2023-24 Offseason Prospect Lists

[CaliforniaRaisin]

1. Pete Crow-Armstrong
2. Cade Horton
3. Matt Shaw
4. Kevin Alcántara
5. Owen Caissie
6. Jordan Wicks
7. Moisés Ballesteros 
8. Ben Brow 
9. Jefferson Rojas
10. Pedro Ramírez 

[craig]

12 hours ago, TomtheBombadil said:

...Marino Santy made BP’s Cubs list.... Santy was excellent in 2023, has feasted on the low minors, and is definitely worthy of notice. Up to 96-97, maybe a 98 or two, with some of the best breaking stuff in the org...

Wildman, 71 wild-on-base in 75 innings (59BB, 12HB).  

Control is the hardest thing to fix,  If he can fix that, sounds like the curve is legit.  But haven't seen Cubs prospects this wild get it fixed.  Hope he's the exception.  

[craig]

Interesting that Ramirez made a top-10.  HOpe they're onto something, and that his end-of-season hot-streak at Myrtle holds up.  Cubs need some of these depth guys to work out.  Most hitters have some hot and cold patches.  I think it helps prospect status to finish hot.

[craig]

14 hours ago, TomtheBombadil said:

I don’t buy that control’s the hardest thing to improve or even see why the A ball BB% of a 21 YO multi-year pro is all that important for the longest run. ...

Yeah, disagree. 

• How many big-leaguers succeed with 8.5/9 free baserunners?  Few. 
• How many guys who are 8.5/9 in A-ball develop into successful control later?  Few.
• I imagine some teenage wildmen work out some control over time.  Few, but some.  But when a guy's had three years of pro coaching and pitch-lab, and is aleady 21 without improving more, I worry more, not less.  
• Tom, if wildman isn't important at age 21 for a multi-year pro, at what age when do you start to think control is important?  

[CubinNY]

12 minutes ago, craig said:

Yeah, disagree. 

• How many big-leaguers succeed with 8.5/9 free baserunners?  Few. 
• How many guys who are 8.5/9 in A-ball develop into successful control later?  Few.
• I imagine some teenage wildmen work out some control over time.  Few, but some.  But when a guy's had three years of pro coaching and pitch-lab, and is aleady 21 without improving more, I worry more, not less.  
• Tom, if wildman isn't important at age 21 for a multi-year pro, at what age when do you start to think control is important?  

It’s so strange that according to the gurus the Cubs hired to run the lab, control is hard to teach/can’t be taught under “lab” conditions but movement can be taught. Obviously, there’s a fair bit of Dunning-Kruger working on my part, but it seems than that the sensible decision would be to draft and sign guys with good control and then shape up the other stuff. They seem to draft and sign guys with good stuff and then act as if control doesn’t really matter. 

[Jason Ross]

1 hour ago, CubinNY said:

It’s so strange that according to the gurus the Cubs hired to run the lab, control is hard to teach/can’t be taught under “lab” conditions but movement can be taught. Obviously, there’s a fair bit of Dunning-Kruger working on my part, but it seems than that the sensible decision would be to draft and sign guys with good control and then shape up the other stuff. They seem to draft and sign guys with good stuff and then act as if control doesn’t really matter. 

What you're suggesting was a good part of the Cubs previous pitch-drafting-strategy, drafting largely, pitchability guys over stuff guys. It was generally an abject failure on the Cubs part. It isn't to say it always is, as Cleveland has made a living on this strat. I don't think it matters, personally. It's about implementation. 

[Bertz]

Counterpoint to the "start with command and add stuff" plan is a guy like Caleb Kilian.  He had pinpoint command of 91-92 and now at 95 his command is more or less unplayable.

That's not to say it can't work, as 1908 pointed out Cleveland has been *extremely* successful running that exact playbook over the last 10 years, but mostly to say there's no free lunch with this stuff.

[craig]

19 hours ago, CubinNY said:

It’s so strange that according to the gurus the Cubs hired to run the lab, control is hard to teach/can’t be taught under “lab” conditions but movement can be taught. Obviously, there’s a fair bit of Dunning-Kruger working on my part, but it seems than that the sensible decision would be to draft and sign guys with good control and then shape up the other stuff. They seem to draft and sign guys with good stuff and then act as if control doesn’t really matter. 

Have they actually said that control can't be taught?  I know Breslow said stuff/velocity first, control 2nd.  

Originally when there was all the pitch-lab buzz, I had hoped control could be a somewhat natural outflow.  If you track all of the finesse details of slot and release point and optimal stride length, etc., I'd thought all of those things could help a guy to reproduce his delivery more consistently.  Reproducible, consistent delivery would naturally result in better control.  Maybe that has worked a little, and improved some 2nd-percentile guys to 15th-percentile, or something.  There's a huge continuum from awful to excellent, so maybe guys are sliding up to variable extend along the anti-awful continuum.  But empirically it hasn't seemed to really convert wildmen to average-or-plus control.  

Edited November 26, 2023 by craig

[CubinNY]

1 hour ago, craig said:

Have they actually said that control can't be taught?  I know Breslow said stuff/velocity first, control 2nd.  

Originally when there was all the pitch-lab buzz, I had hoped control could be a somewhat natural outflow.  If you track all of the finesse details of slot and release point and optimal stride length, etc., I'd thought all of those things could help a guy to reproduce his delivery more consistently.  Reproducible, consistent delivery would naturally result in better control.  Maybe that has worked a little, and improved some 2nd-percentile guys to 15th-percentile, or something.  There's a huge continuum from awful to excellent, so maybe guys are sliding up to variable extend along the anti-awful continuum.  But empirically it hasn't seemed to really convert wildmen to average-or-plus control.  

To answer your question Tom or someone else linked an article where the driveline people or someone else like them was saying basically it’s too hard to do because our brains don’t have that much control over movement or some other explanatory fiction.
 

I don’t know how the “lab” could create more velocity and the other stuff with biomechanics and technology and not also figure out how to work on control issues. As you alluded to, it would seem that control is the other side of the coin, so to speak. 
 

My very uneducated guess is that they are not very good at what they purportedly do. Velocity, movement, and spin on a baseball doesn’t mean a damn thing if a guy can’t throw strikes. 

Edited November 26, 2023 by CubinNY

[Tryptamine]

The lab seems to be far better at giving control guys better stuff then giving stuff guys better control. It's one of the reasons I wasn't real big on the Jaxon Wiggins pick.

[craig]

On 12/11/2023 at 9:16 AM, TomtheBombadil said:

Edit: Ftr the Cubs have never said control can’t be taught or improved. Breslow said pitchers have never walked out of the lab with better command, which is not control. ...

This is probably dumb, Tom or anybody, but can you explain the relevance of the distinction in this context?  On the "better command" spectrum, should not any improvement in command also result in an improvement in control?  And how can control improve if command does not improve?  

I get that "command", the ability to locate within the strike zone, is more advanced than "control", the ability to throw strikes reasonably often.  [But without precision that better-command guys have.]  But yeah, shouldn't any improvement in control depend on some improvement in command?  And if pitch-lab can't improve command, even in the anti-awful direction from 10th percentile to 20th percentile or whatever, how can it improve control?  

[Rob]

10 minutes ago, craig said:

This is probably dumb, Tom or anybody, but can you explain the relevance of the distinction in this context?  On the "better command" spectrum, should not any improvement in command also result in an improvement in control?  And how can control improve if command does not improve?  

I get that "command", the ability to locate within the strike zone, is more advanced than "control", the ability to throw strikes reasonably often.  [But without precision that better-command guys have.]  But yeah, shouldn't any improvement in control depend on some improvement in command?  And if pitch-lab can't improve command, even in the anti-awful direction from 10th percentile to 20th percentile or whatever, how can it improve control?  

Consistency, perhaps?

For the sake of argument, let's take a curveball for example. A lot of guys have it as their third or fourth pitch, so it's not used all that often. As such, I've seen that there can be quite a variable degree of break to them. A curveball in the first inning might be a lot tighter than a loopier one thrown a few innings later.

Time spent in the pitch lab could be spent focusing on that pitch. Learning to do it the same way each and every time. So you can more predictably estimate how far one will drop one into the zone, even if you aren't able to place it quite as precisely as you'd like.

[craig]

Thanks.  Even if it's still not precise, wouldn't that still be an improvement?  So both control and command have gotten somewhat better and improved to some degree?  

[Jason Ross]

1 hour ago, craig said:

This is probably dumb, Tom or anybody, but can you explain the relevance of the distinction in this context?  On the "better command" spectrum, should not any improvement in command also result in an improvement in control?  And how can control improve if command does not improve?  

I get that "command", the ability to locate within the strike zone, is more advanced than "control", the ability to throw strikes reasonably often.  [But without precision that better-command guys have.]  But yeah, shouldn't any improvement in control depend on some improvement in command?  And if pitch-lab can't improve command, even in the anti-awful direction from 10th percentile to 20th percentile or whatever, how can it improve control?  

For me, I define them this way: 

control is your ability to locate pitches within the zone, command is your ability to throw the ball precisely where you want. It's great if you can control a pitch; throwing strikes is objectively, the name of the game (most of the time). But we know mistakes exist in the zone. So you have to be able to command them in the zone; you don't want to float curveballs at the top of the zone, or leave fastballs in the middle. Just throwing strikes can't be enough at the highest levels. While I think these things can be linked in ways, they're not always linked. For example, I think we can see players who can "fix" their control by just forcing pitches into the zone. But then they create a new issue; meatballs. So they get rocked.

I think Caleb Kilian is a good example of the opposite of this. In his journey to create more whiff and chase, he purposefully forced pitches out of the zone (or sacrificing control). But he created mechanical issues and he couldn't get that back (at least not without a significant amount of work, and now we're just back where we started). 

I do think pitch-lab improves command and control, but truly, pitch-lab is just the start of the journey. It shows pitchers their spin, how they're controlling their body. But it can't make a pitcher better and controlling their body. I think people underestimate just how hard it is to teach guys to control their bodies in a consistent, and new manner. 

[CubinNY]

It's a distinction without a difference. If there is a difference, command is the ability to throw ALL pitches where you want them to go. Pitchers throw balls on purpose. But, they are synonyms. 

[craig]

10 hours ago, TomtheBombadil said:

Intuitively wouldn't you say that you can teach an individual to throw an object in a general direction long before you ask them to hit specific spots in that same direction? Wouldn't you even take it a step further and consider that perhaps this physical task of throwing to a zone constantly forever and ever, let alone hitting specific spots, requires strength, conditioning, coordination, skill, and experience built over time rather than is something taught instantaneously with immediate and forever results by popping some 20 YO in a lab for a week or hour or however it works?

Maybe I'm lost to the point of the convo - born from locking in on only the near immediate post-pandemic A ball walk rate of an individual who did everything else you can ask - but it does take me back to my belief that all this talk of "player development" is hogwash that nobody actually cares about due to the perceived inefficiency of uncertainty.  It's just not something our pop culture is tilted towards: spending real time - even years - on people so they can potentially thrive for a lifetime rather than the 15 minutes of use before burning and turning to the next [cheap] option. To take it back to Santy for a second...if he had whatever BB rate you're looking for in A ball - what would the new perception even be? That he's a prospect? That ship is sailing already

Thanks, Tom.  Thoughts in paragraph one are well taken.  I'd thought your previous post might be leading in a different direction, so this clarifis.  

 "Strength, conditioning, coordination, skill, and experience built over time"; that's well stated.  

[craig]

10 hours ago, TomtheBombadil said:

..To take it back to Santy for a second...if he had whatever BB rate you're looking for in A ball - what would the new perception even be? That he's a prospect? That ship is sailing already..

No rip on Santy, he's got some nice qualities.  So sure, he's a prospect.  Lots of pitchers are.  *IF* they get a lot better, lots of guys could become productive in due time.  He's got a shot.  I like his stuff, for sure. 

You mentioned "Strength, conditioning, coordination, skill, and experience built over time".   Santy turns 22 this winter.  I hope he's a beat-the-odds guy, and that with more experience mlb-useful control will come.   Sometimes that happens, Randy Johnson had Santy-level walk rates as late as age 23.  Hopefully Santy will be an unusual late bloomer.  

But my observations, after many years following prospects:

1. Santy's walk level at age 21 was significantly worse than the average 21-year-old minor-league, or Carolina leaguer. 
2. So his improvements in strength, conditioning, coordination, skill, and experience have more catching up do to than the normal turning-22-year-old in the minors.  I hope that happens.  
3. Santy's walk-level at age 21 is significantly higher than was true for the vast preponderance of major league pitchers back when they were 21. 
4. So again, he'll need more experience-based improvement than was true for the preponderance of major league pitchers.  I hope that happens.  
5. You rightly mention that you can teach an individual to throw an object in a general direction long before you ask them to hit specific spots in that same direction.  But usually guys have been throwing objects for years.  If a guy is less accurate than his peers at 21, it's unusual that his accuracy will catch up later.  I hope Santy is the unusual guy who does.  

[Bertz]

 

Old friend

[Jason Ross]

Always love Zumach's stuff. Honestly anyone from NSB. Todd even did the thing I really wanted to do, but just wasn't brave enough to do...put Cade #1.

[craig]

Thanks for link to BA podcast, Tom.  That was a fun listen; as you say he was quite effusive about the players, the Cubs PD, and how quickly the rebuild has taken place.  That was a fun and encouraging listen.  

[Transmogrified Tiger]

BP's Top 101 is out, and it features 9 Cubs: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/prospects/article/87663/2024-prospects-the-top-101/

[Rex Buckingham]

Ballesteros and Triantos are the only ones that are surprises to me, and I can understand why each is on there

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Shaw in between PCA and Horton definitely perks my ears up

[Bertz]

Kind of like Fangraphs was for a few years I imagine this will be the high water mark amongst publications, but still wow.  Especially notable that all of these guys have at least gotten their feet wet in AA.  Any of them is reasonably liable to impact 2024, even if it's not the mean outcome.

Jed also really needs to consolidate a bunch of this in a big trade next winter.  I understand holding off now, but in a year we should have a much better idea of where attrition has hit and who is redundant.

[Hrubes20]

27 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Kind of like Fangraphs was for a few years I imagine this will be the high water mark amongst publications, but still wow.  Especially notable that all of these guys have at least gotten their feet wet in AA.  Any of them is reasonably liable to impact 2024, even if it's not the mean outcome.

Jed also really needs to consolidate a bunch of this in a big trade next winter.  I understand holding off now, but in a year we should have a much better idea of where attrition has hit and who is redundant.

Absolutely this.  I was kind of hoping for one of these trades this offseason, tbh.