Minor League Musings

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Official announcements haven’t come out yet but Tommy Birch has stories the last few days that confirmed Davis and Kilian are breaking with Iowa.

[Bertz]

Official announcements haven’t come out yet but Tommy Birch has stories the last few days that confirmed Davis and Kilian are breaking with Iowa.

 

With Kilian confirmed that would make Nelly Velazquez, and maybe to a lesser extent Chase Strumpf, the biggest question marks at this point right? Or is there anyone else on the bubble I'm missing?

[Irrelevant Dude]

MLB.com has the Cubs farm system ranked #18, which certainly seems low. Equally depressing is the Dodgers at #5. Why can't we have nice things?

[d_money]

MLB.com has the Cubs farm system ranked #18, which certainly seems low. Equally depressing is the Dodgers at #5. Why can't we have nice things?

Crazy to think where the Cubs farm system would be had they not traded everyone away.

 

Waves and waves…

[Bertz]

 

WOWZA to Caissie starting in SB. Sounded like PCA was the more likely to get a shockingly aggressive assignment

[craig]

The Franklin hype, seemingly from several sources, is really fun. Great to hear.

[craig]

Watched a couple of AB's while doing other things today. Caissie just ripped an opposite-field line drive single. Had a really comfortable looking swing, against a RHP, on a pitch thrown on lower-outer half. He was easily able to get to it.

 

I wonder how many HR's he'll hit? The impression I've gotten from the couple of good AB's I've seen is that he looks like his swing/stroke is kind of geared towards left field. I know he's got some oppo power, and he may be wise to often guess outside half, so maybe that's just reading the attack correctly. But of course tons of HR power is pull power, and getting the bat out before pitches keep moving further. Everybody knows that it's bad to try to pull everything, and "use the whole field" is wise advice. But I wonder whether somebody power guys get that drilled in so much that they end up not using the pull field enough? Will be interesting how well Caissie can handle inner-half stuff and upper-inside quartile pitches?

 

I've happened to see both of Jacob Wetzel's AB's this spring, he ripped a double to his pull side today. His numbers last year were blah, but I thought he showed some progress as the year progressed. And actually I was a little surprised that a non-drafted Juco guy was placed right into full-season in the first place. Anyway, I thought his swing looked pretty balanced and good. I'd not be surprised to see his numbers look better this year at South Bend. I'm kinda interested and curious for him.

[Named After Maddux]

Official announcements haven’t come out yet but Tommy Birch has stories the last few days that confirmed Davis and Kilian are breaking with Iowa.

 

With Kilian confirmed that would make Nelly Velazquez, and maybe to a lesser extent Chase Strumpf, the biggest question marks at this point right? Or is there anyone else on the bubble I'm missing?

 

Surprisingly both Velazquez and Strumpf are ticketed for AA

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Strumpf is a bat first profile that didn’t do anything at AA but take his walks, so the only thing that’s surprising about him going to AA is his age, which says more about his prospect status than anything.

[CubinNY]

I got tickets for the Smokies when they come to Montgomery next week. I'm fired up. $15/ticket right next to the dugout.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

 

[CaliforniaRaisin]

FYI, Gallardo is starting at low-A.

[Hrubes20]

FYI, Gallardo is starting at low-A.

 

Wicks/Herz/Franklin/Bain/Palencia/Nahas have been the SPs with the SB group in Mesa, per AZ Phil, with Palencia possibly transitioning to closer.

[craig]

Strumpf is a bat first profile that didn’t do anything at AA but take his walks, so the only thing that’s surprising about him going to AA is his age, which says more about his prospect status than anything.

 

I agree on this point. He's been getting advanced. But thus far he hasn't actually shown that his nice-looking swing can actually hit the ball. Hit .211 in AA with only .370 slugging and lots of K's. In the handful of spring AB's I've seen, he always looks balanced with a nice swing, but he fouls off the meatballs and gets blitzed on good pitches.

 

I'd love for him to emerge as a good player, absolutely. But I support letting him repeat and hopefully catch up for a change instead of continuing the over-his-head placement. *IF* he again can't hit, it's easy to diagnose that he just can't hit and isn't a prospect. *IF* he does mash, then you know that he's gotten better, and you can promote him if/when he's earned it. Hitting and confidence are related; hitting .211 is no confidence builder.

 

I'd love to see him emerge as a guy who hits. Up to him to get some hits and HR's.

[Bertz]

FYI, Gallardo is starting at low-A.

 

Wicks/Herz/Franklin/Bain/Palencia/Nahas have been the SPs with the SB group in Mesa, per AZ Phil, with Palencia possibly transitioning to closer.

 

Don't like Bain repeating SB, but I guess this is the cost of bringing in all those depth options for Iowa. Also don't love shoving Palencia into the pen already, even if that is where he's pretty sure to end up. On the bright side he might move real fast in relief.

[craig]

I'm good with holding guys back a little, letting guys experience some success. Bain had a 5.52 ERA, with plenty of HR's, and 70 wild-things (BB+HBP) in 93 innings. If he's a real prospect, he should be improved, and should pitch his way up. If he doesn't, it's time to kinda give up, maybe?

 

I also think a reality in the rebuild will sooner-or-later involve some trading-away of prospects, not just acquiring them. Perhaps guys will look more appealing in trade if they are able to put up some good performance numbers?

[Named After Maddux]

FYI, Gallardo is starting at low-A.

 

Wicks/Herz/Franklin/Bain/Palencia/Nahas have been the SPs with the SB group in Mesa, per AZ Phil, with Palencia possibly transitioning to closer.

 

I read that Palencia comment, but according to the Cubs that’s not the case. He’s still in the starter group.

[Bertz]

I'm good with holding guys back a little, letting guys experience some success. Bain had a 5.52 ERA, with plenty of HR's, and 70 wild-things (BB+HBP) in 93 innings. If he's a real prospect, he should be improved, and should pitch his way up. If he doesn't, it's time to kinda give up, maybe?

 

I also think a reality in the rebuild will sooner-or-later involve some trading-away of prospects, not just acquiring them. Perhaps guys will look more appealing in trade if they are able to put up some good performance numbers?

 

Yeah realistically any "mistakes" in assignment will be fixed by Cinco de Mayo, so it's not the end of the world. And like you said if they don't go out and immediately show the assignment was a level too low, that's somewhat damning.

 

I think from a trade value perspective, it probably doesn't matter for pitchers? For hitters, age relative to league is maybe the single most important piece of info available. Eric Longenhagen actually had a funny quip in like mid August last year, where he said something along the lines of "get ready for a bunch of unwarranted teenagers getting bumped a level to make opposing team's models horny." The Padres for instance seem to be gaming the system quite a bit in this regard.

 

But pitchers? ARL is barely in the top 10 of things I consider. If you show me a 21 yo and a 25 yo who are identical, I'd barely prefer the 21 yo.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

[Hrubes20]

FYI, Gallardo is starting at low-A.

 

Wicks/Herz/Franklin/Bain/Palencia/Nahas have been the SPs with the SB group in Mesa, per AZ Phil, with Palencia possibly transitioning to closer.

 

I read that Palencia comment, but according to the Cubs that’s not the case. He’s still in the starter group.

 

Good to hear. I mean, he obviously is much more likely to be a late-inning reliever at some point than starter, but there is no need to make that move in A ball.

 

 

I cannot like this enough. After supposedly being one of the teams that was giving MILBers the worst accomodations and such last year (whether true or not), this goes a long way.

[Splendid Splinter]

 

Now we know why Cubs have a low payroll this year.

[CubinNY]

 

Now we know why Cubs have a low payroll this year.

They're just paying themselves though.

[craig]

Ftr if considering ceiling or even ML viability, of course ARL is a huge factor. It’s harder and harder to find prospect research from yesteryear but Chris Mitchell’s KATOH stuff, which got him hired pretty much immediately, has been money, features principles that will survive the pandemic, is still up and found ARL among the most significant for prospect pitchers

 

https://tht.fangraphs.com/katoh-forecasting-major-league-pitching-with-minor-league-stats/

 

The following factors wound up being significant for pitchers at one or more minor league level: Age, the percentage of a pitcher’s games that were starts, strikeout rate, walk rate, home run rate, and handedness.

 

From my view, that works well. Age is one of six factors mentioned. But K/W/HR are three performance factors. Obviously a guy with excellent K/W/HR rates at young-for-league, that's awesome when he's favorable on all four of thos variable. .

 

What I don't want is to be jumping guys ahead, so as to make the age variable look good, when the guy is NOT performance ready. If the age is good, but the performance factors (walk rate and home-run rates) are lousy, that doesn't generates optimal trade value, using Mitchell's principles. To me the priority is to place guys where they have opportunity to perform well. If/when they do, jump them up a step and see if they can continue. But I'd like to see guys stack some success at a particular level before jumping them prematurely.

[craig]

...I read that Palencia comment, but according to the Cubs that’s not the case. He’s still in the starter group.

 

Thanks, Greg. That's really good to hear. Thanks for input.

 

Tangent question: Have you heard anything on McAvene? He pitched a couple of bad innings last summer, so I'd thought he was perhaps substantially rehabbed by last August for that to be true, and would be ready to go. Before camp formally opened, I'd thought the new farm boss had said he was good.

 

But now I haven't heard any reports of him pitching in camp games or being on any opening rosters, and Phil had reference to him being in the IR group.

 

Did he perhaps have a setback, or an additional procedure? Or something totally different? Or is this perhaps just super-duper due-diligence? Or still wanting him healthy pitch-labbing to figure out what if any pitches might actually work for him, and not wanting him facing live hitters for fear that might set back developmental modifications, or something?

[Regular Show]

 

 

I'm glad that they're finally helping minor leaguers with housing, but they also need to pay them more (and during ST and offseason training).

 

This is awesome to see, but also feels like a missed opportunity to stand out from other organizations. If the Cubs had done this a couple years ago it might have made a big difference among amateur players/minor-league FAs and their agents. When players that went undrafted after the 2020 MLB Draft were deciding which team to sign with (for only a max of $20,000 btw), many decided to go sign with KC because they have a good reputation for treating their minor league players well.