Mills to the IL; Tommy Nance to make MLB debut

[Post Count Padder]

The Cubs are placing right-hander Alec Mills on the 10-day injured list with a lower back strain, Jordan Bastian of MLB.com was among those to pass along (Twitter link). Fellow righty Tommy Nance was selected to the 40-man roster in a corresponding move.

 

I am shocked that Nance has only been in the system since 2016. Seems like it's been longer. Mills has not looked great this year. Think he needs some time to figure it out.

[We Got The Whole 9]

Theres been mentions of about 30 or 40 pitchers in our system this off-season and I dont remember hearing a single thing about this guy. Boooooring.

[Bertz]

Theres been mentions of about 30 or 40 pitchers in our system this off-season and I dont remember hearing a single thing about this guy. Boooooring.

 

I'm guessing it was just a matter of him being the freshest arm available with how shredded the pen is after yesterday. Although he has incredible numbers at Iowa (only 6 innings) so maybe he has been showing something?

[We Got The Whole 9]

Theres been mentions of about 30 or 40 pitchers in our system this off-season and I dont remember hearing a single thing about this guy. Boooooring.

 

I'm guessing it was just a matter of him being the freshest arm available with how shredded the pen is after yesterday. Although he has incredible numbers at Iowa (only 6 innings) so maybe he has been showing something?

 

I didn't even look at his numbers until now, nor the list of pitchers potentially available. But damn that looks like a potential multi inning weapon if he keeps throwing strikes like that.

[Bertz]

Eric Longenhagen likes Nance

 

 

Tommy Nance, RHP, Chicago Cubs

Level & Affiliate: MLB Age: 30 Org Rank: TBD FV: 40+

Line: 1 IP, 1 K

Notes

Nance is another Indy Ball signee who had a velo spike during the off year (read about Max Bain here), but unlike Bain, whose affiliated career just began this year, he has had a longer runway. He signed out of the independent Frontier League early in 2016 and pitched in the middle levels of the Cubs’ system for nearly half a decade before showing way bigger velocity this year. He was 91–94 in 2019 but got up to 97–98 during his single-inning big league debut. Nance made one fantastic start at Triple-A Iowa (6 IP, 1 H, 1 BB, 10 K) before the call-up. As a starter, he was more 94–96 and topping out at 97, really only throwing his mid-80s power slurve apart from the fastball. His heater has big tailing action and is capable of running off the hips of lefty batters and back over the plate.

 

As I wrote regarding Julian Merryweather on the Blue Jays list, just because this guy is 30 doesn’t mean he’s not a prospect. He’s rookie-eligible, has roster flexibility, and is under team control the same as any young player. He’s also a pitcher who clearly has immediate big league bullpen utility. The likelihood of age-related decline during his year of team control does complicate where he falls on the FV scale, since I care about all six or seven of those years, but teams need to decide how they value a guy like this versus a more traditional prospect, so I will, too. Would you rather have Nance or Anderson Espinoza right now? Or Jay Groome? If either of those younger arms were to end up sitting 97-plus with an upper-80s hammer breaking ball out of the bullpen, we’d think it was a great outcome given what they have dealt with on the way there. Well, Nance is that right now.

[Bertz]