Cubs Winter Top Prospects Rankings: #8: Moises Ballesteros

Speaking of C defense, it sure would be great if they squeezed more juice out of Gomes, or Amaya, who mirrored him in a lot of ways - average pop, average or below framing, below average arm - I think that would be a boon to the run prevention. Hoping Amaya has a little more in the tank another year removed from TJS. Probably wishful thinking. But I feel like his reputation was stronger than what he demonstrated, at least. 

i love Mo's swing. It's pretty easy to see why he makes such exceptional contact.

I'm getting Pablo Sandoval vibes from Ballesteros, although Panda seems to have a few inches on Mo. Still, the comp is not necessarily a bad thing.

The Cubs need to hire Schwarber's nutritionist for him.  

1 hour ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Speaking of C defense, it sure would be great if they squeezed more juice out of Gomes, or Amaya, who mirrored him in a lot of ways - average pop, average or below framing, below average arm - I think that would be a boon to the run prevention. Hoping Amaya has a little more in the tank another year removed from TJS. Probably wishful thinking. But I feel like his reputation was stronger than what he demonstrated, at least. 

 

i love Mo's swing. It's pretty easy to see why he makes such exceptional contact.

I think we have to remember that Amaya basically hadn't played catcher for two years and then spent time as a backup a bunch. Not that he wasn't getting work on the side, but rust probably falls into play. Amaya did score pretty high in framing data, finishing 24th of 65 catchers on baseball savants leaderboards, much higher than Gomes. His blocking data wasn't great, sitting in the bottom third. His pop time was about mid-pack, as well as his arm strength. 

I think overall he looked like a pretty average defensive catcher last year. With more time back and an offseason of work, it shouldn't be shocking to see improvement, but even if this is what he is, he's fine back there, if not impressive.

He's not our best prospect but I think Moises might be my favorite of our prospects.  I'm under no pretenses he'll be a catcher, I know Kirk has made it work but that very much feels like an exception.  But regardless of defensive home doing what Moises has done offensively at his age is ludicrous.

Pablo Sandoval has already been mentioned, but I'll throw out another portly catcher as a comp: Carlos Santana.  I think that more patience-heavy approach feels more in line with what to expect from Ballesteros.

The power to this point has not been amazing, and with his lack of height it might not ever get there.  So there's a chance he ends up a tweener, something like .270/.340/.420 with a 110 wRC+.  That's a good bat, but at 1B or DH that's a low end starter.

So like if you asked me to bet which prospect in the system is most likely to post a career wRC+ north of 100 Moises would be my guy.  But we need to see the power or the defense take a big step forward to see a high ceiling.

Couple thoughts:

1. Physical tools (arm, quickness) are obviously huge at catcher.  But "Soft" stuff, brains, pitch-calling, working with pitchers, those are harder to know, but the Cubs have prioritized those pretty heavily.  I'm curious how Ballesteros profiles there?  
2. Catcher or bust.  5'9" 1B who's too fat to move and has no catch radius, no.  3 games a year as a backup, fine; but having a career as an asset primary 1B, let's not keep that in the discussion.  If he's ever going to be an asset regular position player, that position has to be catcher.  Catcher or bust, there's no fallback alternative.
3. Contact or HR?  Being a contact hitter is great, but I wonder how many HR's there will be?  14 HR in 494PA is nice... for a projectible teenager.  But it's not Canario's 38HR in 594 PA (AA/AAA).  Will Moises HR's grow and be a serious HR-hitting slugger?  I heard Bryan Smith a few weeks back, his view was that to date Moises has been more up-the-middle than pull-power orientated; with a level line-drive swing plane, not a launch-angle stroke at present.  If Moises makes it defensively and becomes a primary catcher, will he be a 15-HR guy, or a 30HR bomber?  Physique impacts the HR question.  When a normal teenager hits 14 HR, I assume his power might increase once he "fills out".  But we  want Moises to "fill in", not "fill out"!!!  In his 14-HR season, was he already as big and strong as he's going to get?  Or even if he reduces some pounds, might he still get physically stronger and more powerful at age 22 and 26?  Who knows?  I'm hoping he'll get more powerful if he gets more lean; not rare for a soft football freshman to really transform their physique and get more fit and powerful by junior/senior years.  Who knows?
4. Motivation.  In the BA chat, Glaser said 'As one Cubs official put it, "He's 20 pounds away from being a good defender."'  Is this a guy who burns with competitive ambition, who will do anything to optimize his physique, and will end up looking like Schwarber or an NFL body in due time?  Does he have the internal fire and self-control and urgency to make that happen?  

Amaya is really important, for 2024 and beyond.  When he came up fast and unexpectedly, it was fun, and his offense started out fast.  But as the season progressed, his bat settled into pretty boring/bad, and defense pretty average.   Without the unsustainable HBP rate that floated his OBP, his offense could be even worse.  

Gomes will be 36.  Will Amaya get better, as a catcher and as a hitter?  Enough to be an acceptable starter, or share-time guy?  Would be fun if he could improve into a decent/solid defensive guy who matured into a competitive hitter, with OPS > .700.  

Would be super awesome if both things happened:  Amaya emerged as a legit decent catcher, maybe nothing great but nothing awful; AND if Ballesteros developed into defense that may not be great but is reasonably solid/average, and if Moises fielded fine but really was an good hitter with good power.  Being able to cover the catcher spot internally for a bunch of club-controlled years at pre-FA price would be such a valuable building block toward a multi-year run as contending team.  

19 minutes ago, craig said:

Amaya is really important, for 2024 and beyond.  When he came up fast and unexpectedly, it was fun, and his offense started out fast.  But as the season progressed, his bat settled into pretty boring/bad, and defense pretty average.   Without the unsustainable HBP rate that floated his OBP, his offense could be even worse.  

Gomes will be 36.  Will Amaya get better, as a catcher and as a hitter?  Enough to be an acceptable starter, or share-time guy?  Would be fun if he could improve into a decent/solid defensive guy who matured into a competitive hitter, with OPS > .700.  

Would be super awesome if both things happened:  Amaya emerged as a legit decent catcher, maybe nothing great but nothing awful; AND if Ballesteros developed into defense that may not be great but is reasonably solid/average, and if Moises fielded fine but really was an good hitter with good power.  Being able to cover the catcher spot internally for a bunch of club-controlled years at pre-FA price would be such a valuable building block toward a multi-year run as contending team.  

Amaya probably doesn't get talked about enough both because as you said he tailed off in the 2nd half and also because Gomes had such a strong season

But I think he looks like a roughly league average hitter (like a 55 in the power and patience departments and a 45 in the hit tool), which is actually a boon at catcher.  The defense was below average, but as 1908 has said there's some major extenuating circumstances.  I'd believe a healthy offseason gets him back to being the plus defender he was reputed to be coming up, I'd also believe the litany of injuries more or less permanently knocked him down a peg.

Last year Amaya came up in early May and caught 41 games.  So roughly 30% of starts at catcher?  I'd expect him and Gomes to be closer to 50/50 this year, and then Jed can decide heading into 2025 if Amaya is looking like the long term starter or the long term backup. 

If Amaya's a clear cut starting caliber catcher, and Ballesteros has done his part, folding him in slowly in '25 feels ideal.  If Amaya's looking more fringy the Ballesteros stuff gets a little more complicated.