Minor League Discussion & Boxes, 5-30-25

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Scheduled Games (Central Time):

Iowa vs. Syracuse, 7:08 pm
Knoxville vs. Birmingham, 6:00 pm
South Bend at Quad Cities, 6:30 pm
Myrtle Beach vs. Augusta, 6:05 pm
ACL Cubs at ACL Reds, 8:00 pm

Probable Starting Pitchers:

Iowa; RHP Will Sanders (at AA: 44.1 IP, 2.64 ERA, 2.16 FIP, 44 K, 8 BB) - AAA debut
Knoxville: RHP Chris Kachmar (44.2 IP, 4.03 ERA, 4.38 FIP, 37 K, 19 BB)
South Bend: RHP Erian Rodríguez (5 IP, 5.40 ERA, 5.94 FIP, 2 K, 1 BB)
Myrtle Beach: RHP Alfredo Romero (26.2 IP, 4.39 ERA, 4.26 FIP, 25 K, 18 BB)

[JBears79]

Hyped for Sanders debut at AAA today. Really curious to see that statcast data.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

The rain delays/rain outs are getting excessive for Myrtle Beach.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Will Sanders and Iowa will be on Marquee.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Will Sanders so far: 2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K, 5 whiffs

Topped out at 94.5.

[Bertz]

Rough 3rd inning for Will Sanders

And good lord Jonny Long crushed that

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Rough 3rd for Sanders. First some unlucky BABIP, then some hard hits: 3 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 1 HBP

Jonny Long HR! 111.6 EV, 397 ft

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Erian Rodríguez 5 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 5 K

[CaliforniaRaisin]

 

[CaliforniaRaisin]

 

[Bertz]

If you look under the hood, most of Alcantara's numbers are actually improved from last year.  I think in our exuberance we just all collectively ignored how much of his production at Iowa initially was propped up by a .400+ BABIP

The arrow's pointing up, there was just more work to do than we realized

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Sanders' final line: 5 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, 1 HBP, 8 whiffs on 92 pitches

Felt like he tired in the 5th when he gave up a run.

[Bertz]

Another Jonny Long Dong!

[CaliforniaRaisin]

 

[CaliforniaRaisin]

 

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Uhh

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Riley Martin topped out at 96.2 today. 10 pitches 95.1 or harder.

[Tryptamine]

1 hour ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

 

I don't even know how any publication could possibly justify him not being top 100 at this point. It's funny that Long and Wiggins might be the best Cub prospects that haven't touched MLB yet.

[craig]

Long with HR's is nice.  Seems like some of them have been pretty deep.  Not really cheap ones.  Maybe the projection of a 16-HR-DH is underselling his power?  

[craig]

2 hours ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

Riley Martin topped out at 96.2 today. 10 pitches 95.1 or harder.

Wow!  That's really fun story.  

[We Got The Whole 9]

51 minutes ago, craig said:

Long with HR's is nice.  Seems like some of them have been pretty deep.  Not really cheap ones.  Maybe the projection of a 16-HR-DH is underselling his power?  

Have you seen his EVs? He obviously has close to elite power. He just needs to work on getting the right launch angle band and he will take off in the "power" dept.

[profisme]

Long’s swing reminds me a lot of Manny Ramirez. 

[Jason Ross]

10 hours ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Have you seen his EVs? He obviously has close to elite power. He just needs to work on getting the right launch angle band and he will take off in the "power" dept.

Im not sure there's a ton of juice to squeeze with LA. Hes not a super flat bat plane with a 12 degree launch angle. Obviously a few more degrees to the like 15 range seem do-able but its probably not going to be a revolution for Long either. 

I do think hes going to stick as a sub 25 HR hitter. Not the end of the world, though.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Also 'change the launch angle but hold EVs constant' has some pretty load bearing assumptions about how Long generates those EVs that may not hold true.

[Bertz]

173 hitters at AAA this year have racked up at least 150 PAs.  Long is

- 2nd in hard hit rate

- 10th in barrel rate

- 5th in xwOBA

Why in the world are we talking about him like anything he's doing in the batters box needs to change?