craig

Canario's K/HR/BB rate numbers look kinda comparable between South Bend and Tennessee. K-rate is just a hair lower, HR and walk rates all a hair lower in AA. But at South Bend, he had a fluky .382 BABIP, which hasn't carried up. I'd love to imagine that he's in the process of figuring something out. I think odds are more likely that it's the natural ebb-and-flow of hitting. Every time a prospect has a little hot streak, I hope the's figured it out and that his will be the new normal. Usually it's more a series of waves, with some highs and lows, and what goes up must come down. I think as guys improve, they get a little more skillful at being able to extend the highs a little bit longer, and to shorten the lows a little bit.

Love the good Ballesteros news! Very fun to see. It would be so helpful if he worked out as a strong-hitting catcher.

There was reference last week that Brailyn might be able to pitch this year. Do we have a sense for what his health issue(s) have been? I know we've had reference to getting Covid, but not many young men miss 4 months or 16 months due to Covid. Obviously he's had other issues as well. Any insights?

Assuming I calculated correctly, I think PCA has a .451 BABIP. I love the way his season has gone, but he's not going to sustain that.

Yeah, Hill is having a good season. Doesn't K a lot, but getting the HR's rolling this season is new and interesting. Not sure how much priority there is for a corner outfielder, and he's mostly played left. But any guys who can hit, it's kinda nice and difficult, and with the DH you can always use a guy who can hit. Keep it up, Hill! Doesn't seem his numbers are anomalously BABIP flukey or anything, either.

Both hits today were pulled. The several clips I've seen of his hits lately have largely seemed to be on slow breaking balls. Has he been smacking any fastballs? If so, all oppo, or can he pull a fastball, too?

I agree with TT's and Tom's points, that having occasional small-sample success is a fun moment in time. A 3-inning glimpse of what Palencia can look like at his best, that's really fun. But time will tell how repeatable that can be. I think often fans and scouts get fired up by what a guy can do at his best. But sometimes a career is less determined by how good the best is than by how bad the bad is, and how frequent. Obviously no pitcher is consistent, and stats are a composite of sharper days and those that are not so sharp. A couple years ago, Burl had a good inning or two and dominated some powerful SEC or ACC team. It was a glimmer of what Burl *might* become *if* he could hypothetically locate consistently. Maples would always have an inning or two when his fastball was around the plate and his slider was devastating; glimmers of what *might* be a valuable pitcher, *IF* he could ever gain consistency. Hopefully guys like Palencia and Jensen will get more consistent in locating their stuff, and Palencia will have a lot more box scores that look like yesterday's.

In Cubs farms past, prospect pitchers never got pulled from the rotation unless due to injury. I kinda like the developmental concept that if something isn't right, that you try to remediate ASAP. Palencia walked 14 guys in his first 16 innings; maybe getting him away from games and trying to ID and remediate why he's missing so badly so often was exactly what he needed? Jensen's awful, 14BB/16IP, and his habitually bad HR-factory is even worse? Try to remediate ASAP, try to fix him. At least try, I'm good with at least trying. Probably Jensen just doesn't have it in him to consistently throw strikes, much less do so with command. And probably Palencia had a fluke walk-free game, but he probably won't be able to locate with consistency over a larger sample size, I get that. But I like trying to develop and remediate right away.

After starting out April really well (20K/3BB in 12 innings), Riley Thompson hasn't pitched since May 5, the day he didn't get any of 7 batters out. Did he have a recurrence of his previous injury? A new and different injury? Or a recall to the pitch lab to work on something?

I'm not sure I see a lot of "boom", myself? A "boom" pitcher needs some combination of both stuff and command. We've got guys who can be major league contributors, but I'm not sure I'm seeing big "boom" guys? Do Killian or Wicks have the stuff to be "boom", versus 3-4-5 guys? Do Herz or Bain or Franklin have the control to "boom"? Similar for hitters. Do I imagine any of our guys with the power-contact-defense profile to perhaps project as being in-consideration-for-top-5-MVP-guys? Maybe Hernandez will be, beats me. Maybe PCA will develop into a 15-20 HR guy and be really good. But many of the others just seem to have enough imperfections that while useful is within reach for some, "boom" seems relatively remote.

Has Cassie pulled any/many of his hits during his recent hot streak?

Thanks. So if swinging strike rate is up a bit, then it's not a case that he's just making more contact, and that he was just swing-and-missing his way into walk/K counts last year. Not sure if this is logical or saber-intelligent. But I'm not sure a boost in swing-strike rate is necessarily that meaningful? If I'm a power hitter and I'm going to swing at the first pitch, I think I'm going to probably let it rip. Might be more likely to swing-and-miss if he's more willing to let-it-rip, or to do a little more situational guess hitting.

Ball's K rate and BB rates have both changed significantly. (AB/BB from 4.4 to 12.8; AB/K from 2.9 to 5.0). 3 possibilities:' 1. Just a lucky hot month, and he'll relapse towards normal. 2. His swing-contact has maybe jumped? *IF* you hit the ball when you swing, lots of counts won't get deep enough to allow walks or K's... 3. He's intentionally adjusted to swing more earlier in the count? Rather than taking so many pitches and constantly putting himself into deep counts? You can't K if you've already resolved the AB before getting to two strikes. Will be interesting to see if he can sustain any of his success. I admit I kinda love having the DH.

Hodge with another effective game, 5 shutout innings, no walks, although a modest 4K. 5 innings isn't Cubs-normal yet; he did that because it took him only 65 pitches. He turned 21 in February, so he's not super young, but he's also a big guy who might possibly have been improving his stuff? I'll be curious to get a little more scouting info on whether his stuff has big-league possibilities, or he's just getting by due to facing A- hitter.

Zach Leigh had gotten some buzz and some ranking respect. Is he injured? Do we know how badly? Kind of an old cat to start with, so may be one of those guys where the velocity jump and pitch-lab adjustments resulted in injury?

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?