Hrubes20

Whoa. Dude has been in the gym this offseason! He was MUCH skinnier this past summer. No horsefeathers. Look at the video (outside of the swing difference as noted, which is interesting and good to see in and of itself) he was skinner than Carl. That's some terrific stuff. I'm loving those swing changes as much as the physique changes.

Yeah, I wouldn't put him that high, but as the 14th pick in the draft and a guy that received a large overslot bonus, I get it.

Whoa. Dude has been in the gym this offseason! He was MUCH skinnier this past summer.

Boo! I was craving some Richard Gallardo action.

I don't know why I forget Joey Bart is a thing. He's gonna be a good one.

I’m still super leery of that command comment, not the first time I’ve seen it. I just don’t believe guys with strong fastball command at his ages and levels of comp are giving up HRs like he has or popping off 5+ ERAs in Rk ball. I’d be happy to be wrong, but obviously suspect I'm not. I expect Richard Gallardo to swiftly pass him as the system’s highest regarded/most ballyhooed upside ceiling potential development arm. Speaking of Gallardo, have I mentioned he’s going to be one of the good ones? No Ryan Kellogg! If you want to see an extremely young guy with fastball command...That hard stuff up and soft stuff down approach is going to translate. I think he ends up somewhere around a well engineered 6’3” 220 of power pitcher. what? Didn't quite understand that one either. That's MLB.com for you.

Thanks for the reminder. I had spaced that they pushed back the Instructs a few months this year. Here's hoping we get some glowing reports from AzPhil. I would specifically take one about Richard Gallardo sitting 95+.

Didn't someone on here already throw out a Mike Minor comp for Steele, when talking about his potential impact out of the pen?

I do like that they have Lange out of the top 10, unlike FG. It will definitely be interesting to see if Richan's secondary stuff plays up like BA seems to think it will. They are the only ones riding that particular train. Here's hoping they are just the first ones of many.

freakin hilarious brett, really owned them! the addition of a 6-WAR first baseman is so cardinal lol. DORKS. Yeah idk what he’s going for there. Other than I forgot Mozeliak is a bow tie wearing goober. He was clearly playing on the "Cardinals aren't fun" sentiment. Nobody in that picture looks happy.

I had blocked Jose Albertos from my mind until I read that blurb on him and got depressed again.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/MinorLeagueBall/status/1068263187680817154[/tweet]

Chisholm above Hiura? That's way too rich for me.

I think this has much more to do with the lack of quality pitching being drafted by the Cubs in 2018 than it does Richan having great offspeed stuff. Even a 55 slider would be the top secondary offering in this draft class.

Also from that chat: KW: Has Trent Giambrone shown you anything in the AFL to move him up your prospect list? 2:43 Eric A Longenhagen: Yeah, I kinda dig him. He’s an above average athlete with a swing I love, he can play a bunch of different positions.

Fair enough. Re: Leal - I haven't gotten a look at him in the AFL. Is his 9 BBs in 17.1 IP due to him burying a bunch of curves and trying to get swings and misses, or is he just trying to nibble too much with a mediocre at best fastball?

Statcast was mentioned only in generalities as to how easily speed was identifiable, and was only done once you tried to make the erronious comparison to pitching velocity. I do not claim, nor have I, that we have public Statcast times for Hoerner. I'm sure CubsDen hand-timed Nico, as I did. Re: the bolded - Yet it would still be wrong, assuming the handful of times are ones in which the runner isn't stumbling or that it's not raining. 3 non-stumbling times on a dry surface is probably all you need. Speed just doesn't fluctuate in a healthy 21 year old. That's why they give participants 2 tries in the 40 yd dash at the NFL combine. It's realized and identified very, very quickly. You specifically stated that you are backing Law on Hoerner's speed (again, I think he meant baserunning in general) based on your observations. How is that anything but "using" your amateur scouting opinion? That's the exact opposite of a reach, which I don't need to do in this discussion. And I very clearly stated that I have done my own times in his videos. My results mirrored those of CubsDen. Please tell me how doing my own work is "blindly believing a Cubs prospect blog". Throw in the fact that literally every other scouting report on Hoerner, predraft or postdraft, I absolutely agree that Law's scouting reports on a prospect should be given weight; and on things that aren't objectively identifiable, he should be believed over amateurs. But when Law is blatantly wrong (running with your assumption that he meant speed) on something that is and can be identified objectively, you can safely ignore it. This is doubly so when literally every other scouting report is to the contrary, including the predraft one by Law himself. It's like believing the 1 scientific study that says humans aren't contributing to climate change over the objective evidence and 100's of other reports that say humans are contributing. Like I said before, you've chosen a bad hill to die on. Your last sentence has me scratching me head as well. Please name one player without leg injuries or weight gain that was universally given above average to plus speed grades predraft, dropped to below average speed 4 months later, and then somehow found the speed back the next year? You claim it's unprecedented, so I genuinely am curious. Other tools? Sure. But not speed.

No, a pitcher throws a ball more often than one individual batter offers a situation where their speed can be measured in a game. In a given amateur game you’re probably seeing 100+ pitches from a half decent pitcher as opposed to, on a lucky day, a handful of times not all usable. Then you’re dealing with more possibility for human error with hand timed stopwatches. Which is why you get a 4.1-4.2 range (to account for human error) and why statcast can get it more accurately. You only need a handful of times in this range to tell a player's speed, since you can quickly eliminate the times when the player slipped or stumbled coming out of the box. It's identifiable very quickly and does not fluctuate like pitching velocity. You should probably just stop comparing running speed and pitching velocity anyway. They really are two completely different animals. I found several videos of Hoerner running from Home to 1st both at Stanford and in the minors. Using my phone's stopwatch, I got between 4.03 and 4.21 every time, with most coming just below or over that 4.1 figure which is what was being reported by Cubs Den. I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic or not, but Statcast provides a computer stopwatch from home to first that takes the human element away. It's very accurate and functions much the same as an official time in an olympic race or the timing of the 40 yd dash at the NFL combine. While the path may not be exactly the same each time, a player busting down the line is not going to veer off course by much. So you are using amateur subjective opinion as an argument against objective fact? Yikes. The lesser comp argument also holds zero stock for something that can be calculated, such as speed. If anything a player runs FASTER against better competition. You've chosen a really bad hill to die on.

Yeah at this point we have to give Law the benefit of the doubt in that he was talking about overall baserunning, and not just speed. Literally everyone else who has seen him play pre-draft and post-draft agrees that he has really good speed.

Pitcher velocities pre- and post- draft can and often do swing all the time, and that’s more easily defined than speed When considering speed in a baseball context, it's exactly as identifable as pitching velocity. One uses a radar gun, the other a stopwatch. Or Statcast for both. Just because one is defined more often does not mean that another is less identifable. But you're smarter than to make this argument. You know that pitching velocity can be altered by about a million mechanical things, as well as arm health and such. The same does not apply to speed. Name one 21 year old who not only got slower, but TWO levels slower, in 4 months without sustaining injury or gaining a ton of weight? It just doesn't happen. That's why I think toonster's mention is probably spot on. Law surely wasn't talking about speed, but the all-encompassing "baserunning". There have been plenty of players that had insticts and IQ off the charts in other aspects of the game, but weren't good baserunners.

Regardless of Hoerner, a player looking less or more impressive after the draft is not uncommon given the dramatic leap in pool size (all of pro baseball) and competition Again, not with something as objective as speed. It's quantifiable and competition has zero effect. The only way someone could drop from above average to below average in speed in only a few months is due to injury or insane weight gain. Or the evaluator just did a terrible job.

That's actually a pretty good point. And considering it was only a few months ago pre-draft that Law himself stated Hoerner had above average speed, that makes much more sense than Law now trying to claim that he has below average speed. I guess I just assumed all the "baseball instincts" and "baseball smarts" talk included his work on the bases. That could have been a poor assumption.

I knew I had read the 4.1 somewhere. Apparently it was "consistently 4.1-4.2". Even at 4.2, Law's version of "below average" is ridiculous. http://www.chicagonow.com/cubs-den/2018/09/end-of-season-prospect-review-nico-hoerner/

You guys know how I feel about rankings and those scouting grades! As far as I can tell this and Law’s claims are both heavily subjective Honestly can’t say I’m impressed by the few things that have come out of the AFL on Hoerner. He’s been pushed yada yada but the tools seem second division Being clocked at 4.1 isn't subjective. That's borderline plus speed from a RH hitter. I am probably with you on most of Hoerner's tools being 2nd division though. The hope is that the 45 power turns into 55 down the road with launch angle stuff, and that the speed/instincts will allow the 50 arm to stay at SS. There's also the hope that the 55 bat can slightly bump up to 60. We aren't talking about a superstar even if everything aligns perfectly, but the sum of the parts is a 1st division starter with some luck and good player development.

IIRC, he was timed around 4.1 home to 1st once he started playing after the draft. That's easily solidly above average and borderline plus. Francisco Lindor is in that range. I believe major league average for a RH batter is a little over 4.3, but my memory could be wrong.