Minor League Discussion & Boxes, 8-11-26

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Scheduled Games (Central Time):

Iowa vs. St. Paul, 6:30 pm - Field of Dreams game - on MLB Network
Knoxville vs. Rocket City, 6:00 pm
South Bend at Great Lakes, 6:05 pm
Myrtle Beach vs. Hill City, 6:05 pm
DSL Cubs Blue at DSL Pirates Gold, 10:00 am
DSL Cubs Red vs. DSL Mariners, 10:00 am

Probable Starters:

Iowa: LHP Jordan Wicks (with Jaxon Wiggins coming out of the pen)
Knoxville: RHP Edward Cabrera
South Bend: RHP Jostin Florentino
Myrtle Beach: RHP Emilio Ramos

[squally1313]

did i do the math wrong was this was supposed to be cabrera day

[Jason Ross]

3 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

did i do the math wrong was this was supposed to be cabrera day

It's Field of Dreams day. Just a guess but they may have moved him around a day to ensure that the MLB guy doesn't soak up that experience. 

[Bertz]

I don't remember where I saw it but swore he was pitching at Tenn because of it

[Jason Ross]

1 minute ago, Bertz said:

I don't remember where I saw it but swore he was pitching at Tenn because of it

Don't they know that I need the statcast data on his slider?! How could the Cubs do this to me?

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Yeah, it’s Cabrera for Knoxville. I edited.

[731.4life]

I got off work and ventured over to Covenant Health Park to watch the Knoxville (still call them Tennessee) Smokies. I watched Cabrera pitched. What I didn't know was that Daniel Palencia also pitched in the game.

First for Cabrera: I thought he looked great, fastball touched 98 MPH with consistent 96-97. Didn't walk much, I think just 1 batter. Struck out around 6 batters I believe. He pitched 5 innings and threw 63 pitches in those 5. He didn't allow a hit, and the contact wasn't much in terms of hard hit. Cabrera looked good, and I won't be surprised if he is on the team by the end of next week. Maybe 1 more start.

For Palencia. He looked rough. He threw about 20-22 pitches. Only recorded 1 out and that was on first 2 pitches of his .1 inning. He walked 3 batters, and he hit 1 batter near the bicep/tricep area and that was at 99 MPH. I do want to note that I believe Knoxville's radar gun doesn't hit 100+ MPH, so don't know exactly how much pitches was actually triple digits. Regardless, Palencia looked rough. Walked way too much and just not competitive in the zone. I don't know where he is at when it comes to the rehab part, but I positive he got some more time in the rehab process in the minors.

[Bertz]

I saw "Wiggins will come in relief" and was assuming more of a piggyback situation.  That said the velo was up and he was effective so I won't complain.  We're very much in beggars can't be choosers mode currently 

[squally1313]

7 minutes ago, Bertz said:

I saw "Wiggins will come in relief" and was assuming more of a piggyback situation.  That said the velo was up and he was effective so I won't complain.  We're very much in beggars can't be choosers mode currently 

I would read that as either a confidence boost/reset, or them looking at him as a potential bullpen option for the big league squad. Neither of which are great, but…a scoreless inning is a scoreless inning. 

[CaliforniaRaisin]

16 minutes ago, 731.4life said:

I got off work and ventured over to Covenant Health Park to watch the Knoxville (still call them Tennessee) Smokies. I watched Cabrera pitched. What I didn't know was that Daniel Palencia also pitched in the game.

First for Cabrera: I thought he looked great, fastball touched 98 MPH with consistent 96-97. Didn't walk much, I think just 1 batter. Struck out around 6 batters I believe. He pitched 5 innings and threw 63 pitches in those 5. He didn't allow a hit, and the contact wasn't much in terms of hard hit. Cabrera looked good, and I won't be surprised if he is on the team by the end of next week. Maybe 1 more start.

For Palencia. He looked rough. He threw about 20-22 pitches. Only recorded 1 out and that was on first 2 pitches of his .1 inning. He walked 3 batters, and he hit 1 batter near the bicep/tricep area and that was at 99 MPH. I do want to note that I believe Knoxville's radar gun doesn't hit 100+ MPH, so don't know exactly how much pitches was actually triple digits. Regardless, Palencia looked rough. Walked way too much and just not competitive in the zone. I don't know where he is at when it comes to the rehab part, but I positive he got some more time in the rehab process in the minors.

Box score has Palencia with 2 outs

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Ethan Conrad triple off a lefty.

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

I'm all for letting Wiggins pitch in the pen rest of year. Stretch him out again in the spring

[Bertz]

9 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

I would read that as either a confidence boost/reset, or them looking at him as a potential bullpen option for the big league squad. Neither of which are great, but…a scoreless inning is a scoreless inning. 

Yeah I'd buy either, and honestly I wonder if the fact that either makes a lot of sense means it's both?  Get some useful innings and build his confidence and then hopefully you can go into next year feeling better about him as big league depth even if you're nervous about innings.

[Bertz]

3 minutes ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

Ethan Conrad triple off a lefty.

 

[squally1313]

16 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Yeah I'd buy either, and honestly I wonder if the fact that either makes a lot of sense means it's both?  Get some useful innings and build his confidence and then hopefully you can go into next year feeling better about him as big league depth even if you're nervous about innings.

Oh I was talking more about like, next month bullpen option. You can squint and see the value in taking a shot he goes nuclear in that role for a few weeks, but at this exact moment he’s pretty far down my list, so the implication would be to maybe not expect as much from brown or Steele or whoever 

[Funky-daddy]

Someone was saying the other day that Cabrera essentially has developed a new pitch since injury. Curious if it’s still the case after this outing or was just a weird fluke

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

1 minute ago, Funky-daddy said:

Someone was saying the other day that Cabrera essentially has developed a new pitch since injury. Curious if it’s still the case after this outing or was just a weird fluke

Jason was saying his slider shape was different, but we don't know if that continued because AA parks don't have statcast data

[Funky-daddy]

26 minutes ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

Jason was saying his slider shape was different, but we don't know if that continued because AA parks don't have statcast data

Oh interesting. Where was he pitching that did have it ?

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

15 minutes ago, Funky-daddy said:

Oh interesting. Where was he pitching that did have it ?

The start in Iowa before this one

[Jason Ross]

7 hours ago, Funky-daddy said:

Someone was saying the other day that Cabrera essentially has developed a new pitch since injury. Curious if it’s still the case after this outing or was just a weird fluke

Yeah, heading into today, his slider was up 2 mph and had shifted from glove side to arm side run (for simplicity, it's gone from a traditional slider to a reverse one in movement). Important to note he's thrown the pitch before both at 91mph and with arm side run this year with the Cubs, but they were outliers (it was around 10% or so of the time oh his entire slider usage) and so far in Iowa he has thrown the slider exclusively arm side and over 90mph. That's indicative of a change. 

Sadly, I can only get Statcast data out of Triple-A and MLB. But I got double-whammied last night as strong storms across the Bluegrass region knocked out my power so I've been in the dark (literally) since 7pm. Which is just awesome...tomorrow is the first day of school and I teach middle school. Great omen, right? I'll be able to peek at the video whenever these storms stop and the power comes back and confirm the velo, but won't be able to confirm the movement. But I think one will beget the other logically, so I think I can backwards engineer a connection.  

Now if there's something I'm working through yet it's the implications. Like what this pitch is and how it functions within his subset. I have a fairly wild working theory (data to support it so it's not that crazy town) and I've got a few lines out there to figure out if I belong in a baseball asylum or if I'm actually on to something. So hopefully I'll be able to finish my article that I've been working on for two weeks now and be able to share with y'all how batshit I am in a few days. 

[Derwood]

Palencia with 4 ER on 0 hits is an odd looking line (yes, the next guy clearly let his runners in)

[We Got The Whole 9]

6 hours ago, Derwood said:

Palencia with 4 ER on 0 hits is an odd looking line (yes, the next guy clearly let his runners in)

Odd is an extremely flattering adjective to use

[731.4life]

18 hours ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

Box score has Palencia with 2 outs

Yeah, I forgot about the strikeout