Jump to content
North Side Baseball

craig

Old-Timey Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    4,125

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Profiles

Joomla Posts 1

Chicago Cubs Videos

Chicago Cubs Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

2026 Chicago Cubs Top Prospects Ranking

News

2023 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

Guides & Resources

2024 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

The Chicago Cubs Players Project

2025 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker

Blogs

Events

Forums

Store

Gallery

Everything posted by craig

  1. craig
    Injury, camp performance, and the cost of relief guys in trade or free agency can dictate things. But I totally don't expect Little to make the opening roster. He's got years of options left, and his command and consistency are unreliable. I totally expect that he will start at Iowa, have opportunity to improve and get more consistent, and wait for opportunity and need. Think that will be the setup for a lot of our prospects. Interesting, has a chance to be good, hope he earns it, etc.. But I imagine Little, along with PCA and Canario and probably Palencia, those guys will all start at Iowa. Prove they are ready there, and wait for injury or failure to open their next windows of opportunity.
  2. craig
    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. craig
    Alcantara up to .257.
  4. craig
    I question both, and think the answers determine where his career might go. Triantos hit only 4 HR this season. Imperfect analogy, but suppose Triantos hits like Hoerner? 9HR-Hoerner had a .729 OPS, good for a defensive asset. But Triantos is not going to be asset 2B or 3B. Put a Hoerner-like bat in left field or DH, and you've got 4A. The difference between a 9-HR and 19-HR guy can be pretty big, *IF* the extra HR's don't come at cost. If instead of going 3/10 on BIP those 10 balls go over the wall, that adds like 14 points to OBP, and over 70 points to OPS. Add 70+ points to .729 OPS guy, and suddenly he's an asset DH or LF. Or, .800-OPS guy might start at 3B or 2B even if his defense is modestly below-average. So, I think developing combined raw power and swing path to get to 15+ HR's is a really big deal for Triantos. HR's is more than a function of raw power. Good hitters who can hit the ball square pretty often have a big advantage. If Triantos's blend of swing-path/raw-power was league average, then he might hypothetically have above-average HR rate, based on barreling the ball at above-average rate?
  5. craig
    Jose Romero, what do we know? He's short, he isn't young (22), he's K'd a lot of guys in low minors. Any stuff that's worth tracking, or just a roster-filler?
  6. craig
    Anybody watching any South Bend games with any perspective on his catching? Show-stopper bad, so that if he has a major-league career, it's DH or nothing? Or is his catching perhaps decent enough so that *IF* he works at it and improves, he might have a shot to be usable as a big-league catcher? It's obviously the career hinge. 3 options: DH only. Could improve enough to become a possibility even as a primary catcher. Might improve enough to be accepted as a #2 catcher, but can never be a primary guy. It may be too soon to tell. Sometimes catcher defense improves a lot with time and work. And sometimes opinions vary a lot, might get different scouts who project his future defense very differently.
  7. craig
    I could imagine him getting used kinda like Wicks this year. Wicks got 91 innings in the minors. 6-day rotation when resting him the least. Limited innings-per-start. A couple of starts skipped, July 12 and July 29. By August they extended his rest, with 6, 7, and 9 day starts in August. It's possible that Horton might actually be allowed a few more innings next summer than Wicks was this summer, just because Wicks is more nibbly? Horton might hypothetically throw the same number of pitches, but get 100 innings where Wicks got 91?
  8. craig
    Wild has been the norm, not the recent exception. Counting the HBP in addition to the BB, he's 37 wildman/59IP on the season. More baserunners via wildman than via hits (37 wildman/34 hits/59IP). That's 6 wildman/9IP for the season. Wildman/inning: May: 5/11 June: 11/9 July: 7/11 August: 14/19 Seems pretty evident that wildman is a hinge on which his career will swing. Sometimes guys get better, and hopefully he'l be one of them.. Lots of guys don't.
  9. craig
    Thanks, Tiger, for confirm on Little back-to-back. Very interesting! Pretty obviously reflects perspective transition from D+D to application.
  10. craig
    milb box scores shows Luke Little having pitched 0.2 yesterday. Was that true, or was it actually Brendan Little or somebody else? I'm curious because if true, that's the first back-to-back of his career, a career in which only once before has he pitched with less than two days of rest between appearances. One of the challenges with minor league pitchers transitioning to the majors is that minor league starters work 6 day rotations instead of 5, and relievers work on 3 or 4-day rotation instead of every-other or back-to-back that big-leaguers throw. Obviously few minor-league relief callups get used in high-leverage spots, though. So on a good team, some new un-trusted back-of-pen callup isn't going to be asked for much back-to-back or every-other-day usage.
  11. craig
    I don't get the "inconsistent standards" complaint! What no-position prospects are ranked in the org's top 10? PCA, Alcantara, Shaw, all are perceived as position-capable by people who top-10 them. And I imagine people who top-10 Caissie do that with the perception that he can play RF/LF. So where's the inconsistency of standards? Nobody is ranking McGeary top 10.
  12. craig
    No knock on Murray. But 20th in HR's, 7th in slugging, batting in the .260's, having an .865 OPS, those are good but not "wow" offensive numbers. Not "next-great-DH" numbers for a 23-year-old. He may project to add significantly more power, I don't know? As you've noted his baseball experience may not match his age, so hopefully he's got a lot more improvement ahead. I'm guessing that physically, he probably doesn't have a lot of "when he fills out he'll add more power" projection left?
  13. craig
    Murray's not going to get top-10'd as a 5'10" defensive 1B, that's all I'm saying. Your question was what he needs to do to get discussed among the top-10 guys. The answer is to emerge as a guy with starter-caliber 3B-defense. It's not complicated. Cubs have a good and a deep system. Guys who aren't top-10 will have successful careers, and outperform guys who rated higher. The "top-10-or-not" issue doesn't matter to me.
  14. craig
    Tom, I'm the one obsessed with 1B defense, I often think that's almost the most impactful defensive position on the field given how many plays they're involved. After seeing Bellinger there, I'm reminded often of how great it is to have his range on all the throws. I'd never want a Donovan Solano playing 1B for my team. I can't speak for others, but for me the capacity to play a spot defensively applies to anybody who's in or near my top-10. It's one (among other) reasons why I think it's ludicrous for anybody to include Triantos in their top-10's. At present, he projects as a liabilility at any defensive spot. It's certainly a question with Caissie, too. He's got a rocket in RF, but I don't get the sense his range is good, and guys don't normally get rangier as they add years. So, *IF* he really shakes out as DH-only, is Caissie's bat THAT good? (With his power potential, it might be; but it's a pretty high bar. And with all his K's, it's tough.). Ballesteros, likewise. Can he actually catch? If so, I love him as a prospect. But if he can't, I can't put him in a top 10. He's even shorter than Murray, no way I want Ballesteros playing 1B more than on a once-in-a-while contingency basis.
  15. craig
    As Tim and mogrified mentioned, the 3B defense is the path. When he improves himself so that people perceive him as a capable every-day big-league 3B defender, people will include him in top-10 discussion. A short 5'10" guy has no wing-span at 1B, so 1B is no path. If he never surpasses liability-emergency capacity at 3B and 1B, top 10 isn't appropriate.
  16. craig
    Nice for Brennen. Probably been a couple of years since a 3-hit game, or one with two XBH.
  17. craig
    Prospect Promotion Incentive, two articles. The top link is much more detailed and useful, the bottom one is shallow and misleading. Wanted to post a topic on this just for future reference, since it's hard to remember the details. https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/mlb-prospect-promotion-incentive-rookie-year-cba/ja5ts8eaxcuv85xujnzriafb https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/33761266/the-end-mlb-service-manipulation-how-kris-bryant-paved-way-next-kris-bryant It's ironic that the requirement is for prospect to be top-100 on 2/3 of MLB.com, espn, or BA prospect lists. Given how we don't necessarily respect BA's list as much as other lists. The sportingnews author says ROY 2 + 3 can win draft picks in the international draft, which of course never happened. To your knowledge, is there perhaps a spending allotment instead? I assume not, and that there is no reward for 2nd/3rd in ROY with no international draft in place. Don't think this is Cub-relevant for this year or next. Doubt either PCA or Horton will either win ROY or make opening roster or get full-season service time. Same for Shaw, who isn't currently on 2/3 of those three top-100 lists. (Although he may well be after the season wraps.)
  18. craig
    The negotiation leverage for future draft agents is a great point. Hadn't considered that.
  19. craig
    From economics standpoint, I think hustling guys up quickly is of dubious value. Six years till free agency, I don't want to waste the first year and two on development. I'd prefer as much development to for free in the minors, then get as much real big-league value as possible during the cheap and club-controlled years. Thus, I'm in no rush to call up Brown, Horton, PCA, Wicks, Shaw economics-wise. *If* there is hypothetically still development to be gained in the minors, it's economically advantageous to get them as fully-developed as possible before calling them up. Obviously economics is one thing, winning is another. Years-distant budget considerations are routinely outweighed by Nowacrate W-L considerations.
  20. craig
    Neto, by the way, has a .315 OBP and .411 slugging. [His OBP isn't worse because he gets HBP a lot. He's got more HBP than walks, enabling the >.300 OBP with only a .241 BA.] Perhaps that's just the developmental beginning, and he's going to improve in future. Being 96 OPS+ as a rookie is a pretty good way to start a career, and he may get better and better. But, I also wonder whether he may not perhaps already be near his ceiling? And maybe won't get very much better than he already is? Not trying to criticize him. But if the Angels hypothetically get future what they've already got now, a kinda average guy might not be all that exciting long-term. Even if they got anti-awful from Neto very quickly.
  21. craig
    We're a farm-loving group. But I admit I've never really understood the resentment over removing the Northwest League. Compressing from 7 to 6 levels doesn't look like that slippery of a slope to me. The goal is player development, and I think that is better served in Mesa with all of its facilities and volume of coaches and pitch-lab and weight-room resources, etc., rather than sending some up to Eugene and its long bus rides. That was the perception of the player-development people more than finances. The cost factor for Eugene was a drop in the bucket relative to Cub expenses. There have always been occasional guys who fast-tracked it to the majors. Neto and Schanuel, Hoerner and Schwarber. There was a pitcher named Burt Hooton who the Cubs drafted and brought to the majors without a single minor-league appearance back in the 70's. I suspect that college is better at player-development now than in years past. The usage of analytics is advanced. So maybe some guys will reach their peaks more quickly. But minor league baseball and player development have plenty of future.
  22. craig
    Derniche gets BABIP up over .400. Kinda crazy to whiff 47% of his AB, yet BABIP that high. To K half he AB's, he must be swinging-and-missing-altogether on a lot of pitches. Usually a guy who misses completely on so many pitches, you'd think he'd miss partially on a lot of others, and get a lot of weak contact top-side or bottom-side on swings that don't totally miss. Yet the HR's and BABIP suggest that he does hit the ball square pretty often on his non-K AB's. Weird. Not sure how sustainable, but he's a funky case.
  23. craig
    Thanks for observations, Tom. That's bad. I have zero interest in a 5'10" 1st baseman defensively. Short levers, the catch radius on throws is unacceptable. Personally I don't ever want to see a 5'10" primary 1B. So, for me that means he's a DH/bad-3B prospect. Maybe he can develop into an anti-awful left-fielder if his offense is good enough to make it worthwhile?
  24. craig
    BJ's OPS is at .864. What are updates on BJ's defense? Last year I think it reported as bad wherever he played. But this year, a little more consistent? Any updated perceptions on Ballesteros defense-wise?
  25. craig
    Shaw's 1st SB HR was a RF line deal, this one well off the line but again RF. I wonder if he's in the Hoerner mode (until recently), where he's a pretty committed RF guy? Hoerner has improved more recently when he uses the whole field, including pull side.
×
×
  • Create New...