craig

I get exit velocity leading to high BABIP. Still, .407 seems a little beyond the pale even with that. My hypothesis is that it's a combination of BOTH some BABIP-luck AND the good exit-velo. I don't expect him to be BABIP-ing north of .370 next year or in the majors. Thanks for the K-rate. That definitely does show real progress versus mostly random scatter. Still, doing the tacky-non split is obviously skewed by April. Lots more than tacky-ball contributing to 43% April. Tacky May-June is low-30's, July-August is high-20's. 5% kind of drop is great and real, but it's not like the K-issue is gone. 29% in August is still bad, and not **that** much below 31.7% in June. The 24% September, that's down quite a bit. But that's also a 1-HR month. Is 14:1 K/HR what we want? I hypothesize that every HR/K guy is constantly doing HR-vs-K balancing act. He got hot in July, between regular new-ball and coincidence. August, K-rate climbed back up; September it dropped. Perhaps he really was learning to make contact in September... Or maybe after high-K August, he cut back a little bit on his swing, and sacrificed some HR bash? Dancing on the K-bash balance line may always be a challenge. I fully agree, *IF* he can "control" the K's, he can be a good hitter. But how well he "controls" it will impact "elite" versus "good". Schwarber was analogized, and as a mid-40's HR guy, he's found a balance that works for him. 47 HR, 215 K's, .197 BA, that's fine for his balance to stay at .817 OPS. But 47HR's is hard. I hope Caissie blossoms into a mid-40's HR guy like Schwarber, but I'd love it if he could control the K's enough to stay north of .230 BA and match or exceed Schwarber's HR-walk/based .340 career OBP. Maybe unfair to hope for, but I'd love to hope for somebody BETTER than Schwarber, both defensively and in terms of K-control and overall offense.

Caissie, Alcantara, and Ballesteros at 4, 5, and 8 reflect the massive amount of risk within the system. Each of these three guys are huge-risk guys with failure pathways. Will Ballesteros really be able to catch at a big-league level? Maybe yes, but that isn't safe at all. If he can't, he's not a high-value prospect. Caissie and Alcantara both have huge contact risk. Alcantara with the huge long levers, it wouldn't shock if his power deteriorates against better velocity and fewer mistakes . K-ing half the time in the no-pitching AFL reflects the risk. He may hit like Brennen Davis by the time he hits AAA, who knows? Hopefully he can get smarter and make enough adjustments so that he can make enough contact to make it work. But yeah, certainly the risk is there that offensively he'll be Patrick Wisdom with less game power. This season will be a good test for Alcantara, to see if the contact and OBP can improve, and the HR's. It's fun to talk about his hypothetical power, but last year he hit 13 HR's. Projecting power is fun, and BP-power is fun. But you have to hit the ball solidly off of game-pitching to hit real-game HR's. It's time to see more in-game HR power start to show. Caissie: Do you guys think he's too unathletic to play 1B? Given Happ/Suzuki, Caissie's going to be blocked for a while, and obviously 1B is wide open. I know it would waste his strong arm. And 1B defense is super important, much more so than RF or LF or 3B, so if he stinks at 1B that wouldn't be a pathway. Just trying to think about options. I wonder how fluky some of Caissie's 2023 was? .289 average and .398-OBP seem lovely for a HR-hitting slugger. And we've gotten the exit-velocity excellence. But even with good exit-velocity, is a .407 BABIP real and sutainable for a slow big man? Replace his .407 BABIP with an above-average-but-not-extraordinary .320 BABIP and he would have been a .235-BA guy. 1908, I'm not really a believer that his K-rate was so severely tacky-ball sourced. If I just do his monthly K/AB, it was an extraordinary 52% in April, obviously that got better. But for May-June-July-August, it was 37%-38%-32%-36%. (I'm not doing per-AB because milb doesn't tabulate PA per month.). Anyway, my point is that I'm not seeing a huge pattern beyond kinda random after April. He's up in the 32-38% range. I wonder what adjustments if any he will make this season. If he's holding the .400 BABIP, maybe he'll have no reason to mess with success? Maybe with another year of experience, he'll be actually better at HR's? He's big and strong enough that you'd think he might jump his HR's from 22 to 32, or some nice step like that? Every HR is a hit, so a bunch more HR hits is great for BA, OBP, and slugging. He might also adapt by swinging earlier in the count? The obvious adjustment for most K-guys to reduce the K's is to swing earlier and try to resolve more counts before reaching two strikes. Nobody gets hit or HR's with 2-strikes, so perhaps he can trim his scary K-rates some by swinging earlier. But, obviously that's a balance. Average, HR's, and slug would probably benefit; but walks would take a dive and OBP as well. My guess is that he will reduce his K-rate (and walk-rate) to some degree by swinging more aggressively. HR's will improve; OBP will drop; my guess is BA was so BABIP-lucky that even with a more aggressive approach, that his BA will still drop despite making contact more often.

Key questions for me: How much HR power? 3B-defense? Pull? 1. I'm less concerned with the low-walk swing-away approach. If he swings at strikes, and hits them, his walk totals will be modest. If he's chasing everything, that's a problem, but not swinging-at and hitting strikes. Eventually I'd like to see fair share of walks, but I think that's a much more adjustable thing for a guy who isn't K-oriented. Hits are better than walks, HR's are better than singles. 2. Short term, the 3B-question is central. I get that his arm isn't great, and it's not like he's a stud SS anyway. But, I assume most guys who played SS can adapt to playing 3B, even if not necessarily at a high level, and even without an excellent arm. *IF* the bat is there, he doesn't need to be gold-glove. 45th-percentile 3B defense is OK with an .800-OPS bat. Obviously 3B is the open spot in our lineup. I hope Cubs don't mess around with the SS/2B/3B/LF usage this spring. Put him at 3B and do nothing but 3B, 3B, 3B. *IF* he can get that to work, he's got a straight shot to be a regular in a good contending Cubs lineup. 3B is the way. I wonder if the Cubs tossing $2.75M to bring Wisdom back doesn't suggest they don't also hope that Shaw will be the 3B of the future? They are willing to roster-fill pathwork 3B this spring, in hopes that Shaw is the future, and perhaps as soon as August he'll be up and helping a 2024 playoff team? If he hits, he doesn't need to be Chapman or even Madrigal at 3B. 3. Power? Obviously the defensive-acceptability threshold shift with the bat. I wonder how much HR-power he's really got, versus more advanced pitching? 15HR versus 27HR, that's a big difference. A bunch of hits and BA/OBP, a bunch of bases and slug, an extra dozen HR's is a whole bunch of OPS, like 100 OPS points. Is this a guy who's going to hit and slug enough where he'd be an asset DH, or asset OF, or asset 3B even with somewhat below-average defense? Or maybe more like Hoerner with a little more power, a low-walk contact hitter, maybe with 12-15 HR (Hoerner hit 9), but not a guy well into the 20's? HR-level really matters. 4. Pull? I didn't see all of his HR's. But my recall is that many of the ones I saw were opposite-field, RF-line pokes. No big-league HR guys are hitting 20 HR's down the opposite line, so I'm a little nervous that his power is small-sample fluky. I'm curious how much pull-capacity he has or will develop, and think he'll need to be able to yank some. 5. LF seems like a reasonable fallback position if he fails at 3B. Obviously the opportunity and the hitting-expectation changes if he needs to be a winner in LF. 6. 2B: Obviously I want an asset starter for my team, and soon. Shaw won't be that at 2B. But yeah, if he fails at 3B, obviously you an hope he becomes capable at 2B and becomes a 2B/DH trade candidate. 7. Overall I like him ahead of Caissie/Alcantara. Hitting is the hardest thing, and if he can hit for contact, his chance of being a total fail is reduced. He seems like a much safer guy than Caissie/Alcantara.

Have they actually said that control can't be taught? I know Breslow said stuff/velocity first, control 2nd. Originally when there was all the pitch-lab buzz, I had hoped control could be a somewhat natural outflow. If you track all of the finesse details of slot and release point and optimal stride length, etc., I'd thought all of those things could help a guy to reproduce his delivery more consistently. Reproducible, consistent delivery would naturally result in better control. Maybe that has worked a little, and improved some 2nd-percentile guys to 15th-percentile, or something. There's a huge continuum from awful to excellent, so maybe guys are sliding up to variable extend along the anti-awful continuum. But empirically it hasn't seemed to really convert wildmen to average-or-plus control.

Yeah, disagree. How many big-leaguers succeed with 8.5/9 free baserunners? Few. How many guys who are 8.5/9 in A-ball develop into successful control later? Few. I imagine some teenage wildmen work out some control over time. Few, but some. But when a guy's had three years of pro coaching and pitch-lab, and is aleady 21 without improving more, I worry more, not less. Tom, if wildman isn't important at age 21 for a multi-year pro, at what age when do you start to think control is important?

Interesting that Ramirez made a top-10. HOpe they're onto something, and that his end-of-season hot-streak at Myrtle holds up. Cubs need some of these depth guys to work out. Most hitters have some hot and cold patches. I think it helps prospect status to finish hot.

Wildman, 71 wild-on-base in 75 innings (59BB, 12HB). Control is the hardest thing to fix, If he can fix that, sounds like the curve is legit. But haven't seen Cubs prospects this wild get it fixed. Hope he's the exception.

Most guys do it sooner. He had access to top-level equipment and pitch-lab resources in college, even before access to what the Cubs have, and he was probably smart enough and motivated to get the most out of them. Optimizing velocity is Breslow's early stage goal, so I assume they've done most of what they could. Wicks' will turn 25 this season. For most guys, going from 7- or 6-day rotation to 5-day rotation doesn't normally increase velocity. So yeah, I'm guessing that if there was more velocity to be had, they'd have found it before now. Probably. But each guy is his own development project. Perhaps as a fast-track college 1st-rounder, the early priority for Wicks was on changing all of his pitch shapes (other than the change)? Maybe velocity optimization really hasn't been a priority, so only now is he giving primary attention to trying to eek out another 1-2 mph?

Wicks is an important variable. He's got a chance to be a solid-average starter, and we know how expensive solid-average can be. Will be interesting to see how he gets used, and how he progresses. I'm very optimistic, although perhaps a bit more cautious than the consensus here. Some of the questions/variables: HR's. No problem; better-than-leave average; or variably above-average HR-rates? Growth potential. Tom sees growth potential guy, and mentions "2-3 new pitches". Often smart control guys are best able to tweak up stuff to optimize their pitch mix. How much improvement is ahead and how good will Tom's "2-3 new pitches" get? Will any become elite? Velocity improvement seems unlikely at this point. Swing-and-miss. Or will his swing-and-miss and K-rate be just fine? Or is he going to need to make it as a contact guy? Scouting. If change remains signature pitch, will scouting enable hitters to lay off? Consistency: He can win when he's locating the change, the fastball, and the curve. How consistently can he do that, versus having off days when the change isn't exceptional, or fastball location isn't sharp, or the curve is hanging or missing? And how resourceful are his workarounds when one of his pitches isn't sharp? Fatigue: He's been on 7- and 6-day rotations in college and minors. How will his stuff hold up in a 5-day rotation? 1908 mentioned he was fatigued and ineffective in his last starts. When he'd been on a 5-or-6 day rotation for one month, and was clearing 110 well-rested innings on the season. *IF* he's asked to work 5-day rotation for 6 months, and to clear 140 innings, will he get fatigued and lose some effectiveness?

Agree, Kantro and Nichols have earned the benefit of the doubt. They scouted Wiggins as worth a substantial superslot; gave him top-60 bonus; and managed their other draft picks to enable that level of superslot bonus. They did that knowing both his surgery, and knowing his previous wildness. For sure between injury and wildness most pitchers who get $1.4 bonus don't end up being successes. But Kantro's a smart guy, and I don't see any reason to assume his cost-risk decision there wasn't a perfectly appropriate decision. Post-draft, Kantro was pretty effusive about Wiggins, mentioning TORP potential, athleticism, and stuff. As 1908 notes, there were accounts that Wiggins had looked great in fall ball, and that Nichols had seen progress with his control. Time will tell. But would be super fun if they got lucky with a high-ceiling guy.

Yeah, Tom, Wiggins is very interesting. Really a "who knows?" ceiling guy. Brown and Horton came back from surgery; Frisch, Burgman, Brailyn, MacAvene either didn't come back at all, or came back as shell. Hopefully Wiggins comes back fine, but not certainty. Kantro really buzzed his athleticism, and stuff, and also claimed that he'd shown some progress with his control. But, the control will be a huge question. His was awful, he's got a LOT of control improvement ahead to be a good big-leaguer. Hope that happens.

Thanks, 1908. That's helpful input.

Agree that HR-vulnerability for Horton will be worth watching, and could be a challenge for him. 7HR/88 innings last year doesn't seem too bad, but it's not excellent. Horton pitched most of his college draft-season without the signature slider, and was just off of surgery, so not sure how predictively-meaningful his HR-vulnerability then is? I'm glad that you don't see Brown's command that far behind Horton's. Encouraging that even if it's not excellent, it may be well up the anti-awful continuum.

100% agree, sooner or later. I admit for short term, I'd not mind if the Cubs rotation is so deep and great, and Brown pitching so well at Iowa, that he gets brought up this summer in relief to help a 95-win team! Heh heh, Yamamoto is signed and pitches great :):):); Steele and Wicks are both terrific; Hendricks and Taillon are both pitching at their best. Horton is looking like an ace prospect, and Assad is pitching excellently in whatever role. We're just so overloaded with capable starters that Brown is blocked and gets to thrive in relief.

Agree to disagree, which is fine. And I'm not sure I'm really disagreeing that much. I'm not sure his stuff is really that overwhelmingly good that he couldn't be a a relatively average starter, a #4 guy with a 4.3-level ERA. Good curve and 98, yes. But he's not averaging and locating 98, most of his fastballs are NOT that fast, right? Fastball is good, but he's not some exceptional flamethrower. The combination of variably above-average stuff with variably below-average control could leave a guy around average overall. Every guy's actual production is some composite result of his stuff and his control. There's a whole continuum between great control and awful control. Maybe his fastball control will be prohibitively bad. But maybe on the fastball-control continuum, he's 48th percentile or 42nd percentile? A little below average, but not prohibitively bad like a 1st-percentile Dillon Maples? Perhaps modest enough to prohibit being a top-of-rotation starter, but not bad enough to prevent being a #4-caliber starter? "Ben Brown either is going to be consistent enough to stay in a rotation, or he won't.." Agreed. I'm basically saying he might be consistent enough to sustain a 3.5 ERA or perhaps a 4.3 ERA, who knows? But unless the team is stacked with good rotation guys, it might be fine with a 4.3-ERA 4th starter, and consider that consistent enough to stay in rotation. It's not like if his ERA is slipping above 3.5, he's not giving TORP performance so he's got to get kicked out of the rotation. winning teams rarely have 5 TORP-performance starters. For a 150-inning starter, the difference between a 3.5-ERA guy and a 4.3-ERA guy is two bad games. (Like, maybe one dead-arm game in June where he gives up 7 runs in 3 innings, and another 7-runs-in-3-inning outing in September. If the other 25+ starts are 3.5-ERA, would that make Brown unacceptable to be your #4?)

Just for the sake of discussion, I want to perhaps contest the "not the type who's going to settle in as like, a#4." I get it, of course; we talk about "stuff" being TORP or BORP. But in terms of actual productivity, every pitcher's composite stats are a composite of multiple outings, at best and less than best. Every 4.3-ERA starter is better than that most outings; but has the ERA heavily swollen by his 3-5 worst outings. An average 4.3-ERA #4 starter can have modest stuff and never dominate; or TORP stuff but lacks control and consistency and has enough "off" days to have no-better-than-average composite ERA. For Brown, it's entirely possible that his stuff is good enough so that on good days he'll be good, but there will be enough off days so that the composite is kinda #4-starter production. It's kind of a shooting-percentage thing between the good and the bad days. I kinda suspect many (most?) guys who end up being kinda #4 guys were perceived as having serious TORP potential as young prospects, but just never quite have the command or consistency that TORP guys display and TORP-ERA's require. The inconsistency thing isn't unique to TORP-stuff guys, of course. Finesse guys often battle consistency issues as much or even more. I don't perceive Smyly as having big-arm TORP stuff, but on a given day when command is sharp, he had a perfect game into the late innings. Often how a prospect's career will play is determined less by how good their pitches are when at their best, but on how often they aren't at their best; how often they throw mistake pitches; and on how vulnerable their mistakes are.

It's true that relievers are allowed to carry higher walk rates, and are often effective while doing so. But walk rate and control/command are not the same thing. If you can't control the fastball, that leads not only to more walks, more unfavorable counts, more mis-located pitches that are easy to hit and get whacked, and more inconsistency and unreliability from outing to outing. The same guy with the same level of control will have a higher walk-rate in relief because relievers throw more chase pitches, and are often less willing to get as much of the strike zone, so walks naturally go up. Getting an out in relief is like getting an out in rotation: being able to locate the fastball helps whether it's inning 2 or inning 7. If he can't, it's going to hurt him. Pitching is pitching. We've had plenty of Justin Grimms, Carlos Marmol guys in days past. "Too wild in rotation? Put them in relief..." who were still too wild in relief. Palencia, Wesneski this year, their wildness in relief made them hard to use in real games. It's a too-common fallacy to say "Too wild for rotation? Put them in relief." Most guys too wild for the one will also be too wild to excel in the other. I hope that doesn't prove true for Brown.

My perception is that Horton projects better control/command, particularly with fastball, than Brown or Wiggins. Fastball velocity/movement, I think if anything he's probably got less than either Brown or pre-surg Wiggins. But control is to his advantage.

Q's/Notes: Is it your perspective that the slider worked, and was used heavily? Or is that still a once-in-a-while, work-in-progress pitch that most days he can't control and doesn't trust? I'm wondering if being a multi-pitch starter really makes sense for him, or whether he's going to end up better off as a mostly 2-pitch reliever? Did he benefit from the tacky ball? 0.45 ERA in AA-tacky, 5.33 in Iowa. I'd love to keep him and give him another healthy run at Iowa to see how he progresses. For teams that end up with happy endings, often uncertain things turn out favorably. I'd really love to hope that he's a turns-out-in-our-favor guy, we need some of those. Given the upside, not interesting in trading him for a rental. Unfortunately I'm not very confident that he will turn out favorably? Cubs have shown zero capacity to fix wildman; guys who can't control their fastball, when does that ever get fixed? Would be nice if Brown becomes the novel exception, but odds aren't great. Control still matters in relief. A guy who can't control his fastball consistently will have problems with walks, consistency, and whacked-mistakes in relief too. I project Brown will probably eventually settle out as a relief guy. The fastball/curve blend in relief might work pretty well. I don't say that to devalue him. Good relievers are invaluable, if he can become good in that role.

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.

Couple thoughts: 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? 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. 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? 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?

Tom, thanks also for presenting the HR/FB%. I assume that can be a fairly high-scatter phenomenon? I don't know the Saber on that. *IF* Wicks doesn't have an inordinately high HR/FB ratio, that will be very helpful. I admit in younger days, before Saber was as sophisticated, and when sinkerballers were valued, I hae a naive view that finesse guys and sinker-ballers were often pretty HR-vulnerable. When their stuff is on, and everything is working, it's great. But most HR's come on mistakes; when a sinker doesn't sink, a curveball hangs, that's often where the HR's originate. By this perspective, finesse guys and guys with mediocre fastballs like Wicks could be kinda vulnerable on their imperfect days? (Obviously this applies to non-finesse guys as well. Velocity guys hang breaking balls too, and mislocate fastballs.). But that hypothesis would suggest the HR/FB ratio would be elevated. *IF* in fact the HR/FB rate is NOT much worse than average, that's promising that HR's won't Wesneski/Taillon/Smyly him!

Thanks for discussion on Wicks HR rates, 1908 and Tom. Helpful. And yeah, the context and rationalization is helpful. I agree it's plausible to project and hope HR's won't be an acute problem for him future, and logical to assume as a ground-ball guy that they won't. Not to belabor argument, I was really originally just disputing that his stats show anti-HR, they don't. And then you mentioned that it was unwise to worry based off of 34 big-league innings, so I clarified that the minor-league composite showed >1 HR/9 rates too. His junior year in college likewise.

From BA chat, Kyle Glaser:That's all going to depend on if Ballesteros loses weight. He actually has strong hands, shows some flexibility and has a plus arm behind the plate. He just can't move like he needs to be able to. As one Cubs official put it "He's 20 pounds away from being a good defender." He's only 5-foot-7 and there aren't many 5-foot-7 first basemen out there, so it's really catcher or bust with him.

I was alluding to his HR-vulnerability in the minors. 12/91 IP in 2023, 10/95 in 2022. That isn't particularly good for a pitcher facing minor-league hitters. I didn't say it was terrible.