It's that time again, where the baseball talks start to simmer down and the team's plugged many of our holes, it's perfect time to talk about Cubs' prospects. Ever since CubsHub's last installments of Scouting Reports, my mailbox has been flooded with requests and questions of when new reports would be available. Well now is the time, and the prospect that has gotten the most requests is Mark Pawelek, the Cubs' 2005 first round draft pick.

Pawelek is one of the leading forces in Chicago's many rising pitching prospects. Mark was taken 20th overall in the 2005 draft. Going into the draft, he was a top 10 talent, but dropped only due to signability concerns. That happens alot with Scott Boras' clients. But it turns out that it wasn't a problem at all as the Cubs were able to ink to slot money (1.75 million) by the time they selected their third round pick.


His numbers in high school were absolutely amazing for Springville, Utah (just outside Provo). In 10 starts, winning all of them, he went 63 IP, not allowing a single earned run, while striking out 132. That strikeout rate was absolutely filthy, averaging a little more than 2 strikeouts per inning. His incredible high school stats and pitching abilities led to him being the first Utah High Schooler taken in the first round since Bruce Hurst in 1976. Some of that has to do with the high Mormon population in Utah where many of the talented youths out of HS choose to enter their "service time" which usually encompasses a 2 year span. But even more than that is the lack of competition in the Utah area. Still Pawelek was selected to Baseball America's first team (High School).

Due to his early signing, the Cubs were able to get Pawelek into the Arizona Rookie League. By throwing more than 100 innings in the year, it definately benefited Mark's arm strength. Despite going winless, he put up great numbers. Thus being selected by Baseball America as the top prospect in the league. Even earning a one start preformance for Boise at the end of the year.

Being cautious with young high school arms as we have been in the past few years, Pawelek pitched his entire 2006 season for the Boise Hawks. Mark had a slow start to his season but finished strong. After losing his first two starts in the rotation, he was moved to the bullpen (as a long man) for his next three outings, where he didn't fair too well either. But in his final 12 appearances (including playoffs), Mark was 4-2 going 48 2/3 IP and giving up 36 hits, 9 er, 16 bb, 39 k, that's a 1.66 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, .209 BAA. Earning the draw of the Game 1 starter for Boise in the Northwest League Championship, where he did quite well.

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