craig

Will be curious to see how Wicks progresses. I can maybe kinda understand why some evaluators might not love him super much? Depending on their scouting info and perceptions: 1. Turns 24 this season, so he's not young. Age isn't exciting. 2. 3.84 ERA with HR-galore this season. Excellent K/BB, but the high HR's may be yellow flags? 3. Fastball is decent but nothing wow. Solid for a LHP, but maybe nothing electric in itself to make scouts buzz? 4. Change was supposed to be his signature win-pitch. I thought I'd seen report that analytics on his change this season were nothing special? Past is past, the future is unwritten, so who knows. He revised his repertoire dramatically since the draft; I'm optimistic that the best is yet to come. Cubs farm has done well with velocity improvements; maybe at his age he'll still add a little velo? Maybe with revisions to his breaking stuff last year, greater consistency and confidence in those pitches comes this season? And maybe his change will look more special this year than last? But I can maybe understand how some scouts just haven't seen enough pizzazz yet to get super buzzed about him. But he can change that this season, if his performance and stuff warrant it.

Question for farm experts, on alum Cris Morel. 1. I'm thinking I remember Morel having pretty strong lefty-righty splits as a minor-leaguer. Is that true or false? 2. I ask in part because he had strong anti-splits this season: OPS .782 RHP, .627 LHP. 3. How would you project forward? That his big-league split is real and projectable? Maybe his offense rests on HR's, and those come when RHP try to challenge him inside? Or probably a fluke, and his minor-league record is a better predictor? 4. I ask because Bellinger is a big-splits lefty. I'd like a solid-hitting RH platoon for him. Could Morel be that guy? *Or likewise, there are some questions whether Mervis will handle LH pitching well at the big-league level? One possible platoon scenario could involve Morel at 3B with Wisdom playing 1st. But considering Morel the Cubs best platoon option for either Bell or Mervis might be gross, or may not be something Cubs analytics will support or plan for, *IF* they think his awfulness vs LHP in 2022 will carry forward.

Yeah, poor guy has really had the injuries. He must have looked like quite the prospect back during his first year or two as a pro.

McGwire harder for me to guess. He'll turn 19 next month, so he's a little older. I don't think he has the sore-arm history that Mule has. And it's possible that with a baseball-oriented family, that perhaps he's already benefited from relatively advanced developmental stuff. Gym, driveline, private coaching, nutritional stuff, perhaps McGwire has already had a lot of that, and getting more at Mesa won't help that much? Or who knows, it's also well possible that he's been allowed to live a normal high-school-athlete life. Not having been a phenom he's perhaps done less travel-team stuff, with less advanced coaching and hype, who knows? He may have tons of learning and physical maturation ahead for him? The draft info listings, for example, had McGwire an inch taller but 20 pounds lighter than Mule. So he may have a lot more "filling out" left, and lots of developmental adjustments as a result. Beats me, in HS he perhaps lived on fastball/forkball? Perhas as a pro his developmental plan will now prioritize not only adding velocity, but working through curve/slider/cutter/change to try to come up with 3rd and 4th pitches that a strike-throwing starter needs? Who knows? If I was guessing, I'd figure the odds are variably below 50% that he'll start April in Myrtle. Kinda thinking he's more likely to work there for a while, show some consistency, and hopefully earn some Myrtle time more in June or July.

Yeah, Mule would seem to have the stuff to be able to compete very well in Myrtle. I'm just thinking that the goal is developing him. Ferris and McGwire will be 19 all season; Mule will be 18 all season. Mule reportedly had arm problems last season. So I think they are probably going to want to be very careful with him, and kind of have him working under very controlled conditions. Mesa has more controlled practices. I'm guessing guys are less tempted to overthrow than in a box-score game when they're in a jam. Mesa may have more controlled eating and nutritional stuff. Mesa's pitch lab environment is probably more oriented towards force-plate tracking and stuff like that, to help optimize his delivery. In a close game with a box score, I'm guessing a guy might be less oriented towards experimenting with tweaking his delivery or his grip and more focused on throwing strikes that give him a chance to get out of an inning. So I guess I'm just assuming both from a body perspective, and perhaps also from a physiology-optimization and delivery-optimization, that they'll pretty much want to keep Mule at the controlled, protective Mesa environment for at least a couple of months. If he's throwing really well there, and they aren't working on anything super specific, of course a June callup is well possible. I'm just saying VERY unlikely for Mule to see Myrtle in April.

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!