Minor League Musings

[Outshined_One]

3 hours ago, Jason Ross said:

But I do expect that if the Cubs go big on a trade, it'll likely mainly centered around their Iowa talent, ultimately. 

I'm happy for the development we've seen with Mo and Long, but holy eff would I feel better about the deadline if Alcantara and Caissie were mashing.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

2 hours ago, Outshined_One said:

I'm happy for the development we've seen with Mo and Long, but holy eff would I feel better about the deadline if Alcantara and Caissie were mashing.

Caissie has come on in June (1.027 OPS but just 33 PA so far).

[CaliforniaRaisin]

 

[CaliforniaRaisin]

 

[Post Count Padder]

Mule and Wiggins were my two biggest hopes in lower level pitching entering this season. I like these two previous update posts.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Eli Lovich was promoted to Myrtle Beach.

[Bertz]

42 minutes ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

Eli Lovich was promoted to Myrtle Beach.

Yes!  Hopefully he is able to hit the ground running.  Even given how much of a pitcher's park Myrtle is things have been bleak

[CaliforniaRaisin]

The Cubs don’t normally promote players from the DSL to Arizona midseason so he must be intriguing. The lasy two who got promoted midseason (Derek Alcántara and Leonel Espinoza) have done well so far.

de León is 20 and was OPSing 1.135 so far this season.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Adán Sánchez was released. He had signed for a $1.5 million bonus back in 2022. 

 

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Cubs righties: Joan Delgado, Edgardo de León, Ludwing Espinoza, Felix Stevens

Cubs lefties: Eli Lovich, Derik Alcántara, Jairo Díaz

[allen6510w]

21 hours ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

The Cubs don’t normally promote players from the DSL to Arizona midseason so he must be intriguing. The lasy two who got promoted midseason (Derek Alcántara and Leonel Espinoza) have done well so far.

de León is 20 and was OPSing 1.135 so far this season.

As most of you know, the diminutive Darlyn hasn't played 2B in a while; he is primarily a LF.  He was a mid-season DSL all star last year and began his 4th DSL season this spring.  So (unless the rules have changed) this is the last season he could be on an International roster.   

Chicken and egg question.  Was Eli Lovich promoted to make room for Darlyn? Was Eli promoted because of Anderson Suriel's struggles? Was Eli Lovich promoted because of his performance this spring? Or none of these?  

[allen6510w]

1 hour ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

Adán Sánchez was released. He had signed for a $1.5 million bonus back in 2022. 

 

Yes the timing was a surprise to me.  Got to make room for All Horizon League first teamer (twice) Sammy Sass, I guess (just kidding Sammy will turn 25 late this year).  Could be related to how few base stealers he throws out (14%).  Maybe the Cubs have decided he will never be a major league catcher.   By comparison, punchless Jairo Diaz has thrown out 41% of base stealers at the same level. 

[Bertz]

Quote

The depth at Triple A has taken a hit, too. Jordan Wicks is on the shelf with a hamstring issue (he recently threw live BP and is close to returning to game action), and Brandon Birdsell — an upper-level pitching prospect who had a breakout season last summer — suffered a shoulder injury early in the spring and is not expected to return until later this summer.

If Wicks is this close to returning he should still be fairly stretched out.  It's only been about three weeks.

[profisme]

1 hour ago, allen6510w said:

Yes the timing was a surprise to me.  Got to make room for All Horizon League first teamer (twice) Sammy Sass, I guess (just kidding Sammy will turn 25 late this year).  Could be related to how few base stealers he throws out (14%).  Maybe the Cubs have decided he will never be a major league catcher.   By comparison, punchless Jairo Diaz has thrown out 41% of base stealers at the same level. 

 

Just gotta ask if it is too much to ask for to get the next Ivan Rodriguez. That’s all I want. An all-world catcher who can steal bases, hit for power and average, and throw guys out at a 40+% clip. 

[CubinNY]

10 minutes ago, profisme said:

Just gotta ask if it is too much to ask for to get the next Ivan Rodriguez. That’s all I want. An all-world catcher who can steal bases, hit for power and average, and throw guys out at a 40+% clip. 

In his prime he had 98-100 MPH throw down to 2nd. Bench was a bit before my time, pudge was the best all around catcher I’ve ever seen. 

[Post Count Padder]

8 hours ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

Adán Sánchez was released. He had signed for a $1.5 million bonus back in 2022. 

 

That is shocking. He is still just 20. Seems crazy to give up on him now when you spent a decent sum to sign him not that long ago.

[CubinNY]

It would be great if one of the minor league experts on here could give us a midseason "State of the Farm" essay before the trade deadline. It's hard for me to get a read on where they sit with graduations, injuries, and young players in the minors. I sense that the system is not as healthy as it was at the start of the season, but what do I know? 

We do know that they will be looking for pitching, and that will cost a premium. 

[Outshined_One]

15 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

It would be great if one of the minor league experts on here could give us a midseason "State of the Farm" essay before the trade deadline. It's hard for me to get a read on where they sit with graduations, injuries, and young players in the minors. I sense that the system is not as healthy as it was at the start of the season, but what do I know? 

We do know that they will be looking for pitching, and that will cost a premium. 

The Best:

1) There has been a lot of positive development with depth arms in the system that could be relief/back end rotation types even if things don't go super great for them.

2) Wiggins looks like an ace in the making.

3) Mo Baller and Jefferson Rojas are legitimate Top 50 prospects in baseball.

4) Jonathan Long is a thing, but how much of a thing is up for debate.

5) Eli Lovich might also be a thing.

The Annoying:

1) Pretty much everything else. There's still time, and we might be seeing recent turnarounds from Caissie and Alcantara, but TBD.

[Bertz]

14 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

It would be great if one of the minor league experts on here could give us a midseason "State of the Farm" essay before the trade deadline. It's hard for me to get a read on where they sit with graduations, injuries, and young players in the minors. I sense that the system is not as healthy as it was at the start of the season, but what do I know? 

We do know that they will be looking for pitching, and that will cost a premium. 

The farm is down a good bit from where it was entering the year.  The biggest reason is that Shaw and Horton have successfully graduated, which is obviously great news.  The rest is a bit of a mixed bag, probably a bit more bad than good:

The Good

- Wiggins and Rojas' stocks are both way up.  If they keep going like this they'll be top 50 prospects over the winter

- The pitching at South Bend and Tenn has wildly exceeded expectations.  Sanders, Gallagher, Kipp, etc. are all arrow way up

- Jonny Long confirmed that he's a dude, and could probably come up tomorrow if we needed him to

- Ballesteros and Cristian Hernandez both look better than they did last year, and were both obviously already a thing 

The Bad

- Caissie and Alcantara are both stock down.  Neither has been a disaster, but expectations were for them to look much more ready than they have to this point

- Myrtle Beach has been a disaster.  It's a pretty young roster so here's to hoping the second half goes better but it has been so so so bad to this point 

- James Triantos has been a huge mess.  There's been some injury, I'm hoping we can blame that, but WOOF

I think Jed's still in a position where he could trade for more or less anything he wants if he has the appetite.  Something hugely valuable, like Mackenzie Gore or one of the Mariners guys, would take MLB talent though.  Any rental or 1.5 year talent can probably be had by a combo of one of the Iowa bats and a non-Wiggins SP prospect.

[allen6510w]

9 minutes ago, Bertz said:

The farm is down a good bit from where it was entering the year.  The biggest reason is that Shaw and Horton have successfully graduated, which is obviously great news.  The rest is a bit of a mixed bag, probably a bit more bad than good:

The Good

- Wiggins and Rojas' stocks are both way up.  If they keep going like this they'll be top 50 prospects over the winter

- The pitching at South Bend and Tenn has wildly exceeded expectations.  Sanders, Gallagher, Kipp, etc. are all arrow way up

- Jonny Long confirmed that he's a dude, and could probably come up tomorrow if we needed him to

- Ballesteros and Cristian Hernandez both look better than they did last year, and were both obviously already a thing 

The Bad

- Caissie and Alcantara are both stock down.  Neither has been a disaster, but expectations were for them to look much more ready than they have to this point

- Myrtle Beach has been a disaster.  It's a pretty young roster so here's to hoping the second half goes better but it has been so so so bad to this point 

- James Triantos has been a huge mess.  There's been some injury, I'm hoping we can blame that, but WOOF

I think Jed's still in a position where he could trade for more or less anything he wants if he has the appetite.  Something hugely valuable, like Mackenzie Gore or one of the Mariners guys, would take MLB talent though.  Any rental or 1.5 year talent can probably be had by a combo of one of the Iowa bats and a non-Wiggins SP prospect.

 

Thanks for the expert comments. 

Likely you mean the South Bend players that matter are relatively young.   Carter Trice,  Ivan Brethowr, Christian Hernandez, and Jefferson Rojas are young or at least not too old for high-A  The team as a whole is a bit older than average (4th oldest hitters and 4th oldest pitchers out of 12 teams) 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/league.cgi?id=1de37e23

 

[Jason Ross]

3 hours ago, CubinNY said:

It would be great if one of the minor league experts on here could give us a midseason "State of the Farm" essay before the trade deadline. It's hard for me to get a read on where they sit with graduations, injuries, and young players in the minors. I sense that the system is not as healthy as it was at the start of the season, but what do I know? 

We do know that they will be looking for pitching, and that will cost a premium. 

That's the goal! I want to let the month play out and take a mid-season stock of things.

I'll say this in general; I think it's been a pretty good year! I think we'll drop in the rankings because Shaw and Horton will have graduated, but the progress in the lower levels, a few pop ups and I'm really encouraged. The rankings mean less to me than the progress. 

[Tryptamine]

No particular order but these are the ones for me

1. Caissie- He's been fairly good, but he's basically been the same guy he has been. There's not much improvement there especially for someone repeating a level even if he's still young for AAA. 

2. Alcantara- More of the same as Caissie, but even worse. All of his plate discipline improvements have disappeared and actually gotten worse. No increase in power and a pretty minimal increase in walk rate. Alcantara might be going the Junior Lake route. Lots of tools but never puts it together to be more than a fringe MLBer.

3. Lovich- I know he's very young, but I thought he'd hit the ground running rather than being more or less a league average bat. That's not real promising for a guy who is basically going to live or die with his bat.

4. Cowles- I was hyped when they traded for him as his new found plate discipline made him a very real candidate to be an impactful utility player. All that plate discipline vanished and we're left with a guy who might not even be with the franchise after 2026. 

5. Triantos- I'm hoping it's injury related, but he's just been straight up bad in his play time so far. Unless he fixes it, he's going to go from a guy who made some top 100 lists to a guy who might not even be in my top 15-20 in the offseason.

Edited June 14, 2025 by Tryptamine

[Bertz]

2 hours ago, allen6510w said:

 

Thanks for the expert comments. 

Likely you mean the South Bend players that matter are relatively young.   Carter Trice,  Ivan Brethowr, Christian Hernandez, and Jefferson Rojas are young or at least not too old for high-A  The team as a whole is a bit older than average (4th oldest hitters and 4th oldest pitchers out of 12 teams) 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/league.cgi?id=1de37e23

 

No I meant Myrtle.  Southisene, Melendez, and Lovich are all 19.  Escobar's 20, as are Mule and Florentino.  Lumpuy's recently 21.  That's a lot of talent that if they go off in the second half it can get exciting pretty quickly.  Maybe the team isn't holistically that young (I didn't check any rankings), but aside from Mathis the prospect-y guys are generally quite young.

The second tier guys in South Bend's lineup have been a pretty pleasant surprise IMO.  Just not as notable of a story as some of the other stuff I mentioned.

[Jason Ross]

2 hours ago, Tryptamine said:

No particular order but these are the ones for me

1. Caissie- He's been fairly good, but he's basically been the same guy he has been. There's not much improvement there especially for someone repeating a level even if he's still young for AAA. 

2. Alcantara- More of the same as Caissie, but even worse. All of his plate discipline improvements have disappeared and actually gotten worse. No increase in power and a pretty minimal increase in walk rate. Alcantara might be going the Junior Lake route. Lots of tools but never puts it together to be more than a fringe MLBer.

3. Lovich- I know he's very young, but I thought he'd hit the ground running rather than being more or less a league average bat. That's not real promising for a guy who is basically going to live or die with his bat.

4. Cowles- I was hyped when they traded for him as his new found plate discipline made him a very real candidate to be an impactful utility player. All that plate discipline vanished and we're left with a guy who might not even be with the franchise after 2026. 

5. Triantos- I'm hoping it's injury related, but he's just been straight up bad in his play time so far. Unless he fixes it, he's going to go from a guy who made some top 100 lists to a guy who might not even be in my top 15-20 in the offseason.

Lovich hitting like a league average bat right away, in a terrible environment, would be awesome, man. Get the K's are in check, and he's a beanpole of dude. Add some weight and this guy has upside. His start in Myrtle is nothing but a massive positive in my books.

Important to note, it's been 3 games in Myrtle. That the Cubs even promoted him there this quick should tell us they think good things of him!. I thought he'd stick in Arizona to add weight most of the year.

[muntjack]

I am not as discouraged by Caissie and Alcantara as most,  if only because progress is not linear and this organization in particular can afford to let them keep trying to make adjustments in AAA. 

 

PCA looked really rough at times,  even early this year. Those two are one adjustment away from being impact guys.  Ride it out.