Minor League Discussion & Boxes, 8-11-16

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Box Scores:

 

Iowa had the day off

 

Tennessee suspended in the second inning (rain) Box Score

 

Myrtle Beach won 3-2 Box Score

 

South Bend won 7-4 Box Score

 

Eugene won 7-4 Box Score

 

AZL Cubs had the day off

 

DSL Cubs 1 won 4-2 Box Score

 

DSL Cubs 2 lost 7-1 Box Score

[TruffleShuffle]

man oscar de la cruz has been crazy good since coming back off the long injury break. 5 hitless innings today, 1 walk, 6 strikeouts.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

I know it's only been three starts at South Bend but maybe it's time to start talking promotion for De La Cruz.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

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[craig]

Nice to see Cease going 3.1 with only one walk. de la Cruz, fantastic.

[CubsWin]

Interesting to see 4 decent to really good pitching prospects pitching on the same night. I feel like, with injuries and suckitude, that hasn't happened all season.

 

Morrison - 6.2 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 4 K. On the year, 11-4, 2.09, 112 IP, 100 H, 27 BB, 102 K.

 

De La Cruz - 5 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 6 K. On the year, 1-1, 1.38, 26 IP, 13 H, 6 BB, 38 K.

 

Cease - 3.1 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 6 K. On the year, 1-0, 3.33, 27 IP, 23 H, 16 BB, 33 K.

 

Carrera - 6 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 4 K. On the year, 6-1, 1.17, 61.2 IP, 45 H, 19 BB, 45 K.

 

With arrows pointing up for Clifton, Zastryzny, Paulino, Steele, Marquez, Kellogg and Moreno, that's 11 arms to follow. Throw in Clark, Miller and Hatch plus the injured Williams and Underwood, and the Cubs have 16 arms from which a handful could emerge with some interesting power bullpen arms as well.

 

It's a start.

[craig]

Interesting to see 4 decent to really good pitching prospects pitching on the same night. I feel like, with injuries and suckitude, that hasn't happened all season. ....

With arrows pointing up for Clifton, Zastryzny, Paulino, Steele, Marquez, Kellogg and Moreno, that's 11 arms to follow. Throw in Clark, Miller and Hatch plus the injured Williams and Underwood, and the Cubs have 16 arms from which a handful could emerge with some interesting power bullpen arms as well. ...

 

Yup. Branch Rickey had the famous "from quantity comes quality" philosophy, and hopefully that will prove out from this pool.

[Thrilho]

Interesting to see 4 decent to really good pitching prospects pitching on the same night. I feel like, with injuries and suckitude, that hasn't happened all season.

 

Morrison - 6.2 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 4 K. On the year, 11-4, 2.09, 112 IP, 100 H, 27 BB, 102 K.

 

De La Cruz - 5 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 6 K. On the year, 1-1, 1.38, 26 IP, 13 H, 6 BB, 38 K.

 

Cease - 3.1 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 6 K. On the year, 1-0, 3.33, 27 IP, 23 H, 16 BB, 33 K.

 

Carrera - 6 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 4 K. On the year, 6-1, 1.17, 61.2 IP, 45 H, 19 BB, 45 K.

 

With arrows pointing up for Clifton, Zastryzny, Paulino, Steele, Marquez, Kellogg and Moreno, that's 11 arms to follow. Throw in Clark, Miller and Hatch plus the injured Williams and Underwood, and the Cubs have 16 arms from which a handful could emerge with some interesting power bullpen arms as well.

 

It's a start.

 

One of the beautiful things about the Cubs' pitching approach is that they've stacked up a ton of lefties. Guys not listed like Sands and Twomey will be interesting just on their youth, pedigree, health, and handedness, Twomey also for his ability to pick up the K so far. Considering about 1/5 of the pitchers in the majors are LH, not from a lack of demand, that the Cubs field a much higher % among their prospect arms (Kellogg, Steele, Sands, Zastrzny, Twomey, Paulino, Carrera, Marquez, Rondon, Concepcion, Leathersich, whoever else) is probably a conscious effort similar to their stacking of RH power early in the rebuild. These guys know what teams want but don't have, have built prospect depth in those areas, and I think that will make all the difference once this FO seeks out major trades.

 

Another great thing about the system's prospect pitching is that only Cease and Moreno have gone under the knife off the top of my head.

 

I've seen you pushing LH pitching before, and I'm wondering why you put such a premium on it. Given equal stuff and ability to get guys out I'd prefer a righty starter over a lefty just about every time, regardless of the makeup of the rest of the starting pitching staff.

 

I'm not sure the exact number, so I'll assume you're correct that only 1/5 of ML hitters are lefties. So on the day a tough lefty goes, most teams can probably sit most of their LH hitters. There will be some guys you can't sit, like Rizzo, but a lot of those guys have solid reverse splits. Then a lot of RH hitters are straight lefty mashers.

 

Conversely, with a RH starter, there are only about 1/5 of the league that can burn you on te platoon splits. 4/5 of the league is same handed and some plain suck against same side pitching. And it doesn't seem like a lot of teams have a bunch of LHH off the bench where they can "stack up" against a right handed pitcher. If they're that good against righties they're probably already in the lineup on a daily basis.

 

This isn't meant as a criticism, I've just seen this concept of left handers being a premium commodity before so I'm asking you to be the spokesman for why. I just tend to salivate when I see that a non-elite left hander is going against this team. And that's basically how I've felt (to varying degrees depending on quality of our lineup) for a number of years.

 

If we're talking relievers, I get it a lot more. You need LOOGYs, and if they're good against RHH too then that's gold. But even then, since they're relievers its not quite gold. More like copper or topping out at silver. So when I see a lefty, unless they can be a pretty elite reliever or starter I don't get that excited.

 

But this is all just like my opinion man. If you get a chance, let me know your thoughts on why I should change it. Thanks

[craig]

Thrilho, Tom can answer for himself better. But I think the "1/5" was referring to PITCHERS, not hitters.

*Definitely way more than 1/5 of big-league AB's are LH.

*A typical rotation has one lefty, so 1/5 makes sense there. Cubs with Lester are typical. So, more often than not 1/5 of the rotation is lefty. That said, I'd think somewhat more than 1/5 of starts overall are by lefty. There are more rotations with 2 lefties than there are with none, I'd think? (I'm just talking off the top of my head here, maybe I'm wrong.)

*Pen-wise, though, the population of lefties is definitely >1/5. Cubs aren't rare in having 3 lefties in pen, and certainly most have two.

*So, in general I'd guess that a typical roster will have 3 lefties, and more often 4 than 2 or less. So I'd guess about 1/4 of big-league pitchers are lefties.

*Thing is, a lot of the lefties aren't that good. Would Cubs have kept Richard so long if he wasn't lefty?

 

I think you touch on my perception for most of my life as a Cubs fan. I've often felt like cubs were forcing in "token lefty" into rotation, even if the guy wasn't very good, and the same for a second lefty in the pen.

 

This is where having lefty prospects provides an opportunity. Teams *want* to have 3-4 lefties, but there aren't enough good ones to go around. So, if the Cubs have a stock of them, that might provide trade opportunities. Second, many lefties last without overpowering velocity. That too perhaps provides an opportunity; you maybe don't need 1st-2nd round arms or 1st-round velocity to get lefties who might end up making it.

[Thrilho]

Well that teaches me for being lazy. According to the link below, 37% of MLB hitters are left handed and 27% of pitchers. Doesn't speak to how many are bench hitters or starters vs relief pitchers, but gives a general idea.

 

http://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/rosters

 

But as far as a premium on LHP due to scarcity, I'm not sure you really need to get your lefty count up to league average. The Cubs have basically been functioning with one consistent high-ish quality left handed reliever for the last 2 years (Wood). They got some good innings out of Richard, but nothing that screams top value or "must have" where you'd look at him in the minors and get excited because you have this guy coming to the majors at some point.

 

They got Chapman and Lester because they're top talents who happen to lefties. Even Wood doesn't have crazy good lefty splits. He's pretty good at getting lefties out but his value comes from multi-inning and higher leverage full inning stints. Which could just as easily go to someone a little like Grimm, who had the reverse splits. Montgomery is more LOOGYish, and they had to give up a decent prospect to get him. So he probably fits as an argument for "LHP have value because they're LHP and teams need them."

 

But it takes kind of a lot for a pitching prospect to excite me, and it's almost always the guys who could be a legit starter rather than a Montgomery (in his current role) type. Then, even if there really are close to 40% LHH in MLB I still go with everything I wrote before about preferring to have a rotation full of righties. So I've painted myself into a bit of a corner where no LHP is going to excite me unless he's looking elite, but I guess that's not too far off from accurate.

 

Still, I think much of my point was summarized in your one statement about not understanding the need for token lefties in the rotation.

[Thrilho]

Lastly, I do like Kellogg and Zas (after the way he's thrown recently). They don't project as elite to fit my criteria above, but I'm about as excited about them as I would be a righty with their same stats. Maybe slightly less excited though due to handedness rather than more excited.