craig

Tom, things change over a long season. But the comments in that article reinforce that Mule will NOT begin at Myrtle. "priority is building up the body rather than focusing on the repertoire or pitch shape" sounds like Mesa to me. Talented guys can earn their way up, of course.

I’d like to see more Ramirez in top 10s after last year’s rookie ball bonanza .... I don't agree with or understand razzball's thought that shift-rules might make Ramirez less valuable. *Shift rules are designed to allow more in-play contact to go for hits. As a contact guy, this should work for him, not against him. *Shift rules are especially designed to help lefty hitters. As a guy who hits lefty most of the time, this should also work to his advantage. Few contact-hitting right-handers get shifted much anyway. But when he bats LH (most of the time), the new rules should help him just as with any other LH hitter, and more so than those who make less contact.

That's fun. I assume this would be for full-season guys only? I don't have time now, but I'd be curious to see a speculative list of who those 18 guys would be for the Cubs. And how many were rotation guys versus relief?

Thanks, cal. Martin is doing reasonably well in AFL. Horn hasn't allowed any runs, but his K/BB is 6/5. "General soreness" sounds kinda weird. How often do healthy young guys in their low 20's miss a couple of weeks of life for "general soreness". And for guys of any age, who is "generally sore"? as opposed to something specific that's sore? Sounds kinda fishy.

Almost no leg lift.

I wonder what the "ocular training" is, and how effective?

When watching a game on TV, it takes about 1 second to know if a call has been missed. How instantly must the challenges be requested? Too instantly for a video guy to see it, send a signal, and have a player challenge? I'm thinking that if you're given 3 challenges, but you get them back if you're right, a quick snappy video-view/communicate-to-player/challenge process could be completed within seconds, right? And if you get "correct" challenges back, a team might be challenging a dozen calls a game, no?

What a fun season. Thanks for all the threads, and links Cal. And all the other video links and discussion from everybody. Man it's been so fun and interesting, so many stories. I wish it wasn't over, and look forward to a lot of stories continuing next season!

No one else that's had any real success from my check: https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/2020-mlb-undrafted-free-agent-tracker-agreements-for-all-30-teams/#Cubs Sheldon Reed? A year ago I had interest in Bailey Reid, too. But he hasn't pitched much this year, and has been super wild when he did. A year ago Scott Kobos seemed like a great story guy, but he's pitched only a little this season and has been super wild.

Bailey Horn and Leigh continuing to rack up the Tennessee K's. 5 more for Horn in his 2.1 hitless. I haven't gotten much scouting on him since the trade. But he's really finishing the season strongly.

Gallardo racks up 3 more HR's today. 17 on the season, 8 over his last 25 innings. I wonder when the Cubs had their last 17-HR guy?

Bailey Horn is another guy who intrigues me a little. Again, probably just too wild and inconsistent, and will always be too inconsistent, to become very good. But on the sharp nights, I admit he's able to flash some fun box scores. Tonight, pitches-strikes 21-16, 2.0 perfect innings, 5 K's and 1 groundout. Pretty crazy to throw only 5 balls over two innings, and to get 5 K's and 6 outs out of only 16 strikes total. Suggests all 5 K's were on the minimum 3-strikes, with no 2-strike foul balls or anything. Over Horn's last 10 appearances, he's only allowed one run 6 appearances ago, with 29K/16IP. Tonights control, with pitches-strikes 21-16, that is NOT the norm for Bailey. But with all the K's and hard-to-hit, it does make me wonder: *IF* they could hypothetically get him to lock into the Good-Bailey version somewhat more consistently, might the Cubs end up having a pretty useful lefty specialist?

Riley Thompson with his 3rd straight no-run start. I think he's been settling in recently. This hasn't quite been the breakout year for him I'd hoped for, but it's possible that developmentally it's still been pretty good for him. I don't imagine there's 40-man room for a guy like that. But if he doesn't get claimed, it wouldn't shock me if he'd continue to develop? Perhaps 12 months from now we'll see him as a useful guy with value to us or potential value in trade? Or, of course, perhaps he's just a chronic wildman who's just happened to have a couple of good games; but in future will just always have too many wildman games to ever be consistently useful as a major leaguer.

Anybody know where Canario went? Got a single in Iowa game 1, hitless for the next 7, then he's disappeared since Sept 1. Any info or ideas?

Gallardo with 6 hits, 1HR, and 2 walks, and 2 K's through 3 innings. He's at 14 HR's on the year. For South Bend in 6 starts and 27 innings, he's got a 6HR/11K/9BB/27IP. I'm curious what the developmental plan for him will be to try to contain the HR's moving forward, and to try to figure or optimise something that might miss more bats. There is space for lots of different pitching styles, and he'll turn 21 this Wednesday. So there is time to try to figure out some adjustments. At 111 innings, he might have a pretty tired arm by this point, too. So perhaps just coming back next spring with a fresh arm will do his K/HR rate more good than any mechanical optimizations. Perhaps with both some delivery optimizations and a fresh arm, who knows?

Thanks for observations,Tom! Helpful.

Tom, I'm not really an arm-health-risk specialist, so this is totally a sincere question. 1. What is it about Devers' arm action that you think is problematic and would be unable to sustain an extra velocity step? Just too much throwing with arm not the body? Too much arm whip with insufficient legs and core? Too much turning of the back, so that there is too much lateral twist? Or The follow through? What do you think is risky? 2. To my super ignorant amateur eye, I rarely can anticipate what mechanics do or don't lead to issues. But his seem very consistent with a very simple uncomplicated delivery. I watched some 2021 instrux video; It does seem he's further simplified this year from the already simple 2021 delivery. The load/windup is even shorter/smaller than it was then. 3. I wonder what developmental priorities he'll have over the winter. Get a little stronger and faster to beef up velocity? Focus on breaking ball? Tweak the delivery to reduce TJ-risk? 4. I wonder how much pitch-lab thinks about or understands TJ-risk? Understanding how to prevent TJ would be valuable, but probably two-sides to that. Hard enough to have big-league stuff; if risk-reduction reduces the stuff, perhaps that's counterproductive, and guys are better off to pitch with the risk? 5. I wonder what the pitch-lab analytics guys think about his fastball, or what their analytics indicate about it's effectiveness? Does his back-turned quick-pitch delivery make it effectively faster? Does he get as much swing-and-miss and weak-contact on his fastball as bigger prospects with 3-5 more mph? Or does his low velocity represent a fastball that really isn't all that effective?

Strumpf being the best defensive 2B is the only real surprise, in my head I had him as a bat-only profile a la Dan Uggla/Todd Walker. The swing and miss jump this year is still pretty disqualifying given he's still only at AA, but at least if he shows modest improvement or even reverts more to his previous profile of fewer whiffs with fewer XBH, there may be a bench role for him yet. Yeah, that's interesting and encouraging. I was also surprised at Ball, I've assumed he was more of a big DH wannabe. Nice to think that *IF* they hit enough, (unlikely), that their defense might not hold them back.

3K-1walk outing for Leigh. The AA step has not overwhelmed him, at least thus far. Walks and wild still, but the K's and hard-to-hit have remained good through his first 5.2 innings.

Next year, different question, like you say. But I'd not mess with the plan for this season. Whatever the reasoning was, stick to your logic. Today was only 49 pitches, I think? I'm speculating that there's a 60-pitch count, maybe? Has he gone much over 60 in previous outings? I've never gotten much story on him. Last year he didn't show until late in the season, and then only for a couple of innings. Had he been in developmental all year, since draft? Or had he gotten some kind of injury that set him back? Given the potential value, I'm very OK with being very cautious with him. Having seen the wildman crash for Herz on jumping A+ to AA, I admit I'm also somewhat guarded with expectations for both Little and Palencia. Hard to guess how they'll do against higher levels? Possibly really well, but not certain. Sure is fun to have guys with these kinds of possibilities though!

Wasn't a minor-league game, because Manny Rodriquez was already up in the majors last night. Fastball is kinda consistently 96-97, lots of motion; for one of the below-the-belt one, it had tons of sink for being 96-97. Seemed to have reasonable control of the fastball; maybe "control" more than "command." His breaking ball and change, didn't have control last night. But, the note from Az Phil that his velocities were way down in his first game in Mesa, that didn't appear true last night. (On the other hand, perhaps "only" throwing 96-97, maybe that is kinda down for him? First game back, save situation, adrenaline should be pumping max. I'd think a guy should be hitting his absolute top max on the adrenaline rush season debut, and with big loud crowd. Given that he touched 98-99-100 on occasion last year, maybe "96-97" is a little bit off? I'm pretty optimistic about him, though. Having a fastball with that much life is a good starting place, even if there will be inconsistencies with the breaking ball and change.

If the Cubs hit the World Series with Gallardo as one of their asset starters, Hearn and Howard as asset regulars, and Oquendo as an asset pitcher in whatever role, you will certainly absolutely deserve a windfall of praise and vindication! :):). No question whatsoever, in that hypothetical.

I love the binge. Not to be unfair to Moises, but he's it's probably worth noting that he's living it with a .386 BABIP, and has 16:1 K/HR. Does Carolina league restrict shifting? I'm guessing a life built on BABIP would be especially hard for a lefty slow-poke in leagues where scouting and shifting were realities?

4/125 HR/IP Danis Correa. 9/232 Padilla 35/288 Cam Sanders. (3/15 since relief conversion

No. But we'll see. It might not be unusual if a guy isn't going all-out during a rehab inning in Mesa?