Minor League Discussion & Boxes, 8-13-22

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Scheduled Games (All Times Central):

 

Iowa vs Louisville, 6:08 pm

Tennessee vs Mississippi, 6:15 pm

South Bend at Wisconsin, 6:40 pm

Myrtle Beach vs Columbia, 5:05 pm

ACL Cubs at ACL A’s, 12:00 pm

DSL Cubs Blue at DSL LA Dodgers Bautista, 10:00 am

DSL Cubs Red at DSL Mets 1, 10:00 am

 

Probable Starters:

 

Iowa: RHP Hayden Wesneski

Tennessee: LHP Jordan Wicks

South Bend: RHP Richard Gallardo

Myrtle Beach: RHP Koen Moreno

[Hrubes20]

A’s throwing all 2022 draftees so far in the ACL game. No pitching 2022 draftees have debuted yet for the Cubs, which is pretty much the entire draft. I looked at 2021, and neither Wicks nor Gray debuted until early September.

[texascub]

Will Frisch and JP Wheat have both been added to the ACL roster, but are listed as Injured-Full Season which is little disappointing. Brandon Birdsell is also on the roster, but has yet to make an appearance. Christopher Paciolla and Haydn McGeary have both made appearances though.

[Bertz]

[Bertz]

Wesneski was dominant through 4 but got knocked around in the fifth

 

Jensen (assuming he's done?) pretty dominant himself through 5. Curious if he's on the ropes as far as staying a starter. He's one of the guys on the 40 man bubble this winter, do you try him in relief and see how he takes to it.

[craig]

After 3.1 of relief Johzan Oquendo has 49 IP so far at 21. More for reference than knocking the player at this point, but Kohl Franklin’s logged 50 so far at 22

 

Lots of GBs and Ks from Oquendo this season, usually throwing multiple late innings. Those made up 8 of his 10 outs tn

 

Tom, what do you know about Oquendo's stuff? Is there reason to envision big-league potential?

[craig]

Wesneski was dominant through 4 but got knocked around in the fifth

 

Jensen (assuming he's done?) pretty dominant himself through 5. Curious if he's on the ropes as far as staying a starter. He's one of the guys on the 40 man bubble this winter, do you try him in relief and see how he takes to it.

 

Was Jensen on another pitch-lab stint before tonight? He's seemed to be kind of high-maintenance? Or, maybe he's been incorporating some adjustments, and pulling him back to pitch lab quickly after he starts to drip, maybe that's great teaching approach?

[craig]

Will Frisch and JP Wheat have both been added to the ACL roster, but are listed as Injured-Full Season which is little disappointing. Brandon Birdsell is also on the roster, but has yet to make an appearance. Christopher Paciolla and Haydn McGeary have both made appearances though.

 

Interesting that Wheat is injured.

 

back when the draft was in June, pitchers would still barely get 10 innings. Being a month later, I'd not be surprised if they don't pitch at all until next year?

[Tim]

Will Frisch and JP Wheat have both been added to the ACL roster, but are listed as Injured-Full Season which is little disappointing. Brandon Birdsell is also on the roster, but has yet to make an appearance. Christopher Paciolla and Haydn McGeary have both made appearances though.

 

Interesting that Wheat is injured.

 

back when the draft was in June, pitchers would still barely get 10 innings. Being a month later, I'd not be surprised if they don't pitch at all until next year?

I wonder if that's a way to just get him onto his minor league salary. I have no idea if it makes a difference to these guys when they're rostered vs not.

[texascub]

In the reply chain to this tweet, Todd mentions that Wheat had TJS sometime before the draft.

 

[CaliforniaRaisin]

 

But his velocity is still down:

 

Arizona Phil[/url]"]Second ACL rehab outing for RHRP Manny Rodriguez (on Cubs MLB 60-day IL - shoulder / elbow) Saturday morning versus ACL Athletics at HoHoKam Park in Mesa. He threw two innings and allowed no runs, three singles, issued no walks (he didn't even have a three-ball count), and he struck out four (three swinging)...

 

2.0 IP

23 pitches (18 strikes)

FB 92-95 - SL 83-87

16 FB and seven SL

Got six swing & miss (three on FB and three on SL).

 

Although his control was really good today (he threw 78% strikes) and he struck out four, both his once elite FB and SL velo are still WAY down from where they were when he pitched in the Futures Game in July 2021 (FB 97-99 and SL 87-90 at that time).

[Donzo]

https://www.milb.com/scores/cubs

 

Looks like Jensen was the star of the organization on Sat. 2nd good start in a row with this one better than his previous effort:

 

10IP, 2ER, 4H, 3BB and 10Ks. That's a snappy .70 WHIP.

 

99% chance he's rostered.

[craig]

I wonder what Jensen was for the previous two weeks?

[craig]

...Well the reason he might have some potential with this org would be the GBs and Ks over relatively high usage. He’ll show 4-5 pitches (sinker, split/change, 4s, sl, ct) and can get it up to 96-97 already, can probably throw harder...

 

Thanks, Tom. Helpful info. Obviously wildman at this point (31 wild things in 46 innings), but we've got lots of wildmen for whom hope continues, so thanks to your input I'll add him to my hopeful-wildman inventory!

 

If he's 96-97, that seems fine. If he's got a bundle of pitches, that's where pitch lab and development is supposed to harness those to optimize a couple of them and perhaps eventually trim that pool into ones he can kind of control. So thanks for the info!

 

His numbers are funky. 65K/46IP/27BB/5HB, that profiles as standard good-stuff wildman. But 49H/46IP and 1.7 WHIP doesn't. The .429 BABIP is fluky and really skews WHIP etc..

 

I wonder what the logic is in relief versus rotation usage? With all five starters having gotten promoted, if they like Oquendo its interesting that they didn't pop him into rotation.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

https://www.milb.com/scores/cubs

 

Looks like Jensen was the star of the organization on Sat. 2nd good start in a row with this one better than his previous effort:

 

10IP, 2ER, 4H, 3BB and 10Ks. That's a snappy .70 WHIP.

 

99% chance he's rostered.