Minor League Musings

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Owen Ayers officially promoted to AA.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

RHPs Connor Knox (2025 18th rounder) and Daniel Avitia (2024 12th rounder who had TJS in 2025) added to Myrtle Beach's roster to make their pro debuts.

IF Gueri Lubo added to South Bend's roster. He missed all last season with a knee injury and has never played above the ACL.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Hope this isn’t as serious as it sounds..

[We Got The Whole 9]

1 hour ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

Hope this isn’t as serious as it sounds..

Apparently he overheated

[sneakypower]

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

14 minutes ago, sneakypower said:

is this dude objective or is he a Cubs guy?

[sneakypower]

bio says BA contributor

Edited Thursday at 07:12 PM by sneakypower

[sneakypower]

this guy seems exciting, wonder what his back story is, have to assume he required a steep cost for them to acquire

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

4 minutes ago, sneakypower said:

this guy seems exciting, wonder what his back story is, have to assume he required a steep cost for them to acquire

[Bertz]

62% contact rate in A ball?

[We Got The Whole 9]

Ramirez probably doesn't crack the top 50 based on the way the list-makers operate. You just dont go from outside 100 to that high, do you? 

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

It's funny that the guy brought up Jose Ramirez because he was never in the top 100 either.

[We Got The Whole 9]

8 minutes ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

It's funny that the guy brought up Jose Ramirez because he was never in the top 100 either.

I brought up Jose a couple weeks ago tongue-in-cheek but there really are some major similarities.

[sneakypower]

[CaliforniaRaisin]

22 minutes ago, sneakypower said:

Man, I really like Pontes but that's quite some hyperbole.

[Bertz]

Pedro Ramirez is Jose Ramirez and Ronny Cruz is Fernando Tatis Jr. is not exactly making me re-think my lapsed BA sub

[Jason Ross]

Yeah, BA is being a bit hyperbolic right now. On both. Both have had cool starts to the season. Frankly, amazing starts to the year. 

I'll point to Alfonsin Ramirez for a moment. Ramirez was an upside mid-top-10 pick who had really fun upside but issues with the bat. We traded him to Cleveland in the first half of last year in A+ he crushed it. He dropped his K% from 32.7 in Myrtle down to 25.1% while going up a level. But since then, he's fallen back to Earth. He posted a K% over 33% in AA last year and this year it's over 40%. People were freaking out the first few months about dealing him for Eli Morgan, That's sentiment seems to have gone away. 

Ronny Cruz is off to a great start. But eh, he's a lottery ticket still. I'm super jazzed about Pedro Ramirez, and his I'm a little more bullish on simply because he's always hit and he's still hitting just with a little more power. Track record and stuff. But the "best prospect in baseball"? Ya'll...

[Outshined_One]

17 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

I'm super jazzed about Pedro Ramirez, and his I'm a little more bullish on simply because he's always hit and he's still hitting just with a little more power. Track record and stuff. But the "best prospect in baseball"? Ya'll...

[sneakypower]

1 hour ago, Jason Ross said:

Yeah, BA is being a bit hyperbolic right now. On both. Both have had cool starts to the season. Frankly, amazing starts to the year. 

I'll point to Alfonsin Ramirez for a moment. Ramirez was an upside mid-top-10 pick who had really fun upside but issues with the bat. We traded him to Cleveland in the first half of last year in A+ he crushed it. He dropped his K% from 32.7 in Myrtle down to 25.1% while going up a level. But since then, he's fallen back to Earth. He posted a K% over 33% in AA last year and this year it's over 40%. People were freaking out the first few months about dealing him for Eli Morgan, That's sentiment seems to have gone away. 

Ronny Cruz is off to a great start. But eh, he's a lottery ticket still. I'm super jazzed about Pedro Ramirez, and his I'm a little more bullish on simply because he's always hit and he's still hitting just with a little more power. Track record and stuff. But the "best prospect in baseball"? Ya'll...

Rosario's a good analogue too because it's the exact type of prospect the FO has seemingly zero use for, loud tools upside plays are the first ones we dump off whether if it's for an eventual 7-1/3 IP reliever, 8-1/3 IP reliever or simply as a throw-ins of a larger deal

i'd still rather have the guy slugging .614 in AA than those seven innings of Eli Morgan, personally

[Jason Ross]

12 minutes ago, sneakypower said:

Rosario's a good analogue too because it's the exact type of prospect the FO has seemingly zero use for, loud tools upside plays are the first ones we dump off whether if it's for an eventual 7-1/3 IP reliever, 8-1/3 IP reliever or simply as a throw-ins of a larger deal

i'd still rather have the guy slugging .614 in AA than those seven innings of Eli Morgan, personally

It's easy to say that now, that we know that Eli Morgan didn't do anything and got hurt, but the reality is that it's still more likely that the 7 innings that Eli Morgan gave the Cubs are 7 more innings than Alfonsin Rosario ever has in the MLB. No shade towards Rosario either; I hope he does well! I have no reason to root against him. But striking out over 35% of the time in AA is not a green flag whatsoever, either. And at 200 PA's it isn't impossible this isn't a speed bump, but for a player who's profile has always been "power over hit" the outlier seems to be the 82 games in A+ and not his current time in AA, too. 

That's not me saying "don't' draft upside" but that prospects are capital, ultimately. They can be capital in the form of players who provide value for your organization, or provide value in the form of getting established players who will provide for your organization. 

And I say all of this as someone who really really liked Ivan Brethowr last year. He's another one of these guys who has a lot of upside and could be good. But alas, he too will probably provide no MLB value.

The reality of Rosario, Bretowr and Cruz, and almost all of these lottery tickets is this: they're far more likely to be in the camp of Michael Arias, Nelson Velazquez, Kevin Made and Alexander Canario of "guys people were upset at losing at first, and then never think of again". Every so often one of them will hit, maybe that's Rosario or Cruz or Brethowr or whomever the Cubs trade this July that someone makes their pet-project, but more likely, almost all of them will fail and the Cubs will come out ahead in almost all of those deals. Even if "coming out ahead" is "two months of an okay MLB player" or something that doesn't feel impressive. 

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Rosario, Cruz and Brethowr - Cubs clearly prefer trading away prospects with more swing and miss in their profile.

[craig]

I get the point.  I do think Cruz is in a different world from Rosario, much less Bretower.  Bretower was an ancient K-machine whose contact problems had been sustained over many years, and whose contact problems were too severe to even hit many HR's in college.  Totally different.  Rosario played low-A at age 20, and had K'd almost 40% of his AB at age 20 in Myrtle over a full season.  His K-problem was pretty well established.   Cruz has just barely turned 19, is at A+, did not have notable K problem in rookie last year, and has only 51 AB this season.  Completely different prospect.  For sure, K's may end up killing him, they do for most prospects.  But the SSS does not have nearly the same red flags as for old-guy-no-game-power Bretower, or for older Rosario with time-established K-problem red flags.  Cruz was a way better prospect then, and now.  

[Jason Ross]

34 minutes ago, craig said:

I get the point.  I do think Cruz is in a different world from Rosario, much less Bretower.  Bretower was an ancient K-machine whose contact problems had been sustained over many years, and whose contact problems were too severe to even hit many HR's in college.  Totally different.  Rosario played low-A at age 20, and had K'd almost 40% of his AB at age 20 in Myrtle over a full season.  His K-problem was pretty well established.   Cruz has just barely turned 19, is at A+, did not have notable K problem in rookie last year, and has only 51 AB this season.  Completely different prospect.  For sure, K's may end up killing him, they do for most prospects.  But the SSS does not have nearly the same red flags as for old-guy-no-game-power Bretower, or for older Rosario with time-established K-problem red flags.  Cruz was a way better prospect then, and now.  

He might be a slightly different bird, but he's a bird of a feather as  a "lottery ticket who if he hits could be really cool but is super unlikely to hit". But also it's important to understand that Cruz isn't a  "much" better prospect, or at least, hasn't been seen that way by the industry up until now. This is what was written of Cruz at the start of last year by BA: 

Quote

This leads to lots of early-count aggression and sawed-off contact....Cruz is an exciting infield prospect with an above-average power upside and some real questions around his bat-to-ball skills. He’ll likely debut in the Arizona Complex League in 2025. 

A good reminder that contact issues aren't always noticeable at lower levels in the form of K's but can become issues later on. 

As well, Brethowr has hovered around a 25-26% K% so far. His K% isn't horrible either. He's made considerably mechanical changes. He's striking out a ton this year, and he has had K concerns, but I wouldn't classify him as some K-monster to Cruz's as they had identical 26.7 K% in A+ right now (though Cruz's due to his age is more impressive so far!) 

Both were in the same draft. It's true that Cruz was selected higher, but they were ranked in a similar range, The difference between the #382nd ranked prospect and the #486th (both BA) is basically preference at that stage. Once you get there it's kind of up to the evaluator. And probably Cruz's age adds in some extra potential of the unknown. 

Also, the Cubs valued them similarly. Cruz was sent for 2 months of Siroka and Brethowr the return for Rogers. Neither were expensive and both were let go for pretty small rental pieces.

I got no issues if you like Cruz more! Any one of us dorks who care about kids who will probably never play MLB have players we like more. I just don't think they're vastly different prospects in the grand scheme of things. Lottery ticket pet projects. 

[Bertz]

I'm not sweating any of these guys specifically, but setting aside the specifics the team is going to get burned on one of these lottery tickets eventually.  That's just the nature of the game though.

  The Guardians are one of the smartest most conservative FOs in the league and they got burned on Junior Caminero in what they thought was a minor trade.  The Rays got burned on Joe Ryan.  The Dodgers got burned on Yordan Alvarez.  etc. etc.  We laugh at like Tatis/Shields but mainly they're just called lottery tickets for a reason. 

[Jason Ross]

47 minutes ago, Bertz said:

I'm not sweating any of these guys specifically, but setting aside the specifics the team is going to get burned on one of these lottery tickets eventually.  That's just the nature of the game though.

  The Guardians are one of the smartest most conservative FOs in the league and they got burned on Junior Caminero in what they thought was a minor trade.  The Rays got burned on Joe Ryan.  The Dodgers got burned on Yordan Alvarez.  etc. etc.  We laugh at like Tatis/Shields but mainly they're just called lottery tickets for a reason. 

Yep! One of these guys will burn the Cubs. Someday. Sometime. Nature of the beast.