Cubs Winter Top Prospects Rankings: #13 Matt Mervis

The best thing for Merivs is a trade to a team that will let him play. Including him in a deal for Alonso makes a lot of sense for Mervis, the Cubs, and the Mets. 

Ross will not use him correctly. I'm not confident Ross has the ability to break any rookie in. 

Not a better prospect than BJ Murray but props to Mervis on cleaning up the MiLB line by end of season. He had a dramatic jump in GBs and drop in FBs most of of the year, managed to clean that up and stay alive 

I’m not eager for it but wouldn’t be surprised if he’s the OD 1B. He showed playable EVs and defense at the position at the ML level. I’m also a believer im offense begetting offense, signing Ohtani would open things up for he and others 

In the same way that we can look at the Cubs actions and intimate that they think Chris Morel can't play 3rd, I think we can look at the Cubs actions and intimate that they think Matt Mervis sucks. 

Edwin Rios broke camp with the team as the primary LHH bench bat.  It took more than a month of intense suckitude from Rios, Mancini and Hosmer to get Mervis up.  Once he was up, he didn't get a ton of playing time.  After he got sent down, he stayed down even as Jared Young got called up multiple times.  He stayed down even as Miles Mastrobuoni (who was mostly a LHH pinch hitter until September) got called up multiple times.

Maybe this is one of the things Ross and the FO disagreed about?  But the Jared Young of it all tells me Jed and co also don't like Mervis.  I expect him to be one of the other guys in a trade this winter.  Padres make some sense?

7 minutes ago, Bertz said:

In the same way that we can look at the Cubs actions and intimate that they think Chris Morel can't play 3rd, I think we can look at the Cubs actions and intimate that they think Matt Mervis sucks. 

Edwin Rios broke camp with the team as the primary LHH bench bat.  It took more than a month of intense suckitude from Rios, Mancini and Hosmer to get Mervis up.  Once he was up, he didn't get a ton of playing time.  After he got sent down, he stayed down even as Jared Young got called up multiple times.  He stayed down even as Miles Mastrobuoni (who was mostly a LHH pinch hitter until September) got called up multiple times.

Maybe this is one of the things Ross and the FO disagreed about?  But the Jared Young of it all tells me Jed and co also don't like Mervis.  I expect him to be one of the other guys in a trade this winter.  Padres make some sense?

Exactly, I would not be the least bit surprised if Mervis has a 115 wRC+ bat ready to contribute or at least take some lumps on the way to that endpoint, but I have no confidence the FO is willing to give him the chance even with yawning chasms at 1B/DH.  I'm gonna keep trying to will a trade of Mervis for Hunter Harvey(or some close approximation) into existence, as that would be a nice multi-year RP solution that wouldn't have big AAV, and the Nats organizationally have basically nothing at 1B and could be looking to cash in a reliever for a team that isn't going to need it before FA.

8 hours ago, Bertz said:

In the same way that we can look at the Cubs actions and intimate that they think Chris Morel can't play 3rd, I think we can look at the Cubs actions and intimate that they think Matt Mervis sucks. 

I’m not sure I 100% buy this is where the org is at:

- Morel at 3B and Rios in general have multiple years of “failure” behind them

- Mervis was a very different hitter in Iowa before and after the callup. He got called up despite a dramatic decline in the batted ball profile (something like 46% GBs and 32% FBs, a 10% swing IIRC) from ‘22, and returned to ultimately turn that around

- Theo and pretty much any good NFL coach liked to say each year is it’s own thing. Looking at it this way 2024 Mervis is essentially the same guy as preseason 2023 Mervis only without the shiny new gloss and alot more PAs. He’s now nearly 700 in Iowa with a ~140 wRC+, .400+ wOBA, a GB rate in the 30s and FBs in the 40s, walks and showed he can hit the ball hard in the MLs and hold down 1B defensively. The Cubs would more or less be looking for exactly this player if a star doesn’t shake free since the FA options are guys like Hoskins off an ACL, Santana, Turner, etc 

I want Alonso, don’t believe but would be A-OK with Juan Soto as 1B/DH somehow, but after that 1B options in general are less than ideal. I already suspect we may see something like Mervis and Bobby Dalbec (basically bigger more athletic Wisdom with more power) or some other RHH with power, some defense if they spend on top FAs or trade for and extend 1B/DH Soto. Maybe they get lucky and can draft Nick Kurtz next year but I’d be pleasantly surprised if an obvious upgrade at 1B actually popped up before 2024 opens 

8 hours ago, TomtheBombadil said:

- Mervis was a very different hitter in Iowa before and after the callup. He got called up despite a dramatic decline in the batted ball profile (something like 46% GBs and 32% FBs, a 10% swing IIRC) from ‘22, and returned to ultimately turn that around

I feel like we have this conversation every 6 weeks but did the profile actually change or did the denominators for the batted ball ratios?  Mervis pre-call up had a K rate of 17% and post-callup K% of 24%, and he hit HR at a slightly higher rate pre-callup for good measure.  Some K's turning into GB and a FB or two going over the fence can make a pretty meaningful difference when we're talking about ~100 BIP.

But even setting that aside, the callup wasn't the only opportunity the team had, like Bertz said they went to Jared Young more than once in the 2nd half when Mervis had presumably made those adjustments.

52 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

I feel like we have this conversation every 6 weeks but did the profile actually change or did the denominators for the batted ball ratios?  Mervis pre-call up had a K rate of 17% and post-callup K% of 24%, and he hit HR at a slightly higher rate pre-callup for good measure.  Some K's turning into GB and a FB or two going over the fence can make a pretty meaningful difference when we're talking about ~100 BIP.

But even setting that aside, the callup wasn't the only opportunity the team had, like Bertz said they went to Jared Young more than once in the 2nd half when Mervis had presumably made those adjustments.

We do this every so often because I still don’t buy the point that these gaps don’t matter. Call me a bottom line guy about it, pass/fail. I’d also say that generally K rate is not especially predictive in AAA, and maybe would throw out that an older LHH 1B prospect isn’t a good bet to be a contact MLer in 2020s MLB nor is it their first priority. He was always going to strike out, as is pretty much any other 1B option. Power, walks, approach, and not wrecking the defense, rather than contact, should be the priority at 1B

The catch with the Jared Young comments is you’re basically saying the turnaround was short on sample size but also they should have cut it off if legit. I don’t even necessarily disagree that it’s a less than ideal look, but nothing at 1B will be anytime soon. Heck, that Bertz’s post closes with a soft suggestion that this guy who sucks might fit the Juan Soto org hints that the Mervis situation is maybe most the shiny new toy lost his luster 

2 hours ago, TomtheBombadil said:

We do this every so often because I still don’t buy the point that these gaps don’t matter. Call me a bottom line guy about it, pass/fail. I’d also say that generally K rate is not especially predictive in AAA, and maybe would throw out that an older LHH 1B prospect isn’t a good bet to be a contact MLer in 2020s MLB nor is it their first priority. He was always going to strike out, as is pretty much any other 1B option. Power, walks, approach, and not wrecking the defense, rather than contact, should be the priority at 1B

The catch with the Jared Young comments is you’re basically saying the turnaround was short on sample size but also they should have cut it off if legit. I don’t even necessarily disagree that it’s a less than ideal look, but nothing at 1B will be anytime soon. Heck, that Bertz’s post closes with a soft suggestion that this guy who sucks might fit the Juan Soto org hints that the Mervis situation is maybe most the shiny new toy lost his luster 

Just to the bolded point alone, but I've linked a few articles below that deal with numbers that correlate between MiLB and the MLB. The overall point of every study is that not only do AAA K% correlate, they correlate almost more so than any other statistic for MiLB hitters. Obviously there are outliers and players who have flaws specifically brought out upon reaching the MLB (Alfonso Rivas and his inability to hit an MLB breaking pitch is a good recent Cub example). But I think it's probably fair to accept that players who do or don't strike out a lot in AAA will continue that heading forward.

A 2019 study from Fangraphs

A 2020 article from Medium

The above articles deal specifically with MiLB hitters. If this is something that interests you, I've gone ahead and linked their counterpart articles on pitchers below, too:

2019 study from Fangraphs - Pitcher edition

2020 article from Medium - Pitcher edition

20 minutes ago, 1908_Cubs said:

Just to the bolded point alone, but I've linked a few articles below that deal with numbers that correlate between MiLB and the MLB. The overall point of every study is that not only do AAA K% correlate, they correlate almost more so than any other statistic for MiLB hitters. Obviously there are outliers and players who have flaws specifically brought out upon reaching the MLB (Alfonso Rivas and his inability to hit an MLB breaking pitch is a good recent Cub example). But I think it's probably fair to accept that players who do or don't strike out a lot in AAA will continue that heading forward.

A 2019 study from Fangraphs

A 2020 article from Medium

The above articles deal specifically with MiLB hitters. If this is something that interests you, I've gone ahead and linked their counterpart articles on pitchers below, too:

2019 study from Fangraphs - Pitcher edition

2020 article from Medium - Pitcher edition

Yeah I was a little fast and loose. While these links are generally looking at all the minor leagues (Mervis has a 21% K rate in 1300+ PAs), KATOH considered AAA one of the 3 levels K rate was most predictive. Notably Mervis’ 22.7% Ks are right with the IL’s 22.6% in 2023