Is Jed really safe?

[sneakypower]

41 minutes ago, 1908_Cubs said:

And listen, while it's a small sample size, Ed Howard is currently in his best run ever as a pro. His last 61 PA's have resulted in a 174 wRC+, a 7.6 BB%, a 21.1 K%, and a .530 BABIP. That's not enough today to say "they won that pick" but there's just enough juice left in that squeeze, that at 22 years old, and with all of the injuries he's had...that there's still some potential there. He's kept a 100 wRC+ over his last 100 PAs and there seems to be some real improvement. He's hit six doubles in his last 16 games (that's six of his season total of ten). He also looks healthy. Don't pencil Ed Howard in as a top-100 prospect, that'd be ridiculous. But if he reaches Tennessee this season at age 22...there might still be a prospect there, too.

[Jason Ross]

2 hours ago, sneakypower said:

Hey, gotta find the positives out there! I know Ed Howard is the whipping boy of Cub fandom, but there's still some hope for him being a useful, albeit, unlikely starting option. At age 22, Luis Vazquez had a 72 wRC+ in Tennessee. after posting his first decent run of offense, a 118 wRC+ in South Bend (just 100 PA's). Now, he's on the MLB 40-man, there were times people were clamoring for him over Madrigal and Mastrobuni, and he'll either turn into a somewhat useful second piece in a trade, or a chance to be a backup INF. 

If Ed Howard followed the same path, sure it's probably less than what many dreamed of on draft day (though I'd also argue with how difficult the draft is, this would be a decent outcome), but considering in April he looked like a release-candidate...there's at least a somewhat believable path to relevancy here!

[Stratos]

8 hours ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

Can we start implanting Hyper Shoulder's in Cubs hitters immediately?

Next CBA i imagine.

[I owned a Suzuki]

2 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

Hey, gotta find the positives out there! I know Ed Howard is the whipping boy of Cub fandom, but there's still some hope for him being a useful, albeit, unlikely starting option. At age 22, Luis Vazquez had a 72 wRC+ in Tennessee. after posting his first decent run of offense, a 118 wRC+ in South Bend (just 100 PA's). Now, he's on the MLB 40-man, there were times people were clamoring for him over Madrigal and Mastrobuni, and he'll either turn into a somewhat useful second piece in a trade, or a chance to be a backup INF. 

If Ed Howard followed the same path, sure it's probably less than what many dreamed of on draft day (though I'd also argue with how difficult the draft is, this would be a decent outcome), but considering in April he looked like a release-candidate...there's at least a somewhat believable path to relevancy here!

Can he play SS. Vazquez could play a good SS, so they were much more patient with the bat

[Jason Ross]

33 minutes ago, I owned a Suzuki said:

Can he play SS. Vazquez could play a good SS, so they were much more patient with the bat

That's a hard question to answer. Coming out of HS, the scouting report was always that the glove was legit, he was the best prep glove in the 2020 draft, and the bat had potential once Howard filled out. It was believed the glove was good enough that he had a pretty high floor and a very high likelihood, if he hit decently, that he'd make the MLB based on the glove profile mainly. Howard looked good defensively, but offensively was rough. Then he had a devastating hip injury and last year and early this year looked like it killed him as a prospect. Last 30+ days, however, the bat has come around. 

Defensive eye scouting is next to impossible at the MLB level for people who aren't doing it for a job considering how many people and how many innings you need to see. MLB feeds come with HD quality. MiLB scouting has all of the same caveats, just add in that the video quality makes you wonder if some of these clubs shoot their feeds on an iPhone4. Point is; I can't really say one way or another where his defense is today. But if the hip has come back to full health (which, based on his hitting seems plausible) then there's a reason to believe his glove is back to the 60+ grades it was getting a few years ago. 

Hopefully that gives you a good answer!

[Rex Buckingham]

if Howard turns out to be a decent backup infielder (maybe on the level of a Jose Hernandez, to throw out a former Cub comparison), that's a better outcome than the following picks from the 2019 draft so far: 10, 13, 15, 17, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29 

[sneakypower]

José Hernández played nearly 1600 MLB games! and actually had plus SS power

Andrés Blanco, Enrique Wilson, Sergio Alcántara cup of coffee types are probably the true best case scenario outcomes for him, which is hardly worth consideration in the grand scheme of things

even if he gets a hundred sub-replacement MLB PA that's not a better pick to the org that selected him, than Ryan Harvey washouts

[Tryptamine]

12 minutes ago, sneakypower said:

José Hernández played nearly 1600 MLB games! and actually had plus SS power

Andrés Blanco, Enrique Wilson, Sergio Alcántara cup of coffee types are probably the true best case scenario outcomes for him, which is hardly worth consideration in the grand scheme of things

even if he gets a hundred sub-replacement MLB PA that's not a better pick to the org that selected him, than Ryan Harvey washouts

Yeah, a 12 fWAR career player is like Howard's 99th percentile outcome at this point. Even reaching a Miles Mastrobuoni career is unlikely for him.

[Jason Ross]

As I said previously, Howard's been a popular punching bag for Cub fans, but I think we have to take a step back and say that, today, we have a hard time pin pointing what his upside is. I've compared Howard to Vazquez before and I'd like to continue to hammer that home; at this stage in his South Bend trip, Luis Vazquez probably had similar upside to Howard. That's not to say Howard is going to even hit Vazquez upside, but I think today we can say that Vazquez's upside has changed significantly over the course of the last two years, from someone who you'd have said "that guy will never play an inning in the majors" to "looks like a decent backup option and could be a second division starter". 

What Ed Howard's upside is today, isn't very clear. What I can say is that he had another good week with the bat and he's been an above league average hitter with South Bend long enough that it's very possible we're past "Well, he's just having a hot streak". With uncertainty with the glove (is it still plus?) and real uncertainty with the bat (and that's a good thing, there was a time it looked like there was no bat there at all), I'd implore everyone to kind of...suspend whatever you think, or you've thought, his upside is. 

To compare Howard to another Cub prospect, I'd point to Cristian Hernandez. Hernandez, a quite-hyped prospect, struggled mightily in Myrtle Beach for 1.5 years. This season, he entered with new mechanics and begin to really hit the ball...a lot...but with little power. The approach was much better but questions remained about would the power come. Then it started with doubles, and has now transitioned to home runs. He hit one home run in his first 140 PAs. Since May 28th, Hernandez has three home runs, six doubles and two triples. He's been one of the best hitters in Myrtle Beach, and while I'm not comping him as baby A-Rod, Cristian Hernandez is once again an easy-top-20 in the system and likely going to be worth a top-15 or better mid-season rank, 

Howard's had about 100 PA's where he's been over 100 wRC+. Let's see if the doubles turn into home runs. That doesn't mean Howard's going to make a top-15, he's a bit older (though does get the caveat of "horrible injury" as well), but that we've seen multiple times where prospects at his very position, that we have in our system today, have drastically changed where people saw them in the last two years. I don't know what his upside is. He's probably going to fail, but most prospects do! But his upside could be a lot of things right now, and we're experiencing the first time in his career where he's had extended health, and extended success. Let's see where that leads him. I was close to writing him off myself 100 PA's ago, but I was probably wrong to do so. 

[Stratos]

I think Howard will always be an above average glove, below average bat guy.  All of his main hitting stats so far in his career per Fangraphs are below average, which confirms the tool reports.  Cubs took a shot with the glove high floor.  Seems like a utility infielder or poor-hitting SS.

[Jason Ross]

16 minutes ago, Stratos said:

I think Howard will always be an above average glove, below average bat guy.  All of his main hitting stats so far in his career per Fangraphs are below average, which confirms the tool reports.  Cubs took a shot with the glove high floor.  Seems like a utility infielder or poor-hitting SS.

All of his main stats have come at times when he was either:

1. Super young for the league

2. Hurt

2024 is probably the first, real, honest, shot he's had a league where he's been healthy and at an age appropriate league. He's been a 103 wRC+ over his last 105 PA's and over his last 70 PA's has seen a 162 wRC+. What his upside is, as I said in the post above, is really unknown. Whether he as rusty earlier and is now at full health, is in an extended hot streak over the last 30 days, or plenty of things in between, it's impossible to say. He's had a very weird path to where he is today, enough to suggest we can't even trust defensive scouting on him from pre-hip injury. But that works in his favor with the bat as well. 

Let's just see where he goes before we worry about his upside right now. He's in an incredibly unique category of "it's impossible to tell" with all of the caveats (covid draft, missed development years, devastating injuries, aggressive promotions), 

[sneakypower]

8 minutes ago, 1908_Cubs said:

He's been a 103 wRC+ over his last 105 PA's and over his last 70 PA's has seen a 162 wRC+.

"very nice, now let's see the BABIPs"

[Jason Ross]

20 minutes ago, sneakypower said:

"very nice, now let's see the BABIPs"

A .519 BABIP.

Now, we have to remember this: BABIP at the MiLB level can and should be interpreted very differently than BABIP at the MLB level. High BABIP at the MLB level is almost always associated with luck; we know that speed influences BABIP greatly and that there's a limit to what BABIP we should expect moving forward. With MiLB data, high BABIP can be luck, but isn't always luck. Sometimes you're just figuring it out and are becoming that much better than MiLB pitching at your current level and it signals "I need a new challenge".

With Howard, it's hard to say right now. Traditionally, if we saw a 22 year old with a full slate of MiLB PA's with a high BABIP, at high-A, we'd probably just say "ah, luck" or "he's too old" and move our ass on. But Ed Howard isn't a traditional 22-year old in High-A. He's had, around, 200 previous PA's at High-A, almost all of which were either "barely 20 year old in high-A" or "recently blew out his hip and is trying to come back from a devastating injury". 

So we have to look a bit deeper. First, we can see that the power is increasing; he's hit ten doubles on the season...six have been hit in his last 70 PA's. He's walked 14 times this year...seven have come in his last 70 PAs. His K% is at 23%, so he's not selling out for power hurting his contact rate. He's hit a ton of ground balls this year as well...this would improve BABIP, as well. It may also suggest his hip being healthy; speed = better BABIP. 70 PA's as well, is at a base line level where many things (contact rate, walk rate, strikeout rate) begin to stabilize and pass the "well it's just random luck" stage of statistics. That's not saying it's not a small sample, but that it hits a level of an "acceptable" level of small sample. His ISO, which isn't like, sparkly, is approaching .100, which would be a career high, as well. I can't dig much deeper; High-A savant data is not public information and as such, don't have access to it. It'd be interesting to see his contact rates and swing decisions. Barrels. That stuff. It'd help us understand even more. Thankfully, the Cubs have that data so they know more than we do. 

So what does it all mean? Frankly, I don't know. This could be a luck fueled BABIP by a 22 year old. It could be Howard is too old for South Bend now and is physically mature enough to just BABIP them to death. He could be over his hip injury, and doing something akin to Hernandez in Myrtle Beach; with mechanical improvements is slowly, but surely, conquering the level when people had begin to write him off. There's lots of outcomes here. 

The overall point I'm trying to make is just...Ed Howard is such an unknown. I think he got off to an unfair start to begin with in the 2020 draft (such an impossible draft to get right) and in Cub fan's minds to begin with. He's had injuries he can't control and the pandemic and a loss of a senior year he couldn't control. There's enough over his last 100 PA's that should suggest to us all to pause, take a second look and probably re-evaluate in...30 days. See where we're at. Is he still around a 110 wRC+ over another month? What's the BABIP like? Is it still .400? Well then it's likely not luck then. Maybe he' back at a 80 wRC+ over July and we can say "Ah, just a good month". Lots of things that can happen.

[Stratos]

Well let's hope Howard's good hitting continues for most of this year and the defense is still there.

[Tryptamine]

If a season like this doesn't get Hoyer fired, nothing will.

[Max Power]

Yeah, if Jed is safe, there is something seriously wrong with the operation.

And Ed Howard will be playing for the Chicago Dogs in 2027.

[Jason Ross]

I think people who are entirely convinced that Hoyer will be fired very well may be disappointed. While I still stand by my belief that there's a good chance that Ricketts will choose to drop the axe on someone, and the only someone he can realistically drop it on is Hoyer, the reality is that's far from a foregone. 

Hoyer's contract runs out at the end of 2025. He has one more year left. The original plan was five years and the Cubs as an organization giving him five years to complete his vision is realistic. 

Secondly, while this year is super frustrating, and plenty of things are Hoyer's doing, many things are not Hoyer's doing. Hoyer couldn't realistically see this offense taking the step back they did; the average age of the Cubs offensive players is 28 and almost every player has regressed so far. And while we can say that a Bellinger regression was likely, they should have more than made up for that deficient with the addition of Michael Busch's 128 wRC+ so far. This was a top-10 run scoring offense last year and now they're just horrible. As well, the foundations of a good bullpen were there; it's not really Hoyer's fault that Hector Neris has just absolutely been a dumpster fire, that Alzolay and Merryweather have essentially been hurt all year, that Almonte got hurt pretty early, that Leiter is also on the IL (plus injuries to Steele, Taillon, Wicks, Brown...). That's, again, not to say there aren't qualms, grips, legitimate issues we should have with Jed Hoyer's roster construction as well, but you also can't really blame him for anything I've listed here and those are real reasons we're where we are at right now.

Lastly, I'm not sure there's a significant upgrade over Jed Hoyer out there. You could go to the Tampa Bay Rays as a first place to poach, but Neader just signed an extension this calendar year to stick around there. Kim Ng has had helium in the past with what the Marlins were able to accomplish while she was the GM, but is she really ready for a role running the Cubs? You can make an argument that the foundations of the Marlins success' were laid previous to her; players like Alcantara, Chisholm and many of the youth prospects were previous to Ng. She did a killer job on the margins, but is that going to fix the Hoyer issues? David Sterns has already taken a job with the Mets, so he's off the market. You could try to grab Chernoff, but then, you're basically re-hiring Jed Hoyer in terms of what Chernoff is seemingly good at. I don't think you'll be able to lure Elias out of Baltimore right now, Breslow, our best internal option (IMO) is where he wants to be in Boston...so then you're picking from VP's and hoping they're more capable than Hoyer, in the same way you hired Hoyer. That's not to say an option doesn't exist, but it isn't like I can find or point to someone who's real likely to be poached or is a sure thing, either. It may also mean you lose your scouting and player development group with a new President of Basseball Ops coming in, which, would be a shame. Kantrovitz just eschewed the Mets, and the Cubs have continued to develop and draft well. 

All of these things will be taken into account when the time comes to evaluate Hoyer. As stated, the Cubs may want someone to blame and if they do...well...Jed Hoyer likely stands alone as the best option right now. But they may look at the options, the ramifications and the like and decide keeping Hoyer for one more run makes the most sense, despite the outrage from those on twitter.

[Bertz]

If Jed's seat were at all hot he would have been more aggressive on the trade market last winter.  "We project as a team fighting for the wildcard, I could spend a chunk of the farm to bump that projection up higher without needing a ton of additional payroll but obviously that has long term implications" is absolutely the type of conversation GMs and owners have.  If someone like Stearns was out there I could see PTR going out and grabbing him in the same way Jed grabbed Counsell with Ross already on board.  But as 1908 pointed out there's no one we know who's out there who'd be an obvious upgrade, and we're well past the era of "just go get the current #2 guy in Tampa" being a successful strategy.

I'd guess the seat is getting warm and Jed will need to start pushing chips in.  if the team does very little to nothing at the deadline my ears will perk up a bit.  That'd possibly be an indication he's just playing out the string and Tom put the kibosh on making moves that would impact beyond this year.

[CubinNY]

Tom = Jed until people stop coming to games. 

[Hairyducked Idiot]

It's 2024 and someone unironically typed that "they couldn't see the offense regressing, the average age was 28." lol

[Chaze2k1]

Would Sam Fuld be a possible person he has had to learn something from Dombrowski in Philly

[sneakypower]

4 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

it's not really Hoyer's fault that Hector Neris has just absolutely been a dumpster fire, that Alzolay and Merryweather have essentially been hurt all year, that Almonte got hurt pretty early, that Leiter is also on the IL (plus injuries to Steele, Taillon, Wicks, Brown...)

who oversees the training/stretching/biometrics programs?

[Jason Ross]

1 minute ago, sneakypower said:

who oversees the training/stretching/biometrics programs?

Do we think that training, stretching and biometrics were going to make Adbert Alzolay (a history of injuries) not hurt his forearm? Or not break a bone in Merryweatehr's back? Or fix, whatever doctors can't really understand (and there seems to be medical confusion here - it's been reported they don't know what's really holding him back) on Almonte? 

Usually when a rash of injuries hit, it's less to do with the medical team and more along bad luck, bad timing, and events that were always going to happen. When teams miss injuries, it's usually because of positive luck. It's one thing if the Cubs were throwing their pitchers more than other teams, and the Cubs were seeing a rash of TJS. I think it's another when we look at how these guys got hurt. This is pretty assuredly bad luck.

[sneakypower]

aside from all that, build a better org.!

Tampa had franchise player rape his way out of the league, lost a CY Young contender and a bunch of other future star P to injuries, both Lowes have missed the majority of the year, as well as suffering regression from some proven performers and they're still .500 and playing their best ball currently

you can say all the same things about the Brewers who lost the reputed best coach in the sport, Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, Devin Williams and whatever else and still doing perfectly fine

[Irrelevant Dude]

4 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

it's not really Hoyer's fault that Hector Neris has just absolutely been a dumpster fire

Whose fault is it then when a big ticket free agent signing doesn't pan out?  Neris being bad is absolutely on Hoyer.  Did anyone think he would be THIS bad?  No, almost certainly not, but his signing was a bit of a head scratcher from the start.