Minor League Discussion & Boxes, 9-10-23

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Scheduled Games (All Times Central):

Iowa vs. Omaha, 1:08 pm
Tennessee at Mississippi, 2:05 pm
South Bend vs. Quad Cities, 1:05 pm - season finale
Myrtle Beach vs. Columbia, 5:05 pm - regular season finale

Probable Starters:

Iowa: TBD
Tennessee: TBD
South Bend: RHP Michael Arias
Myrtle Beach: TBD

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Ugh, Arias left the South Bend game with an arm injury..

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Alcántara with a double and home run. OPS over .800 now.

[JBears79]

PCA grand slam

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Tennessee clinched a playoff spot.

[Irrelevant Dude]

7 hours ago, JBears79 said:

PCA grand slam

How many grand slams is that for him this year?  4?

[Hrubes20]

20 hours ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

Ugh, Arias left the South Bend game with an arm injury..

Dang.  He was a fun pop up this year.  Hopefully it's nothing that requires surgery.  

18 hours ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

Alcántara with a double and home run. OPS over .800 now.

124 wRC+ on the year.  146 wRC+ after it warmed up in mid-May.  

[Tryptamine]

10 hours ago, Hrubes20 said:

Dang.  He was a fun pop up this year.  Hopefully it's nothing that requires surgery.  

124 wRC+ on the year.  146 wRC+ after it warmed up in mid-May.  

Still baffling how he has dropped off top 100 lists with that performance 

[Jason Ross]

9 hours ago, Tryptamine said:

Still baffling how he has dropped off top 100 lists with that performance 

I wonder how much of that becomes fatigue when people rank prospects. Whether it's subconscious or not, the Cubs have had a lot of really fun prospects have some fun seasons (especially early on). Add in the draft, and it almost feels like "Well, we already have a handful of Cubs on our top-100 lists..." and someone like Alcantara gets left off. 

[CubinNY]

5 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

I wonder how much of that becomes fatigue when people rank prospects. Whether it's subconscious or not, the Cubs have had a lot of really fun prospects have some fun seasons (especially early on). Add in the draft, and it almost feels like "Well, we already have a handful of Cubs on our top-100 lists..." and someone like Alcantara gets left off. 

I think it's more like they checked in on him early when he was struggling and didn't bother to check back because he was written off.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I mentioned it at the time but I think it's a perfectly fair process to drop him.  Alcantara wasn't a Top 25 stud, he's one of a bunch of players who have high potential but barriers to realizing it.  He didn't just have a bad couple weeks, he had a .621 OPS at the start of June.  There's 30 organizations with guys who are exceeding expectations or realizing potential, and for a player who is not at the upper levels and doesn't have a rich history of high performance it's good process to drop him.  It's also good process to bump him back up if he tears it up and starts realizing his potential.  If we're going to justifiably think that risers in the organization need recognition when they've had a step change(e.g. Horton, Shaw), it's only fair that we acknowledge when someone fails to play up to their ranking for a big chunk of the year and adjust accordingly.

[Jason Ross]

I'm in the school of being slow with prospect ranking unless there's just a major change in something. I'll say that I think it was silly to drop Alcantara based off a month or two of PA's, but I'd be similarly careful of a prospect who's having a nice two months. There are times in which above-and-beyond performance, or some sort of talent jump/decline requires an introspective re-eval, but generally speaking, I like a cautious and patient approach to re-ranking. In the end, I think this all just comes down to me really hating prospect ranking the traditional #1-100 way anyways, but now isn't the time for me to go on an "old-man-yells-at-cloud" style rant, so I'll just leave it at that. 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

ooh this is exciting 

 

[Jason Ross]

1 hour ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

ooh this is exciting 

 

Different body types, but Hope reminds me a bit of Brennen Davis in some ways. Highly athletic HS OF'er, has power, more toolsy than finished on draft day, but also moving faster than people thought. They'll assuredly prove to be different types of players in the long run, but just an observation.