Named After Maddux

Sounds like MLB Pipeline is joining Keith Law (8th) and BA (25th) in listing Yohendrick Pinango ("around the middle of the list") as a Top 30 Cubs prospect when the list releases in a couple of weeks. They're doing it by division and the NL Central comes out last apparently.

Dorey reported that he's gotten stronger. Can't hit HR without some strength, but can't hit HR's without hitting the ball, either. Obviously he'll need to hit more than the 3HR he hit at South Bend in 2019. They're all snowflakes, I get that. But I wonder if Bote doesn't give some analogy? In his age 21-22-23 seasons in the minors, he hit 4, 6, and 7 HR. Now we know he's got plenty of power. Especially if the reports of Weber getting stronger are true, a decent number of those 36 doubles will make their way over the fence. I don't think he grows into anything crazy, but maybe average power? Fangraphs has that as 15-18 home runs. That seems possible if things break right.

I just listened during lunch to your Herz interview. Hadn't seen it previously. That was really good. Thanks! Are you going to post the Basham interview? Thanks! Bobby said he'd be willing to come on for an interview with articles, but he didn't want to come on for a podcast at this time. So no podcast episode, unfortunately.

Thanks for merging. Yours was better! I do wonder if this also allows the Cubs to only carry one lefty if they wanted to. I’d still prefer one of Wieck or Steele to force their way on.

Imagine Wick has a significant setback Should be another 40-man move coming too.

Hey, that's cool! I hadn't realized that either! Very nice. I've enjoyed your articles and insights from coaches and players. Nice. I'm guessing you maybe talked about McAvene with Basham? Thanks for info here. Heh heh, I was hoping to get some more insights on specific guys! Maybe articles to be written later? :):):). Any other scoop on McAvene you might want to share? Did you get any insights from him on Clarke? He had some really nice numbers in brief Eugene debut, but with a glimpse of a perhaps very different profile. I've gotten the sense that Dorey thinks Clarke has a chance to be good, but scouting comments are rare and may not reflect what he throws now. Pre-draft, pretty much large man with a curve. But an update on what he is throwing now would be interesting. Is he a big curve, slow curve, spike curve, or several variants? Fastball 2 seam, 4-seam, or both? An additional pitch he's added to support starting-rotation profile? I just don't know much. Or whether he's strictly a reliever, or has perhaps the control to be a rotation candidate? . Hey hey! Thanks. So I had a couple insights from Basham, which has made me look into more things. Bobby mentioned a bit more about players but they were pretty vanilla comments. They’re really high on the shortstops they’ve brought in recently. With McAvene, I heard that he was one of the guys building out repertoires like Riley Thompson. So I reached out. Michael was nice and actually just walked me through what he was throwing. I asked if I could share and he gave me the go ahead. I think the article is set to go out Friday. He was a natural fit for that power curve with the four seam. But the 2-seam is still more confirmation the Cubs believe in that pitch. Clarke is an interesting dude. He’s one I’m going to try to dig into more. He’s someone I’m hoping to have on for an interview. Luke Little and I just chatted the other day. He had a non-injury setback in instructs so he only got two bullpens with the pitching coordinators, but said “yes” he’s working on a spike curve and a change up. Let me know who you’d like me to try to dive on in more!

I wonder if innings are going to be so light for guys that it's plenty of time to ramp up. We know hitters only need ~2 weeks, and that the reason ST is so long is for SPs. But if teams are going to limit minor league SPs to 3-4 innings at the start of the season anyway, maybe a month is fine. Also, I was very slow on the uptake and didn't realize Ivy Futures was yours. Really good stuff, I've enjoyed everything I've read there so far! :good: I think so too. I haven't heard yet from anyone if they're just going to be doing a ton of piggybacking, but It'd still bet on that as the plan. That would also allow the development staff to keep building out repertoires. Like, Michael McAvene may end up in the pen someday and some organizations would just put him there while accelerating his development, but he's coming into ST with 5 pitches (4s FB, 2s FB, SL, CU, and a new spike curve). There's a whole bunch of pitchers that have been working on pitch design during the shutdown. I think there's just a whole lot of pitchers on each staff going for 2-4 innings through May and June. And thanks! I'm having a blast working on the site. I've learned a lot. It's been very cool to connect with the players, front office people, and other bloggers too.

It fits with the timeline, but it appears that April 1st is the report date for the minor league players not already in big league camp. AA and A+/A games start May 4th. So it'll be a quick turnaround. I don't know how they could have realistically done any different with the big league players there till the end of March and the facilities needing to be cleaned, but it still puts a lot of pressure on minor league players again.

That surprises me, but it is so fascinating that it’s Gammons who wrote this. He’s so connected with Theo Epstein that I’m legitimately curious if it was Theo that mentioned that. It’s still hard for me to believe this, but Gammons isn’t known for sensationalizing things. Did anyone have any thoughts about him confusing a comment said to him? Like if he extrapolated that the Cubs really liked Yorke and had him high on their board? I dunno. I do like Nick Yorke as a prospect. He tore up instructs and this is guy where the rankings just hadn’t caught up with where some teams had him. However, I’m very glad Howard landed with the Cubs. I think I would have been speechless for awhile if the Cubs had selected Yorke instead of Mitchell, PCA, Bitsko, Soderstrom, and even Austin Wells. This is a very different situation from 2010 (Yorke is a very good prospect), but 22 year old me did NOT take the Hayden Simpson pick well.

I like the idea of a control+smarts pitcher perhaps showing up with perhaps legit stuff. Thanks for sharing Re: Jensen I'll add a bit of context since it was hard to transcribe off a Zoom call. It does sound like it is a spike curve, but I don't think Bobby wanted to get too pinned down the specific grips. It behaves like a power curve as you mentioned. The Cubs really like what it adds to his overall arsenal. The 2-seam still is clearly what the Cubs believe is his best pitch, but his upper 90s velo should work very well with the power curve. I wasn't going to put this in the article, but it definitely felt a bit of hyperbole (dreaming) in three plus-pitches. That's a really high bar to hit. But he could feature multiple plus pitches in isolation (2-seam and maybe slider). If the fourseam and power curve work off each other then those should be average or better pitches. Basham said the changeup is coming along. But in total, the Cubs are high on Jensen and unlike most teams, they believe in the 2-seam/sinker. He will be a fun guy to watch this year. Re: Thompson This totally surprised me, but it sounds like something to watch this spring. I've always pegged him as a BOR arm (and I still think he is), but with the backdrop that I didn't think he'd succeed well in relief. If he's showing power breaking stuff, I'm much more encouraged that relief is an option if needed. Glad you enjoyed the article! I have some other fun discussions coming up.

Thanks for sharing Tom. It was an interesting discussion with Bobby.

A walk rate like that would make Dillon Maples seem like Bob Tewksbury! Per 9 IP... Ha! Meant BB/9, but there’s games where it felt like Maples did that.

Remind me. He's the older OK State guy, who had surgery? Kind of a college Maples, with a strong/fast arm and a lot of K's, but kind of a walk-an-inning guy? I'm sure I'm oversimplifying, but in my head I'm recalling him kind of as a 2K/1BB-per-inning type of wildman profile, right? Kind of an interesting wildcard, I'd think. As a relief guy who was a freshman, then coming back as a rehab guy, and then Covid-shortened, he'll turn 24 early summer, but only pitched 72 college innings combined. So probably with so little actual game pitching, and much of that in kind of rehab post-op mode, it's not entirely clear that what he's been past represents what he might be future. I'm fired up about the pitch-lab stuff and the optimism that they can develop pitch shape etc. But I admit I'm really curious and a little less confident about how much pitch-lab development will be able to help the wildman. Adjusting grips and delivery for better velocity and better pitch shape, that make sense. But does the pitch-lab have capacity to help wildman gain control? If so, how would that work? Heh heh, in chemistry research, we do proof-of-principle experiments, and if a new procedure works well for a case-study, scope-and-limitation studies follow. I'm kinda thinking that *if* there is proof-of-principle that pitch-lab-can help command, a guy like Leeper might be on the extreme-challenge end of the scope-and-limitation continuum for control-repair. You're totally right on the backstory. He's had an extensive history of wildness. It's improved a bit in relief, but he's still about 1 BB/inning. If you wanted a "proof of concept" to developing a pitcher with a wildness problem, maybe Riley Thompson? He sported a 6.8 BB/inning in his last season in college. Since with the Cubs, he's halved that. Not exactly a 1 to 1 situation, but perhaps there's a minor grip change, mental cue, or biokinetic fix for Leeper. Any of those could have happened in instructs. Will be interesting to dive into more.

That’s a great breakdown. People seem to really like Ben Leeper. I’ll be curious if the optimism is more about the relative value of getting a reliever who could make the majors out of an UDFA signing or if it’s about true late-inning reliever level talent. I’m guessing, like all of this, we find out a lot by June. Luke Little is an interesting dude too. I was a bit pessimistic about the pick early on, but there was definitely a team about to select him before the Cubs did. They had him in for a workout and kinetically they were impressed. I remember thinking he was very stiff in his predraft. It’ll be curious to see if they run him out as a starter early since he’ll need so much development. I imagine he’ll at least piggyback early like a lot of guys this year.

The problem is that PTR's definition of "a mid level FA" means somebody willing to sign a 1 year contract under $2 million. The dreaded 3/$15M is unimaginable I can’t imagine the Cubs would dare shell out “Marlon Byrd money” in this economy.

I'm sure vlad and Bichette wouldn't be on the table and probably not Pearson, but I certainly would love to get something starting with Austin Martin and Simeon Woods-Richardson, grab a third like Manoah and that would be a haul. I’ve had a KB and Hendricks for Woods-Richardson, Groshans, Grichuk, and Stripling deal in my mind. Not that it would actually make me excited but I could squint and see how it fits into a 2022 timeline. Another guy in TOR’s system that makes sense is Gabriel Moreno, who could slide in and be a C a year behind Amaya in the system. Still I go back to the premise that if you trade Hendricks, you need to seriously consider moving all Non-Happ players on the major league roster.

If the Cubs move Kyle Hendricks, it’s time to burn the whole thing to the ground. Edit: Wrong tweet

Guessing based on their recent podcast that BA has Amaya just outside the Top 100.

Willson loves to stoke the fires. It wouldn’t surprise me to see him moved though. Those Jason Castro rumors probably were legitimate. At this point I think Jed is cashing in the chips he wanted to in previous seasons. The Blue Jays, Angels, Marlins, and Mets are all somewhat interesting trade partners.

Interesting That would put Jensen at a 5 pitch mix: two seam and four seam both with elite velocity, slider, changeup, and curveball....Same as Alzolay but throws harder, better two seamer, probably better overall secondaries...I thought his changeup was underrated or had potential out of the draft too Gooooooood stuff, and set up for maybe 90 innings in 2021 maybe 100, just seems like a nice sleeper in the org Thanks for posting Tom. I do think Jensen is a bit underrated in the system. He did have a viable changeup coming out of Fresno St, but if he’s still experimenting with grips it may be a bit of a work in progress. He’s an interesting guy to watch this summer. I agree with you, if he can throw a solid 90-100 innings, that sets him up for 2022.

That’s a very intriguing profile. A slider followed by a splitter was the two pitch sequence with the highest SwSt% (swinging strike %) in baseball last year. https://twitter.com/choice_fielder/status/1344077942897307650?s=21

I like this much better, small but big impact. There was some twitter speculation Woods-Richardson might have made his ML debut in 2020 IIRC. Overall agreed that the Blue Jays are the cleanest fit if trading both Contreras and Caratini. It would be nice if the traded could be expanded to include Gurriel Jr. Other take is I'd rather trade Mills than Davies in a Contreras deal. Davies can carry his own trade the way many are going to be scrambling for pitching if the season is scheduled for more than 60 games That’s a good point on Mills, Tom. I’d prefer trading him over Davies despite the additional control.

I still like my Contreras to Toronto for Simeon Woods Richardson, Danny Jansen, and CJ Van Eyk deal. If you expanded it to include Davies, maybe Stripling comes back. He had a rough 2020, but if you believe you can get him back to form then his team control is helpful.

I’m glad to see Thatcher Hurd start to make his way up boards. I’ve got him in the 30s in my internal list. Big spin rate guy and an athletic delivery. He’s new to full time pitching so there’s less mileage on the arm. I think some model-friendly team is going to take him relatively early.

Agree, I really like him. Also, if true, the NL Central should have fecal league stats next year instead of regular stats. Just imagine if they do expanded playoffs again and take two teams from the NL Central.