Minor League Discussion & Boxes, 5-13-25

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Scheduled Games (Central Time):

Iowa vs. St. Paul, 6:38 pm
Knoxville vs. Columbus, 6:00 pm
South Bend at Lansing, 5:05 pm
Myrtle Beach at Lynchburg, 5:30 pm
ACL Cubs at ACL Angels, 3:00 pm

Probable Starting Pitchers:

Iowa: LHP Jordan Wicks (23.1 IP, 5.01 ERA, 4.42 FIP, 20 K, 11 BB)
Knoxville: RHP Chris Kachmar (29.2 IP, 3.34 ERA, 4.81 FIP, 26 K, 14 BB)
South Bend: RHP Tyler Schlaffer (16.1 IP, 8.82 ERA, 5.56 FIP, 21 K, 11 BB)
Myrtle Beach: RHP Brooks Caple (24 IP, 2.63 ERA, 3.53 FIP, 20 K, 11 BB)

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Yenrri Rojas gets the rehab start down in the ACL.

[Bertz]

Curious if Jefferson Rojas gets the bump to Tenn, and if not what they're looking for out of him before making the move.

I wonder if they view Hernandez and/or Brethowr as close to being ready, if you hold Rojas back a week or two so that you can promote a cohort of guys up together.  I think especially for a pair of middle infielders like Rojas and Hernandez there's some value to pairing them together as you send them up the ladder.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Ronny Cruz just hit his first professional HR.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Eli Lovich RBI double. He's OPSing .988 with as many walks as strikeouts.

[Tim]

3 hours ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

Eli Lovich RBI double. He's OPSing .988 with as many walks as strikeouts.

Definitely a nice start for him.

[Jason Ross]

3 hours ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

Eli Lovich RBI double. He's OPSing .988 with as many walks as strikeouts.

Right on cue. He was my deep-cut-for-prospect-sickos name drop on the pod today. 

I appreciate him making me look good. Thanks, Eli.

[Jason Ross]

44 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

Right on cue. He was my deep-cut-for-prospect-sickos name drop on the pod today. 

I appreciate him making me look good. Thanks, Eli.

I also mentioned Shaw hadn't been hitting it in the air a lot. 

He homered. 

[Bertz]

Assuming he stays in a good place the next week+ I'd bring Shaw back up when they send down Moises

[Bertz]

Caissie's contact numbers are slowly creeping up and he's keeping the GB% and EV gains

[Rcal10]

7 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Assuming he stays in a good place the next week+ I'd bring Shaw back up when they send down Moises

Wouldn’t they just activate Happ when they send Moises down? 

[Bertz]

4 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Wouldn’t they just activate Happ when they send Moises down? 

Why do you think I referenced Moises getting sent down in about a week?

[Rcal10]

3 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Why do you think I referenced Moises getting sent down in about a week?

 You said they would bring Shaw back at that time. I thought you meant if Shaw plays well the next week, he could come up and Moses go down. So are you saying when they send Moises down they also release someone (Lopez) so that along with activating Happ they would then bring back Shaw? To me Ballasteros going down and Shaw coming up are two entirely different transactions. Moises goes down when Happ is ready. Shaw comes up if/when he is ready. Lopez cut. 

[Jason Ross]

7 hours ago, Bertz said:

Caissie's contact numbers are slowly creeping up and he's keeping the GB% and EV gains

The contact has been better. He made the swing change around July last year and since then the contact numbers have been low while the EV, fly balls and ISO have soared. My hope has been for a while that once he got comfortable with lifting and pulling more that the contact rates would follow. 

Through his career in the MiLB, he's tended to begin to "figure it out" after a few months when it came to competition level. The swing change, while not a competition level change still represented *a* change.

He doesn't have to be a contact God. Just good enough. He should carry better than expected BABIP and if the power holds, a Kyle Schwarber type (though one who I suspect trades a few walks for a few bas hits) while not being relegated to just a DH feels like a real outcome. 

[JBears79]

Yeah, I wish Lovich was at Myrtle Beach right now. Not putting a damper on his progress, its encouraging but I think he should be in full season ball right now. Big fan of his. 

[Bertz]

4 hours ago, Jason Ross said:

The contact has been better. He made the swing change around July last year and since then the contact numbers have been low while the EV, fly balls and ISO have soared. My hope has been for a while that once he got comfortable with lifting and pulling more that the contact rates would follow. 

Through his career in the MiLB, he's tended to begin to "figure it out" after a few months when it came to competition level. The swing change, while not a competition level change still represented *a* change.

He doesn't have to be a contact God. Just good enough. He should carry better than expected BABIP and if the power holds, a Kyle Schwarber type (though one who I suspect trades a few walks for a few bas hits) while not being relegated to just a DH feels like a real outcome. 

I decided to do a little Statcasting.  Not sure how well links to there work but it should be a bunch of relevant stats by month going back to the start of last year.

Caissie's power numbers picked up a bit in the second half last year, but have exploded this year.  Hard hit rate over 50% both months is very good (80th-something percentile), but the barrel numbers are insane.  For reference the average MLB barrel rate hovers around 8%.  20% is elite, there have only been 11 qualified seasons north of 20 since Statcast was implemented.  Aaron Judge is the only guy who's ever topped 25 in a full season.

The whiff rate is higher than last year, and last year was already kind of at the top end of acceptable.  Here in May he's back closer to last year's range.  He ideally would keep chipping away at it, but if the power is even close to legit it might not matter?  Joey Gallo is right there as an easy comp.

It hasn't manifested in increased production yet, but his xwOBAs have really jumped, so decent argument that he's been unlucky.  Especially since, in addition to more barrels he's also juiced his pull rate (something I hadn't picked up on yet).  He's at 50% on the year which is ~90th percentile.

So tl;dr is that Caissie's batted ball profile is more or less perfect now.

[Jason Ross]

1 hour ago, Bertz said:

I decided to do a little Statcasting.  Not sure how well links to there work but it should be a bunch of relevant stats by month going back to the start of last year.

Caissie's power numbers picked up a bit in the second half last year, but have exploded this year.  Hard hit rate over 50% both months is very good (80th-something percentile), but the barrel numbers are insane.  For reference the average MLB barrel rate hovers around 8%.  20% is elite, there have only been 11 qualified seasons north of 20 since Statcast was implemented.  Aaron Judge is the only guy who's ever topped 25 in a full season.

The whiff rate is higher than last year, and last year was already kind of at the top end of acceptable.  Here in May he's back closer to last year's range.  He ideally would keep chipping away at it, but if the power is even close to legit it might not matter?  Joey Gallo is right there as an easy comp.

It hasn't manifested in increased production yet, but his xwOBAs have really jumped, so decent argument that he's been unlucky.  Especially since, in addition to more barrels he's also juiced his pull rate (something I hadn't picked up on yet).  He's at 50% on the year which is ~90th percentile.

So tl;dr is that Caissie's batted ball profile is more or less perfect now.

I used to have access to True Media, sadly, they changed the rates on us and we had to go a different route, so please, this is a bit of a memory exercise - True Media had better data disaggregation and more specifics I could access that I cannot any longer. But basically, around the ASB he switched his swing. The LA profile jumped something like 10 degrees and the ISO nearly doubled. But the contact rate dipped below the 70's in contact and overall to the low 60's. 

If he can just be a 70%-in zone guy I think he's a dude especially as he's finally tapping into the power a bit more. The EV's have always been good but if he's going to hit it that hard in the air? Watch out bleacher folk

[Jason Ross]

2 hours ago, JBears79 said:

Yeah, I wish Lovich was at Myrtle Beach right now. Not putting a damper on his progress, its encouraging but I think he should be in full season ball right now. Big fan of his. 

I'm perfectly fine with him in Arizona. He's been a two-way player and never focused on just hitting. He was also an absolute beanpole, listed at 6"4 180lbs. He's got a ton of Cody Bellinger in his build and he really needs to get into a weight room. Hard to tell what the progress there is/has been with how the ACL is kind of quarantined off, so how much he's added or not, I can't speak to. But he probably needs more time than most in working on his body. The ACL is a good place for that. 

But yeah, he's a good deep-cut project right now. The Cubs like upside prep in the 11th round and Lovich is another in that mold. There's some good stuff there.