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2020 Fall Instructs

Bertz

By Bertz,
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CaliforniaRaisin GOAT

CaliforniaRaisin

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BA says the Cubs will be playing 17 games (the least of any team in Arizona), from October 14 - November 7: https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/2020-arizona-instructional-league-schedule-set-to-begin-oct-5/

 

But everyone will get between 17 games (the Cubs) and 40 games (the ambitious Padres who doubled up for two games on six different days) against outside competition. The games will provide needed innings and at-bats for minor leaguers, especially for those who did not get invitations to the alternate sites during the MLB season.

 

The decision will also be significant financially for those minor leaguers. Unlike past years, minor leaguers are being paid for instructional league (the amount of pay will be determined by the level the players would have been assigned to if the year had gone according to plan), so for players participating, it means another month (or more) of paychecks.

  • 2 weeks later...
Bertz Knoxville Smokies

Bertz

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Have we gotten any further indication why Jensen, McAvene, and Clarke aren't there? Are they all injured? I follow the minors pretty closely and I've never heard of a good half-dozen pitchers down there right now (like who the hell is Ben Leeper?), so those three being missing is super weird.
CaliforniaRaisin GOAT

CaliforniaRaisin

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Have we gotten any further indication why Jensen, McAvene, and Clarke aren't there? Are they all injured? I follow the minors pretty closely and I've never heard of a good half-dozen pitchers down there right now (like who the hell is Ben Leeper?), so those three being missing is super weird.

 

Bryan Smith indicated there are more pitchers at instructs than on the roster. Since then we’ve seen Kohl Franklin pop up doing a bullpen while not on a roster so hopefully we hear good news on the health of some of the others:

 

Bleacher Nation[/url]"]There are more people in Arizona than on the “official” roster.

 

Brett mentioned this in his post, but I wanted to confirm that there are at least a handful more pitchers I know about that are in Arizona but not on the roster. For now, those pitchers are slated to throw side bullpens and work on pitch design with the Cubs pitching development team. Whether or not those players eventually replace others on the roster and participate in games, I’m not sure.

 

Behind the scenes, the Cubs have kept up with their minor leaguers since the Spring Training shutdown via their “Ivy” app, tracking throwing and lifting schedules and offering advice where appropriate. For some of the guys who have been really active to get their innings in, the Cubs are more concerned about managing their workload, and happy to keep them merely throwing bullpens. For others with less accessibility to good mounds, or guys with significant inning projections in 2021, getting in-game reps this month was more important. This was what the Cubs balanced when they specifically picked what pitchers would make up the roster.

 

BA says it’s due to innings limits (but we’ve seen Franklin pop up since):

 

BA[/url]"]Beyond that trio, some of the system's best pitching prospects, including righthanders Kohl Franklin, Chris Clarke, Ryan Jensen and Riley Thompson are not on the roster. Sources with the Cubs indicate that some of the organization's pitchers accumulated their required innings through a virtual training program.

 

Ben Leeper is an NDFA signed after the last draft from Oklahoma State.

Bertz Knoxville Smokies

Bertz

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Thanks Raisin! I wonder if they've also been doing work at Driveline-esque facilities, similar to what we've been seeing Ethan Roberts post periodically. Get into one of those places once every month or two in addition to your normal work, share the data and video with your coaches, and suddenly that's probably not too dissimilar from what's happening at Instructs.
CubsWin Myrtle Beach Pelicans

CubsWin

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Thanks Raisin! I wonder if they've also been doing work at Driveline-esque facilities, similar to what we've been seeing Ethan Roberts post periodically. Get into one of those places once every month or two in addition to your normal work, share the data and video with your coaches, and suddenly that's probably not too dissimilar from what's happening at Instructs.

That's the sense I got listening to Cubs brass talk about the Ivy app. It seems the player can upload video of themselves and data. Then the instructors could give feedback for the player's next workout. I have no info on how often the player would work out at a facility but I would guess is would be more than once a month.

CaliforniaRaisin GOAT

CaliforniaRaisin

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This is from the Athletic on other pitchers at Instructs not pitching in games like Kohl Franklin and Burl Carraway:

 

Despite not being on the instructional league roster, Carraway has been in Arizona working with about 15 other pitchers who won’t see game action.

 

“Those guys, we wanted to get here, throw in the lab, get all our high-performance baseline measurements done,” Dorey said. “Then (director of pitching Craig Breslow) and his staff could do a more accurate, up-to-date offseason program for each one of those guys. We’re really lucky to have the bandwidth and the commitment from the front office and ownership to bring out these extra guys and run them through all this. A lot of those pitchers were all guys that adhered to and had the ability to adhere to the shutdown recommended throwing, so they’d built up to pretty close to their threshold of innings for the calendar year. So we didn’t want to expose them to come pitch in these games and push into an uncomfortable workload.”

 

Cory Abbott is throwing because he didn’t have enough innings this summer:

 

“Corey was in major-league camp but had a little bit of a setback physically and then the shutdown hit,” Dorey said. “So he was ramping up when that happened, so he was behind a lot of our other pitchers just timeline-wise. He did a great job building back up and showed the staff he was ready to come to South Bend.”

 

Then during the intake process at South Bend, a procedural issue delayed Abbott another 10 days. That forced him to re-ramp up and by the end of his time in South Bend, they still had more work for him to do, which is why he’s on the instructional league roster and pitched the opener on Wednesday.

Hrubes20 Draft Eligible

Hrubes20

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DSL Blue and Red instructs rosters:

 

http://www.milb.com/roster/index.jsp?cid=609&sid=milb

 

http://www.milb.com/roster/index.jsp?cid=2270&sid=milb

 

- Enrique Wilson and D'Angelo Jimenez are coaches in the org, I vividly remember both as players - Jimenez as a prospect ffs - due to being really cool

- Looks like the youngest player in the org today is SS Leonel Espinoza, born 4/7/2003, on the Red Roster

- Red roster seems to be the younger of the two

- 5'6" pitcher Wilfri Figuereo is back

- Ronnier Quintero and Kevin Made are on the DSL Blue roster? Made's in Arizona box scores so :dontknow:

 

No Brayan Altuve on either roster was a bit surprising. Maybe he's stuck in Venezuela?

CaliforniaRaisin GOAT

CaliforniaRaisin

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DSL Blue and Red instructs rosters:

 

http://www.milb.com/roster/index.jsp?cid=609&sid=milb

 

http://www.milb.com/roster/index.jsp?cid=2270&sid=milb

 

- Enrique Wilson and D'Angelo Jimenez are coaches in the org, I vividly remember both as players - Jimenez as a prospect ffs - due to being really cool

- Looks like the youngest player in the org today is SS Leonel Espinoza, born 4/7/2003, on the Red Roster

- Red roster seems to be the younger of the two

- 5'6" pitcher Wilfri Figuereo is back

- Ronnier Quintero and Kevin Made are on the DSL Blue roster? Made's in Arizona box scores so :dontknow:

 

No Brayan Altuve on either roster was a bit surprising. Maybe he's stuck in Venezuela?

 

I don’t think those are instructs rosters. It doesn’t say instructs anywhere in those links, we know a few of the players are stateside and MiLB rosters out of season tend to have inaccuracies.

Hrubes20 Draft Eligible

Hrubes20

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted
DSL Blue and Red instructs rosters:

 

http://www.milb.com/roster/index.jsp?cid=609&sid=milb

 

http://www.milb.com/roster/index.jsp?cid=2270&sid=milb

 

- Enrique Wilson and D'Angelo Jimenez are coaches in the org, I vividly remember both as players - Jimenez as a prospect ffs - due to being really cool

- Looks like the youngest player in the org today is SS Leonel Espinoza, born 4/7/2003, on the Red Roster

- Red roster seems to be the younger of the two

- 5'6" pitcher Wilfri Figuereo is back

- Ronnier Quintero and Kevin Made are on the DSL Blue roster? Made's in Arizona box scores so :dontknow:

 

No Brayan Altuve on either roster was a bit surprising. Maybe he's stuck in Venezuela?

 

I don’t think those are instructs rosters. It doesn’t say instructs anywhere in those links, we know a few of the players are stateside and MiLB rosters out of season tend to have inaccuracies.

 

Ah, fair point.

CaliforniaRaisin GOAT

CaliforniaRaisin

Community Moderator
Posted
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Granted it's like a dozen PAs combined, Pinango and Made haven't stuck out yet. Made's actually 3/4 so far

 

Of course we only get every other game so who knows, maybe they get golden sombreros when Arizona Phil doesn’t post box scores.

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