craig

I'd say no, although I don't care and view the "breakout" question and "new skills" as irrelevant. Uncommon for any player to turn up with "NEW" skills. Usually some kind of continuum. Reduce your errors; get somewhat stronger with somewhat more power; mature some and get somewhat faster; get your release point somewhat more consistent and add some velocity consistency with breaking ball. Sometimes there is a "new skill", I guess; a pitcher tinkers and suddenly finds a new grip, so suddenly adds a splitter or a cutter or a sharper slider, and it changes everything abruptly. But for most guys, it's a developmental continuum, and that appears to be Marquez too. Or, perhaps as Cubswin notes, the fastball velocity is a "new skill" and a breakout. Lefties who throw 89-93, those are abundant, and only occasionally good. But lefties who consistently throw mid-90's and touch upper 90's, those are uncommon. Is that a "new skill"? One could say yes; or one could argue that's natural development for a tall maturing teenager. Still, the reported velocity jump is pretty dramatic. Every year the Cubs have dozens of young pitchers; every year baseball signs batches of internationals, every year the draft selects hundreds of tall HS pitchers. For every teenager we add, we hope a bunch more velocity will come with time and development. But very few guys actually do end up adding 5mph or end up throwing mid-to-upper 90's. He's in short-season with only 26 innings, 3 HR (not good), and a fair number of hits allowed. Good number on a healthy developmental trajectory. But want to see him continue to develop and excel in full-season, over more extended 70+ innings. If he does, we'll maybe say "Nothing breakout, I've been talking about him for several years, this is just an extension of what I've seen coming all along." "Perceived CEILING" is pretty high, higher than BOR. Mid-upper 90's, decent control. There are years to go to sharpen his breaking ball, develop his change, develop his cutter, and improve his location and command. The perceived "ceiling" is that he could hypothetically do all of those things, and perhaps end up being faster version of prime Quintana. Why not, that's "ceiling". Is it likely, of course not; but at age 19, which of us can know the future? The ceiling is excellent, *IF* the developmental continuum keeps rolling over the next handful of years. One can always look smart by saying "BOR", because very few 19-year-olds ever develop beyond that. But some do, and it can change the trajectory of a franchise. Odds are slim with Brailyn, because having the command and movement and offspeed stuff is just rare. But it's possible, and I'm going to hope for a while until/unless there is evidence to the contrary.

Brennan Davis back in the lineup, DH, leads off with K. Cole doubles in the first.

Herron 3-4. OBP up to .457, although not as good as Cole at .500 and Davis at .600. :) 2K in his 9 games. Weber 0-4 1K, his first game without multi-K.

Davis got taken out around the 7th inning.

Nice

Other than the stats, I think this is the only scouting info that was posted in the draft thread re Mort. There was also a note that he is "ultra-competitive". Sometimes average stuff with excellent control can do OK. And I guess it's not inconceivable that a kid can add a little bit after age 20, or upon conversion to relief. Think there's also a huge difference between guys who have 3-4 pitches but can't locate more than 1-2 if that and not even consistently, versus control/command guys who have 3-4 pitches and can locate them all. Not likely for Mort, but would love to see him do well. Kinda love the underdog story.

Mort with a good line, 4K/3IP, single and a walk. Tiny sample, but 8K/1BB/7IP, and a 5.0 GO/AO ratio in his three outings. Had really good numbers as a 20-year-old junior (8:1 K/BB), so he's still quite young. I don't recall reading much if any scouting info on him in draft threat. Is his fastball super-slow, awful? Or just mediocre? He's only 6'1", so probably not any velocity projection left for him. Probably as with all the average-if-that velocity guys from last year Abbott/Thompson/Uelman/Lange, Mort will presumably need to be proving it at every step. But it's kind of fun to track a young pitcher until at least he does hit the wall. Speaking of which, not-so-young pitcher Lacy had his first bad, might-he-be-hitting-his-wall game last night.

Man, what an exciting start. I know, premature and everything, but sometimes if you've got it you've got it. Draft thread, there were some questions about wisdom of the two HS kids, were they overdrafts, how low is the success rate with HS hitters, why didn't they shoot for higher ceiling, disappointment that they overslotted as far as they did for Cole at the expense of perhaps signing Parker, etc.. But man, if Roederer proves to be the real thing and has reasonable HR power physically, and Nico proves to be legit too, I don't care what happens with the other 30 guys they signed. **IF** you hit on Cole and Nico, any other value is just frosting.

Come on, it's not that bad. No, it is. It's that bad. 17 ABs, 12 Ks, 1 hit. A single. Walker improved to only 2 K's last night.

I'd been thinking exactly the same thing after checking box score and before popping over here. He's added a couple more K's in his 2nd and 3rd AB as well. 10K's in 14 AB, for the line-drive contact hitter that got full slot.

This is a thing with promoting young players really aggressively. If they do great while being really young, it's "Wow", and you know something is terrific. But if they stink, as Ademan has done, it's hard to evaluate. Does he stink because he doesn't have it and never will? Or can we excuse every failure because he's young? It's kind of nice for the player, in a way, in that it provides a built-in excuse for being very bad. As a fan, I'm not a fan of jumping leagues like they did with ademan, who wasn't very good at South Bend last year either (.269 there was a portent of his crumminess at Myrtle.) A guy is never too bored to improve and develop at whatever level he's assigned, if he's got any brains, and personally I'd rather see a guy show some success at one level before jumping him up to the next. As a fan, I'd like a guy to be not SO young for his league that no matter how badly he hits, he's just got the built-in excuse that "it's OK, he's young for his league." Slugging .306? It's OK, he's young, no problem. But, the Cubs are in Win Now mode, and *IF* Ademan had hypothetically been able to hit at Myrtle this year, then he'd have been a much stronger trade chip, so I can see how they might have wanted to roll the dice and hope he looked good enough to net them a useful pitcher this season. Not sure it matters much anyway. *IF* a guy has the talent to end up being a hitter, and he's got the psyche to optimize his game and to not get too messed up by extended failure, then I don't really think it makes much difference which level he's at. If he's eventually going to get good, he's going to figure it out regardless of where he's at, eventually, and he's going to experience whatever physical maturation sooner or later whether he's at Myrtle or South Bend or whatever. And if he's never actually going to have the rare amazingness to hit big-league pitching anyway, I doubt it's going to matter much whether he spent this year slugging .306 at Myrtle or had spent this year slugging .350 at South Bend. He is what he is, and he will become what he will become, promotion rate notwithstanding. Certainly he's got plenty of time to develop himself and become good, if that's in his potential. Willson was slugging .347 in the Northwest League when he was 19. Hoerner as an 18-year-old freshman didn't hit. What happens physically from age 19 to age 23 can be widely variant, so who knows what he'll become over the next couple of years.

Thanks. Yeah, that seems to be the same consistently slowish guy. Sounds like he'll need to be a good, finesse control guy. Which won't be easy to be on a consistent basis, given that he was never scouted as a control artist, and that the curve is about as hard a pitch to control as there is.

Well, looks like they spent all they could. Americaan is a JC guy, but he's not young. Full 21-year-old, just like a college junior would be, and he's older than many of our top-ten college guys (Hoerner, Richan, Weber, Roberts, ARtis, and MOrt are all either younger or not more than a week older than Americaan.

What do we know about Reindl? Does he have big-league potential, or would he just be an organizational filler even if he does sign?

That’s slot for the 56th or so pick. The FO clearly loves this kid. I'm always an optimist.... Think it's really exciting that the Cub scouts like the kid that much. Hopefully they'll be vindicated. Still ~$265K (plus Weber) for 3rd-day. Could probably hit ~$400K and 4th-round slot on somebody (Parker?) if they wanted to focus it all. Obviously depends on Weber and Thompson. Maybe they'll just end up signing both Boyd and Parker, and Reindl, and end up signing everybody they picked in rounds 1-32. With the extra Mesa team, they've got more spots.

Roederer and Riley Thompson have officially signed. No $$ listed yet, to my knowledge.

There has been interests/speculation regarding Parker, 28th-round HS pitcher who came to Wrigley. Two rounds prior was another HS guy, outfielder Julian Boyd. In between was a JC pitcher who I believe has signed. Do we know anything about Boyd, and think he might be signable? My recall is that he was a Nevada commit, and had a football injury. I guess I'm just thinking that *IF* the Cubs think they can/will sign Parker in 28, why would they draft Boyd at 26 unless they also thought he at least MIGHT be signable too? After those HS selections, they go college until 33; the Puerto Rican HS kid signed at 34, but otherwise I think 33-40 HS picks are probably all going to school. But I wonder if 26 and 28 might be in discussion? No idea what if any tools Boyd is supposed to have.

Thompson signed. Not much of a believer in the wildmen, but interesting wildcard/longshot.

Yeah, that's still a pretty decent kitty. Roederer will get a chunk, but there will still be some left, I think. I've got no idea with Andy WEber. If he frees up another $100+ underslot, wouldn't be surprised whatsoever. No idea how much has perhaps already been gobbled up by 3rd day guys who have already signed, or intend to. Thompson, Sanders, Pagan, Slaughter, Reindl, Parker, there are a number of guys who might be worth some over-slot. Parker, waiting till 28 doesn't suggest the expectation to sign him, on the face of it. Not sure he's really worth all that much, myself. But, might also imagine a deal where if parents are big on education and non-baseball factors, that Theo and the Cubs are REALLY good salemen, and can really spin the organization for supporting and valuing the whole person etc. So if mother is worried that son is going to be treated like a piece of meat, perhaps the Wrigley visit would have really put those concerns to rest? Not taking other trips strongly suggests to me the family liked what they heard from the Cubs, and he was telling other teams that he wouldn't sign with them. I kinda think there's a pretty good chance he'll get signed, too. LSU Slaughter, he's s sophomore? Didn't realize. Weird. He's already a good half-year older than most of the juniors. (Richan, Roberts, Mort, Artis are all many months younger than Slaughter. How good is the Razorback reliever? Is he good enough to command overslot? Or is he a guy you expect to get for $125K, or perhaps even less?

Tom, how dated would that video of Franklin be? From last summer? Or woudl that be pretty up-to-date? I'm seeing June 5, 2018 on the thing, is that when it was actually taken? Wes has linked twitter of Franklin saying he's officially a Cub.

Yup, thanks. That last bottom line is the one that counts. Mine is roundoff error, but I'm still within $3K. $985K is a non-trivial amount of discretionary dollars to play with. They may have liked your guy Roederer a lot, and perhaps it took more to buy him off that the $1.1 for Davis, will be interesting to see. HRubes mentioned Mitchell Parker. One of his potential schools already said that the Cubs had made him a "decent" offer. I've got to assume that means variably north of 3rd-day slot, so I think he's probably in play. With most of that $985 already available (if Hoerner has already signed off, as opposed to simply having agreed to terms, but not having the contract in the mlb office), I woldn't think they'd need to hold up on completing some or most of their overslots. Last year Estrada had to wait till the end, because his $$ would't be free till Lange signed off. But once Hoerner is official, then they'll have all but like $30K available for wrapping up Roederer and then etc.

Not sure I'm tracking, but upon completion of top-10's, that opens up the full $376K in overage, and should make more overage available. So how can the last line, with the full $376 in overage included, show less discretionary $$ than the second last line, which does not assume the full overage yet? My numbers have $607K underslot, counting Roberts + $376 overage = $983 sum discretionary. I'm not sure the website where I got my slot numbers had them exactly right, plus I roundoff a bit, so I don't doubt I'm off by a couple of K.

Wow, crazy, that's like 10th-round slot, less than Mort got and no more than senior-sign 22-going-on-23 Casey. Really unexpected that low. By my count, that now puts the Cubs with $983K available for overslot signings. If Roederer and Franlin absorb all of that, that will be very surprising as well. I wonder if the Cubs like the Louisville wildman more than we think, or something? And or the LSU wildman as well? Maybe Pagan? IN past 5 years, I think Clifton's the only 3rd-day who's overslotted by >$100k, and Kevonte Mitchell the only other who's gotten as much as $200K total. Hard to understand the strategy until we know where the overslot cash gets applied.

Yeah, and Lacy and Thomas are excelling in SB rotation. If success in low-minors constitutes success, that's a pretty good start. Not sure any of these guys are going to have stuff that carries up well, so pretty hesitant and cautious. Kind of different from the Bryant draft, where there was considerable focus on college pitchers (Zastryzny, Skulina, Masek, Frazier, Garner, Wilson, but then senior-sign 10th rounder Zach Godley ended up signing for $35K and being the guy who's gotten over 50 big-league starts. Masek and Frazier, those guys never even got off the ground.

Not sure if they've got some formula set up. But it looks to me like other than Hoerner (suppposedly slot), Richan (significant underslot) and Artis (overslot), that the other 4 college picks have all been coming in about 10% underslot, more or less. Wonder if that will be about the same with Roberts and WEber too, or not? Slots are $400's and $300's, so maybe Roberts $40K under and Weber $30K under? Herron: 520 570 -50 Mort 140 159 -19 Casey 130 145 -15 Reynolds 125 137 -12 I admit I was kinda surprised that 8-10 were all coming in with such modest $10-20K sub-slots, that's different from a lot of earlier Cub drafts.