Cubs Winter Top Prospects Rankings: #17 Michael Arias

I'm curious to see how much longer the club let's Arias go as a starter.  Luke Little and Daniel Palencia at roughly the same stage of development a year ago basically got til Memorial Day.  Does Arias get more since the bullpen will (hopefully) be less of an acute need?  Or is this roughly the point in development where a clear future reliever has learned all he can by starting?

3 minutes ago, Bertz said:

I'm curious to see how much longer the club let's Arias go as a starter.  Luke Little and Daniel Palencia at roughly the same stage of development a year ago basically got til Memorial Day.  Does Arias get more since the bullpen will (hopefully) be less of an acute need?  Or is this roughly the point in development where a clear future reliever has learned all he can by starting?

I think they'll go a little longer with Arias for a few reasons. The first, he just hasn't really pitched much and starting should get him more innings, more time and more experience. Secondly, I wonder if the Cubs won't feel the immediate need so much. With Little, Palencia, Alzolay, and a few other arms already in BP, the immediate need to push Arias up may not be there. Lastly, I think it'll help keep him off the 40. If he spends most of the year at South Bend with a small trip to Tennessee as a SP, I think it'll help him not get selected next winter again versus pushing him through the system, having success and maybe him topping out at Iowa as a solid looking reliever. Just guessing with all of this, however, and usually when I guess I'm just flat wrong!  

6 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

I think they'll go a little longer with Arias for a few reasons. The first, he just hasn't really pitched much and starting should get him more innings, more time and more experience. Secondly, I wonder if the Cubs won't feel the immediate need so much. With Little, Palencia, Alzolay, and a few other arms already in BP, the immediate need to push Arias up may not be there. Lastly, I think it'll help keep him off the 40. If he spends most of the year at South Bend with a small trip to Tennessee as a SP, I think it'll help him not get selected next winter again versus pushing him through the system, having success and maybe him topping out at Iowa as a solid looking reliever. Just guessing with all of this, however, and usually when I guess I'm just flat wrong!  

Yeah, starting for SB into Tennessee is my guess for Arias too. He showed surprising pitchability including feel for three pitches and arm strength last year, had one of the handful best P prospect 2023s in the org. He only converted to pitching in 2020 or 2021 too, still a pretty lithe frame too needs to get his weight up like Palencia and Little 

His long-term future, if any, will be as a reliever.  How long he gets rotation starts is hard to guess.  Depends on other guys worthy of starts; on how wild he is; and on how his pitch distribution is looking.  If it's obvious that he's wildman-challenged to have even two pitches that he can throw for strikes, Cubs may not spend a lot of time starting him and working on 3rd and 4th pitches.  Trade value, of course, is better for a guy having rotation success.  And getting more innings is helpful, too.  Obviously would love to see him throwing enough strikes with enough consistency that he'd have possibilities as a rotation guy.  Who knows whether he'll develop and gain consistency.  

3 minutes ago, craig said:

His long-term future, if any, will be as a reliever.  How long he gets rotation starts is hard to guess.  Depends on other guys worthy of starts; on how wild he is; and on how his pitch distribution is looking.  If it's obvious that he's wildman-challenged to have even two pitches that he can throw for strikes, Cubs may not spend a lot of time starting him and working on 3rd and 4th pitches.  Trade value, of course, is better for a guy having rotation success.  And getting more innings is helpful, too.  Obviously would love to see him throwing enough strikes with enough consistency that he'd have possibilities as a rotation guy.  Who knows whether he'll develop and gain consistency.  

Yeah, I think it's very likely he's a reliever. With how little he's pitched, I can see a world where he takes larger than expected steps forward as a starter if given the chance, but I think it's pretty unlikely. Any value the Cubs get out of Arias is a real win considering what he was, so I'm fine with either outcome; reliever or starter.