In this installment of CubsHub's Scouting Report, we'll be looking at the crown jewel of the organization, Felix Pie. The following is something I haven't tried yet, in that I've already done a prior report on Pie, in fact he was my first. Still he's the most hyped player we have in the minor leagues and depending on a few situations, he could see some time in 2007 & 2008. If it wasn't for an ankle injury, he would have marked some substancial playtime in 2005 and could have made the organization balk at trading for one-year rental Juan Pierre in 2006.

Felix is one of the very rare talents that draws the "Five Tool" label and deserves it. The 22 year old is above average in all five tool categories: contact, power, speed, defense, and arm. This past season for Iowa, he put up respectable numbers but nothing close to the dominating preformances he had at lower levels. The more experienced pitchers had Felix swinging and missing more than he ever has in his career, alot of that can be marked to seeing more and better offspeed pitches than he's seen in the past.

In April, his strikeout & walk rate were ideally what the organization wants out of Pie, around 8.0 BB/PA plus and under 16 K/PA. He didn't keep that up though, as his K rate nearly doubled during his May/June swoon. Even when Pie was struggling to hit for contact and extrabases in May and June, he was still walking at a decent clip, 8.1 BB/PA. In July, it appears he regained his stroke by using his speed and hitting the ball on the ground; he was also swinging early in the count and it's seen in his highest hit rate, along with his lowest walk and strikeout rate, nearly cutting both in half from May/June. By the end of the season, Felix was playing his best ball of the year, the way the organization had envisioned him to play the whole year. He was working counts, hitting extrabase hits, spraying the ball to all fields while hitting alot more linedrives, maybe that's why he was a little bitter with the parent club for not giving him a September callup.

Instead of reporting to Chicago like he wanted, Pie was to the Cubs' Complex in Mesa, Arizona to work with former Cubs' leadoff man (and really our last good long term leadoff man) Bobby Diener on improving Felix's basestealing technique along with finer tuning of the leadoff game. After a stay in Arizona, the man-child went back home to the Dominican Republic to play for the Licey Tigres, one of the perennial powerhouses in the Dominican League and all of the Caribbean. Unfortunately, Pie put up lackluster numbers all around, some of that can be placed on fatigue as he complained about shoulder soreness to Licey coach and AAA Iowa batting coach Von Joshua halfway through the DWL season. Still it was the second consecutive year that Pie struggled in the Winter League, and didn't make the Dominican or Caribbean Playoff roster.

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