Minor League Discussion & Boxes, 5-6-25

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Scheduled Games (Central Time):

Iowa at Toledo, 5:05 pm
Knoxville at Chattanooga, 5:05 pm
South Bend vs. Fort Wayne, 5:05 pm
Myrtle Beach vs. Delmarva, 5:35 pm

ACL Cubs have the day off

Probable Starting Pitchers:

Iowa: RHP Peter Solomon (1.1 IP, 13.50 ERA, 17.02 FIP, 2 K, 3 BB)
Knoxville: RHP Will Sanders (23.1 IP, 3.47 ERA, 3.11 FIP, 21 K, 6 BB)
South Bend: RHP Tyler Schlaffer (16 IP, 5.63 ERA, 5.12 FIP, 20 K, 8 BB)
Myrtle Beach: RHP Brooks Caple (19 IP, 3.32 ERA, 3.75 FIP, 14 K, 9 BB)

[Cubs420psd]

Is Wiggins hurt? I can't find anything online and I have not seen him in a box score in a while.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

10 minutes ago, Cubs420psd said:

Is Wiggins hurt? I can't find anything online and I have not seen him in a box score in a while.

He was a piggyback starter on Thursday

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Ty Southisene and Yahil Melendez promoted from the ACL to Myrtle Beach.

Chris Paciolla demoted from Myrtle Beach to the ACL.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

 

[CaliforniaRaisin]

 

[CaliforniaRaisin]

101 mph EV

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Good start for Will Sanders:

52 of his 70 pitches were strikes.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

 

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Johnny Long ties the game with 2 strikes and 2 outs in the 9th,

[CaliforniaRaisin]

 

[We Got The Whole 9]

Long is hitting 355/430/495

 

It feels like he is a definite first-division bat. The dude can swing it. Great pick by the Cubs.

 

[CaliforniaRaisin]

10 hours ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Long is hitting 355/430/495

 

It feels like he is a definite first-division bat. The dude can swing it. Great pick by the Cubs.

 

Hot take: He’d be on a few top 100 prospects lists if he were a Dodger.

[JBears79]

13 hours ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Long is hitting 355/430/495

 

It feels like he is a definite first-division bat. The dude can swing it. Great pick by the Cubs.

 

Just wish he could play 3B. I'm a fan but right now he feels like a bat only prospect that needs quite a bit of development defensively. 

[Jason Ross]

3 hours ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

Hot take: He’d be on a few top 100 prospects lists if he were a Dodger.

Yeah, I think the biggest thing working against him is the Cubs system. He's been over shadowed at almost every level by a player the industry is higher on. He's got Caissie, Alcantara, Shaw, Horton, and Ballesteros, many of whom who hit very well and play similar positions right there with him. Easy to forget him. 

He's really good. 

[craig]

I think the defense factor can't be underestimated, though.  Not that many top-100's who don't have defensive tools.  And while he's got some good exit velocity data, I don't imagine the media scouts love his power potential?  He's not big, and he probably isn't winning BP distance contests against Alcantara and Caissie, even if Alcantara doesn't actually have actual in-game HR-productivity.  But yeah, just keep hitting, and he'll have value to the Cubs.  

[Jason Ross]

17 minutes ago, craig said:

I think the defense factor can't be underestimated, though.  Not that many top-100's who don't have defensive tools.  And while he's got some good exit velocity data, I don't imagine the media scouts love his power potential?  He's not big, and he probably isn't winning BP distance contests against Alcantara and Caissie, even if Alcantara doesn't actually have actual in-game HR-productivity.  But yeah, just keep hitting, and he'll have value to the Cubs.  

I would say he's got better than good batted ball data...right now, it's about darn-near the best in Triple-A. 

His defensive positioning as a 1b is probably holding him back some. But I also think he's just overshadowed. As much as it'd be great if top-100 lists were entirely perfect, I think there comes a human element for writers. Things such as "Can we really have that many from TEAM X on our list?" is probably something that enters in at least a subconscious way if not a more tangible one. As well, things such as pedigree; Long was not a high pick nor from a large school, and the fact that the Cubs have good prospects at all of the positions Long can play (1b, DH and if we want to be real generous, 3b and LF)  who are already on most people's top-75 can skew that.

I do think without a few other Cub prospects on top-100 lists that Long would find his way on a backend of a few. But that's as good of an argument as any to remind people that the gap between like 85 and 140 is minimal in most cases. So people leaving him off isn't really a major slight as it is a lack of a feather in the cap that probably doesn't really matter.

[craig]

Do those poor Z-swing or Pull% scores bother you at all?  Hard to hit lots of HR's without pulling the ball.  He's got 33:3 K/HR ratio thus far this year, that's a lot of K's.  When 30% of your AB's are K's, you'd normally like your K/HR ratio to be well below 10:1.  That's leaving your production heavily dependent on BABIP.  Obviously a lot of his good numbers contribute to high BABIP.  But he's rolling with .473 BABIP, that just doesn't roll in the majors with big-league defenses and all of the sophisticated advanced scouting that big-league defenses use.  

He's a fascinating prospect, and seems to have some hitting capacity.  Just hard to guess where a DH prospect with 10th-percentile pull% and a 33:3 K/HR profile is going to be that valuable a prospect.  

What he is now, of course, may not be what he will become.  Some smart, well-coached hitters make some adjustments.  Maybe he can adapt and learn to pull more, and hit some HR's?  Maybe I'll jinx him and tomorrow he'll pull a HR!  

A lot of unwritten story ahead for him.  

[Jason Ross]

19 minutes ago, craig said:

Do those poor Z-swing or Pull% scores bother you at all?  Hard to hit lots of HR's without pulling the ball.  He's got 33:3 K/HR ratio thus far this year, that's a lot of K's.  When 30% of your AB's are K's, you'd normally like your K/HR ratio to be well below 10:1.  That's leaving your production heavily dependent on BABIP.  Obviously a lot of his good numbers contribute to high BABIP.  But he's rolling with .473 BABIP, that just doesn't roll in the majors with big-league defenses and all of the sophisticated advanced scouting that big-league defenses use.  

He's a fascinating prospect, and seems to have some hitting capacity.  Just hard to guess where a DH prospect with 10th-percentile pull% and a 33:3 K/HR profile is going to be that valuable a prospect.  

What he is now, of course, may not be what he will become.  Some smart, well-coached hitters make some adjustments.  Maybe he can adapt and learn to pull more, and hit some HR's?  Maybe I'll jinx him and tomorrow he'll pull a HR!  

A lot of unwritten story ahead for him.  

I wouldn't read MiLB data like we read MLB data consistently. For example, reading his BABIP as a negative wouldn't be how I see that. Sure, he's not going to carry that BABIP in the MLB; but he's in the literal 100% for hard hit, LA-sweet spot, while also in the 97th xwOBA and so on and so forth. Yeah, he's hitting the hell out of the baseball. He's not going to be a 100th percentile in the MLB for hard hit, either. The way I'd read that instead is "so far, this dude is crushing Triple-A pitching". It's a good sign that he's better than what he's seeing. So it's not a bad thing...opposite. It's a good thing.

Hitters who have "figured out a level" tend to do that stuff - have super high BABIP's and the like. Mostly because they're hitting the baseball super hard, finding barrels, hitting sweet spots, etc. They kind of all go hand-in-hand. We see that stuff far less at the MLB level because it's just that much harder to solve the riddle. Like, Aaron Judge has literally a .473 BABIP at the MLB level right now. He's kind of solved the riddle, you know? Not saying Long is Judge, just saying "guys who are really good for their level, yeah, they do that".

When it comes to TJ Stats and PulL% I've noticed that most hitters tend to be low. I'm not sure if that's a function of his statistical gathering algorithm or what. Like, for example, Roman Anthony is crushing baseballs and he's in the 30 percentile for pull rate and 11th percentile for pulled flyballs. I really can't remember looking at many players and those numbers being high. Maybe it's just that I keep finding guys who don't pull, but I think there's something maybe wonky on how those display. Anthony is a killer prospect. I think they get funky. But that's a hunch. 

For Long, he's over 40% of the time hitting ground balls and he's LA sits around 11. I think the best version of Long ups that a bit and hits more things in the air. He hits the ball super hard, he'd hit more HR's. But those are tweaks and fixes that can occur. That said, I think there's a world where a 20 HR Jonathon Long is a good and productive MLB hitter. He might not be a star, but he'd be a good 1b or a DH in that mold if everything else stuck.

[craig]

13 hours ago, Jason Ross said:

When it comes to TJ Stats and PulL% I've noticed that most hitters tend to be low. I'm not sure if that's a function of his statistical gathering algorithm or what. Like, for example, Roman Anthony is crushing baseballs and he's in the 30 percentile for pull rate and 11th percentile for pulled flyballs. I really can't remember looking at many players and those numbers being high. Maybe it's just that I keep finding guys who don't pull, but I think there's something maybe wonky on how those display. Anthony is a killer prospect. I think they get funky. But that's a hunch. 

That would be odd if the data was just faulty.   Heh heh, by definition you can't have most hitters be <50th percentile, need half to be ≥50th percentile!  Being 10th percentile, that's really low.  And even if there is flaw but it's modest in the calculation, 10th percentile is more than a small significant-figure error in the calculation or whatever, that's maybe a small correction from being 14th percentile, but it's not a small error away from being 50th or 70th.  

Obviously many of the stats reflect interconnected realities.  Long's Z-swing% is at 7%.  That's REALLY low.  Might that kinda artificially inflate his barrell%?

A challenge when selective minor-leaguers promote to majors is that minor-league location isn't big-league caliber.  If you've got an unusually small sector of the strike zone that you like, minor-league pitchers are more prone to accidentally leak pitches into your preferred sector.  But if he's so picky that he's got only 7% Z-swing in minors, once he gets scouted will big-league pitchers ever throw to his preferred sector? 

Second, if you're super-picky within the strike zone, isn't it natural that your barrell% should be deceptively, disproportionately high?  I have a small sector that I can barrell, so I only swing at those and when I do I successfully barrell those.  But if I'm taking lots of strikes that most hitters swing at, isn't that artificially going to elevate my barrell%?  And then if I get in the majors and teams have great scouting on me, and pitchers are able to locate strikes, won't I end up just taking a zillion strikes and getting called out on strikes right and left?  

You mention that he's been a heavy groundball guy.  Yet his LA Sweet-Spot% is 100th percentile.  If he's only rolling with 3HR/33K/40%-groundball when his LA Sweet-Spot% is 100th percentile, do you think his launch angle is going to have lots of room to improve?  Hard to improve on 100th percentile, seems regression towards mean might be more likely, no?  Just like hard to improve on his .473 BABIP, regression-towards-mean is probably likely there too, I'm guessing.  

But yeah, he's only been pro for <2 years.  Got lots of time to do some adjusting and optimizing.  I'd think swinging a little more aggressively and pulling more, the Z-swing and pull are the two obvious areas of potential adjustment.  I also think that more pull can also result in reduction in groundball, maybe?  

[craig]

Just to further belabor the Long analysis, which is obviously small-sample.  In terms of short-term service for the Cubs,  Jon Long might hypothetically seem to be a Turner alternative.   Both bad-fielding RH 1B/DH, that's what Turner is. 

Turner gets used almost exclusively versus LHP.  Would Long excel in that?  

Thus far, unfortunately he's got some remarkable reverse splits.  This year, his OPS vs LHP is almost 600 points lower than versus righties, thanks to his .154 slug versus LHP.  That's obviously small-sample fluke.  But last year he also had somewhat negative reverse split, .820 LHP vs .865 RHP.  So the current version doesn't really project as an ideal platoon specialist.  

[Jason Ross]

1 hour ago, craig said:

That would be odd if the data was just faulty.   Heh heh, by definition you can't have most hitters be <50th percentile, need half to be ≥50th percentile!  Being 10th percentile, that's really low.  And even if there is flaw but it's modest in the calculation, 10th percentile is more than a small significant-figure error in the calculation or whatever, that's maybe a small correction from being 14th percentile, but it's not a small error away from being 50th or 70th.  

Obviously many of the stats reflect interconnected realities.  Long's Z-swing% is at 7%.  That's REALLY low.  Might that kinda artificially inflate his barrell%?

A challenge when selective minor-leaguers promote to majors is that minor-league location isn't big-league caliber.  If you've got an unusually small sector of the strike zone that you like, minor-league pitchers are more prone to accidentally leak pitches into your preferred sector.  But if he's so picky that he's got only 7% Z-swing in minors, once he gets scouted will big-league pitchers ever throw to his preferred sector? 

Second, if you're super-picky within the strike zone, isn't it natural that your barrell% should be deceptively, disproportionately high?  I have a small sector that I can barrell, so I only swing at those and when I do I successfully barrell those.  But if I'm taking lots of strikes that most hitters swing at, isn't that artificially going to elevate my barrell%?  And then if I get in the majors and teams have great scouting on me, and pitchers are able to locate strikes, won't I end up just taking a zillion strikes and getting called out on strikes right and left?  

You mention that he's been a heavy groundball guy.  Yet his LA Sweet-Spot% is 100th percentile.  If he's only rolling with 3HR/33K/40%-groundball when his LA Sweet-Spot% is 100th percentile, do you think his launch angle is going to have lots of room to improve?  Hard to improve on 100th percentile, seems regression towards mean might be more likely, no?  Just like hard to improve on his .473 BABIP, regression-towards-mean is probably likely there too, I'm guessing.  

But yeah, he's only been pro for <2 years.  Got lots of time to do some adjusting and optimizing.  I'd think swinging a little more aggressively and pulling more, the Z-swing and pull are the two obvious areas of potential adjustment.  I also think that more pull can also result in reduction in groundball, maybe?  

Honestly, think you're missing the forest for the trees a bit and trying to look for things too deep. Why is Long's z-swing that low? Could be simply he's too advanced for this pitching and he's seeing it well, choosing to swing at his pitch so confidently that he's fine not-swinging at other pitches. The take away I would have, as I said before is: Long is seeing the ball really well and he's doing great. I don't think it really has to be much deeper. 

The broad overview of that data, I think, should be a clear "he's really hitting the stitches off the baseball at Iowa and doing things very well". There's not much concern there as is. We can always find slight imperfections, but I don't think there's much there to worry about as is. 

(with the pull rate I've clicked through most of the good hitters I can think of on TJ's page and I really cannot find someone over the 50% for pull rate. Again, I could be just finding the wrong ones, but I think there's something funky there. But I'm not a data analyst and I don't know how his app collects data. This includes Roman Anthony, Coby Mayo, Carson Williams, Dalton Rushing, Samuel Bassalo and Kyle Teel. EDIT: found TWO - Emmanuel Rodriguez and Marcelo Mayer, both are at the very top end of the percentile. I've yet to find someone between 50-95%. So I guess end result, regardless of how the data is collected, I really don't think it's a great indicator of who we should like as prospects - those are all good prospects)

I wouldn't say he's a heavy ground ball hitter, he's just hitting a few too many. Ideally, you'd like his ground ball rate under 40%. As stated, his LA is 11 right now. Ideally, you'd like that up a few degrees, say, 15 or so. It's small swing tweaks. 

On his splits; this year the splits aren't great, but it's super small sample as you said. He hit lefties well last year. For him to be a good platoon guy with Busch he doesn't need to hit lefties better than righties. He needs to hit lefties better than Busch. He hit LHP pretty well last year. Also, part of being a good platoon hitter is simply being a RHH. We have to remember that pitchers are half of the equation. If a pitcher has a pitch mix that is just better against LHH. by proxy of being a RHH he's going to have a leg up.