CubsWin

Yeah, if a player is raking, like Nelson Velazquez is right now, you can live with a low walk percentage. The high strikeout percentage still needs to be addressed down the line for any chance of major league success, but Velazquez is still young at 22 and young for his league at the moment. Morel showed some pop in the early going, which we all knew he had, but nothing else. Coming into the season, my main problem with him as a prospect was his lack of selectivity. As with Velazquez, that's okay if you're slashing .300/.330/.550, but it would still need to improve as he develops, and of course Morel's slash line was nowhere near that. The good news is Chris is even younger than Nelson (by about 6 months) and playing at a higher level (AA). At 21, skipping High-A and getting his first taste of AA, I would expect him to struggle early on. What I was really looking for was development in his selectivity. I didn't see it in the first 2 weeks of the season. He was his normal, free-swinging self. But he has really shown the adjustment since, as you pointed out. Controlling the strike zone and forcing pitchers to give him pitches he can drive will be paramount to unlocking his potential. He hasn't done it yet, but he's shown that he gets it and is trying, all while facing much more advanced competition than he ever has before. Despite his terrible season-long numbers, this is the developmental process I was hoping to see.

Would really like to see some bounceback performances from Sanders and Bain tonight. Thoresen is 22 (which is basically league appropriate after the lost season last year) and won't turn 23 until after the season. He's put himself on the map. Needs to cut back on the walks going forward, but nice numbers on the year, and he's coming off his last 2 starts where he went: 8 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 5 BB, 13 K. Nice starters frame at 6'3", 210 lbs. He's another one of the 2020 post draft UDFA signings like Bailey Reed, Scott Kobos and Ben Leeper who have acquitted themselves well thus far.

https://www.thecubreporter.com/cubs-organizational-depth-chart Wow, that's a loaded catchers group in the DSL. Both sets of high bonus signees, Ronnier Quintero & Brayan Altuve from 2020 and Cristian Hernandez & Moises Ballesteros from this year, are currently listed on the Dominican Roster. Quintero was at instructs this off season and had previously been listed on the Mesa roster prior to this latest update.

Ben Leeper's AAA debut: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K.

Poopy. Any idea what the injury is and how serious?

I agree. He relied heavily on his FB tonight. But can you blame him? He had good control of it (command not so much) at 96 and the movement down and in to righties was sick. I saw at least one really good 12-6 tight curveball. Wished I'd seen that more often. The slider didn't look special tonight. Used it more as a "keep 'em honest" pitch.

At age 22, Prieto is still subject to IFA signing rules, right? Or because he's a Cuban defector is he exempt?

Yeah, I'm excited to see what Benjamin Rodriguez will do this season. Reports had him hitting 98 off of flat ground a few months ago. He reported gaining an inch or two and something like 20 pounds (seemingly most/all of it muscle). And Longenhagen said to keep an eye on him 3 years ago when he was sitting 88-90 simply because of his projectable body and clean delivery. I believe complex leagues start up in a little less than a month (June 28th? Someone check me on that if I'm wrong). Along with B-Rod, we'll finally get a look at pitchers Koen Moreno, Jeremiah Estrada, Tyler Schlaffer, Luke Little and Joel Machado and SS Reggie Preciado, CF Ismael Mena, RF Owen Caissie, INF Rafael Morel, C Ronnier Quintero and C Brayan Altuve, Plus, hopefully, by that time, Marquez, Davis and Strumpf will be in AA and Kohl Franklin, Chris Clarke and Hunter Bigge will be in South Bend.

From the 5/28 Fangraphs chat:

Clearly. Those with weak arguments usually wind up exaggerating to make their comments seem more reasonable. I list 4 extensions. You respond as if it's 6. "Multiple seasons" sounds a lot better than 1.69 seasons, doesn't it? If this is the hill you want to die, I won't stop you. If the Cubs trade Amaya before signing Contreras to an extension, I'll happily say you were right and I was wrong. Until then, to me, this notion is laughable.

It's still a little early to be definitively singing the praises of the Cubs pitching development infrastructure, but the returns thus far sure look promising. In the majors, Alzolay rebuilt his repertoire in a matter of weeks last season and is now flourishing. Dillon Maples rebuilt his delivery, and he's put up his best K/BB% since 2017 in AA and his best WHIP of his pro career so far. Tommy Nance was signed out of the Indy leagues and has been developed into an effective (and thus far dominant) major league reliever. Justin Steele looks like he's a legit major leaguer, and Keegan Thompson has been passable to date. But it's the early looks at minor leaguers that are even more encouraging to me. Cam Sanders and DJ Herz are in the midst of what look like breakout seasons. Sanders' K% has gone from 19.6% in Low-A in 2019 to 28.4% in AA while his walk rate has dropped from 12.4% to 9.5% and his BAA from an already really good .194 to an even better .179. Herz has gone from an 8th rounder with upside to proving it in Low-A as a 20-year-old. A group of 8 relief prospects have taken big steps forward. 2019 27th rounder Cayne Ueckert, who is dominating AA, is the biggest revelation, while Eury Ramos and Ethan Roberts (who've been on the radar) have taken clear steps forward. Converted CFer Brandon Hughes has emerged in High-A, while 2020 UDFAs Ben Leeper in AA and Joe Nahas, Bailey Reid and Scott Kobos in Low-A have all gotten off to better than expected starts to their pro careers. And, of course, I'd be remiss not to mention that Jose Albertos is back and pitching well. While it's already been an encouraging start to the long awaited 2021 season as far as the pitching development/lab goes, we've yet to see the first of Brailyn Marquez, Kohl Franklin and Chris Clarke. Plus, slower, but not completely discouraging starts, for Ryan Jensen, Burl Carraway and Max Bain have a chance to show further development in the coming months as well. I can't wait to see what transpires...

Is Amaya tradeable? Sure. If he continues to get better could he bring back a good major leaguer with 1-2 years of control? Of course. But for the life of me, given the Cubs current trajectory, I can't think of a reason why they would want to trade him which makes this whole notion laughable. Now if, out of nowhere, the Cubs extend Bryant, Baez, Rizzo and Contreras? Sure. But the likelihood of that happening is very, very low at this point. Which is what makes even mentioning Amaya as a trade chip in this context just weird and silly.

With how well the bullpen has been performing of late and the current 40-man roster crunch, you're right, Rucker's chance may be a long way off. But I don't think it's because the Cubs have anything against him. After a rough 1st two outings, Rucker has put together 4 good ones totaling 8 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 12 K. That's impressive though not much of a sample size. The Cubs have good bullpen depth in AAA right now with Trevor McGill and Brad Wieck already on the 40-man and Robert Stock seemingly ahead of Rucker in the pecking order. Heck, even Kyle Ryan is pitching like a man possessed after the Cubs DFA'd him and every MLB team decided to pass on giving him a look. Even if he keeps this up, Rucker will still need either some massive under-performance by current major league relievers, 1 or 2 of them to get 60-day IL stints or some bullpen pieces being traded away in order to get placed on the 40-man. And with Rowan Wick getting closer to returning (and thus coming off the 60-day IL), that's about to get even harder to do. Ultimately, it's a good problem for the Cubs to have and a tough spot for Rucker to be in. All he can do is keep stringing together dominant outings and possibly force Cubs management to shuffle the deck and make room for him.

South Bend reliever, Samuel Reyes, was selected by the Cubs in the minor league portion of the Rule 5 draft, and after watching him pitch tonight it's clear why. The guy has a plus curveball. I lost count how many strikes he got on it (both swinging and looking). Once again, no velo reports from the announcers, so I can't tell how hard his FB is, but it didn't look overpowering. One velo report was given on lefty Brandon Hughes. The converted OFer has put up a very nice stat line thus far (10.1 IP, 7 H, 4 BB, 15 K, 1.74 ERA, .184 BAA). He's seems to be a 2-pitch reliever FB/CB. Despite AZ Phil clocking Hughes at 96 in Mesa, the South Bend announcer's only velo report was 91. 96 was what he "touched" in spring training, not necessarily where he sat. The 91 tonight could've been a 2-seamer. It was also raining pretty hard at the time. Regardless of the mph, Hughes struckout both batters he faced. He likely would've faced more, but the Tin Caps batter shouted at Hughes (it's unclear whether Hughes said something to him first or at all) and the brawl ensued. Hughes was ejected thereafter.

Not to put a damper on things, but both Davis' and Velazquez's HRs were wind blown affairs. A storm was coming thru South Bend, and the wind was howling out. Off the bat, they both looked like outfield pop ups. The launch angle must have been 50 degrees at least, especially Velazquez's. Credit them with power enough to get up into the jet stream. The fight was pretty clearly instigated by Fort Wayne, but some Cubs were throwing punches once it got underway. Suspensions coming. I couldn't tell which Tin Cap threw the baseball at the Cubs, but whoever it was is an absolute coward. At least he didn't throw it as hard as he could. The Cubs manager was thrown out for arguing that not enough Tin Caps were being ejected (3 Cubs to 1 from Fort Wayne) given their instigation. He wasn't involved in the fighting. The best part was the Cubs got the last laugh. The fight occurred in the top of the 8th. The Cubs scored 6 in the bottom half to take the lead 12-9. The celebration after the win was a little more spirited than usual, you might imagine...

Okay, let me get this straight. The Cubs just signed an 18-year-old, 6'4" lefty who is good enough to start out at Low-A Myrtle Beach, is hitting 94 on his FB and already shows a good breaking ball, AND they signed him for only $10,000?!? The description doesn't match the bonus, so what am I to think? Is he really raw? If so, why is he expected to start in A ball? Did no other teams know about this guy and that's why they got him for $10,000? I'm intrigued, impressed and confused all at the same time...

Even with the huge difference in competition between AAA and MLB, this was still unexpected: Shelby Miller - 3 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 K. I mean, make up your mind, Shelby...

The reports of Ryan Kellogg's demise were much too premature. Released by the Cubs on April 18th, he resigned a few days ago and pitched tonight for the Smokies. 3.1 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 6 K. That was for you, Tom...

And after reports (h/t named after maddux) had Cubs exec predicting both Sanders and Bain would be top 10 prospects in the org by season's end. That's high praise assuming this unnamed exec knows who is currently in the Cubs top 10 because not many of them are likely to graduate. Brennen Davis Brailyn Marquez Miguel Amaya Cristian Hernandez Ed Howard Kohl Franklin Are a very solid top 6. The next 4: Chris Morel Ryan Jensen Chase Strumpf Reggie Preciado Morel's overly aggressive approach could get him into trouble against AA pitching and hurt his prospect stock. Jensen might not maintain his stuff deep into starts and show himself to be a reliever. Strumpf looks prepared to rake. Preciado has a lot of upside which will make him difficult to drop in rankings. There are several prospects in the 10-30 range who could also make some big jumps. Pinango, Caissie, Mena, Riley Thompson, Made, Santana, Quintero, etc. If this Cubs exec is correct, leapfrogging all those players and jumping from unranked in a top 30 to the top 10 would quite the feather in the cap of their scouting (Bain) and development (Sanders) departments. Cam's AA debut today makes for a nice 1st step...

Jose Albertos lives! He didn't look terrible either. The walk wasn't egregious. He didn't hit anybody. Walk was cleaned up by an unassisted double play with a slick play by Howard and struck out the last guy. There was no play-by-play because the sound guy is an idiot, so no velocities to report. Not that the announcer was giving any earlier in the game...

I assume you're talking about the minor league bats, correct? If so, I'm missing what you're seeing (or not seeing...). Plenty of upside bats in the system. Most are in the lower levels, but, of course, they're led by Brennen Davis, Miguel Amaya and Chase Strumpf. The best of the lower level guys are pretty highly thought of with Cristian Hernandez, Ed Howard and Reggie Preciado. Guys with a little less upside at the upper levels are Chris Morel and Cole Roederer. The list of 2nd tier bats at the lower levels is long. It includes Yeison Santana, Yohendrick Pinango, Kevin Made, Owen Caissie, Ismael Mena, Ronnier Quintero, Rafael Morel and more. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your post.

I'd like to nominate this for post of the year...

On AZ Phil's depth chart, Ademan was listed as the AA SS until a few days ago. He's now listed as the High-A 2B. That sounds like a decision (and demotion has been made). On that same depth chart, Luis Verdugo, who is still considered by some to be the Cubs best defensive SS prospect, is listed as a 3B in Low-A. All of this is fungible, of course. Howard will undoubtedly get the majority of starts at SS in Myrtle Beach, but I'm sure Verdugo will spend some time there as well with spot starts and rare late-inning shifts. I also asked Phil about Cristian Hernandez's status and likelihood of playing in Mesa this year (currently he's listed on Phil's Dominican roster). He said Covid rules will prohibit much, if any, movement from the DSL to stateside. But Phil's not certain what the Cubs might do with him once the full season teams ship out in a few days.

Yeah, if Rizzo is extended, and one (or more) of these bat-first catchers develops well, they'll likely have a ready in-house replacement for him depending on the length of the extension. Also, with the electronic strike zone becoming more and more likely over the coming seasons, bat first catchers will definitely be in high demand. The list keeps growing: Ethan Hearn (20) Ronnier Quintero (18) Brayan Altuve (18) Moises Ballesteros (17) Adan Sanchez (15, will be 16 at signing)

The development of RHRP Eury Ramos has been mentioned earlier in this thread as he transformed himself physically and pushed his velocity 93-96, T97 in 2018 to consistently upper-90s this spring. Bain was the headline story yesterday, but Ramos threw a perfect inning with 2 Ks on 9 pitches (7 strikes). UDFA Ben Leeper, who has also been clocked in the upper-90s but sits more mid-90s, closed out the game with a scoreless inning, 1 hit, no walks, 2 Ks on 13 pitches (11 strikes). Myrtle Beach may have themselves a pen this year, though both of them are 23 years old.