Seven Chicago Cubs Prospects Will Play in the Arizona Fall League, Including Brett Jackson and Josh Vitters

Two of the Chicago Cubs’ last four first round picks will get the opportunity to play in the prospect-heavy Arizona Fall League this, well, Fall. Third baseman Josh Vitters and outfielder Brett Jackson will compete against some top tier competition, and will have the opportunity to refine their skills. Recall that, following a successful 2009 season, the Arizona Fall League is where Starlin Castro announced to the world that he was a legit top prospect.

Vitters and Jackson will be joined by five others, which in total makes a very strong showing for the Cubs.

Vitters has been sidelined with a broken hand after he was hit by a pitch in late July. He began the season at Class A Daytona and batted .291 with three homers and 13 RBIs in 28 games, then was promoted to Double-A Tennessee, where he batted .223 in 63 games.

“Vitters is healthy,” Cubs player development director Oneri Fleita said. “He’ll start taking ground balls this week. He starts hitting next week. The plan is to be ready for the instructional league [on Sept. 15] when we arrive and he’ll play in the Arizona Fall League. He’ll get the at-bats he missed and then go to our winter program in Arizona and get ready for Spring Training.”

Jackson also began the season at Daytona and hit .316 in 67 games with six homers, 19 doubles and 38 RBIs. He was moved up to Tennessee on June 27 and was hitting .274 in 55 games with five homers, 11 doubles, five triples and 23 RBIs. Jackson was hitting .250 in August.

“It’s the first time he’s played 140 games,” Fleita said of the outfielder. “He didn’t get much time off. He’s being challenged. As soon as [the Smokies] get into the playoffs, I’m sure his juices will get going.”

The other Cubs players who will compete for the Mesa Solar Sox in the AFL include pitchers David Cales, Chris Carpenter, Jake Muyco and Kyle Smit and infielder Ryan Flaherty. cubs.com.

The AFL tends to include prospects who are approaching the big leagues, but who need extra work against top competition (though that’s not always the case). Chris Carpenter (not that Chris Carpenter) is one of the Cubs top five pitching prospects, and was recently promoted to AAA Iowa. David Cales has struggled this year after a dominant 2009. Kyle Smit, you may recall, was the reliever received in the Ted Lilly trade. Jake Muyco is another in the long list of Cubs catching prospects converted to pitcher (Carlos Marmol and Randy Wells head up the list). Ryan Flaherty disappointed in AA before being demoted to High A this year.

Carlos Zambrano Handled the Move to the Bullpen Like a Professional, Even if He Was Upset

Now that Carlos Zambrano is back in the rotation and pitching reasonably well (that is to say, the result have been reasonably good even if his pitches don’t look so good), questions are resurfacing about the Cubs’ decision to put Zambrano in the bullpen when Ted Lilly was ready to return to the rotation from offseason surgery.

Was it the right decision? Would he have turned his season around as a starter and avoided all the ugliness that percolated last month? What does he really think? We’ll probably never know the answer to the first two questions, but we’re getting a view to the third – because Carlos is talking.

Does he ever wonder if he’d be pitching like this had he stayed in the rotation from the outset?

“What do you think?” he replied. “The situation we were in, when they moved me to the bullpen, it was kind of weird. But at the same time, they needed somebody in the bullpen in the eighth inning. We were losing a lot of games in the seventh, eighth innings. I think from my perspective we get too desperate too soon. To make that decision, that’s OK. But you know what? I’m trying to finish the season strong and trying to be consistent and prepare for this last month.”

The Cubs were 5-9 at the time and John Grabow and Esmailin Caridad had failed as set-up men for Carlos Marmol. Sean Marshall eventually filled the role admirably, but not until the ill-fated experiment to move Zambrano.

At the time, Zambrano thought it was temporary, saying former manager Lou Piniella told him “when they find a guy and trade (for a) guy and get that guy here, I will be back to the rotation.”

He played the good soldier, even while his handlers were criticizing the decision behind closed doors. Chicago Breaking Sports.

And Z’s handlers had all the reason in the world to criticize the move – a good 8th inning pitcher is worth vastly less than a good starting pitcher. But, of course, at the time, Carlos was neither.

Interesting to learn that Zambrano was, in fact, told that the move was temporary pending a trade for a late-inning reliever, which never ultimately came. We all suspected as much, but now we have confirmation.

Zambrano’s description of the move as “too desperate too soon” is made even more obvious in retrospect – the team was a whopping 5-9 at the time. But then again, it’s easy to forget how well Carlos Silva and Tom Gorzelanny looked at the time. So maybe, despite everything, it was the right move.

See, we still have questions.

Ryan Dempster Misses Ted Lilly

When the Chicago Cubs traded Ted Lilly to the Los Angeles Dodgers last week, Ryan Dempster became the unquestioned number one in the Chicago Cubs’ rotation. But despite that nominal accolade, Ryan Dempster wishes Lilly was still around. He misses the bulldog.

”With Teddy, I always appreciated him every day for what a teammate he was and what a competitor he was, probably more than anything,” Dempster (9-8) said after six muggy innings without allowing an earned run to beat the Milwaukee Brewers and end the Cubs’ seven-game losing streak.

”I always thought I was the most competitive person out there. I never thought I’d find anybody more competitive until I met him.”

Lilly, who won his debut Tuesday for the Los Angeles Dodgers, famously ran over St.Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina to score a key run in the Cubs’ stretch drive in 2008, stole a base sliding head-first in a minor-league rehab start early this season and once attacked a pit bull barehanded to rescue his wife’s dog.

”I know they got somebody pretty special over there, and hopefully someday down the road, I’ll have the chance to play with him again,” Dempster said, ”because you don’t find too many guys like that out there.” CHICAGO SUN-TIMES.

Once attacked a pit bull barehanded? For a second I thought they were describing Chuck Norris or the Dos Equis guy. Or, I thought perhaps the guys who run the Ted Lilly Fan Club had taken root with the Sun Times.

Ted Lilly will indeed be missed, but hopes that he’ll return to the Cubs after this year should probably be tempered. Given his age, likely cost, and exclusive Dodger negotiating window, a return to the Cubs is probably not in the cards.

Casey Coleman to Chicago, Carlos Silva to the DL

After experiencing a racing heart and chest discomfort, Chicago Cubs pitcher Carlos Silva spent what was probably a pretty scary night in the hospital. The good news is that everything checked out, but the bad news is that no one is yet quite sure what’s wrong with him – so the Cubs have put him on the 15-day disabled list.

To take his spot in the rotation, the team has called up AAA starter Casey Coleman, who joined the team today, together with fellow AAA starter Thomas Diamond, who is himself replacing departed starter Ted Lilly.

The Cubs called up right-handers Casey Coleman and Thomas Diamond from Triple-A Iowa. Coleman’s father, Joe, and his grandfather, Joe, both pitched in the big leagues, and they are the first family in Major League history to have three generations of pitchers in The Show.

Coleman, 23, was 10-7 with a 4.07 ERA in 20 starts at Iowa. He has struck out 59 in 117 1/3 innings and was holding batters to a .243 average. He doesn’t overpower hitters and has been described as a Greg Maddux-type pitcher.

His father, Joe, played from 1965-79, and made the 1972 All-Star Game with the Tigers. He faced Cubs manager Lou Piniella as well. Casey’s grandfather, Joe, had a 10-year Major League career from 1942-55, including an All-Star season in 1948. cubs.com.

In addition to the pedigree, Coleman comes with some hardware: he was the Cubs’ minor league pitcher of the year last year. Still, despite that achievement and the relative success this year in AAA at just 23, Coleman is not considered a top prospect, or a legitimate threat to take a future starting role in the Cubs’ rotation.

But he got the call over guys like Jay Jackson and Jeff Samardzija, so the Cubs clearly want to give him a shot. And hey, before last year, no one really believed Randy Wells would become a Major League starter, let alone one who would contend for Rookie of the Year.

In other news, it seems Carlos Zambrano will have to wait another week to work his way back into the rotation.

Series Preview: Brewers v. Cubs, August 2 – August 4, 2010

It’s Series Preview time again, as the Chicago Cubs welcome the Milwaukee Brewers to Wrigley Field – still the one team, outside of Arizona, against whom the Cubs have played well this year. The Brewers didn’t conduct a sell-off, so they’ll be at full-strength.

A refresher on the series preview here at Bleacher Nation:

The idea is to hook you up with the bare minimum of what you need to know about every series this year. That way you can look like a genius, hardcore fan in front of all your friends, with minimum effort. Oh, and there will be pictures of beautiful women, too.

Check out the Brewers series preview, after the jump

Thomas Diamond, Not Jeff Samardzija, Will Be the New Ted Lilly

Now that Ted Lilly is off to greener pastures in Los Angeles, the Chicago Cubs will need a new starter in their rotation. The obvious long-term choice is Carlos Zambrano, but he’s neither stretched out nor pitching effectively, so, despite his protests, he’ll remain in the bullpen for at least a little while longer.

In the interim, the Cubs will call up AAA Iowa starter, and former stud prospect, Thomas Diamond to join the rotation on Tuesday. Diamond was the Texas Rangers’ first-round pick in 2004, but went under the Tommy John knife in 2007.

This season at Iowa, Diamond is 5-4 with a 3.16 ERA in 21 starts and has struck out 104 in 108 1/3 innings. Opposing teams were batting .218 off the right-hander.

Before his Tommy John surgery, Diamond was a top 100 prospect in all of baseball. But since then he’s had a couple crappy years for a couple teams. Diamond has had a resurgent year with the Cubs, to be sure, but questions persist about whether he’s finally got it together, or whether he’s a career AAA player about whom the teams that have released him were right.

Interesting that he got the call over fellow AAA’er Jeff Samardzija (to say nothing of true prospect Jay Jackson or bullpen roustabout Andrew Cashner). Samardzija has thrown very well at AAA since being banished from the big club, but is rarely discussed and is apparently not at the top of the team’s list of future starters.

He’s certainly earned his share of cold-shouldering, what with his bad attitude and crummy secondary pitches, but it still seems cruel to pass Samardzija over during Shark Week. Ba dum ching.

God’s Wrath Watch: Carlos Silva’s Heart is Racing

Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Carlos Silva left today’s game against the Rockies after facing just four batters. It seems he was just so excited to meet new Cub Blake DeWitt that he could stop his heart from pounding. Just kidding. About the DeWitt part.

Carlos Silva was pulled from Sunday’s game in the first inning because of an abnormal heart rate and he was taken to a local hospital where he will remain overnight for evaluation….

“I went out to him and said, ‘Are you all right?’” Soto said. “He said, ‘Yes, my heart’s racing a little bit.’ He was making funny faces and I went back and said, ‘What’s wrong?’ He said, ‘My heart’s racing.’ I called down [to the dugout].

“[Silva] said, ‘I don’t want to come out of this game,’” Soto said. “But that’s not a finger or a muscle. You’ve got to take care of that. It’s the ticker. You’ve got to be careful.”

Silva had an extremely high pulse and paramedics diagnosed it as PSVT (paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia), which is an abnormal heart rate. It was corrected as the right-hander was taken to the St. Jospeph’s Hospital, where he will remain overnight. Muskat Ramblings.

Hopefully the issue is mild, temporary, and Silva will be released from the hospital tomorrow.

No word yet on whether Silva will have to miss a turn in the rotation, and/or who would replace him in that case. With one spot in the rotation already vacated (Ted Lilly), which will be filled with AAA starter Thomas Diamond, you have to wonder how long it will be before Carlos Zambrano gets another shot.

To explode.

Ted Lilly and Ryan Theriot Have Been Traded to the Dodgers

Per multiple reports, the Chicago Cubs have traded pitcher Ted Lilly and second baseman Ryan Theriot to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Part of the return is expected to be second baseman Blake DeWitt, but no word yet on dollars and the rest of the return. We’ll keep you posted.

UPDATE: Looks like the Cubs are getting DeWitt, two pitching prospects, and the Dodgers taking on $2.5 million(ish) in salary (Cubs sending $2.5 million). With that much cash coming from a cash-strapped team like the Dodgers, I’m not optimistic about the quality of the pitching prospects.

UPDATE: One of the pitching prospects is apparently Brett Wallach (not to be confused with first base prospec Brett Wallace, also traded this week). Ranked 20th in the Dodgers system…

UPDATE: The other pitcher is Kyle Smit, a AA reliever who’s had success since moving to the pen a couple years ago. Does not appear to be a top prospect. DeWitt must be the center piece of this deal. More analysis to come.

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