craig

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.

Thanks, Greg! That's really helpful, and encouraging to hear. My recall of the first and almost only report I'd seen had speculated "Tommy John"; so the prospect that he's already hitting suggests that his long-term development will not be impacted significantly. Super! I'll be interested to see how his hitting and power show as time goes by.

Interesting! Hadn't heard the "confirmed he'll be ready for the start of the season" before. That's great, if true.

I can only speak for myself, but it was the LACK of lots of quality production that alarmed me, along with watching him have a "meh" fastball. He had a really solid year in 2019 for a freshman, but it wasn't spectacular. 2020 was nixed by Covid, and then as a Junior he gave up 90 hits in 92 IP along with 9 HRs. That's worrisome. As I said when he was drafted, here's hoping the org saw something very fixable with the fastball. Being a LHP with a borderline plus plus changeup gives him a lot of leeway to being at least a potential big leaguer in some way, but that fastball (and a breaking ball of some sort) need to make some huge strides. rubes, I admit that was kinda my question, too. Average fastball, hit-per-inning and HR-per-9 performance numbers, 3.7 ERA. Didn't seem like necessarily great stuff if college guys were hitting him like that. Plus with him having declined from Fresh to Junior season, no indication that he was on an improvement trajectory. So yeah, I get the hesitation. But I'm OK with trusting scouts, so I'm still hopeful that they knew what they're doing. Nor was there any indication that the broader scouting media saw his selection as being a reach or anything. So I think this was really more of a scouting/tools/stuff pick than a college-stats pick? Which also maybe kinda fits with the milb article. That basically suggested that, for the moment, he's largely only keeping 2 of his 5 college pitches. Change, his best pitch, was a keep-as-is. He said in college he was 4-seam/2-seam fastball guy; now he seemed to suggest he was going to be dropping the 2-seam. And he said since joining the Cubs he was in search for both a very new curveball and a very new slider. So totally not a case of a "stick-with-what-got-you-here, stick-with-what-you-did-in-college" developmental plan whatsoever.

Greg Huss has Yohendrick Pinango in his South Bend lineup. Didn't he have TJ surgery or something only a few months back? I've kinda been assuming he's out for the year, but am I perhaps remembering wrongly, or mis-reading how quickly a hitting prospect might be able to get back? Just curious whether I am allowed to be more optimistic for him than I'd anticipated?

Good thoughts, Yeah, I hope it helps. One other factor, which can maybe make it harder, is that if a guy has been pitching a way for a while, and the pitch lab suggests improvements, it might be easy to sometimes drift back to your old arm slot and your old stride. So some of the adjustments may make it extra challenging to locate consistently, at least for a while. But yeah, certainly part of the pitch-lab objective is to find slot/stride that feels most natural and is most easy to repeat consistently

Thanks for that link, Tom. [highlight=yellow]Of these three buckets, I'm especially curious about the "command bucket"[/highlight]. To adjust mechanics, arm-slot, grips, to change shape and velocity, that seems very accessible to what pitch lab can analyze. But I'm curious how much help pitch-lab stuff will provide for command? Burl will be an interesting case over this year and next, to see if he can get anywhere. Luke Little might be another interesting challenge. Herz and Jensen, too. Marquez, if he's ever allowed to get any development. Those are all guys who seem to have plenty of stuff; but how consistently will they be able to command it? I I'm also actually kinda interested in McIlvaine. Missed most of the year with injury, and was bad when he came back. But at one point I thought he seemed like a pretty stuff-strong-command-iffy guy. Maybe after the arm stuff, both the stuff and the command will be bad. But it would be fun if he came back fully healthy, got his stuff back or better, and then also showed some progress with his command.

Howard has 302 pro AB, with sub-.600 OPS, and .277 OBP. Hi HS sample is smaller, only 192 AB. And he hit only .396 against mediocre Chicago-area pitchers, .419 as a junior. If his pro sample is dismissable on sample-set basis ("maybe a couple hundred.. PA's"), more so his amateur sample. Either way, his HS sample wasn't especially good, given the level of competition. His summer show-case sample set is smaller yet. Tom, I hope he emerges as a capable hitter, we all do, and his history does not preclude the possibility. But sooner or later, he's going to need to demonstrate that he can actually hit. I hope he will, you expect he will, but thus far there's really not much performance history demonstrating that he has or can. Its hypothetical hopes, obviously no harm in hoping.

I don't know anything, and I'm probably imagining. But it seems to me that some of the new prospects lately have a higher load than I recall back in the Baez/Schwarber/Happ prospect era. I'm probably imagining. But I wonder whether it's coached a little differently now, and a higher load is thought to give better capacity versus the high fastball? I wonder if there tended to be a swing in past that was geared toward lifting keep-the-ball-down pitching, but was variably vulnerable to fastballs up? I wonder if now the coaching, and scouting/drafting too, has more priority on swings that have more ability to sometimes powder some up fastballs? It's not easy, for sure, and perhaps a swing better matched for hard high 4-seamers is more vulnerable to low stuff, etc.. But you'd like to have some guys who, if a pitcher throws up but misses a little bit, of if the hitters swings right or guesses right, that he can hammer some of those, and make pitchers think twice about teasing up there.

Hitting may be the hardest skill in pro sports, perhaps second only to quarterbacking. And of course some quarterbacks (Russell Wilson, for example) couldn't hit a lick in the minors. Don't think anybody has ever questioned Howards defense or frame/athleticism, nor of course his motivation or work-ethic or any of that. It's pretty much all and only a question of whether he can hit enough or not. If he can, we've got a player. If he can't, you've got whatever value a good-glove-no-hit guy provides. It will be great if he can develop into an anti-awful hitter, maybe even into a kinda good one. We're minor-league prospects, hope is what we live on!

Interesting that within a month, Blankmeyer has left the Cubs. One of the late-January Athletic articles by Mooney mentioned this. I'd be curious to hear the story on that.