Cubs scouting director doesn't worry about what 'experts' say

Posted June 03, 2010 11:00 pm

By Bruce Miles

HOUSTON - The Cubs wouldn't mind if another Tyler Colvin came their way in next week's amateur draft.

One thing is certain: They won't spend a lot of time worrying about what others think about whomever they take.

Chalk that up to scouting director Tim Wilken. Since 2006, Wilken has worked with other areas of the Cubs' scouting and development people to help restock the minor-league system by doing it his way.

"With Tim Wilken, the facts are in," said Cubs general manager Jim Hendry. "What the man did in Toronto for 20 years and what he's done here for four puts him in the upper echelon of the game the last three decades. If you ask people from the era before me, from 1980 on, you have to put Tim Wilken in the top five scouting directors in the game in the last 30 or 40 years."

Wilken came to the Cubs in December 2005 after spending three years with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Before that, he made a name for himself during a 25-year career with the Toronto Blue Jays, for whom he was instrumental in procuring the likes of Roy Halladay, Chris Carpenter, Alex Rios, Vernon Wells, Chris Carpenter and many others.

Since '06, Wilken has worked with farm director Oneri Fleita and international scouting director Paul Weaver in rebuilding a farm system that was in need of rebuilding.

Wilken has drafted the likes of Colvin, Jeff Samardzija, Andrew Cashner and Josh Vitters as well as less-heralded but promising players such as Jay Jackson, Casey Coleman and Darwin Barney.

Not all of Wilken's picks have met with universal approval from various "experts," and the jury is still out on how these picks will pan out.

Colvin is a case in point. Wilken stuck his neck out in June 2006 by making Colvin the 13th overall pick out of Clemson when publications such as Baseball America had Colvin ranked much lower.

"Just that story alone, that's what Tim Wilken is," Hendry said. "And that's what scouting should be. Unfortunately, a lot of modern-day scouting has become in the amateur world what everybody else thinks. It's, 'What do you think, what do you think?' It's what we call pack scouting.

"Tim Wilken couldn't care less what everybody else thinks. That's why he's good at what he does. It's sad if you're picking the players and your gut tells you you'd rather have somebody else but you pick a guy because Baseball America thinks you should or all the other scouts say, 'He shouldn't be there when you pick him.' He makes up his own mind, and that's what we pay him for."

For his part, Wilken looks at Colvin with a measure of pride. Colvin made it to the big leagues last September as an emergency call-up. But he was the Cubs' best hitter in spring training, and he won a job on the roster.

"It wasn't necessarily the prognosticators' pick," Wilken said. "I don't think you can sit there and worry about it. First, you go with what your evaluations take you to.

"With Tyler, I knew what they were saying. I knew what I was seeing. I just wasn't going to let that part bother me, especially so, because if you looked at, say, Baseball America's rankings the last three years, they kept dropping him farther down, almost down to 20th in the organization when we knew he was a lot better player than that."

It turns out Colvin battled through elbow problems until having Tommy John surgery in November 2008. Finally last winter, he was able to get in a full winter of workouts and weightlifting.

"He really grinded through that Tommy John," Wilken said. "He had six different episodes before that Tommy John. He ever cried about it once. He never complained about it. I believed in him. I still think he was a good baseball player during that time period when he was trying to gut it out."

Colvin, who still refers to Wilken as "Mr. Wilken," said he appreciated the faith shown in him and admitted to looking at those dreaded rankings.

"Mr. Wilken has always been really nice to me," Colvin said. "I saw him at the Cubs convention, and he was really happy to see me really bulk up some and get ready for the season. It's not like he drafts you and forgets about you.

"Yeah, I did (worry about the rankings), when I first started out, and then I realized it really didn't matter."

Of course, Wilken isn't tipping his hand about whom the Cubs will draft next Monday at No. 16. Baseball America projects the Cubs to take Florida high school right-hander Karsten Whitson over another Florida righty, A.J. Cole.

But going into a scout's mind, what did he see at Colvin that convinced him to take him so high, and is he surprised by the early success?

"He was a good low-ball hitter, and when the ball came off his bat, even when he was younger, the ball came off his bat pretty special," Wilken said. "For a guy that was slender and wasn't strong yet, he always had a good route to the ball on the low-ball, and the ball got off his bat pretty darn good for a slender guy at that time. So it did not surprise me."

Cubs scouting report Cubs vs. Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park TV: Channel 9 Friday and Sunday; Comcast SportsNet Saturday Radio: WIND 560-AM Friday; WGN 720-AM Saturday and Sunday Pitching matchups: The Cubs' Carlos Zambrano (1-3) vs. Felipe Paulino (0-7) Friday at 7:05 p.m.; TBA vs. Roy Oswalt (3-7) Saturday at 6:05 p.m.; TBA vs. Brett Myers (3-3) Sunday at 1:05 p.m. At a glance: The Cubs are uncertain about their pitching plans because of Wednesday's rainout in Pittsburgh, and they want Zambrano to start again as soon as possible. The Cubs dropped two of three to the Astros at Wrigley Field in mid-April. The Astros are mired in last place in the NL Central. Zambrano is 13-7 lifetime against Houston and 7-3 at Minute Maid Park. Against Zambrano, Carlos Lee is 21-for-55 (.382) with 5 homers. Oswalt has held Kosuke Fukudome to 2-for-19. Against Myers, Derrek Lee is 15-for-29 (.517) with 3 homers. Next: Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park, Monday

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