Bleacher Bums Forum

BTW one thing this leads me to that I've wanted to bring up for a while, I'm starting to think true relief prospects are more of a rare thing than we appreciate. 

The Cubs' most successful relief pitchers from the farm started out as rotation prospects - guys like Carlos Marmol, Sean Marshall, James Russell, Scott Downs, Michael Wuertz, and Will Ohman.

Guys who have been more or less pure relief prospects that we occasionally get interested in like Jeff Beliveau, Blake Parker, John Gaub, Scott Maine, Jeff Stevens, Justin Berg, Marcos Mateo, Francis Beltran, Rocky Cherry, etc. never really seem to work out.

I'm starting to come to the conclusion that unless you're a truly dominating minor league reliever, like Craig Kimbrel for instance, you probably shouldn't get too optimistic about a minor league reliever.  Might be something to think about whenever we look at guys like Kevin Rhoderick down the road.