Minor League Discussion & Boxes, 5-3-26

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Scheduled Games (Central Time):

Iowa at St. Paul, 2:07 pm
Knoxville at Rocket City, 2:35 pm
South Bend vs. Ft. Wayne, 1:05 pm
Myrtle Beach vs. Columbia, 5:35 pm

ACL Cubs have the day off

Probable Starters:

Iowa: LHP Jordan Wicks (rehab)
Knoxville: RHP Nick Dean (15.1 IP, 6.46 ERA, 3.05 FIP, 19 K, 5 BB)
South Bend: LHP Jackson Brockett (16.1 IP, 1.10 ERA, 3.87 FIP, 15 K, 6 BB)
Myrtle Beach: RHP Luis A. Reyes

[allen6510w]

12 hours ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

Scheduled Games (Central Time):

Iowa at St. Paul, 2:07 pm
Knoxville at Rocket City, 2:35 pm
South Bend vs. Ft. Wayne, 1:05 pm
Myrtle Beach vs. Columbia, 5:35 pm

ACL Cubs have the day off

Probable Starters:

Iowa: LHP Jordan Wicks (rehab)
Knoxville: RHP Nick Dean (15.1 IP, 6.46 ERA, 3.05 FIP, 19 K, 5 BB)
South Bend: LHP Jackson Brockett (16.1 IP, 1.10 ERA, 3.87 FIP, 15 K, 6 BB)
Myrtle Beach: RHP Noah Edders (15 IP, 5.40 ERA, 6.06 FIP, 15 K, 2 BB)

Would be Jackson Brockett's first professional start. https://huskers.com/news/2024/05/2/jackson-brockett-throws-6th-no-hitter-in-nebraska-baseball-history

[CaliforniaRaisin]

 

[CaliforniaRaisin]

 

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

5 minutes ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

 

KA is never gonna see a fastball in the majors.

[Bertz]

59.5 homer pace by the way

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

Wicks got lit up again, guessing he's not gonna be up anytime soon.

[Tryptamine]

1 hour ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

KA is never gonna see a fastball in the majors.

Which is fine, after he's packaged for a starter in the next month or so.

[Bertz]

Among the many impressive things he's doing, Cole Mathis running a ~25% groundball rate is probably the craziest.

[Jason Ross]

1 hour ago, Bertz said:

Among the many impressive things he's doing, Cole Mathis running a ~25% groundball rate is probably the craziest.

I looked at some video from last year and this year. Came to a conclusion. Note his pre-swing set up now. 

From a PA last year. 

And this is last year. The bat is more upright and you can see a bit of his weight is different. 

And from the beginning of last year:

He looks like he's just getting set faster. His swing at the point of contact is pretty similar. Actually it's pretty similar to his stance now:

This is after the pitcher gets into his motion. Notice how similar it is to the top. He was late on this pitch. Probably because it took him too long to get into a proper spot. 

I think he's just quicker now that he's much closer to his swing before the pitcher even offers. He's got less motion and less to get into a good swing position now. 

The weight balance is a bit different too. 

[craig]

He's got a lot of K's.  16K/46AB, that could reflect some problems.  But, hopefully he'll continue to learn and improve and will be able to trim that at least a little.  

[Bertz]

8 hours ago, craig said:

He's got a lot of K's.  16K/46AB, that could reflect some problems.  But, hopefully he'll continue to learn and improve and will be able to trim that at least a little.  

He's got an above average contact rate and a 16% walk rate so this is a pretty clear case of being in a lot of deep counts.  4.2 pitches per plate appearance.

[Bertz]

Statcast minor league search has barrels.  Kevin Alcantara is at 16, which is 3rd at the AAA level and would be tied for 11th at the big league level.  His barrel rate of 25% is also 3rd in MiLB and would also be 3rd in the majors.

He's always hit the piss out of the ball, and always had contact issues.  This year he's basically traded Dansby Swanson levels of swing and miss with a too high groundball rate for Christopher Morel levels of swing and miss with a great groundball rate.

I think it's probably a good trade, and his contact numbers are slowly trending back up so I wouldn't slam the door on the possibility of us having our cake and eating it too.

Edited Monday at 02:15 PM by Bertz
Fixed

[mul21]

16 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Statcast minor league search has barrels.  Kevin Alcantara is at 16, which is 3rd at the AAA level and would be tied for 11th at the big league level.  His barrel rate of 25% is also 3rd in MiLB and would also be 3rd in the majors.

He's always hit the piss out of the ball, and always had contact issues.  This year he's basically traded Dansby Swanson levels of swing and miss with a too high groundball rate for Christopher Morel levels of swing and miss with a great groundball rate.

I think it's probably a good trade, and his contact numbers are slowly trending back up so I wouldn't slam the door on the possibility of us having our cake and eating it too.

Is there a concern about how real this power is based on what's being said about Pedro Ramirez and his AAA power surge?  There's no doubt about some of the EVs KA is putting up but it seems like a lot of these are going to CF and may not jump out of an MLB park the way they have been in AAA.  And man, that K rate is something.

[Outshined_One]

2 hours ago, Bertz said:

He's got an above average contact rate and a 16% walk rate so this is a pretty clear case of being in a lot of deep counts.  4.2 pitches per plate appearance.

It's being discussed elsewhere, but Fangraphs just updated their Cubs list and had this to say:

I find it particularly fascinating that Mathis was #9 on the ESPN list.

Apparently working deep counts can be a bad thing?

[Bertz]

1 hour ago, mul21 said:

Is there a concern about how real this power is based on what's being said about Pedro Ramirez and his AAA power surge?  There's no doubt about some of the EVs KA is putting up but it seems like a lot of these are going to CF and may not jump out of an MLB park the way they have been in AAA.  And man, that K rate is something.

The nice thing about something like a barrel is it's a process stat.  Generally dongs are ~half of barrels.  So Kevin should probably be closer to 8 than 12, and I'd guess that gap is the silly AAA environment.  But even at 8 we're talking a 39 homer pace.

Like the contact numbers are definitely a problem, full stop.  But a Christopher Morel type bat from a legitimate CF is an impact player.  Or put another way I don't see any reason to think Alcantara can't be what Adolis Garcia was in his prime.

33 minutes ago, Outshined_One said:

It's being discussed elsewhere, but Fangraphs just updated their Cubs list and had this to say:

I find it particularly fascinating that Mathis was #9 on the ESPN list.

Apparently working deep counts can be a bad thing?

There's definitely a fine line between patience and passitivity, and at the top of the ladder swinging 37% of the time like Mathis leans towards the latter.  But also it's A ball and guys tend to not miss close, so if you have a good eye you probably should be well below an acceptable MLB rate.

Like you're not going to lose money betting against every RHH 1B prospect, but complaining about what Mathis is doing at the plate right now feels kind of