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Bertz Knoxville Smokies

Bertz

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The Cubs have only had a couple guys on the BA Hot Sheet (list of 20 hottest prospects each week) this year but Nelly Velázquez became the first repeat guy: https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/hot-sheet-baseballs-20-hottest-prospects-from-the-past-week-81721/

 

6. Nelson Velazquez, OF, Cubs

Team: Double-A Tennessee (South)

Age: 22

 

Why He’s Here: .421/.450/1.158 (8-for-19), 6 R, 2 2B, 4 HR, 8 RBIs, 0 BB, 7 SO

 

The Scoop: Velazquez made a swing adjustment this season to flatten his bat path and keep his barrel in the zone longer. The result has been a hitter who better handles fastballs, destroys mistakes and uses the whole field more than in previous years. Velazquez received a promotion to Double-A on Aug. 4 and has crushed the ball since he arrived, with four doubles, a triple and five home runs in 11 games with Tennessee. That includes a 4-for-4 game with a double and two homers against Rocket City last week and four consecutive games driving in at least one run. Though Velazquez remains an aggressive hitter prone to striking out, his swing improvements now allow him to make enough contact to project as a major leaguer—and possibly even a regular—in the eyes of both the Cubs and opposing evaluators. (KG)

 

I wonder if the swing change is what got him promoted? He was in a slump, seemed to be just starting to come out of it, and then got the bump. Maybe the team saw the changes really stick and that was the last box he had to check to get moved up?

 

Overall though I'm really happy with the power guys in the system. I'm pretty convinced that we'll net a GUY out of the Nelly/Canario/Nwogu trio, even if I'm not sure which one.

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Bertz Knoxville Smokies

Bertz

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He's been on a tear lately. I love that we will have him, Leeper, and Roberts all ready to roll at Iowa next year. That's extremely high quality pen depth.

CaliforniaRaisin GOAT

CaliforniaRaisin

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He's been on a tear lately. I love that we will have him, Leeper, and Roberts all ready to roll at Iowa next year. That's extremely high quality pen depth.

 

It's been a great year for relief prospects and that's with Carraway struggling, Luke Little not pitching and likely future relievers like Márquez and McAvene being hurt all year.

 

I hope they can build up SP depth in a similar manner to withstand regression and injuries.

Bertz Knoxville Smokies

Bertz

Old-Timey Member
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He's been on a tear lately. I love that we will have him, Leeper, and Roberts all ready to roll at Iowa next year. That's extremely high quality pen depth.

 

It's been a great year for relief prospects and that's with Carraway struggling, Luke Little not pitching and likely future relievers like Márquez and McAvene being hurt all year.

 

I hope they can build up SP depth in a similar manner to withstand regression and injuries.

 

Yeah, hopefully Jensen hits the ground running at Tenn. Kilian's definitely starting next year at Iowa and should be an option, at least for a turn or two in the rotation, the first half of next year. If Jensen's ETA looks like latter half of next year and Wicks early 2023, that's a solid pipeline. Though certainly thin enough that one snapped UCL would change the complexion significantly.

 

Nelly Velazquez's K rate at Tenn is down to 21% through 3 PAs tonight. On top of that his GB rate is a smidge under 30%. With his power that's an extremely horsefeathering fun combination. Rhys Hoskins is the closest MLB comp I can find.

Bertz Knoxville Smokies

Bertz

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Having a totally normal one and thinking about Kevin Made this morning. So I decided to do some research.

 

Since 2010, 89 players have played in full season ball as a 17 or 18 year olds and racked up at least 150 PAs. Of those:

 

- 5 are currently doing so, including Kevin Made

- 30 never really became anything. They never really got all that high on top prospect lists, and if they made the majors it was a mediocre cup of coffee. About half of these guys are still active, so we'll likely get a success or two out of this pool still

- 4 are still in the minors, and are good prospects who look like future MLB regulars

- 9 are either on the current top 100 prospects list or were recently and now are very early in their MLB careers (e.g. Wander Franco)

- 9 were very good prospects that busted hard (e.g. Jonathan Singleton)

- 9 played in the majors, but topped out as 2nd division types or bench players (e.g. Ronald Torreyes)

- 12 ended up as MLB regulars

- 11 ended up as MLB stars

 

That's a pretty great distribution there, and why even with Made's warts he's someone to be excited about.

 

Now obviously, most of the stars on this list like Mike Trout were light-years ahead of what Made is doing. But even if you sort the players by offensive output, Made is currently right in between Carson Kelly and Adalberto Mondesi. So even in that lower quartile there's good company. Made has also been performing well for about 6 weeks now, so if by season's end he's moved his wRC+ up another 10 or 20 points the outlook gets that much rosier.

Bertz Knoxville Smokies

Bertz

Old-Timey Member
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Owen Caissie is going to full season ball!

 

 

In case Owen’s (step?)mom wasn’t enough of a source:

 

 

I hope if this is finally what pushes Nwogu up to SB as well. And Christian Franklin's probably only a week or so behind? Feels like he's just in the ACL to get knock some rust off, right?

Bruno7481 ACL Cubs

Bruno7481

Old-Timey Member
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The latest podcast from Goldstein and Logenhagen had some discussion on Alcantata, Caissie, and Preciado.

 

It was brought up in reference to a complex game between the Cubs and Rockies. Benny Montgomery was playing for Colorado and Logenhagen mentioned how it isn't even close between Alcantara and Montgomery right now. Said scouts agreed Alcantara was the better prospect. The larger point was the difference between the draft and IFA. They used Alcantara as an example of a guy who is more advanced physically and has a better swing than a kid who was a top 10 pick just a month ago.

 

Small mention of Preciado's approach needing a lot of work.

CaliforniaRaisin GOAT

CaliforniaRaisin

Community Moderator
Posted
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Sorry if this has been asked already -- but of all the Cubs teenagers, which are you most interested in, not including Hernandez? (Caissie, Alcantara, Preciado, Howard)

@Rationalfan1999

 

I'll go off the board and pick 19-year-old outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong, the 19th overall pick in the 2020 Draft who was acquired from the Mets in exchange for Javier Báez and Trevor Williams last month. He hasn't played since tearing the labrum in his non-throwing shoulder in May, but he was one of the best pure hitters and perhaps the best defensive outfielder in his prep class.

 

Nine of the first 18 spots on our just-updated Cubs Top 30 belong to teenagers, including six acquired in the past nine months. Shortstop Reginald Preciado and outfielder Owen Caissie highlighted the Yu Darvish trade with the Padres last December, shortstop Cristian Hernandez was signed out of the Dominican Republic for $3 million in January, shortstop James Triantos was an over-slot second-round pick in July and Crow-Armstrong and outfielder Kevin Alcantara came in deals later in the month.

 

If all goes according to plan, all that young talent will make an impact on Chicago's big league lineup in three or four years. To return to contention, the Cubs will need to develop some pitching to go with it.

Bertz Knoxville Smokies

Bertz

Old-Timey Member
Posted
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I'm gonna lay out why I'm SO excited about what Nelson Velazquez is doing, beyond just yelling "DONGS!" at the top of my lungs. And then I'll try to shut up about him for a while.

 

What he's done since he's gotten to AA is some legitimate unicorn horsefeathers:

 

- He's hitting very few balls on the ground. His 32% mark would be tied with Ozzie Albies for 10th lowest in MLB this season

- He has a good 10.3% walk rate

- He has a fairly average 24.4% K rate

- He's always been a prospect known for raw power, and his 24% HR/FB rate backs that up (that would be 16th in MLB this season tied with Bryce Harper)

 

Over the last three years (min 500 PAs) here are the guys who have a GB rate under 35%, a BB rate over 10%, a K rate under 25%, and a HR/FB rate over 20%:

 

Mike Trout and Edwin Encarnacion

 

That's it. That's the list. Like I said, unicorn horsefeathers. Now, HR/FB is a good proxy for power but not a perfect one. Especially for guys who have their Ks under control, they may not have stratospheric HR/FB numbers because they make a little more contact than some others. Plus, the more filters you have on a list of course the shorter it's going to be. So let's remove the HR/FB filter. 11 new names are added:

 

Bregman, Rendon, Betts, Will Smith, Bellinger, Jose Ramirez, Austin Meadows, Hoskins, Belt, Omar Narvaez, and Kyle Seager

 

Every single one is a good player. And the ones with any sort of defensive value are generally stars. Seager is the worst hitter in that group with a 109 wRC+. Now let's widen the bars on BB% and K% (8% and 27% respectively), since those are the numbers I expect Nelly has the least chance of maintaining. You add 6 names, and finally our first ccrappy hitters:

 

Justin Turner, Arenado, Story, Cavan Biggio, Curt Casali, and Stephen Vogt

 

Vogt and Casali are both backup catchers and bad hitters. I think they confirm that you need a certain baseline of power to pull off this profile (which isn't a problem for Nelly), but they do show that this isn't a guaranteed path to a good hitter. That said it is pretty damn close.

 

It's only been about 80 PAs, so any of these rate stats could be tanked with a bad weekend. But if Velazquez maintains this baseline, or close, I think he quickly becomes our #2 pure offensive prospect behind Brennen. This is very exciting stuff, even if it is SSS at the moment.

fromthestretch First Round Pick

fromthestretch

Old-Timey Member
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Leeper is at 35 innings for the season. If that's his innings limit, that's a pretty low limit.

 

Not only that, but that tweet above is incorrect in saying this is the most innings he's thrown since high school. He threw a combined 50 innings in 2018 between college and summer ball and 41.1 innings in 2019 (also combined between college and summer ball). Granted, he only logged 7.1 innings last year due to the pandemic, but is it really necessary to slow him down right now?

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