C. for the link)

The Daily Herald’s Bruce Miles on how wisely (and unwisely) the Cubs have spent their $80 million. Part of the “bad money,” of course, is Shawn Estes. The Cub Reporter puts Dusty Baker’s continued use of Estes in perspective – somebody pitching this poorly has just never continued to pitch for a contending team before. And Scott and Dennis at Northside Lounge examine Baker’s continued defense of Estes as someone who’s just been unlucky.

There’s one other thing I wanted to note from Miles’s article:

For now, we’re going to cut breaks to reliever Mike Remlinger ($2.63 million as part of a three-year, $10 million contract) and catcher Damian Miller ($2.7 million).

Remlinger hasn’t been himself, but he may yet turn it around. There’s no reason to believe Remlinger has been pitching in pain, but who knows what the Cubs will tell us after the season is over?

Did anyone else notice during Remlinger’s two inning stint in today’s game – in which he didn’t allow a run and continued to strike people out – that WGN was registering his fastball between 84-86, 5-6 MPH below what he normally throws? There’s no reason to think the gun was inaccurate; it appeared accurate for all the other pitchers. That’s a pretty big dropoff in velocity. As noted, though, it did not seem to affect Remlinger’s performance.

An alarming problem: Lately, the Cubs’ minor league pitching has looked like a scene from M*A*S*H, not a future major league staff (Kary Booher, Jackson Sun, 8/13/2003)

[T]hose who run the Chicago Cubs’ farm system are puzzled about why a handful of their up-and-coming pitchers, including Guzman, suffered a rash of arm injuries this season.

At last count, the Cubs have seen nearly a dozen pitching prospects go down - temporarily or for the rest of the season - with some sort of pitching-related injury.

Those who run the Cubs’ farm system aren’t the only ones wondering what’s happening. Jackson Sun (the hometown paper of Double-A West Tennessee) reporter Kary Booher has the rundown on all the injuries Cubs’ pitching prospects have incurred this year. There is nothing in the article that suggests the Cubs are anywhere close to figuring out the problem. In fact, the opposite seems true – the Cubs are ascribing the injuries to Chance.

Perhaps that’s the correct answer to why this has happened. But that shouldn’t stop the Cubs from re-evaluating their minor league program.

Yesterday, Baseball Prospectus’s Joe Sheehan wrote an article (subscription req’d) explaining his continued adherence to the assertion that there’s no such thing as a pitching prospect. One reason is what has happened with the Cubs (Sheehan didn’t specifically mention the Cubs) – young pitchers “get hurt with stunning frequency, sometimes enough to cost them a career, more often just enough to hinder their effectiveness.” While significant progress has been made in surgically repairing arms and in pitcher rehabilitation, the fact remains that the vast majority of low minors pitching prospects do not make a significant mark in the big leagues.

I’ll continue to use the term pitching prospect. I still believe there is such a thing. But we should all understand the significant limitations of the term prospect when discussing young pitchers.

Kenny Lofton did not start tonight against Wade Miller and the Astros because of a sore right wrist, according to MLB.com. He is day-to-day. Hopefully, this will not keep him out of many games, because Doug Glanville’s outmaking ability increases against righthanded pitching. (As I write this, Glanville just singled to right.)

As ‘N’ notes in the comments section of the previous post, the Chicago Tribune reports that Mark Grudzielanek has a broken bone in his hand from being hit by a pitch in Saturday’s game. He will be out four weeks.

This is bad news. While at first glance Ramon Martinez appears to be a similar player (Grudz has a 765 OPS, Martinez 751), and thus an admirable replacement, Martinez has been terrible against righties this year. Grudzielanek hasn’t been that good either – 712 OPS – but Martinez has a 639 OPS against them. They’ve been about equal against lefties (both hitting them quite well), but Martinez really shouldn’t be playing against righthanded pitchers. Additionally, despite his reputation as a good glove man, his zone rating is significantly worse than Grudzielanek’s (it’s also lower than Alex Gonzalez’s at short, and what Mark Bellhorn’s was at third). That may just be a sample size issue, though.

There are a couple of other problems with Martinez replacing Grudzielanek in the starting lineup: 1) It takes him off the bench, thus weakening an already weak aspect of the team; and 2) the Tribune article notes that he continues to have hamstring problems that may limit how much he can actually play.

The best option to take over would be Bobby Hill. But 1) he’s injured and not due back until next week sometime and 2) he may be headed to Pittsburgh, which would put the Cubs in the awkward situation of calling him up, giving him the job (though I could see Baker not playing him at all over Martinez), and him not even really being part of the team.

Which leaves us with, as ‘N’ notes: Augie Ojeda.

Oh boy.

The Tribune article states that “general manager Jim Hendry will be scouring the waiver wire.” I’ll say.

UPDATE (2:10pm): Dennis Goodman writes, “Grudz got Bagwelled.” He uses that statement to come up with a word play game that could really occupy us for months, if we allowed it to.

UPDATE II (2:15pm): Christian and Brian have comments at The Cubs Transaction Report, including noting that Martinez hasn’t been as bad against righties the previous three seasons as he has this year.

Chip and Steve announced during tonight’s game that Mark Prior’s MRI today came up clean. Jim Hendry just told Pat and Ron that they wouldn’t put Prior back on the mound for the big league team until he was 100% and that it was his guess that Prior would have a rehab start before returning.

If that is the case, I believe Juan Cruz should get the call for Prior’s next scheduled start, which would be Sunday.

Mark Prior will become the first Cubs starting pitcher to miss a start this year by missing his start on Tuesday, MLB.com reports (and Jim Hendry talked about during the game with Chip and Steve). He still has soreness in his right shoulder from the collision with Marcus Giles, and will have an MRI on that shoulder. Hendry didn’t sound overly concerned while talking on the broadcast, so hopefully everything will check out fine.

The Cubs will call up 22-year-old, 6-4 righty Sergio Mitre, who has been pitching with Double-A West Tennessee, to start on Tuesday. Mitre has a 3.79 ERA in 109.1 innings this year, with 98 K’s and 32 BB’s. He’s also hit 11 guys. According to MLB.com, over his last five starts he has a 1.26 ERA in 35.2 innings.

Hendry said during the game today that Juan Cruz has pitched for Iowa recently and so wouldn’t yet be available for Tuesday’s game, which ruled him out as an option. Cruz pitched on Friday, so he would have had to pitch on three days rest (though he did pitch just five innings).

Prior hasn’t pitched since July 11, so he could go on the 15-day DL and be eligible to come off in time for his next start.

UPDATE (11:00pm): Prior has, in fact, been placed on the DL retroactive to July 12. As noted in the comments section, Mitre is not on the 40-man roster, so the Cubs will have to make a move there. Corey Patterson could be moved to the 60-day DL to make room for Mitre.

Add low-A Lansing pitcher Yorkin Ferreras to the list of Cubs minor league pitching prospects with arm injuries ending their season. The Lansing State Journal reported on Thursday that Ferreras has a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his left arm – his throwing arm – and will have surgery next week. He’s likely out for the year.

(Thanks to reader Buck W. for the tip.)

Ferreras, who is 22 and is from the Dominican Republic, was part of the strong Lansing starting rotation this year after pitching out of the bullpen for the Lugnuts last year. Last year he had a 2.78 ERA in 64.2 relief innings, striking out 67 but also walking 45. In the rotation this year, Ferreras showed nice improvement on his control, going from 6.3 BB/9 last year to 2.4 BB/9, while still maintaining his high strikeout rate. If he really is done for the season, he finishes it with a 3.56 ERA in 55.2 innings.