craig

Tom, have we gotten scouting info on Nahas? Are you concerned about his mongo HR-rate, or is that fluke or not a concern? 13HR/78 IP, yikes. I've mentioned before, but I'm never quite sure how to process minor-league HR rates. High ones are ALWAYS a concern. But *if* a guy is working on a developmental pitch, which is true for every minor leaguer, maybe the developmental changeup or curveball he's going to hang a few, which end up HR's. That may not mean that 2-5 years from now he'll be hanging those pitches as often or that the HR's will be as problematic future? But major leaguers hang them too, and get punished; so too many hangers minors might be a portent of too-many-hangers in majors too. How many HR's are off fastball? If the fastball doesn't have enough life, and gets whacked when it isn't located perfectly, that's a worry sign. Don't know enough about Nahas to understand why he gives up so many thus far.

Schlaffer, Hodge, and Reid combine on a 13K/0BB night for Myrtle. Howard got 2 hits, including a double. Reid has been pretty interesting. Carraway gave up a 9th-inning game-losing HR. But he pitched 2 innings, that was his only hit, and he only walked 1. His walk rate has been pretty consistent has been perhaps making teensy progress. His monthly BB/IP: May. 10/7 June. 14/6 July. 8/6 Aug. 9/9 Sept: 1/2 So, in a sense there's a little bit of a favorable trend going on there...

Leeper is at 35 innings for the season. If that's his innings limit, that's a pretty low limit.

Little 2 perfect innings, 3K. Hasn't been scored upon yet for Iowa. Composite 2.5 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 33/28 K/IP, and 3.0 GO/AO. I'm guessing when his control is OK, his stuff is useable too. How often the control can be there, hard to guess.

Caissie seems to have very little leg kick in the three pitches we've seen.

That Caissie hit was fun to see. Seemed he has a pretty high set. Not a big leg kick on that one. The Cubs have had a lot of scoop hitters; I wonder if a setup like that might be more conducive to hitting fastballs above the waist?

Stevens, the big Cuban outfielder, has 6 HR in 24 games, and a .960 OPS. Obviously all the other Mesa fascinating prospects are teenagers with projection, and he's already turned 22. So, probably not going to be a real prospect. But I'm not sure how much baseball he's actually played. Maybe the over-age factor isn't as strong a red-flag as in years past? When the Cubs originally signed him for $300, he was originally reported as a pitcher in some sources (Bleacher Nation, for example.). That might suggest he'll have a good RF arm.

Very fun to have Triantos hitting. It would be so fun to have a true-blue hitter.

Tom, do we know anything about Rodriguez stuff-wise? He was outstanding in DSL and given starts and innings as an 18-year-old, which usage often indicated projected if not present stuff. Then he was used and decent in AZL at 19. Now he's been good, but not used heavily, it's not like he was in rotation from the start. Plus he wasn't advanced from AZL after doing fine there two seasons ago. Not sure it adds up. Was he hurt in between?

Has little been injured, or just doing developmental and pitch-lab kind of stuff?

Thanks for mentioning him. Two things that work against him are his age (27), and 8HR/57 IP. Not sure what sources such a high HR-allowed rate. If he could keep the good stuff but eliminate the HR-vulnerability, he might become a fun late-development story.

Good thinking, Jeff, whether Herz going up or somebody else. Hodge has funny stat line. His K/BB seems better than actual results. His overall K/BB/IP looks solid. Ignoring his first 3-walk start, he's been 31/6/26 K/BB/IP. I'd have thought that would be pretty good for a 20-year-old prospect. But he's given up 5 HR over those same 26 innings, so something seems vulnerable. Plus when he isn't K/BB/HR-ing them, his BABIP is like .370. Maybe that's reflective of bad luck; but perhaps not? I'm not always sure how to process guys with good K/BB but who also seem hittable. One explanation is small-sample bad luck. Converse can be that good breaking balls support the K's. But hangers can also support high HR-allowed, and real pitchers, especially young ones, often mix a bunch of hangers in with the good ones. Another explanation is the control/command distinction. May have enough control to make walks look OK, while still throwing a lot of whackable strikes. A third is aggression and risk-allowance. Many big-league pitchers will rarely challenge and will nibble even with 3 balls, rather than throw a whack-it strike and take your chances. I imagine some younger, inexperienced pitchers might be more willing to be aggressive and to throw a whack-it strike rather than putting a guy on base. Who knows with Hodge. But hopefully he'll get better, and the decent K/BB profile will carry up while the whackability hits+HR's profile will decline over time?

Velasquez has 16 HR. In 79 games. Triantos got a couple of hits. Nahas has pretty modest walk rate. Vizcaino was stretched out to 2 IP, his longest outing. 3K, no hits no walks, although one HBP.

Howard on paper would seem the better prospect than Made, with more ceiling. Everybody seems completely confident about his defense, and he's a bigger/stronger with greater power potential. But, in the end hitting trumps size, so in the end the one that ends up hitting better will end up being the better prospect. For now, Made has the edge, since he's hitting better now and is younger besides. But there's a lot of time left for them to show whether either or both has a chance to hit enough to play in the majors.

Mesa Cubs are losing 10-5 in the 7th. But Mena is 4/4, pulling his average up to .247, and his OPS to .673. Hasn't shown much power, but his K-rate is not worrisome. Would be fun if he'd stack some success for a while, and come out of the season looking like he's still a legit prospect, too. Anybody know what's up with Santana the SS from the Darvish deal. I see a Santana in the boxes sometimes, but not consistently. Has he been somewhat hurt, or something? I'd almost like to hope that there's some non-lasting reason why he's been so ineffective this season.

Thanks, Cal! That's really cool and creative. I wonder what the value of the tuition-assistance is? And what the pros-cons are of small-bonus-big-school-assistance versus having given him a larger bonus and lesser college support? I shared this earlier, but U Chicago's quarter system makes the academic/baseball combo much more accessible than at a normal semester-schedule university. Cunningham could fully participate in the Fall and Winter quarters academically, with only minimal delay to the normal minor-league schedule. I love it.

Super idiotic dumb question, is that Ricketts in picture, or somebody else who looks vaguely like him? *If* Ricketts wanted to welcome the bonus baby and be in on the signing, that might have factored into the schedule for his signing?

$2.1M is the slot value for pick 35. $820K above Triantos's actual pick-56 slot. We know they didn't draft him for his speed, or his SS/CF defense; they picked him for his bat. So it's kinda fun that they liked his bat so much, enough for that large of an overslot commitment. Coming up with good hitters is the hardest thing there is. Sure hope the scouts are right on this one.

Roberts numbers are pretty amazing, even if the reliever sample size is small. Seems he looks not only possible but probable to get some big-league opportunity. And given that he's not a wildman, it seems variably probable that he'll be good. Possible that he'll be excellent? Morel, with his 2-HR day his OPS is up to .730, and he's still hanging in north of the Mendoza line, .205. It will be interesting whether he'll ever get much better in terms of contact and batting average? If he improves some, has a chance to maybe be analogous to Marisnick? Good athlete/good-defense low-average athlete with power? Or maybe like Ian Happ, good power, good walks, low batting average guy, some positional flexibility, although Morel would be RH versus Happ as the switch hitter. Roberts is a kinda nice example of an underslot signability draft pick who still was a prospect, and is working out well even if the bonus wasn't that big? Roberts was in the Rohderer draft class, 4th round signed for $130K, >$300K below slot. So only $5K more than a 3rd-day slot pick. -Reminder to myself. I sometimes forget that 2nd-day underslot picks can still be more than just underslot signability guys; they may be pool-savers, but they may still perhaps be prospects too? Watkins (9th) and Chavers (7th) both signed for 3rd day slot ($125K); Spence only $10K above that ($135K); and Opitz in round 8 didn't even get what the 3rd-day college picks get ($90K). Interesting that he wasn't confident he'd be able to get a $125K deal on Day 3..

Obviously the other undesirable source for a delay would be a physical that was taken but showed some yellow or red flags. Hope not.

Hudson's been stacking some good outings recently. Small sample for sure. But opportunities come for lefty relievers. His GO/AO is 4, and he's been getting some K's lately.

Yeah, he's interesting. Do we know anything about him scouting-wise? He lists as 6'3", so he's not a short guy, might be a nice size for pitch-lab velo-development, and perhaps functioning as a starting pitcher? Devers spend two summers 2018-2019 in DSL, and was used as a starter both years. Solid K-rate, lowish BB-rate. My assumption is that usually when an 18-year-old 1st-year DSL rookie is given 50+ innings and starts all the time, that usually hints that they see the guy as projectible and potentially interesting. Perhaps the flip might be that if a guy already had a good DSL season at age 18, that they'd move him up to Mesa for age 19 if his stuff looked excellent? Maybe two DSL rotation seasons implies he was a nice control guy but blah stuff? 16/2 K/BB thus far this season, that's not the typical Cubs wildman. Between this year and his two DSL seasons, he's 125K/35BB/133 IP. That's a good K/BB rate, it would seem. "IF" we were to get a favorable scouting report, I'd immediately be very interested.

Yeah. In the thorough Kantro interview posted yesterday, he kinda said that they only spend Day 3 picks on guys they viewed as both worthwhile prospects; AND as guys they have intel on, suggesting they could have a 50-50 chance of signing, or better. He also mentioned protecting a single $200K bullet, while selecting several guys who might be worth that or might take it, so that it doesn't get wasted. So, even if PBR didn't rate him high, and he wasn't good enough to make his HS team's rotation, and he throws in the 80's (perhaps mostly low 80's) now; evidently the Cubs saw something different and did see Cunningham as a worthwhile prospect. And they obviously had some intel to suggest that he was potentially signable; whether that 50-50-type chance was for the $125 slot, or more if they elected to use their $200K bullet on him who knows. Lots of teams scout and draft long-shot projectability picks. Cunningham won't be the first who probably won't sign and who probably won't ever be a good pro pitcher whether he signs now or later. But he'd seem to be a fun project for the pitch-lab coaches if he did.

In that vein, I wonder if they have a chance with Cunningham since he's committed to the University of Chicago. I'm almost surprised the University of Chicago even has a baseball team, but they do, in Division 3. Chicago actually has a somewhat unusual academic calendar. (My nephew goes there.). They are on quarters, rather than the more traditional fall-spring-summer semesters. Their winter quarter ends start of March; fall quarter doesn't start till the end of September. Remotely unlikely, but some kinda cool scholar-athlete setup might be creative, and might be more do-able than normal thanks to Chicago's unusual quarter system? Most semester-system schools, pro-baseball prohibits both spring and summer semesters, and also interferes with the fall. So a guy who really does want the college experience can't, really. But Cunningham could fully fit the fall and winter quarters, keep his academic program moving rather well, and experience campus life and stuff in a normal way. And being in Chicago, he could be doing workouts and pitch lab and all that stuff even during his academic quarters. It's really expensive, and the scholarship support for national merit scholars isn't that good. *IF* his family isn't wealthy enough to cover his expenses without pause, perhaps the Cubs could be adding a VERY valuable and substantial amount of college money on top of the 125K base?

Caissie's 10-game OBP is .587. 14 walks in ten games helps. So does a BABIP over .550! Fun with small samples. But sure is fun to have somebody getting off to a blazing start.