2012 Minor League Thread 2.0

[cubsbullsbears2]

Go!

Link to 1.0: http://forums.prosportsdaily.com/sho...1#post21699506

[BobTheAutomator]

CubsBullsBears2, the way you ended the last thread was classic.

[Solid Snake]

Nope, I'm still firmly off the J-money train or whatever it's called these days. It's good that Vitters isn't struggling, but it's only been 5 games. And he still doesn't have an XBH. The team has 17 XBH's, so it's not like they're scarce in the PCL.

[CubbieSteve]

I'm on still, mainly because of his age.

[cubsbullsbears2]

CubsBullsBears2, the way you ended the last thread was classic.

Hahaha thank you good sir

[Jilly Bohnson]

I'm on still, mainly because of his age.

Bingo. The four most important words in minor league baseball are "Age Relative to League"

[Cub_StuckinSTL]

Vitters is my boy!

[Solid Snake]

Vitters has to put it all together, for a sustained period, before I get excited about anything.

As with Colvin before him, he's shown power at times. He's hit for average at certain lower levels. Now he's walked fine in his first 5 games at Iowa. One constant has been his low K-rate, and that should lead to a high BA. But what about the rest of his batting line?

Whether he can do all these things at once, even in the minors, remains to be seen.

[cubsbullsbears2]

Bingo. The four most important words in minor league baseball are "Age Relative to League"

I'm going to go ahead and turn that into an acronym. ARL works better than ARTL, so we'll go with that.

[Tom Emanski]

Vitters has a great hit tool and has been showing a better approach. I expect that his power will be the next thing to improve, hopefully at some point this season.

[Jilly Bohnson]

Vitters has to put it all together, for a sustained period, before I get excited about anything.

As with Colvin before him, he's shown power at times. He's hit for average at certain lower levels. Now he's walked fine in his first 5 games at Iowa. One constant has been his low K-rate, and that should lead to a high BA. But what about the rest of his batting line?

Whether he can do all these things at once, even in the minors, remains to be seen.

He did it in the second half last year in Tenn. June through the end of the season last year:

.298/.334/.469, with a 5.2 BB% and 9 HRs over 308 PA's.

Not setting the world on fire, but for a 21 year old in AA that's very good. And his walk rate improved as the season went on, getting up to a 7.1% in August.

He's never going to walk a lot. But I feel pretty confident saying he's no longer an abysmal walker, and he is going to get HBP a lot, enough to largely mitigate what he's lacking in walk rate.

If the power never fully comes, he should at least be a Marlon Byrd type hitter. I'll take that as a relative floor.

[KDM1986]

So anyone think we see Vitters come up this year? Maybe towards the end of the season so he can get some Big league at-bats?

[Tom Emanski]

So anyone think we see Vitters come up this year? Maybe towards the end of the season so he can get some Big league at-bats?

I expect to see him in September.

[KDM1986]

What about Wellington Castillo? Do we bring him up next year and trade Soto this year or do we resign Soto and make Castillo the primary backup?

[1908_Cubs]

He did it in the second half last year in Tenn. June through the end of the season last year:

.298/.334/.469, with a 5.2 BB% and 9 HRs over 308 PA's.

Not setting the world on fire, but for a 21 year old in AA that's very good. And his walk rate improved as the season went on, getting up to a 7.1% in August.

He's never going to walk a lot. But I feel pretty confident saying he's no longer an abysmal walker, and he is going to get HBP a lot, enough to largely mitigate what he's lacking in walk rate.

If the power never fully comes, he should at least be a Marlon Byrd type hitter. I'll take that as a relative floor.

Still not particularly exciting, either. He's shaping up as a 7 hitter with a "meh" glove at 3b.

Yeah, he's probably going to be an MLB'er but I don't think he's going to ever be a great option at 3b. 2-3 wins if he ends up like that.