The Daily Tap is moving to Pine Tar Press

I'll be transitioning some of my writing over to Pine Tar Press during the season with the Daily Tap being the first feature on Greg Schaum's site. My goal was in creating this blog was to provide as much info on the minor league prospects as possible and I'll continue to do that whether it is on this site or Greg's. If you have read my stuff and like it please continue to do so here or at pinetarpress.com

Cougars Recap
The home opener wasn't much fun to watch for the Kane County fans as Crawford Simmons struggle with his control despite working his FB in the 89-91 mph range. He was up in the zone while missing early in counts finishing the day with 4 IP 4 H 4 ER 3 K 3 BB. Greg Billo didn't perform much better as he followed Simmons and allowed 4 more runs over the next 3.2 innings.
Brian Fletcher 2-4 2b RBI .333/.364/.524
Struggling
Geulin Beltre has fallen into a bit of a slump going 0 for his last 13.


Blue Rocks Recap
Noel Arguelles enjoyed a nice debut as he took only 40 pitches to get through 4 innings while allowing only 2 hits and 0 runs while striking out one. Reports from the game had his velocity in the 87-90 mph range while throwing a curve in the 69-72 mph range. He only threw one change up from reports at the game. Michael Mariot took over for Arguelles and continued the good pitching mixing three pitches FB, slider, curve for an effective 5 innings allowing just 1 hit while walking 2 and striking out 4. He did allow a home run but that one run wasn't enough for the Indians to hold off the Rocks as Rey Navarro, Deivy Batista and John Whittleman paced the offence to 4 runs on 6 hits from the threesome.
John Whittleman 2-3 HR, BB
Rey Navarro 2-4 3b Rbi hitting .563/.611/1.063 thru 4 games
Struggling
Alex McClure 0-15 he's playing superb defense but at some point he is going to have to hit.

Naturals Recap
Just another 1 run victory for the Naturals making that four in a row after losing the season opener. The Naturals did it in a different fashion this time scoring 4 runs in the first two innings to take a 4-2 lead and hung on with good pitching by Edgar Osuna and Buddy Baumann.
Christian Colon 1-3 1 BB 1 RBI
Struggling
Salvador Perez .133/.235/.400 in four games

Storm Chasers Recap
The Chaser had one of those nights as the lineup went missing against the Round Rock pitching staff. The Chasers could muster only 3 hits and 2 runs via HR's by Clint Robinson and David Lough. On the mound Everett Teaford was on cruise control thru 4 innings not allowing a hit but he ran into trouble in the 5th inning giving up 5 hits and 5 runs in the frame (4 ER) while not surviving the inning and taking the loss.
Clint Robinson 1-3 HR(3) 1 BB .316/.435/.947
Struggling
Mike Moustakas 4-23 .174/.208/.304 1 HR 1 BB

I was wrong thank god Pods traded

I came out and said I doubt GMDM would trade Podsednik and oh man am I glad I was wrong. The Royals tonight turned him along with the rest of his contract to the Dodgers for Lucas May and Elisaul Pimentel. May is an AAA catcher who was converted from shortstop a couple years ago. He has a decent bat but has struggled with breaking balls and the conversion to backstop at times. He probably profiles best as a backup catcher in the bigs but has some potential as a possible second division type starter. The other player in the trade Pimentel is a 22 year old right-handed starting pitcher who throws in the 89-93 mph range with his fastball while also throwing a slider and change up although those two are inconsistent from what Ben Badler tweets. These prospects aren't anywhere near the Carlos Santana-Casey Blake deal that the Dodgers got roped into a couple years ago but Royals fans should be happy that Podsednik wasn't apart of the long term plans and as a 34 year old performed better than the 1 million the Royals paid him and returned a couple prospects in return.

MLBTradeRumors also reported that the Royals are interested in making more deals. With what we have heard about the Royals getting close on a DDJ deal prior to the injury and supposedly close on a Guillen deal with the Giants GMDM seems to recognize his window to load up on prospects.

Dutton reports that early signs show Greg Holland will get the promotion in place of Podsednik a good deal for Greg who has been on fire in July carrying a 16.45 K/9 rate. He's compact guy at 5'11 throwing mid 90s with a good slider. Holland's biggest weakness is his lack of control something as fans we are quite used to but hopefully his fastball slider combo will be enough to keep him out of trouble. Look for Louis Coleman to be the next arm up from the minors if Farnsworth would happen to get traded.