Cubs Minor League Wrap: July 3

I think that the org knows that too, which makes me think he’s just not effective this year. Which totally stinks.

You are right that we seem to have no top tier pitching in the system.

Jackson is hot right now, and I don’t see him slowing down soon, but I don’t think anyone is going to trade for Byrd. I was hoping he’d hit well and Nationals would take him after failing at getting BJ Upton. We could probably get an interesting guy from them, and open up CF for Jackson.

First thing I noticed was that they have one player give autographs before the game which was pretty cool (I got Ridling and Sampson :/ I was hoping for Jackson/Lake/Vitters/Flaherty/McNutt/Beeler) Anyway, Important things.. Vitters is alot scrawnier than I had always pictured, but he had a clutch ball game. 3 RBI singles with the walkoff with bases loaded and two outs that he shot between the first and second basemen. When he came up, I had no doubt he’d win it. Him and Jackson also appear to be best friends. They always took each other their hats between innings and talked every chance they could.
Junior Lake looks the part of a baseball player. He has a great body—no homo. Seriously dude is huge. He threw a couple throws off the bag, but they got the out anyway. Jackson looks like he’s about to go on a tear. He was locked in all game, and wasn’t fooled once. He just looked flat out better than everyonelse. He gets dirty as well, a major hustler. Lastly, I hope Beliveau makes the majors someday because he’s a fun guy. He’s kinda got a mini Mohawk going on and he was having fun in the bullpen with abunch of dancing and stuff, gave me some laughs.

He does that from time to time. In this case, so Flaherty can play 3B.

Not too terrible of a move. He clearly doesn’t have his strength and he wasn’t getting any help from the defense, especially Alcantra, he probably wanted to kill him. Finish the year, start him in Peoria, give him 10 or so starts, if he does well, get him in Daytona.

.405/.419/.762 5 2B 2 3B 2 HR in 10 G

Del Valle still hasn’t given up an ER

Another walk off win witnessed by me, this time on a ball over the centerfielders head by Ryan Flaherty. He had an excellent game and hit the ball hard all night. Lake had a rough night though..0-5 3 Ks and HBP. His first K was looking on full count ( I thought it was ball 4) Jackson was running on the pitch, stole 2nd, and the throw went to CF so he advanced to 3rd. Come to find out..they called batter interference on Lake, so Jackson was called out, and Flaherty ended up hitting a gapper right after. Lake did work the count quite a bit, but swings too much for the fences rather than just trying to make contact. Heck on the first pitch he saw in the 10th he fell down he swung and missed so badly. I’d love to see him make it though, as like I said, he looks the part. He did hit one ball that I thought was gone off the bat, but he hit it to center and it died right at the warning track. Vitters had another solid night at the plate (C’mon haters keep hating) and his double was a nice one right down the sideline which probably should have plated Clevenger but the Smokies held him to be safe. Discussed above he didn’t have the greatest defensive game, but dude is clutch with RISP. Now on to the big two guys of the night..Jackson and McNutt. I’ll start with McNutt, I suppose. Now, first I must say, looking at all the box scores to his last few starts, I thought that he was still suffering from injury and probably lost some velocity. Yeah, not the case. He was sitting 92-93 with his fastball his whole outing so it’s not like he suddenly lost it. A couple of the hits were bloops, but overall, he was hit pretty hard, even his flyouts, and he gave up quite a bit of those. Just way too many hits. Wasn’t fooling anyone, he probably only had 2 or 3 swinging misses the entire game, and one was on a ball that bounced to the plate after walking the previous batter on 4 straight. Things probably would have been a tad different if Vitters takes the out in the 5th, but still. Can’t give up that many hits and expect to pitch well and Soto made him pay. The one plus I will say about him though is that he was pretty passionate. He got really pissed after not getting a called strike 3, and yelled a bit, and after he was pulled he had a little mini tantrum in the dougout, mad at himself for sucking, I suppose. I was glad to see he cared though. And he’s a very big guy, looked like a pitcher. Now on to Jackson. I liked the guy before these two trips, I mean he’s your #1 prospect, why wouldn’t you like him? Let me tell you, after these two games, I love him. He’s everything missing in Chicago. He hustles every single play. Works the count, and he was amazing these two games even though his starlike tonight (1-3 BB SB K) doesn’t scream amazing. His double last night was a roper in the corner, and hit well, and his single tonight was hit well. The two games I saw him 4-7 2B 3 BB SB K. Here’s why he only had 4 ABs tonight.. Working the count as usual, 2-2 count, he had taken the last two pitches, a slow 67 MPH curveball comes in, looked like a ball to me, gets called strike. Jackson clearly unhappy with the call, let’s the ump know what up, and gives him a few choice words before Brian Harper stepped in. Jackson goes back to the dugout still pissed, and apparently the ump heard him because THEN he got tossed in which he came back out to argue more. He just put his hands in the air and asked why he was tossed out, he was going crazy, it look about 5 guys to tell him to get out of here before he grabbed his helmet and went back to the dugout on his own, grabbed his things and went to the locker room. You guys may not like it, but I love that passion. It’s not like he was pointing and trying to go after the ump with ill intent, I just loved the fire. I wish I had recorded it. Sorry for the such long post.

drew 104,690 fans. Five games had over 10,000.

Marwin Gonzalez SS, is hitting .550 after his first 20 AAA at bats. His brother Mario is a scout for the Cubs and father a scout for the Rays.

LaHair leads the league with 23 HR’s.

aka Soto. Hopefully he doesn’t feel the other three are part of the future. I’d be good with trading Soto if we got some good pieces. I think Castillo and Clevenger are going to be productive major leaguers and I don’t think we’d see a hug drop off.

in a trade that sends BJ Upton to the Braves, and nets us a good, cheap starting pitching candidate. I could see Atlanta wanting to hold onto Minor as the only lefty in the system, but their staff is currently Hudson, Lowe, Jurrjens, Hanson, Beachey, with Minor, Teheran, and a AA righty knocking on the door. They also have a strong bullpen. Maybe we could get Beachey if we take McClouth’s contract for the rest of the year.

Upton is eligible to be a free agent after 2012, Soto after 2013. Not sure what other players might be included in such a deal.

His defense at 2B and SS will keep him in the show. However, while his offense is good enough to stuck as a backup MI, and he seems to have a flair for rising to big moments, we all know that his bat is borderline for a starting 2B, especially on a team that is this offensively challenged.

So basically, the job is Barney’s until someone beats him out. And most are hoping DJLM starts hitting so much that he wins the job.

There wasn’t much to say about it during that time. He’s been back for what, 4 games or something?

Any chance he could get a couple starts in September?

Aggressive much? They can push him but they can’t even move an OF up one level? (Szczur)