Thrilho

Looks like he picked up a cutter in 2016 that didn't work for him (13% at -8.4 value) for a slider that hadn't worked for him (0% in 2016 to 15% at -6.1 value in 2017). Main difference is going from +6.4 to -7.1 value on the fastball that he's thrown at a very consistent 63%. Like you say though, no drop in fb velocity, at a consistent 95.5ish this year and last. If you're looking at the Pitch Info Pitch type(the more accurate of the two there), then CU refers to curveball and not cutter. That would also be consistent with the Orioles hating cutters and sliders. Gausman definitely interests me as a buy-low guy, but I'd be a little concerned that the home run spike might be especially bad for him, and also I'm not sure I'd be okay with him as the only acquisition. I really doubt they'd add 2 SPs, so you'd need him to turn it around immediately. Thanks, swapping shitty curve for shitty slider doesn't seem like much of a thing. Probably a similar pitch thrown a little differently. I've always liked Gausman and like to think that the HRs are partially driven by the band boxes of the AL East and the consistently powerful teams in the division. I don't have numbers on that though. Then I figure the Cubs have done well with some pitchers who aren't throwing strikes, just by having them work on fastball command. Gausman's bad year is largely due to walks and he's been at <=2.45 BB/9 in 3 out of his previous 4 years in the MLB. So figure that's a good bet to bounce back, maybe even after a couple magical tweaks and some refocusing in a pennant race for the WS champs in a horsefeathers division. He's always been a low 40s ground ball guy so that's bad. But I could see that as a relatively neutral thing in the playoffs with the parks in play (October Wrigley, Nats, Dodgers). Maybe it's a definitely bad thing but I'd be willing to hear arguments on the merits of GB pitchers vs strikeout/fly ball pitchers for the Cubs staff going forward. Either way, he's got great stuff, good pedigree, and has been healthy. I may be lending more than I should to his youth and years, while lending less to immediate impact, but I'm seen how quick guys can turn around with this pitching coach and defense. I also like rolling the dice with a buy low guy like Gausman rather than selling off on Eloy or any of the young major leaguers. I think basically all the major league trade assets will continue to build value so I'd rather let that continue to shake out. I could be convinced otherwise but would be real happy if we could just use MiLB pitchers + some of the non-Eloy position prospects. Trying to figure if I should make a Gausman > Gray argument but have to think a little more on that. Either way, I think Gausman would fit the bill well for me if he's the top pitcher they get.

True but he's got the comment about Cubs viewing him as TOR. Would be odd if this guy had sources in the FO but you wonder if he'd just make something like that up.

have the orioles done any weird horsefeathers with him like force him to change his delivery or stop throwing his best pitch? Just looking at his pitch f/x stuff on fangraphs it doesn't seem like he's changed much. His velo is at career averages roughly other than he is throwing his slider about 3 MPH faster than his career average. He's added a curveball sparingly (2% of pitches after never throwing one) and is throwing it at the expense of his splitter it looks like (but he still is throwing the split). Looks like he picked up a cutter in 2016 that didn't work for him (13% at -8.4 value) for a slider that hadn't worked for him (0% in 2016 to 15% at -6.1 value in 2017). Main difference is going from +6.4 to -7.1 value on the fastball that he's thrown at a very consistent 63%. Like you say though, no drop in fb velocity, at a consistent 95.5ish this year and last.

ooooooomg omg omg Yeahhhhh now this something I can get behind. 3.5 years of control left. Off the top, I'd pay that Sonny Gray (non-Eloy) haul for him easy.

Have him pitch to Victor his next 5 starts and just let him have that heart attack he's been gunning for

Off the top of my head this was the second most nuts I went in last year's playoff run. Definitely will always remember for the big hits and good vibes.

Alzolay was touching 97 last night http://www.scout.com/mlb/cubs/story/1787965-cubs-june-27-minors-recap

Right now the waves are just washing up dirty diapers around everyone's ankles. http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=17919&position=2B/OF He hasn't been the .362 wOBA monster Happ has but .320 and 9.6% walk rate is nothing to sneeze at http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=14109&position=OF

If he can stick I think this is where you use the "waves" thing in a non-sarcastic way

Well, gotta figure this is about as strong a statement as you could see on Caritini's defense. Unless this is just a move to get Miggy gone as quick as possible and they go out and get a backup catcher fairly quick. But if he's just an occasional catcher/DH/1B type you'd think they wouldn't make this move. Of course those Miggy comments were over the line, so maybe there isn't that much to read here. It'll be fun to see if Vic can stick.

Ademan got off to a slow start but he's keeping up his good peripherals too. 9.4% BB 11.3% K .149 ISO. BABIP of .200 is killing his line (.191/.283/.340) but the peripherals are promising. Let's see the power continue. BABIP's an indicator too at this level. I think Ademan's a clear notch down from Amaya, just a much better candidate right now to be an elite among the elites in 2-3 years if he stays healthy and keeps piling up these kind of reps at these kind of ages. This could just be some regression in progress for Ademan, who was punchless even relative to the rest of the DSL last year but otherwise showed some skills at the plate. I don't know when each stat stabilizes but I'd think we've still got some time with BABIP. Amaya's numbers on FG haven't updated yet so you can see his BABIP and ISO before last night were .222 and .026 respectively. So things can change quick. With Ademan, he's now got 2 HRs and 2 triples in at Eugene to go with his 2 2B, 2 3B, 1 HR in 98 PAs in Arizona. (And actually the Eugene slash line in my previous post doesn't reflect last night I see now. It got a bump to .200/.298/.400). So there wasn't much punch in his DSL but there's still time on that front. I'm with you on the clear notch below Amaya thing for now but the K and walk rates are looking good. Just need to see the slugging continue.

Ademan got off to a slow start but he's keeping up his good peripherals too. 9.4% BB 11.3% K .149 ISO. BABIP of .200 is killing his line (.191/.283/.340) but the peripherals are promising. Let's see the power continue.

I'll be interested to see any Assad scouting reports from this game. Here's what Arguello said on 6/20 with only Assad's 5 7 2 2 0 3 under his belt (plus whatever Ext ST Arguello saw). https://2080baseball.com/2017/06/8070/ He could be pretty high on the list if that scouting report is right. Exciting outing tonight. There's some other good stuff in that article on the 2015 international class, if you're into Arguello. They're all so young that each is a fairly big dice roll but it seems like an awful lot have good ceilings. And seeing $150K signing bonus guys like Assad pop up would be big. I spaced on Albertos when I did my top 15 last week but seems like he should be in there somewhere. Not sure who I'm more excited about between Albertos and Assad though right now. Seems like it oughta be Albertos due to stuff still but this was a pretty dominant outing and Assad had 37 innings last year at more than a K/9. Looking forward to any scouting reports on this game.

Holding onto his gains in power while putting up a batting average more in line with his career marks. Selling out for power and hitting .250 is going to work in the PCL, but that profile getting 600 PA at the major league level is less tenable. I'd also add that increasingly, calling someone a 4th outfielder isn't a pejorative. Baez is a great example of someone who can have significant impact even if you don't want to plan on him playing every day. Cool, looking at Youk's career for instance, he put up some 3.5+ win seasons while hitting less than 20 HRs but he was also batting .280+ in most of those seasons and had a career BABIP of .321 and BA of .281. Zagunis's last 212 PAs comes with a .275 BA but that will get a significant haircut when he goes to the MLB. His K rate has also increased this year to a career high 22.4% so I'd think the "selling out for power" comment is fair. On the 4th outfielder thing, I was responding to the "short side of the platoon" comment thinking you were talking more about a 2016 Szczur role than a Javy 500 PA role. I'm hoping for a guy who can be valuable for a contender while getting at least the type of PAs that Schwarber is getting this year. Or at least that the Cubs ask for that type of valuation on any trade if they're not going to wait and see how he shakes out.

In the prospect rankings we did last week I noticed Zagunis is still showing up toward the bottom of most posters' top tens, so it does seem like 4th outfielder is still consensus around here. With his recent power surge, along with his increase in fly balls and pulled balls, I'm seeing him more as a middle of the road starter. So just wondering, how would he need to finish out the season for you to consider him a middle of the road MLB starter? I don't have a lot of time to dig up stats for good comps but here are career minor league BB%/K%/ISO for our studs plus Zagunis and Seth Smith (since Tom brought him up): KB 12.8%/26.6%/.340 Riz 9.5%/20.3%/.239 Schwarbs 14.2%/26.6%/.279 Smith 9.8%/13.2%/.198 Zagunis 15.2%/18.2%/.166 I'm thinking Zagunis could be a Youk type guy if he keeps this power surge up. I'd have included him but his minor stint was so short. But since OBP is more impactful than power (at least per the impact on wOBA/wRC+) it seems like having elite walk rate could make up for some lack of power. Zagunis has had consistently elite walk rates, decent K rates and as you note he's got a .264 ISO in his last 212 PAs. So if he finished out the season with a .250ish ISO could you see him as a legit MLB starter? Obviously grabbing a bunch of stars who had out of this world MiLB ISOs at varying ages for comparison isn't the best analysis but mostly just want this Zagunis discussion to keep going so thought I'd provide some benchmarks.

C'mon it worked pretty well for me with Armondo Rivero

Welp I read that one wrong. Shun the non-believer!

I'm not the foremost expert on Mekkes so probably not the best guy to be making the defense, but for me the fact that he's 6'7 with a weird delivery helped. He also had 15.2 K/9 his last year of college and was KATOH's top overall draft prospect according to the article below. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/more-words-than-youd-expect-on-the-cubs-10th-round-pick/ The article does stress that BA grades the slider as "fringe-average to average" and changeup that "flashes average...but more often is a below-average offering." But he's been getting great results and has the TT stamp of approval (TT stamp of willingness to shame people over him)? So that's gotta count for something. Contrast that profile with Rucker, who had less than a K per inning each year in college. I'd seen Rucker as having a low 90s FB, with the ability reach mid-90s on occasion, but honestly I did a lot of catching up on some of these guys yesterday and Rucker fell into my blind spot. Would have to look closer at him. But 6'7 herky jerk submariner guy K'ing 14 guys per 9 was intriguing enough to put Mekkes near my top 10. The walks are bigly now and were in college (6.3 per 9!) but I got burned with CJ dropping an elite K reliever due to walks. So once bit twice shy, I'm giving Mekkes some rope on the walks.

Mine looks a lot like this, although Candelario is on there begrudgingly. I see him only as a trading piece, for whatever value he has. I don't have much faith in him to ever be very productive in the majors. I've never been too high on him. But he's produced at the higher levels in the minors and is ready for a shot with some team, so he's above most of these guys by default. I could flip flop Candelario and Burks and be fine with it. Its hard to put together a top 10 for us currently. Its Eloy, Cease, then personal preference basically.....3-10 is pretty close for me, as of now. But, I suspect the rest of the season will help solidify things. Yeah, I think I could say the same thing and they're 7 spots away from each other on my list. I put Candelario up top mostly because I didn't feel like comparing him against all those pitchers. I used to be much higher but I'm very wait and see right now. Like you said, my 3-10 (or even 15) is fairly tight. I like the system though. All the top position players have pretty big walk rates and most don't have big strikeout flags. Yet, at least. The pitchers, as always, I really don't know what I'm doing. I probably ought to have Mekkes higher but I dunno who to drop.

Oh, and I avoided looking at the Eugene box score as well. Good to see the hot start out of the young guys!

I'm with on Amaya. He's in my top 10. The longer Burks hits like he has, the better his argument for being in the top 10. I'm still wait-and-see on Ademan. He's not far off from my top 10, though. Definitely top 15. His play at Eugene will have a lot to say about where he winds up for me. Assuming Happ stays up, he'll fall off the list, but he's got 41 more at bats to go. I agree with your concern about Clifton, but perhaps I'm a bit more patient with him because he just turned 22 a month ago and is more than holding his own in AA. I want to see if/how he progresses in the 2nd half. Hatch has moved up my board big time given his 5 consecutive, high quality starts. Here's a stab at my current top 10: 1. Jimenez 2. Happ 3. Cease 4. Candelario 5. Clifton 6. Hatch 7. Alzolay 8. Caratini 9. Amaya 10. De La Cruz It's very fluid, though. I'd love to hear yours! Thanks for asking. I skipped over the rest of the thread to avoid bias, but may have missed good info. Either way, my rankings are based on who I’d want to trade least today. I like big upside, but sometimes swing and miss hard like when I included DH/1B Ian Rice in my top 10 last year. Probably some of this will look stupid pretty quick. Eloy Amaya Candelario Zagunis Cease Hatch Alzolay Caratini Ademan Burks Mekkes Clifton Oscar DLC Short Paredes So first, on Ademan. $2M signing bonus, so the FO liked him. Was BA’s 12th ranked guy that IFA period. Everything you read says he looks great defensively. He had a 13.7% walk rate in the DSL and an 11.3% K rate, while slashing .254/.366/.316. Obviously, no power there but what separates him for me from someone like Penalver’s DSL (.272/.364/.341) is that Penalver also had a few more Ks (14%) and didn’t have the hype behind him. Madison’s comments below show some confidence for future power. If that doesn’t develop he’s probably a lot lower. But even then, a lot will depend on how good he is defensively. You can make high contact/high walk/low power profile work as a decent SS. Separator from Paredes for me is the body and the projections all seem to indicate he won’t outgrow the spot. http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/cubs-young-shortstop-shows-hes-ahead-schedule/#adLf5MJXvC9Lm8Cu.97 http://www.chicagonow.com/cubs-den/2017/01/cubs-prospect-series-the-shortstops/ Amaya gets a high ranking here. I’ve been hearing all the nice words you have and he tore the cover off the ball in AZ. Just based on who I’d want to trade today, I’m going to put him #2. Candyman is at .722 OPS since 5/1 and his K rate is a good bit higher than in past years. Seems like he’ll be able to stick at third though and he’s been pretty streaky. So I’ll keep him up top because I think he’ll come back around. Zagunis I love because he’s hitting for power and has consistently off the charts walk rates. If he’s Youk lite in left that could be a valuable player. A ton hinges on the power, but he hit at a pretty crazy clip for a while there, and it’s great that he’s putting the ball in the air. Hatch vs Alzolay is an interesting one. A lot of it depends on if you prefer lower walks or HR suppression. Where Alzolay has allowed 7 HRs in 70 IP so far this year, Hatch has allowed none in 63.1 and going back to college he’s allowed 3 in his last 239.1 IP. That speaks to some stuff that’s tough to square up. Hatch also has a GB rate of 51% this year. Alzolay is only at ~38% GB rate, was 43% last year, 37% the year before that. That’s not a good pairing with a propensity for giving up HRs. Maybe they stress the GB rate with him though and the HR drops in kind. Problem for Hatch is he’s walked 4.1 per nine at MB and 3.9 in his last season at OK St. Alzolay is at 2.31 this year, was 2.09 at SB, and 2.55 at Eugene. Bright side on Hatch is that he’s had 2 or less walks in each of his last 5 outings, which has coincided with his turn around. Also, Hatch had a sprained UCL that didn’t get surgery before the 2016 season. So I guess they retooled his delivery during 2016 to keep him healthy, then according to the article below, they’ve changed it a lot this year. So it could be a guy struggling with a new delivery. Velocity reports look good on both. Seems like the consensus from multiple reports is Alzolay sits at 95, and the BA article below says Hatch “was comfortably between 93-95 for the duration…fastball featured vicious two-seem life….in the first two innings Hatch got nine swings and misses on his fastball alone” On Hatch and Alzolay: http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/adbert-alzolay-doesnt-want-hitters-to-think-chicago-cubs/#5yyKzZVicaltBrJK.97 Lots of good stuff, some on his delivery changes: http://www.cubsinsider.com/2017/05/30/prospect-update-thomas-hatchs-13-strikeout-performance-signals-shift/ Cease probably has less of a shot at starting than these guys because these two have already thrown 120+ innings in a season, while Cease is in his age 21 season with a max of 44.2 innings. But pitchers are lottery tickets and Cease’s stuff makes him a good one. 14.5 Ks per inning looks pretty good and he’s got time to clean up the walks. He was trending better in his short starts before the injury. Only 3 walks in his last 4 starts (13.1 IP). Caratini is one who could be way higher if I knew he could catch. He’s played 21 of 55 games at 1B so far this year. If he’s just an occasional starter at catcher then he’s got about the same requirements as someone like Vogelbach does as a hitter. He’s been a great hitter so far this year, but if he can’t catch he’s going to need to keep it up and hit for a little more power. Burks is another guy with this huge walk rate. Over 12% the last two years and over 10% for every stop since A-. Got his K rate back down to 17% this year. ISO ~.150 and a frame that seems like it could add a little more muscle. Has a super high BABIP, so the .314/.410/.466 could drop a bit but right now the .403 wOBA is looking pretty good. A lot of this ranking rests on him either being able to play center (at least sometimes) or play GG type defense in left. Or add power. I really wanted to put Mekkes in. He probably should be in because he seems like such a lock to be very good, but I wanted my high upside position players in. Someone on here will probably slip a bit and let him in though. I think Clifton does pitch in the majors, but I’m not a fan of the way his peripherals are trending. After ticking up to 9.76 K/9 last year, he’s down to 7.56. And his BB/9 is back to 3.78, which is in line with his 2014/2015 numbers. FIPs of 3.80+ in 3 of his last 4 years. Ground ball rate around 35% the last 3 years. Low HRs, but he’s got to start striking guys out and stop walking them. Oscar DLC not sure but wanted him to be in the team picture. He could be higher or lower. Zack Short is yet another guy with a huge walk rate, at 18%. Only 16% K rate and .184 ISO. 6 HRs to go with .248/.402/.432. Maybe he doesn’t really have power, but he did hit 9 HRs in 200 ABs his sophomore season for a .230 ISO. Could see him as a nice Fontenot type utility guy if he can’t stick at short. Paredes looks pretty good with an 8.4% BB rate and 13% K rate. And at 18 I know I shouldn’t expect that much more out of the bat. And I know he can get the barrel on the bat. But he’s got a body that’s not usually made for short and I haven’t seen a lot of people pounding the table for his defensive ability. So I’m going to temper enthusiasm til he really starts hitting.

Yeah I haven't thought of a top 10 in a while but i think these two would be on it for me. Alberto's not making Eugene and having a horrible showing so far in AZ takes some shine off him. Clifton walking a lot of guys and not striking many out, still dig him but tempering expectations. Some big toolsy position players have come through lately and done well. and these two have lit it up with peripherals, defensive and production in AZ and at DSL. So I'd put Burks + these guys into the top 10 but I'd have to figure out who else leaves. Either way there's a lot of talent at Eugene. Martarano should fun to watch and Assad. Was thinking Guttierez would make it but it'll be fun to watch how he and Sierra do trying to make the team. Amaya and Ademan though. Somewhere in the top 8ish at least I'd think

+1

From that article, Ian Rice has thrown out 3 of his last 9 runners after starting out 0-8. Now hitting .257/.387/.469 after hitting his 6th HR of the season yesterday. Still no idea whether he can catch, but if throwing out runners is one of his major problems it's an easy one to track progress on.

Zagunis started out the season slow (.474 OPS in first 12 games) but since 4/20 he's been real good. .318/.468/.600 with 6 HRs in 109 PAs. 18% BB vs 22% K .464 wOBA. I'm not sure how much to believe FG's MiLB batted ball stuff, but on the year he's sporting by far the highest fly ball rate of his career. It's 44% in 2017 vs 36%, 21%, and 33% at his last 3 stops. GB rate down to 37% from 43%, 53%, 43%. So I don't know what stadiums he's been hitting these home runs in, but he's been getting it in the air and hitting lots of HRs. If the power even kind of continues he could be pretty valuable with that consistent 15%+ walk rate vs generally <20% K rate.