Minor League Musings

[We Got The Whole 9]

Good news on Herz' development as well

In terms of spin efficiency, Herz said the data had his curveball around 55 percent during the season. The Cubs set above 65 percent as a goal and Herz says he’s now consistently seeing 75 percent in those readings, meaning the ball is much harder for the hitter to recognize out of his left hand. As a reference point, Charlie Morton was at 79 percent last year while Joe Musgrove (76.5 percent) and Lance McCullers (70.3 percent) were also rated as having some of the best curveballs in the game.

[Named After Maddux]

Good news on Herz' development as well

In terms of spin efficiency, Herz said the data had his curveball around 55 percent during the season. The Cubs set above 65 percent as a goal and Herz says he’s now consistently seeing 75 percent in those readings, meaning the ball is much harder for the hitter to recognize out of his left hand. As a reference point, Charlie Morton was at 79 percent last year while Joe Musgrove (76.5 percent) and Lance McCullers (70.3 percent) were also rated as having some of the best curveballs in the game.

 

Herz mentioned to me that he's seen a few curveballs get above the 80 percent range as well.

[Bertz]

 

 

The Myrtle Beach team this year is gonna be so horsefeathering stacked. There's also been more whispers about Cristian Hernandez starting there, but I'm not sure if that's a real possibility or people are just trying to speak it into existence.

[craig]

Thanks for that link, Tom.

"“We do have a pitching plan and then there’s a vision, but as a part of that vision, we have to break down each pitcher individually,” Banner said. “For some players, they go into a velocity bucket. For others, they go into a command bucket. For others, they go into a shape bucket, whatever it may be, that is going to be the key for them to improve enough to move to the next level."

 

[highlight=yellow]Of these three buckets, I'm especially curious about the "command bucket"[/highlight]. To adjust mechanics, arm-slot, grips, to change shape and velocity, that seems very accessible to what pitch lab can analyze. But I'm curious how much help pitch-lab stuff will provide for command?

 

Burl will be an interesting case over this year and next, to see if he can get anywhere. Luke Little might be another interesting challenge. Herz and Jensen, too. Marquez, if he's ever allowed to get any development. Those are all guys who seem to have plenty of stuff; but how consistently will they be able to command it? I

 

I'm also actually kinda interested in McIlvaine. Missed most of the year with injury, and was bad when he came back. But at one point I thought he seemed like a pretty stuff-strong-command-iffy guy. Maybe after the arm stuff, both the stuff and the command will be bad. But it would be fun if he came back fully healthy, got his stuff back or better, and then also showed some progress with his command.

[Bertz]

Thanks for that link, Tom.

"“We do have a pitching plan and then there’s a vision, but as a part of that vision, we have to break down each pitcher individually,” Banner said. “For some players, they go into a velocity bucket. For others, they go into a command bucket. For others, they go into a shape bucket, whatever it may be, that is going to be the key for them to improve enough to move to the next level."

 

[highlight=yellow]Of these three buckets, I'm especially curious about the "command bucket"[/highlight]. To adjust mechanics, arm-slot, grips, to change shape and velocity, that seems very accessible to what pitch lab can analyze. But I'm curious how much help pitch-lab stuff will provide for command?

 

Burl will be an interesting case over this year and next, to see if he can get anywhere. Luke Little might be another interesting challenge. Herz and Jensen, too. Marquez, if he's ever allowed to get any development. Those are all guys who seem to have plenty of stuff; but how consistently will they be able to command it? I

 

I'm also actually kinda interested in McIlvaine. Missed most of the year with injury, and was bad when he came back. But at one point I thought he seemed like a pretty stuff-strong-command-iffy guy. Maybe after the arm stuff, both the stuff and the command will be bad. But it would be fun if he came back fully healthy, got his stuff back or better, and then also showed some progress with his command.

 

I could see the tech having two impacts on command, one pretty directly and the other somewhat indirectly. The first is in the biomechanics/high performance arena. If you have tech that says, in a much more sophisticated way, "Hey you need to spend more time at the squat rack" or something. Athleticism, especially balanced athleticism, is usually pretty directly correlates with command increases (see Arrieta, Jake).

 

The other I think would be in establishing benchmarks for velocity/spin/etc. If you can measure so precisely the components of a guy's stuff, then you can make qualitative delivery changes that you think would lead to improved command while ensuring that they don't lead the drops in pitch quality.

[craig]

I could see the tech having two impacts on command, one pretty directly and the other somewhat indirectly. The first is in the biomechanics/high performance arena. If you have tech that says, in a much more sophisticated way, "Hey you need to spend more time at the squat rack" or something. Athleticism, especially balanced athleticism, is usually pretty directly correlates with command increases (see Arrieta, Jake).

 

The other I think would be in establishing benchmarks for velocity/spin/etc. If you can measure so precisely the components of a guy's stuff, then you can make qualitative delivery changes that you think would lead to improved command while ensuring that they don't lead the drops in pitch quality.

 

Good thoughts, Yeah, I hope it helps.

 

One other factor, which can maybe make it harder, is that if a guy has been pitching a way for a while, and the pitch lab suggests improvements, it might be easy to sometimes drift back to your old arm slot and your old stride. So some of the adjustments may make it extra challenging to locate consistently, at least for a while. But yeah, certainly part of the pitch-lab objective is to find slot/stride that feels most natural and is most easy to repeat consistently

[CubinNY]

Amazing

 

[Hrubes20]

Yeah as a new guy there would be some SNTS but in today’s sensationalized Cubs prospects meta didn’t think he would have enough bing pow zoom wow as merely a healthy NCAA drafted pitcher with relatively high workloads and lots of quality production:

 

I can only speak for myself, but it was the LACK of lots of quality production that alarmed me, along with watching him have a "meh" fastball. He had a really solid year in 2019 for a freshman, but it wasn't spectacular. 2020 was nixed by Covid, and then as a Junior he gave up 90 hits in 92 IP along with 9 HRs. That's worrisome. As I said when he was drafted, here's hoping the org saw something very fixable with the fastball. Being a LHP with a borderline plus plus changeup gives him a lot of leeway to being at least a potential big leaguer in some way, but that fastball (and a breaking ball of some sort) need to make some huge strides.

[craig]

 

Greg Huss has Yohendrick Pinango in his South Bend lineup. Didn't he have TJ surgery or something only a few months back? I've kinda been assuming he's out for the year, but am I perhaps remembering wrongly, or mis-reading how quickly a hitting prospect might be able to get back?

 

Just curious whether I am allowed to be more optimistic for him than I'd anticipated?

[Bertz]

 

Greg Huss has Yohendrick Pinango in his South Bend lineup. Didn't he have TJ surgery or something only a few months back? I've kinda been assuming he's out for the year, but am I perhaps remembering wrongly, or mis-reading how quickly a hitting prospect might be able to get back?

 

Just curious whether I am allowed to be more optimistic for him than I'd anticipated?

 

I believe it was an unspecified hand/wrist injury. Maybe NAM knows? But I think it's been confirmed he'll be ready for the start of the season, though you do have to wonder if it'll impact his power output.

[craig]

Yeah as a new guy there would be some SNTS but in today’s sensationalized Cubs prospects meta didn’t think he would have enough bing pow zoom wow as merely a healthy NCAA drafted pitcher with relatively high workloads and lots of quality production:

 

I can only speak for myself, but it was the LACK of lots of quality production that alarmed me, along with watching him have a "meh" fastball. He had a really solid year in 2019 for a freshman, but it wasn't spectacular. 2020 was nixed by Covid, and then as a Junior he gave up 90 hits in 92 IP along with 9 HRs. That's worrisome. As I said when he was drafted, here's hoping the org saw something very fixable with the fastball. Being a LHP with a borderline plus plus changeup gives him a lot of leeway to being at least a potential big leaguer in some way, but that fastball (and a breaking ball of some sort) need to make some huge strides.

 

rubes, I admit that was kinda my question, too. Average fastball, hit-per-inning and HR-per-9 performance numbers, 3.7 ERA. Didn't seem like necessarily great stuff if college guys were hitting him like that. Plus with him having declined from Fresh to Junior season, no indication that he was on an improvement trajectory. So yeah, I get the hesitation.

 

But I'm OK with trusting scouts, so I'm still hopeful that they knew what they're doing. Nor was there any indication that the broader scouting media saw his selection as being a reach or anything. So I think this was really more of a scouting/tools/stuff pick than a college-stats pick?

 

Which also maybe kinda fits with the milb article. That basically suggested that, for the moment, he's largely only keeping 2 of his 5 college pitches. Change, his best pitch, was a keep-as-is. He said in college he was 4-seam/2-seam fastball guy; now he seemed to suggest he was going to be dropping the 2-seam. And he said since joining the Cubs he was in search for both a very new curveball and a very new slider.

 

So totally not a case of a "stick-with-what-got-you-here, stick-with-what-you-did-in-college" developmental plan whatsoever.

[craig]

....I believe it was an unspecified hand/wrist injury. Maybe NAM knows? But I think it's been confirmed he'll be ready for the start of the season, though you do have to wonder if it'll impact his power output.

 

Interesting! Hadn't heard the "confirmed he'll be ready for the start of the season" before. That's great, if true.

[Bertz]

....I believe it was an unspecified hand/wrist injury. Maybe NAM knows? But I think it's been confirmed he'll be ready for the start of the season, though you do have to wonder if it'll impact his power output.

 

Interesting! Hadn't heard the "confirmed he'll be ready for the start of the season" before. That's great, if true.

 

I believe it was one of the Northside Bound guys, but it might have been Bryan Smith. The only bad thing about there now being so many good Cubs-centric prospect guys is I can't always remember where I saw stuff.

[Named After Maddux]

....I believe it was an unspecified hand/wrist injury. Maybe NAM knows? But I think it's been confirmed he'll be ready for the start of the season, though you do have to wonder if it'll impact his power output.

 

Interesting! Hadn't heard the "confirmed he'll be ready for the start of the season" before. That's great, if true.

 

I also haven’t heard anything confirmed he’d be ready to start the season, but he is hitting down in Arizona. As far as I know, Pinango is still under some level of injury supervision. However I’m not particularly worried about him. Minor leaguers official report day is just today. He’s already hitting and it’s about a month till games. I’d guess if no setbacks, he’s ready for minor league games.

[Named After Maddux]

Shortly before the draft I remember I was one who posted about not thinking Wicks was my preferred profile for the Cubs. I really didn’t think that he would be the pick. He never came up with scouts when I talked with them. Wicks felt like such a Cubs pick of a different era. Kantrovitz publicly mentioned they had Wicks in their top 9/10 overall, but I’ll grant that you never know if that’s just executive speak post draft. Everyone says they got the biggest steal of the draft the week after.

 

It felt like McGreevy would be the pick and I think I can say this now that he would have been in the running had he made it to 21. All said, I’m glad it was Wicks. As someone who generally didn’t love the low 90s FB/plus (or better) changeup LHP profile in the first round, I underestimated what the Cubs could do with his breaking balls.

 

The Cubs are crazy high on the success of his breaking balls and improvements in his four seam. He regularly sports impressive metrics with them in the lab. Ultimately it’ll be whether he can take that all to the mound (my viewpoint there and not something said to me from an official), but I have a lot higher of my own internal grade on Wicks now than I did in late October when finalizing my ranking.

[craig]

....I also haven’t heard anything confirmed he’d be ready to start the season, but he is hitting down in Arizona. As far as I know, [highlight=yellow]Pinango[/highlight] is still under some level of injury supervision. However I’m not particularly worried about him. Minor leaguers official report day is just today. He’s already hitting and it’s about a month till games. I’d guess if no setbacks, he’s ready for minor league games.

 

Thanks, Greg! That's really helpful, and encouraging to hear. My recall of the first and almost only report I'd seen had speculated "Tommy John"; so the prospect that he's already hitting suggests that his long-term development will not be impacted significantly. Super!

 

I'll be interested to see how his hitting and power show as time goes by.

[craig]

Thanks for notes on Wicks, Greg. That sounds fun.

[craig]

Greg, have you written anything about or ever interviewed Scott Kobos, or had Cubs people talk to you about him? He had a couple of outings last summer where his walks were up, but otherwise he was statistically superb. 50K/1HR is pretty great, although sometimes small sample sizes allow for fluky stuff.

 

I'm just curious how much excitement there is for his stuff and his possibilities? Or if his stuff maybe doesn't necessarily project all that well to the majors?

 

I know you did NOT include him in your "BEHIND THE SCENES WITH FIVE CUBS PEN ARMS" article. https://northsidebound.com/2022/02/22/system-on-the-rise-behind-the-scenes-with-five-cubs-pen-arms/

 

Was he perhaps just too successful already, too far up-the-system having already reached AA/AAA to qualify as "behind the scenes?"?

[craig]

I finally listened to the Banner interview.

 

He said that McAvene, Thompson, and Franklin all are healthy and looking "great". I'm really curious to see how they look this season.

 

Given that guys haven't pitched a good box-score inning in three years, and that McAvene and Thompson are already 24 and 25, I think it's easy to forget them. But I suspect I'm prone to some recency bias, and if any or all of those three start to stack some good outings, I'll quickly hop back onto the optimism train. The fact that they lost time doesn't mean their talent or future potential is necessarily reduced. Would be cool to have them pop up and look promising.

[Hrubes20]

I can only speak for myself, but it was the LACK of lots of quality production that alarmed me, along with watching him have a "meh" fastball. He had a really solid year in 2019 for a freshman, but it wasn't spectacular. 2020 was nixed by Covid, and then as a Junior he gave up 90 hits in 92 IP along with 9 HRs. That's worrisome. As I said when he was drafted, here's hoping the org saw something very fixable with the fastball. Being a LHP with a borderline plus plus changeup gives him a lot of leeway to being at least a potential big leaguer in some way, but that fastball (and a breaking ball of some sort) need to make some huge strides.

 

What’s so worrisome about those numbers? Yeah they’re not Prior coming out of USC but those aren’t unhealthy numbers even in a vacuum. Could they be more riveting? Sure, always can. Also why ignore the games during 2020, which he absolutely dominated?

You don't see anything worrisome about a college junior giving up a hit per inning, despite having a double plus changeup? I can't think of another 1st round college LHP that gave up that many hits their draft year. Small gave up 61 in 107 innings (8 HRs). Lodolo gave up 72 in 98 innings (8 HRs). Lacy gave up 58 in his last 112 innings (6 HRs). Detmers gave up 87 in his last 135 innings (13 HRs). Wicks didn't have monster K numbers AND he gave up more hits than other 1st round collegiate LHPs. Easy to see why many aren't enthused unless the org can make some big changes to his fastball.

 

I left out 2020 because it was literally only 4 starts. That's borderline meaningless in the grand scheme of things. I know you're smarter than to glean anything from 4 starts.

[Hrubes20]

 

Why not both? There's definitely some mischaracterization of Wick's NCAA performances going on. The freshman season was excellent especially for a freshman season. What 2020 he did get in was dominant, maybe more impressive by doing it at two stops multiple months apart due to the pandemic. Those draft season numbers come in a league in which offenses put up nearly 7 runs a game. He put up a 30% K rate throwing the 4th most innings in the league (2nd most Ks), 23% K-BB% probably led the conference if adjusted for workload, the HR/9 was exactly league average and a little better adjusted for workload, 7% BB rate (again over the 4th most innings) vs a league average of 10+%. As far as I can remember seeing, he was a groundball and pop ups guy for batted ball. Overall there's not a whole ton of difference, for purposes of this post anyway, between his NCAA career and Brady Singer's at Florida. That a ML org immediately got to coaching him up is not a slight on the NCAA performances, most what's supposed to happen. For sure the org didn't throw money at coaching and technology for player development on the assumption that doing well in the NCAA completes the development process

 

Why are you pointing out league average numbers for college ball and trying to paint that in a positive light? 1st round collegiate picks almost always produce well above that.

 

It's clear that the org felt they could develop Wicks a bunch more. And that's great. But it's also understandable that many fans aren't high on Wicks until he shows that development. Because without it, he's a BOR starter.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

It's clear that the org felt they could develop Wicks a bunch more. And that's great. But it's also understandable that many fans aren't high on Wicks until he shows that development. Because without it, he's a BOR starter.

 

Drafting a reasonably certain BOR starter that has the foundation to develop beyond that at 21 is good value. I think we haven't caught up our mental models to account for the player development revolution, especially as it relates to pitching. Historically the markers of a BOR starter involved hard limits(e.g. velocity) that you couldn't coach your way out of, so drafting someone with that outcome was an intentional decision to lower the potential upside. In a world where it's not unusual to add several MPH and/or develop a plus breaking pitch where there was barely an average one before, the risk/reward is closer to the toolsy high schooler or low control flamethrower than it used to be. This goes doubly so when an organization starts showing an ability to do this with some consistency, so it's not some hypothetical exercise. Doesn't mean we can't prefer the person who already has the stuff, but we should calibrate our enthusiasm and also reconsider what statistical thresholds are particularly good or worrisome.

[craig]

This whole thing seems like a kinda circular discussion. Tom, Rubes, Mog, and me, we all agree that guys can pitch-lab improve their velocity and their breaking balls and everything. So you draft based on scouting and on what you project a guy to become once you've optimized everything. Where's the argument? Do any of us disagree on that?

 

Rubes correctly notes that his college stuff was better than average, but that his results were not extraordinary, so that if he hypothetically does not improve his velocity and stuff, he's a BOR guy. We all agree that hypothetically he will improve all that stuff, and that's where the hope rests. The hope is that he improves his stuff, and he shows it, and he ends up better than BOR. If he doesn't improve, and kinda just carries his above-average college-stuff up against major-league hitters, he's not going to be that valuable. Do we actually disagree on anything?

 

Maybe Tom and rubes disagree on whether his college stats are something to celebrate or to maybe worry about. But I think either way we all understand that was then, and we care about what will be his future, and he's probably going to be quite a different pitcher future than he was in college.

[craig]

...I think we can start to see my angst here. Like the stuff was above average, the performance not (ftr, not true), and so therefore he needs to improve the stuff to be more than whatever a BOR is? Like, what?

 

I do think we seem to generally agree that he has to improve for a meaningful ceiling but like…I don’t get how that’s a knock? Who isn’t this true for?

 

I'm not a scout so beats me! But that may not be as true for guys who had extraordinary college results? He's a scouting pick, and you plan to change his curve, change his slider, and change his fastball. Most of his pitches. Beats me, but I'm not sure that's equally necessary for all first-round pitchers?

 

He was good, very good; but not extraordinary. IN his league, he was 11th in ERA, and of the top-15-ERA guys, he had the worst hits-per-inning rate. The SEC had 4 first-round pitchers. All had relatively extraordinary stats, Wicks is last number in each list.

H/IP: 0.44, 0.61, 0.63, 0.78, 0.98

K/IP: 1.6, 1.5, 1.5, 1.5, 1.28

ERA: 2.1, 2.7, 3.1, 2.8, 3.7

 

Seems to me his college credentials are kinda irrelevant. He stayed healthy, that's a plus. He was well-above average even with the pitches he was using, that's a plus. But now you're going to change curve, slider, and fastball anyway, so who really cares what he did in college if he's kinda only going to keep one of his college pitches? I want to see what he'll be able to do once he's revamped most of his arsenal!

[Named After Maddux]

Greg, have you written anything about or ever interviewed Scott Kobos, or had Cubs people talk to you about him? He had a couple of outings last summer where his walks were up, but otherwise he was statistically superb. 50K/1HR is pretty great, although sometimes small sample sizes allow for fluky stuff.

 

I'm just curious how much excitement there is for his stuff and his possibilities? Or if his stuff maybe doesn't necessarily project all that well to the majors?

 

I know you did NOT include him in your "BEHIND THE SCENES WITH FIVE CUBS PEN ARMS" article. https://northsidebound.com/2022/02/22/system-on-the-rise-behind-the-scenes-with-five-cubs-pen-arms/

 

Was he perhaps just too successful already, too far up-the-system having already reached AA/AAA to qualify as "behind the scenes?"?

 

Hey Craig,

 

I appreciate it!

Total transparency on the Behind-the-scenes pieces. There are a few guys that just didn’t have time to respond. I tried to give people a bit of time, but some guys had vacations planned before they headed out to AZ, for instance. I love talking with Scott. He has such a good understanding of the metrics and analytics. He’s a very fun guy this year. That 2020 post-draft free agency was a sucky thing for the players so I’m not happy about it, per se, but wow did Kantrovitz and go nail that period. He’s said that publicly too. He’s very proud of the scouting team for that whole process.