Minor League Discussion & Boxes, 7-6-22

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Scheduled Game (All Times Central):

 

Iowa at Indianapolis, 6:05 pm

Tennessee at Birmingham, 7:05 pm

South Bend vs Wisconsin, 6:05 pm

Myrtle Beach at Columbia, 6:05pm

DSL Cubs Red vs DSL NYY Bombers. 10:00 am

 

ACL Cubs and DSL Cubs Blue have the day off

 

Probable Starters:

 

Tennessee: RHP Riley Thompson

South Bend: LHP Jordan Wicks

Myrtle Beach: RHP Tyler Schlaffer

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Excellent work from Wicks: 5 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 6/1 K/BB

 

Devers is relieving him, which maybe says something about how much longer Wicks has in South Bend?

[We Got The Whole 9]

Triantos triple to deep center. Wonder if he just missed another dong.

[Bertz]

Riley Thompson with three really strong innings

 

Would love to know what's going on with him. Pretty much every outing of his has been dominant or terrible with almost no in between, and he had a pretty long stint on the development list.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Nice outing for Newcomb, would be nice if he could string a few together. Also Steven Brault showed up in the Iowa box score, which may be something that's relevant come August 1st.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Mervis with HR #13 in 190 PA at AA, OPS should be just about back at 4 figures again

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Excellent work from Wicks: 5 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 6/1 K/BB

 

Devers is relieving him, which maybe says something about how much longer Wicks has in South Bend?

 

Someone needs to get bumped up from South Bend because they have 6 SP but part of the logjam right now is also because Smyly is rehabbing with them.

[Bertz]

Mervis with another walk and dong. He's interesting, running fairly average walk and K rates, and his power seems to be more good than great, but he has a high pull rate and hits EVERYTHING in the air.

 

What he's doing is not especially weird, but there's actually not great comps for him. Rhys Hoskins or Brandon Belt with fewer walks? Kyle Seager but trade a little contact for power? The extreme flyball guys tend to be high BB/high K types as well or just all around unicorns like Jose Ramirez and Mike Trout. There's not a lot of mostly average flyball revolutionaries.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Wicks topped out at 96 today.

[CubinNY]

MB - Ezequiel Pagan is blowing up in June and now July. Prospect or filler?

 

He was the hitter of the month in the Cubs org.

[UK]

MB - Ezequiel Pagan is blowing up in June and now July. Prospect or filler?

 

He was the hitter of the month in the Cubs org.

 

Prospect. He needs to still get stronger but has the ability to play CF.

[Bertz]

Nice outing for Newcomb, would be nice if he could string a few together. Also Steven Brault showed up in the Iowa box score, which may be something that's relevant come August 1st.

 

 

I like that the org's pitching development is now good enough that with things like this we can legitimately wonder "is this a thing?" rather than just writing it off as noise.

[CubsInNC]

Nice outing for Newcomb, would be nice if he could string a few together. Also Steven Brault showed up in the Iowa box score, which may be something that's relevant come August 1st.

Was at this game. Newcomb had nice vertical and lateral movement on all his pitches, and hit 98 multiple times on the fastball. I was in RF, so I couldn’t identify which pitch was which (though I have my guesses), but he sat at 79-81 and 84-86 for the off speed pitches he threw.

 

Not that he’s a prospect at all, but Hicks’ home run was into a slight breeze, and barely landed inside the LF concourse at Victory Field.

 

As an aside, if he makes the majors on a consistent basis, Crook is going to be adored by the bleachers. All game long he interacted with the few Iowa fans in the area, and danced to all the stadium music.