craig

That Nwogu HR was a blast. Wow. He killed it.

Thanks, Greg. That's really good to hear. Thanks for input. Tangent question: Have you heard anything on McAvene? He pitched a couple of bad innings last summer, so I'd thought he was perhaps substantially rehabbed by last August for that to be true, and would be ready to go. Before camp formally opened, I'd thought the new farm boss had said he was good. But now I haven't heard any reports of him pitching in camp games or being on any opening rosters, and Phil had reference to him being in the IR group. Did he perhaps have a setback, or an additional procedure? Or something totally different? Or is this perhaps just super-duper due-diligence? Or still wanting him healthy pitch-labbing to figure out what if any pitches might actually work for him, and not wanting him facing live hitters for fear that might set back developmental modifications, or something?

From my view, that works well. Age is one of six factors mentioned. But K/W/HR are three performance factors. Obviously a guy with excellent K/W/HR rates at young-for-league, that's awesome when he's favorable on all four of thos variable. . What I don't want is to be jumping guys ahead, so as to make the age variable look good, when the guy is NOT performance ready. If the age is good, but the performance factors (walk rate and home-run rates) are lousy, that doesn't generates optimal trade value, using Mitchell's principles. To me the priority is to place guys where they have opportunity to perform well. If/when they do, jump them up a step and see if they can continue. But I'd like to see guys stack some success at a particular level before jumping them prematurely.

I'm good with holding guys back a little, letting guys experience some success. Bain had a 5.52 ERA, with plenty of HR's, and 70 wild-things (BB+HBP) in 93 innings. If he's a real prospect, he should be improved, and should pitch his way up. If he doesn't, it's time to kinda give up, maybe? I also think a reality in the rebuild will sooner-or-later involve some trading-away of prospects, not just acquiring them. Perhaps guys will look more appealing in trade if they are able to put up some good performance numbers?

I agree on this point. He's been getting advanced. But thus far he hasn't actually shown that his nice-looking swing can actually hit the ball. Hit .211 in AA with only .370 slugging and lots of K's. In the handful of spring AB's I've seen, he always looks balanced with a nice swing, but he fouls off the meatballs and gets blitzed on good pitches. I'd love for him to emerge as a good player, absolutely. But I support letting him repeat and hopefully catch up for a change instead of continuing the over-his-head placement. *IF* he again can't hit, it's easy to diagnose that he just can't hit and isn't a prospect. *IF* he does mash, then you know that he's gotten better, and you can promote him if/when he's earned it. Hitting and confidence are related; hitting .211 is no confidence builder. I'd love to see him emerge as a guy who hits. Up to him to get some hits and HR's.

Watched a couple of AB's while doing other things today. Caissie just ripped an opposite-field line drive single. Had a really comfortable looking swing, against a RHP, on a pitch thrown on lower-outer half. He was easily able to get to it. I wonder how many HR's he'll hit? The impression I've gotten from the couple of good AB's I've seen is that he looks like his swing/stroke is kind of geared towards left field. I know he's got some oppo power, and he may be wise to often guess outside half, so maybe that's just reading the attack correctly. But of course tons of HR power is pull power, and getting the bat out before pitches keep moving further. Everybody knows that it's bad to try to pull everything, and "use the whole field" is wise advice. But I wonder whether somebody power guys get that drilled in so much that they end up not using the pull field enough? Will be interesting how well Caissie can handle inner-half stuff and upper-inside quartile pitches? I've happened to see both of Jacob Wetzel's AB's this spring, he ripped a double to his pull side today. His numbers last year were blah, but I thought he showed some progress as the year progressed. And actually I was a little surprised that a non-drafted Juco guy was placed right into full-season in the first place. Anyway, I thought his swing looked pretty balanced and good. I'd not be surprised to see his numbers look better this year at South Bend. I'm kinda interested and curious for him.

The Franklin hype, seemingly from several sources, is really fun. Great to hear.

Caissie looked competitive in his two AB's against lefties, too.

Brailyn is kind of a magnet for delays, it seems.

I have vague and small-sample memory of what this might involve. Visa issue? PED suspension? Criminal/legal issues? Care for alcoholism or mental health?

I hope PCA ends up being good. Seems like when a guy gets so hyped like this, sometimes the reality isn't quite as awesome. But sure would be fun if the guy can hit.

Thanks Bertz, great catch. I hadn't actually appreciated that those 24 AB were already in full-season ball. Good take.

Brailyn, Vizcaino, and Espinoza are three pitchers who I'm glad will be able to get into camp and start pitching. Glad for them the CBA is resolved. Canario and Velasquez are probably the hitters for whom I'm most glad they can get back to work.

Drew Gray had TJ surgery. Bummer, there was SO much enthusiasm about him. Too bad.

The actual line from the article was: "There is still a month to go before the minor-league season starts, but there’s a chance we could see a pretty aggressive assignment for Crow-Armstrong." PCA had 24 AB as a pro. To skip a full-season level and jump him all the way to A+ would be VERY aggressive. To some degree, skipping short-season and going straight to Myrtle would still qualify as being relatively aggressive for a 24-AB pro. As a California kid, I wonder if they'd like to challenge him with some Midwest-league spring weather, just to experience it a little? Or if that's the last thing they'd want, for a post-injury guy, and where going up to the cold north and batting .135 for the first month could be kind of a confidence-killer?

Nwogu has a really strange, funky, awkward-looking stance and load in that video. I'd seen a clip of him swinging earlier in camp, and also thought his stroke looked really bizaree then too. *IF* he ever ends up being a successful major leaguer, I can't imagine he'll end up with the stance and load that he's using now.

Franklin throwing 97-99 is very encouraging. It reminds me of the recentism nature of rankings. When a guy's been missing for a while, his ranking naturally slides. Will he come back? Healthy? Will lost development time and physical rehab ruin his command? Last year, Brailyn was typically ranked 1, 2, or 3; and Franklin and Thompson were typically in the top 10 or close. Would be super cool if all three came back healthy, as fast (Brailyn) or faster than before (Franklin, Thompson), and with as good or better repertoire's than before. It's kinda hard to know what guys have or haven't been able to work on during time missed. I suspect the Cubs are VERY cautious with prospects, so even when they didn't appear in games, they may still have done plenty of work and made developmental progress anyway? Brailyn, Thompson, McAvene, who knows what they'll look like when they reappear. But it's not impossible that when they do, they'll perhaps look better and considerably more developed than they did before?

Thanks for all those links and info, Tom. Love it! On the Marquee article, they showed a little Howard film, and at one point Triantos was also in the picture. Howard was clearly taller, significantly so, than Triantos. I'd have guessed a good two inches taller? I kinda wonder if Triantos's 6'1" is a little on the high side, but if he's a full 6'1", I'd think Howard must be at 6'3". Maybe it's more 6'.05"-rounding up to 6'2.5, or something like that. But yeah, Howard looks to be really in great shape, he's a physical specimen for sure. The references to Triantos showing serious, explosive power is fun. Effective game power is obviously largely a function of hitting the ball square and having balanced swings that apply weight-transfer and stuff. So I guess I'd wondered whether Triantos was a guy who might hit HR's just because he's such a good hitter, without necessarily having exceptional power. But man it would be fun to combine really good power with a really good hitter both. The reference to Little having lots of movement on his fastball was interesting. Sometimes the really fast guys don't have lots of life. Having both would be a cool combination. Will be curious to see how he performs this summer and what kind of command, if any, he'll be able to show. I've assumed he be a stay-in-Mesa guy; but I wonder if there's any chance he's advanced enough that they'll actually start him at Myrtle?

It would be super cool if Hearn would emerge with some hitting capacity. Part of the fun of prospect watching is having weird and uniquely unexpected developments happen. More often that's with pitchers than hitters, but it would just be really fun if a guy like Hearn or Quintero would pop up and hit. Not sure I've ever seen a prospect K over 50% over a sample size of almost 200 AB. Hearn had 100K in 193 AB. Seems like a really nice, easy-to-like guy, I wish him all the best. Same for Howard, of course, who seems all class.

B12 leaderboard: https://big12sports.com/stats.aspx?path=baseball&year=2021 SEC leaderboard: https://14powers.com/sec-baseball/2021-sec-baseball-statistics/

I'm not a scout so beats me! But that may not be as true for guys who had extraordinary college results? He's a scouting pick, and you plan to change his curve, change his slider, and change his fastball. Most of his pitches. Beats me, but I'm not sure that's equally necessary for all first-round pitchers? He was good, very good; but not extraordinary. IN his league, he was 11th in ERA, and of the top-15-ERA guys, he had the worst hits-per-inning rate. The SEC had 4 first-round pitchers. All had relatively extraordinary stats, Wicks is last number in each list. H/IP: 0.44, 0.61, 0.63, 0.78, 0.98 K/IP: 1.6, 1.5, 1.5, 1.5, 1.28 ERA: 2.1, 2.7, 3.1, 2.8, 3.7 Seems to me his college credentials are kinda irrelevant. He stayed healthy, that's a plus. He was well-above average even with the pitches he was using, that's a plus. But now you're going to change curve, slider, and fastball anyway, so who really cares what he did in college if he's kinda only going to keep one of his college pitches? I want to see what he'll be able to do once he's revamped most of his arsenal!

This whole thing seems like a kinda circular discussion. Tom, Rubes, Mog, and me, we all agree that guys can pitch-lab improve their velocity and their breaking balls and everything. So you draft based on scouting and on what you project a guy to become once you've optimized everything. Where's the argument? Do any of us disagree on that? Rubes correctly notes that his college stuff was better than average, but that his results were not extraordinary, so that if he hypothetically does not improve his velocity and stuff, he's a BOR guy. We all agree that hypothetically he will improve all that stuff, and that's where the hope rests. The hope is that he improves his stuff, and he shows it, and he ends up better than BOR. If he doesn't improve, and kinda just carries his above-average college-stuff up against major-league hitters, he's not going to be that valuable. Do we actually disagree on anything? Maybe Tom and rubes disagree on whether his college stats are something to celebrate or to maybe worry about. But I think either way we all understand that was then, and we care about what will be his future, and he's probably going to be quite a different pitcher future than he was in college.

I finally listened to the Banner interview. He said that McAvene, Thompson, and Franklin all are healthy and looking "great". I'm really curious to see how they look this season. Given that guys haven't pitched a good box-score inning in three years, and that McAvene and Thompson are already 24 and 25, I think it's easy to forget them. But I suspect I'm prone to some recency bias, and if any or all of those three start to stack some good outings, I'll quickly hop back onto the optimism train. The fact that they lost time doesn't mean their talent or future potential is necessarily reduced. Would be cool to have them pop up and look promising.

Greg, have you written anything about or ever interviewed Scott Kobos, or had Cubs people talk to you about him? He had a couple of outings last summer where his walks were up, but otherwise he was statistically superb. 50K/1HR is pretty great, although sometimes small sample sizes allow for fluky stuff. I'm just curious how much excitement there is for his stuff and his possibilities? Or if his stuff maybe doesn't necessarily project all that well to the majors? I know you did NOT include him in your "BEHIND THE SCENES WITH FIVE CUBS PEN ARMS" article. https://northsidebound.com/2022/02/22/system-on-the-rise-behind-the-scenes-with-five-cubs-pen-arms/ Was he perhaps just too successful already, too far up-the-system having already reached AA/AAA to qualify as "behind the scenes?"?

Thanks for notes on Wicks, Greg. That sounds fun.