craig

I don't see any problem with the change, and I imagine it makes some sense. Minor leaguers who are in Arizona for spring training, can then stay for some of the no-box-score scrimmage season for one month in April rather than two months of that, and then progress to box-score Complex League in May instead of waiting till June. If they are progressing, then there will be a nice window of Myrtle's season left for them to advance in. So I think it's probably nice for the minor-leaguers. And probably all of the coaches, too. Finishing end of July, for guys that don't advance to Myrtle, that also gives them a longer window within to work on things, or to rest as needed, in advance of Fall Instrux? To be going non-stop from spring training through Fall Instrux with little break might be hard, physically and or homesick-wise? For high school draftees, a HS stud like Hope got 35 AB last year. Kind of a bummer for fans to lose that, but developmentally I'm not sure that's really anything lost. They can still be doing scrimmage work and getting coached as needed. College guys only spent a couple of days there anyway, so who cares? Overall, I think this will just be a nice opportunity for IFA guys and for low-level draftees from the previous year to push their way up to Myrtle faster, and to advance their careers, not delay them?

Killian is one of the couple of guys on the 40-man at risk of getting de-rostered if/when they sign Bellinger or whomever. Hope Sanders breaks out better than Killian. Obviously draft is most likely to hit with 1st rounders. Odds with Sanders aren't great. But it would be so nice if the Cubs D+D started to stack some successes with guys who aren't 1st rounders or > $1M superslots. Would love it if Sanders worked out well, or Birdsell or Paciolla. Gray and Murray. I'm hopeful for Sanders. He wasn't a total wildman in college, so there's a chance that he might develop enough control to be big-league OK in that area. And *IF* they can work up his stuff to work better without giving up a zillion HR's, there's a chance.

If Yamamoto wins the ROY, will the Dodgers still get a free draft pick in the 30's? No, I guess not. Neither BA nor Pipeline included him in their top-100 lists.

Yeah, fun to see Wicks rated so high. Kiley's reports on his stuff were all unusually favorable. Super bummer that Wicks didn't make top-100 from BA or Pipeline. I'd have really loved to have had both Wicks and Busch eligible for the Prospect Promotion Incentive. I've wondered whether, if Wicks hadn't gotten roasted in his last 3 starts, whether BA or pipeline might have top-100'd him. Oh well. I hope he wins ROY, just so I can be more bitter that we don't get a pick for him! Or, better yet, I'll just hope Busch or PCA win ROY, with Wicks coming in 2nd or 3rd! :):)

Love that.

Will be interesting to see if PD + Ferris can improve him over time. Having him eventually emerge as a high-end lefty starter with reasonable control, that would be so huge down the road. Whether as a premium trade candidate, or as a high-ceiling low-cost starter to slide into the rotation. Given the investment the Cubs made to get him, I'd love to hope he could aspire to more than a reliever with control problems. Hope the stuff and velocity plays up better than ever over time, but also that the control can get a little better and a little better, and eventually be not bad at all. Aram talks about the huge movement on some of his breaking stuff, too big to hit and too big to control. I often think of pitch-lab trying add more shape and movement to a guy's breaking ball. But could they perhaps be able to trim some movement off, and make it somewhat more commandable that way?

Tom, I hadn't seen/noticed this post before. those are some interesting thoughts from Breslow, and make good sense. I think some of that is relevant to discussion we've had re Santy's wildness. Do you have a link to the full article, in case it has comments beyond those you quoted? The mechanical markers, I wonder how well the existing Cubs D+D guys are with those versus other orgs? The mental component, I think that's very relevant not only to minor-leaguer guys but also to big-league guys like Little and Palencia. Obviously even Palencia can get hammered when they're sitting fastball and it's located badly, and Wesneski without location is HR-galore. But I'm guessing that Palencia could benefit by trusting and challenging the strike zone more. Both early in count, and when he occasionally gets ahead.

Important guy. Hard to guess how much his issues last year were fundamental capacity, versus health issues. This is only his second off-season in the Cubs development program, so not sure if they might have any tweaks to help with the off-speed stuff. While he's 24, between injuries and Covid he's still got <300 pro-innings. Probably more hoping than expecting, but you'd like to think that there could still be meaningful improvement and increased consistency in the future for a <300-innings guy. I'm a big believer in the value of good relievers. So I'd not minimize his potential value as a reliever... *IF* he can become a good one.

Did the chase and SwStr% profile like that in 2022? He only had 17 AB in majors, all spread out. So I'm not sure his are any more predictive than PCA's. In Canario's case, given the injury comeback, I'm not sure any of his stats from last year, majors or minors, are necessarily representative. Seemed to me he was only just starting to find his groove when they called him up to watch and get un-grooved again. But yeah, maybe that's just who he is, always has been, and always will be. Cubs could kinda use a guy who out-performed the more cautious projections.

Aram's got a 30/30 for Canario's hit tool. I'd like to hope it's not quite THAT bad? Hard to succeed well with a 30-hit. I'd like to hope he's maybe underestimating what Canario's hit might be, down the road? But yeah, that would be the scouting evaluation why a guy with his HR's and OBP/OPS isn't rated more highly. I wonder if the Cub PD see it as that hopeless? HR's are hits, of course, so getting a bunch of HR's helps sustain BA and OBP.

I love Aram's take that Murray can be solid/average defensively at 3b. If defense doesn't hold him back, that widens his window of opportunity. At present, I don't see a perfect solution at 3B. So will be interesting to see how that shakes out long-term, or if they end up going outside to fill it. Murray. If glove is average, offense/OBP could enable him to be a good contender. Shaw: Bat appeals. Can arm be adequate enough, or will that preclude? Triantos: Contact appeals, unclear whether some power will come or if he'll always be more Hoerner-esque offensively. *IF* his hitting becomes pretty desirable, with work can his defense ever become acceptable? Or will he always be a two steps below Murray defensively? Rojas: Could be the perfect all-around solution eventually: good-arm/glove/defense guy who also hits and with a little power? Pretty young, though, so still years to wait, and ability to hit in majors is still lots of projection. Vasquez: D would be great. Could he ever hit enough to actually be a primary guy at 3B? Rivera: D excellent. Probably can't hit, but *IF* his offense surprised us, his defense certainly won't be a showstopper.

That's an important role. Interesting that Hoyer is going with some very young, relatively inexperienced guys for these two key positions. Kantzler is 33. Otero, the new pitching boss, is 30. Kantzler's transition seems an uncommon one, to jump from big-league staff, #3 hitting coach, to minor-league PD boss. I'm guessing both must be impressive personalities to have advanced so quickly. Houston has seemed on cutting edge of PD and hitting ideas, so maybe Kantzler has some insights that will be helpful for some of our guys and their challenges? Young guys with a lot of hunger and ambition can work really hard and pursue ideas, so I trust Cubs were thoughtful in both hires. In Kantzler's case, I'm kinda glad to reach outside the organization. For so much of Theo's reign, it seemed all he did was hire Boston guys, and the organization ended up being way behind the curve. So I kinda think it's refreshing to bring in outside guys. Hoping both end up being really sharp guys who have favorable impact.

Thanks for link to BA podcast, Tom. That was a fun listen; as you say he was quite effusive about the players, the Cubs PD, and how quickly the rebuild has taken place. That was a fun and encouraging listen.

No rip on Santy, he's got some nice qualities. So sure, he's a prospect. Lots of pitchers are. *IF* they get a lot better, lots of guys could become productive in due time. He's got a shot. I like his stuff, for sure. You mentioned "Strength, conditioning, coordination, skill, and experience built over time". Santy turns 22 this winter. I hope he's a beat-the-odds guy, and that with more experience mlb-useful control will come. Sometimes that happens, Randy Johnson had Santy-level walk rates as late as age 23. Hopefully Santy will be an unusual late bloomer. But my observations, after many years following prospects: Santy's walk level at age 21 was significantly worse than the average 21-year-old minor-league, or Carolina leaguer. So his improvements in strength, conditioning, coordination, skill, and experience have more catching up do to than the normal turning-22-year-old in the minors. I hope that happens. Santy's walk-level at age 21 is significantly higher than was true for the vast preponderance of major league pitchers back when they were 21. So again, he'll need more experience-based improvement than was true for the preponderance of major league pitchers. I hope that happens. You rightly mention that you can teach an individual to throw an object in a general direction long before you ask them to hit specific spots in that same direction. But usually guys have been throwing objects for years. If a guy is less accurate than his peers at 21, it's unusual that his accuracy will catch up later. I hope Santy is the unusual guy who does.

Thanks, Tom. Thoughts in paragraph one are well taken. I'd thought your previous post might be leading in a different direction, so this clarifis. "Strength, conditioning, coordination, skill, and experience built over time"; that's well stated.

Thanks. Even if it's still not precise, wouldn't that still be an improvement? So both control and command have gotten somewhat better and improved to some degree?

This is probably dumb, Tom or anybody, but can you explain the relevance of the distinction in this context? On the "better command" spectrum, should not any improvement in command also result in an improvement in control? And how can control improve if command does not improve? I get that "command", the ability to locate within the strike zone, is more advanced than "control", the ability to throw strikes reasonably often. [But without precision that better-command guys have.] But yeah, shouldn't any improvement in control depend on some improvement in command? And if pitch-lab can't improve command, even in the anti-awful direction from 10th percentile to 20th percentile or whatever, how can it improve control?

With Breslow out, I wonder if the Cubs have added any new coaches to the pitching? Or if Jacobsen has any new ideas to implement that Breslow maybe didn't prioritize? Obviously part of the walk thing is just decision as to how willing you are to throw more strikes and allow more contact. Every pitcher (and coach) is always deciding between challenge-and-nibble. If you can't throw fastballs for strikes, obviously that's trouble. But I wonder if Brown and Hodge might need to adjust a little bit in the "challenge" direction?

Brown and Hodge are both fascinating. I'd like to keep them both and see if they can improve. Two guys with stuff that could be mainstays in Cubs pitching group over their team-controlled years. I'd assume they'd have appeal in trade. In hypothetical Tampa/Glasnow talks, for example, Tampa is supposedly interested in young pitching. I suspect other smart organizations see Cubs wildmen and figure they can get more control out of them than can the Cubs development system? Cubs infrastructure has shown no capacity to help control, but I assume some better systems are confident they have developmental ideas for control-refinement that the Cubs just don't know how to do? Might be a kindness by the Cubs to trade kids to somewhere else that can better help them? Brown's BB-rate spiked up from 3.2 and 3.4 in A+/AA to 6.3 at Iowa. I'd like to think the jump reflects some random flukiness, and that perhaps coming back with a reset and a rested healthy arm, that it won't stay so bad? The delivery probably does make make fastball-command harder than average, but his walk rates below AAA don't seem hopelessly bad. Hodge has jumped from 4.7 (Myrtle) to 3.6 (South Bend) to 5.5 (Tennessee). Obviously it only went from bad to worse in relief, and was worse at end-of-season than at beginning, so the relief thing didn't show any hint of reducing the control problems. (A theory is that in relief a guy will sometimes improve his control by just throwing his best 2-3 pitches, rather than working on his worst and wildest pitches.). At South Bend, his control wasn't awful; lots of guys who had 3.6 in A-ball improve and aren't wildmen in the majors. We shall see. But yeah, perhaps some other team can see ways to help him that the Cubs can't see or do, and he'd be better off in a new place with some fresh ideas? Hopefully just some regression to the mean, some improved focus, perhaps some mechanical tweaks will help him to get past the control problems and he'll have a strong season and strong career moving forward.

The Varsho analogy is good. That might be what he turns into. Defense is valuable everywhere for sure; but I think NY's note is legit, that he won't save as many runs in Wrigely as he could in a bigger field. The Kiermaier analogy is also good, although that's not as automatic/floor as we might think. Kiermaier has career OPS+ of 98, with a bunch of seasons as an above-average offensive player to go with his defense. Who knows with PCA longterm, or short. I'm sure hoping he eventually develops into a pretty solid, good offensive player. Maybe even a very good hitter, an asset both ways? That's why he's #1 prospect, he might hit. But for sure there is risk that he'll always be a lineup liability. I hope he's not kinda Jason Heyward, a liability in the lineup most years. (Jason's Cubs OPS+ were 84-94-100-129 [Covid]-69-59.)

Back to old discusison, but Yup, we'll just see. I like Shaw ahead of Caissie, because contact hitting takes away so much of the risk with HR/K guys; because I think there's a reasonable chance he'll do OK at 3b, a position of great opportunity; and whether it's 3rd or someplace else, he'll eventually find a position. (If not at 3B, though, it may not be with us.). Caissie is an excellent prospect, but K/HR guys are guy kinda hard to project. He was 164K/22HR, 8:1 K/HR is higher than you want. Most guys the K/HR ratio gets worse in the majors than in AA, so the risk is nontrivial. As prospects, Caissie and Canario both fall under the K/HR profile. At big-league level, same for Wisdom/Morel. All four have plenty of BP-power. Wisdom's K/HR ratio is just a little too high. It's often kind of a slender thread that differentiates K/HR guys who hit enough HR's to justify, and those who fall a little short, or a lot short. Morel this year has a 5:1 K/HR rate, 116 OPS+, .821 OPS. If he can sustain that, he's going to be an asset in big-league lineups for years. Previous year, he was 8.5:1, .740 OPS, not that appealing. Wisdom was in the 5-6:1 K/HR range two of last three years, the years with OPS of .789 and .823. But when that K/HR ratio drifted up over 7:1 in 2022, his OPS was .725 and you didn't really want him in the lineup. It's just really hard for me to anticipate how the HR's will survive against the best pitchers in the world, for guys who are highly K-prone. Mervis was 3:1 K/HR in 2022, with the 36 HR. That made for a .984 OPS, fantastic. This year he was 5:1 at Iowa, good to support .932 OPS. But Cubs, it was 10:1, resulting in the .242 OBP and .531 OPS. It's tougher in the majors. Hopefully Caissie will get better and better, and Canario too, and Mervis. And Morel will sustain or get better. Would just love to have 2 or 3 of those prospect guys just mashing away, with good K/HR rates, and have Morel sustain his HR-production as well. But really hard for me to project with surety who will survive and thrive in the majors, and who will get wasted.

As mentioned, add Taillon to that rotation, Hoyer has no intention of having him not be a part of it. But take Smyly out. He was HR-fodder in rotation, but was solid in relief, and the pen is really short on lefty relievers. Smyly is better suited for relief than in rotation, and the roster has more need for him in that role. I agree on the plausibility of 6-man talk. I thought Steele looked tired at times late in season; and it probably would have been worse without being on the DL in June. After only a month in rotation Assad did too. In years past, vet starters would often have "dead arm" periods. Wicks has obviously been a 6-day rotation guy, and Horton. Agree that aquisition names (Glasnow, Bieber, Yamamoto, Imanaga...) are not prepared for 180-inning >30-start grind. I think having a depth of guys who can start, so that regular starters all get some breaks, is very desirable. And as Hoyer continues with the rebuild and involves home-grown pitchers, they'll want to handle those guys with a lot of care.

Just to add on: With prospects I do a lot more "hoping" than being-sure-of. I *HOPE* he proves able to play an acceptable 3B, but I don't assume so. I *HOPE* he hits a decent number of HR's, but I'm not sure. I *HOPE* he does great this summer and by August that he's a preferable 3B than Wisdom, Mastrobuoni, or Madrigal, but I'm not "gifting" him that or assuming that. I "HOPE" he takes enough walks to support an asset OBP, but that has yet to be seen. Just like I hope Ballesteros ends up able to catch, and that Caissie, Alcantara, and Canario make enough contact to get to their prodigious power and hit so many HR's that they become asset players. Like 1908, I'd put Shaw #3, ahead of Caissie and Alcantara. In my experience, a lot of SS's are able to transition to 3B, even without rockets, so his probability of become acceptable at 3rd seems probably higher than Ballesteros of becoming acceptable at catcher, for example. I also think guys who are gifted contact hitters have an easier time making modifications, whether to boost walk rates or fly-ball rates or pull-frequency or whatever, compared to guys who have trouble making contact. Very optimistic. But there is no guarantee he'll be an asset starting 3B. And yeah, I do consider the opportunity factor. Caissie may develop into an acceptable LF, as good or better than guys like Schwarber or Castellano or Manny Ramirez back in his day. But Happ and Suzuki are under 3-years of contact and are both good all-around players. So there isn't a direct path to the Cubs lineup for Caissie. Caissie might have a strong season and seem kinda ready, but not take Happs starts. But *IF* Shaw has a strong season and seems kinda ready, I think taking Madrigal's starts is not implausible.

I think we're basically in similar place. I get the "non-linear" and don't-obsess-over-small-trend blips. My original post, which was faulty, had been that post-April months looked like almost random-scatter in terms of K/AB. Your more accurate K/PA shows otherwise, and shows that there was a meaningful reduction, on the 5%-reduction scale. Tacky/regular does not erase the K-rate as a yellow-flag. Any guy who's K'ing >27% in AA, even on regular ball, it's still high risk. I'm partly wanting to self-avoid telling myself "Oh, K's aren't a problem; that was tacky-fall fluke. But K's are fine otherwise." As you say, things are complex. His best HR's month was in tacky-ball era. His K-rate dropped some, but the regular-ball did not result in uptick in HR-productivity. Exit-velo helps BABIP for sure, but there was surely some non-trivial luck involved in .407. So wRC+ was boosted to some degree. Beats me how much. How does any of this relate to his future potential? Beats me! As I noted, like Alcantara and Ballasteros he's a high-risk guy with also a pretty high ceiling. . Big-league pitching is way better than AA; a guy who's 27.1% K-rate at his best, after adjusting and after the regular-ball switch, might have that spike up a LOT in the majors. Or, young guys often progress and adapt, and maybe he will. This challenge may never get any more problematic, and maybe he'll chip away at it over upcoming years, at little cost to his HR-power or his walk rate. Who knows? Maybe he'll end up being able to sustain a >.250 average in the majors someday, with lots of HR's and lots of walks? I think he'll probably need to improve? Some guys do, a lot, beyond his current age. Others kind of plateau, and others actually try to adjust and sometimes lose their best qualities in trying. But I'm guessing that as he was this past 2nd-half, that won't be good enough to succeed. As with almost all young players, he needs to keep getting better. Big-league position is a question. Strictly DH? 1B? Or not bad in LF/RF? A platoon DH who can mash, I'll take that for sure. But being decent at one or more positions can help. How much HR production? Having 70/80 power is fun, but how often will he get to it? Schwarber didn't hit .200, but he still got to 47 HR. Had he gotten to 27, he'd be in a different place. Will Caissie get to enough to make his composite value excellent? Time will tell. I'd like him to be up in Schwarber, Alonso area, and 80-grade power allows for that possibility.

Yes. But given that we're supposedly walking into a contending window, we don't have any 3B prospects close. We all know this, of course, but having Shaw hypothetically work at 3B could be super transformative for the future. Not having to poke along with Wisdom/Madrigal at 3rd.... Not having to drain trade capital and/or financial capital to fill that hole, would really change a lot. Getting a good-hitting, acceptable-defense 3B for years of club control including 3 super-cheap pre-arb years, that has all kinds of beautiful implications for the rest of the roster. I feel that same way about Ballesteros and Amaya. **If** Ballesteros can get in shape and stay in shape and handle the position defensively, and you get 6 years of cost-controlled asset, it impacts everything.