Minor League Musings

[JunkyardWalrus]

horsefeathers hell does Jed have a type

[Jason Ross]

BA has a "Top-15 outside of the Top-100" List published today: 

Cristian Hernandez, SS, Cubs

Hernandez received a club-record signing bonus of $3 million in January 2021 but struggled for a few seasons before taking a step forward in repeating Low-A last year. This season, Hernandez is off to a hot start with High-A South Bend, hitting .328/.400/.522 over 17 games with a 15.7% strikeout rate and 9.2% walk rate. Hernandez is employing a far more aggressive approach, as his swing rate is up 25% from last year, resulting in more power over the first few weeks. With the ability to play shortstop long term and improving game power, Hernandez is once again a relevant name outside the Top 100.   

[CaliforniaRaisin]

 

[Jason Ross]

28 minutes ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

 

[Outshined_One]

10 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

He'll graduate to towel drills in no time!

[JBears79]

Is that the same arm he was born with or have they finally fully replaced it with a cyborg arm this time?

[Tryptamine]

There's been very little of note on Southisene and from what little I've seen he seems to always be filling up the box score. Anyone seen anything beyond like a 1 sentence blurb on him? I love prospects with that plus hit tool so I was pretty hyped when they picked him and the Cubs must have been hyped too considering his over slot. 

[Jason Ross]

1 hour ago, Tryptamine said:

There's been very little of note on Southisene and from what little I've seen he seems to always be filling up the box score. Anyone seen anything beyond like a 1 sentence blurb on him? I love prospects with that plus hit tool so I was pretty hyped when they picked him and the Cubs must have been hyped too considering his over slot. 

With him playing in AZ, we're mostly at the whim of AZPhil, sadly. Sounds like's off to a nice start - hopefully he gets to Myrtle sooner rather than later!

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Quote

16. Moises Ballesteros, C, Cubs

Team: Triple-A Iowa (International)

Age: 21

Why He’s Here: .500/.565/.600 (10-for-20) 4 R, 2 2B, 4 RBI, 3 BB, 2 SO

The Scoop: There are very few players in the minors who evoke more comfort in their ability to hit than Ballesteros, and right now, he’s on a true heater. Ballesteros has a 14-game hitting streak which has seen him have more multi-hit games (9) than one-hit games. Over this hitting streak, he has struck out only four times while walking nine times. (JJ)

 

[We Got The Whole 9]

I cannot see the Cubs promoting him and giving him Turner's 10 ABs a week but what he is doing is insane and I'm really curious if there were indeed 15 players that had better weeks. 

[mul21]

37 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

I cannot see the Cubs promoting him and giving him Turner's 10 ABs a week but what he is doing is insane and I'm really curious if there were indeed 15 players that had better weeks. 

Ha! That was exactly where my mind went when I saw him at 16.  There were 15 guys who hit .500 or better with power and almost no Ks (or the pitching equivalent of that)?

[muntjack]

Moises is criminally underrated.  

[craig]

Do you think his HR-modesty is just going to be his profile?  He's hitting gobs of singles, and his BABIP is over .450, which is kinda great for a slow man.  Heh heh, I'm guessing the feet-on-dirt rule has been especially beneficial for him.  Guessing as a contact singles-hitter type guy with no speed, that infielders would be way out on the grass when he cam to bat in earlier rules.  

But he's only at 2 HR, both in same game, and one of them was off a backup infielder, right?  Not a lot of over-the-fence yet.  Maybe that's still to come, maybe it's cold-weather baseball, or maybe HR-hitting just isn't really going to be a big plus for him ever.  (Hopefully this will reverse-jinx him, and he'll hit one tomorrow and another by end of week.). 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

10 hours ago, craig said:

Do you think his HR-modesty is just going to be his profile?  He's hitting gobs of singles, and his BABIP is over .450, which is kinda great for a slow man.  Heh heh, I'm guessing the feet-on-dirt rule has been especially beneficial for him.  Guessing as a contact singles-hitter type guy with no speed, that infielders would be way out on the grass when he cam to bat in earlier rules.  

But he's only at 2 HR, both in same game, and one of them was off a backup infielder, right?  Not a lot of over-the-fence yet.  Maybe that's still to come, maybe it's cold-weather baseball, or maybe HR-hitting just isn't really going to be a big plus for him ever.  (Hopefully this will reverse-jinx him, and he'll hit one tomorrow and another by end of week.). 

That's the worry for me, in the 'all prospects fail' sense I think the middle of the road outcome is something closer to next-gen James Loney.  Far from a failure, but also not terribly exciting.  Or maybe for a more modern example, Willians Astudillo wasn't able to maintain this profile in a viable way(though Moises is way ahead on age relative to level).  Adding slug, being viable behind the plate, or both would be the things that tick up the excitement.

[Jason Ross]

10 hours ago, craig said:

Do you think his HR-modesty is just going to be his profile?  He's hitting gobs of singles, and his BABIP is over .450, which is kinda great for a slow man.  Heh heh, I'm guessing the feet-on-dirt rule has been especially beneficial for him.  Guessing as a contact singles-hitter type guy with no speed, that infielders would be way out on the grass when he cam to bat in earlier rules.  

But he's only at 2 HR, both in same game, and one of them was off a backup infielder, right?  Not a lot of over-the-fence yet.  Maybe that's still to come, maybe it's cold-weather baseball, or maybe HR-hitting just isn't really going to be a big plus for him ever.  (Hopefully this will reverse-jinx him, and he'll hit one tomorrow and another by end of week.). 

I think the natural thing would be is to say "the home run power concerns me" but it's not a massive issue for me currently. I'd love to see him hit more HR's, and I think we're probably talking the profile, of say, 20--25 HR's more than anything. But I think the hitter he most reminds me of is early-career Freddie Freeman. Through age-25, Freeman had hit no more than 23 home runs in any singular season while hitting <20 home runs multiple times. As a first baseman! As he got older the power came more often and he hit more, but those first few years he was still a good hitter regardless.

I don't want to say "Moises Ballesteros is Freddie Freeman" but that he does well enough at most things that he can survive in that 18-25 HR range, even if he's a 1b/DH. The bat will probably play. He's currently in the following percentiles in Triple-A:
wOBA: 98
xwOBA: 82
Average EV: 81
Max EV: 77

He's hitting it pretty hard. He's not an elite EV monster, but he's probably plenty good enough that it's not a massive concern. As a DH this is a less exciting profile, but probably fine. If he can catch 50-60 games between 1b and DH? He instantly becomes a very strong prospect. It's why we are probably lucky the Cubs are doing well enough that we aren't having to rush him up. 

[mul21]

Those MiLB numbers are very Mark Grace to me.

[We Got The Whole 9]

Michael Brantley

[craig]

Mark Grace is a nice analogy.  Not sure Moises will have that level of power?  Grace had 7 seasons with ≥13 home runs, so Moises might maybe never have that level of HR production.  But maybe he will get to that 13-17 HR kind of range?  Maybe more?  

Michael Barrett also comes to mind.  Again, Ballesteros might not have either the HR power or the defensive capacity Barrett had.  Or maybe he'll have both and more?  Barrett had back-to-back-to-back 16-HR seasons, perhaps Moises will blossom into that level of over-the-fence at some point?  Or more?  Barrett was never a gold-glove catcher, but he was good enough to start over 800 games at catcher.  Would be fun if Moises reached that level of defensive acceptability.  

[Transmogrified Tiger]

14 minutes ago, craig said:

Mark Grace is a nice analogy.  Not sure Moises will have that level of power?  Grace had 7 seasons with ≥13 home runs, so Moises might maybe never have that level of HR production.  But maybe he will get to that 13-17 HR kind of range?  Maybe more?  

Michael Barrett also comes to mind.  Again, Ballesteros might not have either the HR power or the defensive capacity Barrett had.  Or maybe he'll have both and more?  Barrett had back-to-back-to-back 16-HR seasons, perhaps Moises will blossom into that level of over-the-fence at some point?  Or more?  Barrett was never a gold-glove catcher, but he was good enough to start over 800 games at catcher.  Would be fun if Moises reached that level of defensive acceptability.  

Ballesteros did hit 19 HR as a 20 y/o across AA and AAA last year.  I'm skeptical of if he has enough power to sustain a modern 1B/DH profile, but he's also not Luis Arraez out there.

[mul21]

59 minutes ago, craig said:

Mark Grace is a nice analogy.  Not sure Moises will have that level of power?  Grace had 7 seasons with ≥13 home runs, so Moises might maybe never have that level of HR production.  But maybe he will get to that 13-17 HR kind of range?  Maybe more?  

Michael Barrett also comes to mind.  Again, Ballesteros might not have either the HR power or the defensive capacity Barrett had.  Or maybe he'll have both and more?  Barrett had back-to-back-to-back 16-HR seasons, perhaps Moises will blossom into that level of over-the-fence at some point?  Or more?  Barrett was never a gold-glove catcher, but he was good enough to start over 800 games at catcher.  Would be fun if Moises reached that level of defensive acceptability.  

I actually went and looked a MiLB numbers to verify my gut feeling and their HRs in the minors are pretty comparable so I went with the comparison.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

 

[Bertz]

11 hours ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

That's the worry for me, in the 'all prospects fail' sense I think the middle of the road outcome is something closer to next-gen James Loney.  Far from a failure, but also not terribly exciting.  Or maybe for a more modern example, Willians Astudillo wasn't able to maintain this profile in a viable way(though Moises is way ahead on age relative to level).  Adding slug, being viable behind the plate, or both would be the things that tick up the excitement.

Yeah I think this is the worry if he can't catch at all.  I'll throw Yuli Gurriel out as another potentially similar profile offensively.  

Ballesteros might be the best bet in MiLB to be an above average hitter.  But the bar at 1B is such that you're not especially fun until you leave a 120 wRC+ in the rearview mirror.  And getting past a 120 wRC+ without a bunch of dongs is really tough.

There's some significant tweener potential with Moises.  So despite the insanity he's displaying at the plate right now I'm comfortable with him hanging out at Iowa for a while yet.

[Bertz]

4 hours ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

 

People want Moises to take Turner's roster spot, and I understand the impulse, but Long feels like the far more logical fit.

(Not calling for it right now, probably wouldn't pull that trigger until at least Memorial Day)

[Jason Ross]

Per Jesse Rogers, the Cubs will call up Chris Flexen today. This has nothing to do with Shota, but that they had to call him up now or lose him. 

Frankly, I'd lose him. This is his Triple-A statcast page. 

[craig]

If Flexen is up, then I'm guessing the Cubs got their 2 innings from Tom Cosgrove, and now I assume he'll go back down?