craig

Thanks for link Tom. Very interesting, and gushy. One little note that surprised me was by the article author Todd Johnson, who wrote about Mathis: When did Mathis actually have his surgery, and isn't he likely to miss some time? Seems like he only had the TJ in mid-August, so I'd imagine he's not likely to be ful-go, even full-DH go, in spring, is he? Even in his August Instagram post, Mathis makes reference to "opportunity to live out my dream even if it may be delayed." Obviously missing last August was already being delayed, so maybe he meant no more than that. Anyway, I'll be thrilled if he's ready to go this spring. Or gets ready soon enough that we get a good look at him this season. In his instagram last august he wrote "But the Cubs have welcomed me and allowed me to join their organization the way I was." Not sure if that meant after he was drafted and he went to his physical, or whatever; or whether they knew "the way he was" even before they drafted him and paid him full slot. I'm guessing they didn't know. Cole Mathis (@colemathis7) • Instagram photos and videos WWW.INSTAGRAM.COM 585 likes, 22 comments - colemathis7 on August 15, 2024: "Not the way I envisioned visiting Chicago for the first time. But the Cubs have welcomed me and allowed me to join their...

https://www.mlb.com/prospects/orioles/samuel-basallo-694212 Pipeline seems to consider 1B as a reasonable fallback option. Moises' has no fallback but DH.

I'm not up on things, but Basallo lists as 6'4", Moises at 5'8". As 1908 says, 6'4" just looks like more big-time power. And for guys who might not be big-league defensive catchers, 6'4" fits 1B way better than 5'8"?

The only way the prospects are at their "highest value" now is if they stall or regress in future. They get "for-their-age" benefit, with presumption that they will improve. If Alcantara neither fills out nor hits more HR's, his value will decline. *IF* Triantos gets better, *IF* Caissie progresses, *IF* Alcantara starts to launch more often, then value won't decline. Future value may be in trade. Or may be as starters or bench players for the Cubs. But I presume that value will rise if prospects improve and manifest progressive improvement. Not-ready-to-start-now guys have less value than ready-to-start-now prospects. Triantos, Caissie, Ballesteros aren't quite ready-to-start-now.

One more thought. I think it was smart to put Triantos at 2B, and just let him work at that and improve there. Maybe that's a work in progress, and repeating that for another season is the best developmental path. But, I also wonder if some of the defensive gains he made at 2nd, might not also now carry over at 3B? And whether for this season, he'll get more starts at 3B to try to develop his capacity as a utility guy? Or maybe both 3B and OF, try to get more comfortable at all of them, so that if he was to make the team at some point during 2026, that serving as a multi-position bench guy would be something he could be fully ready for?

It might be, but I also don't think it needs to be triantos or Shaw. I think there is space for both. Cubs have so often struggled with crummy bench players who don't produce. Part of my vision for the farm group is that moving forward, we might have good hitters on the bench. When a starter needs a rest, you've got a good backup. Starter faces a bad matchup, play the sub. Starter in injured, you've got somebody, Starter in a slump, replace him for a while. I'd like at least one between Triantos and Shaw to have that capacity. Obviously Triantos has the arm for outfield, Shaw won't be a regular SS but he's got SS capacity. Hoerner's only got two years guaranteed left. Next winter might be a better time to evaluate whether Hoerner should be extended, or if Triantos and Shaw will become 2B/utility in some fashion. Other note on Triantos is the base-stealing. He was on pace for north of 50 steals before the injury. If all of those extra stolen bases were calculated into his ISO, we'd not be fussing. With the new rules, might he end up being a very productive big-league base-stealer? Could be some value added.

Q: The ground-ball data and the launch-angle data, that's all taken from his 86 AB at Iowa? Or does data from AA (and below) reflect the same issues? (Or qualitative observation?) I'm kinda wondering whether it's possibly small-sample issue, or is all real. For curiosity, is his groundball rate higher or lower than Alcantara? I'd patient with some of these guys, Triantos included. It's still too soon to know where his development might still go. I'm in no hurry to trade any of them. Triantos is still only 21. Obviously if a guy doesn't improve, the longer you wait the less value he'll have; but I'm thinking that if he DOES continue to develop and improve, the value will rise considerably. What we could get now might not come close to the value we might get next year... And what we could get now might not come close the value we might get by keeping him. Consider last year: He worked on his defense, and it got better. 1908, even if BA's enthusiasm is overstated, his perception today on his defense is way better than a year ago. Likewise the base-stealing seemed to emerge out of nowhere, nobody was discussing him as a big base-stealer last year. Point being, there were areas of his game that he worked on, and non-trivial improvements resulted. I'm hoping that will happen again, with ground-ball, with launch angle, with physical strength, with extra-base power; with exit velocity; and with continued improvement defensively.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5951131/2024/11/27/chicago-cubs-offseason-mlb-notebook/?source=dailyemail&campaign=601983&userId=212065 Wrong thread, I know. But article says Ben Brown has been cleared for normal offseason throwing program. Having him both healthy and at his best could be a huge variable in the 2025 season.

https://www.mlb.com/gameday/solar-sox-vs-saguaros/2024/10/28/787551/final/box Not to be negative. But looking at today's box score, his OPS is only 3rd on his team, and the other team had a higher-OPS guy too. (One an age-24 CF, one a 21-year-old catcher with strong defensive scouting. Obviously as always Moises' has the "for-his-age" appeal. But every team in the AFL has one or more guys with numbers in his ballpark.). Young for age means a ton. In his league, he's 9th in OPS, 8th in average, 3rd in HR. Excellent for sure. Especially for a catcher, less for a DH.

I'm fine with Cam being that high. I'd rank him higher than 7th on my Cubs list. Shiny-new-toy over-rating is obviously possible, and his history is too short to know. So of course he may end up being significantly flawed once those flaws have time to manifest. But my feeling is that a big-power-potential guy taken in the first has a high ceiling. No evidence yet that flaws will limit. So I'm going to dream big dreams until there is reason to tone them down. Positional fit shouldn't matter to pipeline, but it does to me. Early input suggests that Smith can play a good 3B and has a big arm for it. The possibility of locking down 3B with a good-hitting power guy is appealing. The path for him seems very straightforward.

Interesting that Rojas made list. I wasn't sure that .245/.310/.336 with only 6 HR and 10 doubles would make a guy top-100. The writeup also questions whether he'll really stick at SS, or will move off. Encouraging that their scouting observation is favorable enough to still rank him that high.

Dumb questions from a guy who is neither a coach nor a SABER expert. How adjustable is "too-many-groundballs"? Like, is that something that can be coached away and adjusted away? Or would it take a significant change in how a guy swings to change that, and the cure might be worse than the disease? Alcantara has been a pro for 6 years receiving pro coaching and input. Every player is constantly trying to adjust and optimize his game and production. I often think that guys are pretty smart at figuring out what's the optimal compromise for themselves. Perhaps Alcantara has done that, and has already deduced that his current approach, ground-balls and all, is better than any adjusted approach? Are there many examples in pro ball for guys who have flipped from ground-ball guys to air guys? Maybe that kind of change happens often, with great successful profit?

What kind of velocity does Gray have these days? In earlier days I thought the projection was that he'd mature into good velocity. Has that never really happened? Or is it decent?

Long a K, no BB, hitless day. Crazy!

Moises doesn't pull them often, but I love those when he does.

Long will be an interesting one. He's barely one year into his pro career, so I think there is considerable opportunity for development. And as a guy who looks productive, I think that should increase organizational interest in developing positional flexibility. If limited to 1B/PH/DH, I think that's a limited role. I'd love to see him go to AFL or some place developmental, and give him a bunch of LF/3B action. No, he's not going to play left like Happ, and even Wisdom-level OF probably is beyond his scope. But man I'd love to at least give his a shot at some diversification, and some chance to become a bench guy with some flexibility. At 15HR, he's only a couple behind Shaw and Moises (17 and 18), and he obviously produced more HR power than popular prospect Alcantra (11).

Other than Shaw, guys kinda always look great on HR- swings. The balance and weight-shift never looks bad on HR's. (shaw, with his huge leg-kick, is somewhat unusual in that he still looks kinda yucky even on some HR's...). But, my ramble is that maybe Shaw looks hopelessly off-balance and out-of-time on some non-HR swings. But many, it looks like he has almost no leg kick, and a pretty short stride. Doesn't look like he needs to guess or commit very early at all, and while his follow-through seems to get excellent extension, his actual swing from load-to-contact seems pretty quick and compact? A couple days ago he reached and lifted a low breaking ball. But several of these recent ones seem to be on top-of-zone pitches. I think a lot of the 2016-era Cubs struggled with top-of-zone pitches; they liked to lift the low ones. In the modern game with so much top-of-zone pitching, I wonder if Smith has a good stroke for top-of-zone pitches, and he might be a good fit?

jose Escobar with a triple. Was he a $$ signing? Or not really.

Like those Melendez notes. Hope he develops and that K's don't kill.

Are you guys pretty strong Franklin fans? On another board I've seen his name suggested as a 40-man possibility, maybe AZ Phil too. And I know earlier in the summer he had a good month. Don't think I'd consider giving him a 40-man spot, myself.

Long's season-composite is .288-.386-.471-.857, 75K/295AB.

As Tiger mentioned, that the Cubs only catch Trice as a 3rd catcher once a week is the yellow flag.

I wonder if that isn't a bit misrepresentative? Aren't the "qualified" kinda those who haven't been promoted soon enough to drop off the "qualified" list? In other words, might there not be another dozen guys (like Moises) who were slugging better than Kevin, better enough to get promoted, so they've dropped off the qualified list?

Tom, your guy Trice is now up to 6 games at catcher at Myrtle. In those Myrtle games caught: 6 games 2 errors 3 passed balls 17 SB 3 CS. It's a development thing, so perhaps in a couple of years he'll show a lot of improvement. But the early results don't indicate a defensive prodigy. And the fact that they only catch him one a week makes me wonder if there interest in him as a big-league catcher isn't perhaps kinda modest? Seems kinda like 3rd-catcher status.

Kinda yes, kinda no. Yes: Cameron is a great example of how sometimes a prospect explodes and turns into a really good big-league hitter. That's the hope, that Alcantara will be one of those rare exceptions of a guy who eventually explodes, and becomes better at hitting big-league pitching than minor-league pitching. It's possible. Sammy Sosa's another type example. 10HR for Cubs age 22; age 24 he hit 33; age 29 up to 66. At age 19 in minors, he hit only 9 in >500AB; and at age 20 he hit only 8. So yeah, sometimes guys hit lots more in majors than minors. Kinda no: For every Cameron or Sosa who hits and slugs way better in majors than in AA, aren't there about 99 others who hit less? Camerons happen, so I hope the same for Kevin. I hope he's the next Cameron, and maybe the next Sosa. But I kinda feel like that kind of transformation is relatively rare and rather improbable. Plus we're the Cubs. Things like that don't happen for our hitters.