Named After Maddux

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[tweet] [/tweet] I can't say I trust MLB to intelligently run an international draft, but I feel like we hear reports similar to this every year (or close to it) and something has to change.

Quite happy that it played out that way. Nwogu is a much more interesting prospect to me; assuming he takes slot. I''m with you. I'd rather the Cardinals not be gifted a comp pick every year, but, if the decision is Nwogo vs. Burleson then I prefer the upside of Nwogo. I am very excited to see what he does after some time with the hitting team.

Alec Burlson was rumored by BA to be connected to the Cubs, but he was drafted by StL in the supplemental 2nd round. He signed with the Cardinals for approx Cubs 3rd round slot value ($678,600). Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Beesley to Cubs per the BA tracker. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There’s some talent there. My intial favorites: Luke Smith looks like he has some workable qualities. He’s clearly got some fire with his CWS “F U” to Vanderbilt. There’s not a lot of projectability, but he has three pitches and 14 starts for a strong program. It also wouldn’t be a Cubs draft if they didn’t bring in a Louisville pitcher. Austin Smith is a DIII guy who barley pitched this year due to blisters. He’s younger (21) than most guys on the list.he has a decent low 90s FB, but needs a breaking ball. He’d be a good pitch lab guy Bradlee Beesley is a CCBL performer (.948 OPS) who looks like he can play CF and has speed. May not be a power guy, but could be a valuable 5th OF. There’s definitely some other intriguing relievers that need considerable work and I’m guessing they’ll look at bringing in a C or two. Kantrovitz was on Marquee’s podcast and talked about with hitters they have a philosophy of targeting guys that can control the strike zone. It’s a pretty common philosophy, but it’ll be interesting to see if they bring in any more depth hitters with that trait.

I liked this exchange from a previous Fangraphs chat/discussion in the International Free Agency thread. McDaniel leaned Howard so these two prospects might start a war Take Howard with the 16th pick and let em battle it out! Should be fun to watch.

Jared Kelley is still on board. I could see guys like Cade Horton or Carson Montgomery in the mix - both have commitments that could require big money to buy out. There's a few others. I actually like the idea of Cade Horton to the Orioles with one of their picks. Tanner Witt's still on board. There's a lot of HS guys that could need big dollars to not go to college. Yes and even with pick 30 going for Westburg there’s ways they can add a lot of overslot talent still. But it definitely felt like Bitsko was their plan A. I would guess they take at least two big swings in the rest of their draft. Maybe I’m not in the majority, but I preferred Austin Wells to Kjerstad.

Well I still don’t think the Kjerstad pick made sense, but now with Bitsko off the table, I’m curious what picks 30 and 39 are going to look like for BAL.

I really like the pick. There are some people very high on Ed Howard. It’s not a typical year where the top prep SS is an uber prospect, but this is very intriguing. Honestly I’m thrilled it’s not a Cade Cavalli or Chris McMahon. Whoa Boston!

Abel, Bitsko, Hendrick and Mitchell all were available. I'm a hard pass on that. The Cubs seem like they've been connected to a wide variety of players. I'm hoping they're just keeping everything close to the vest and it's all conjecture. Eric's statement in the mock even make it seem like that. If we're going to reach for an ASU infielder, give me Gage Workman.

I just thought about putting together a mock for fun and discussion. Looking forward to tonight/tomorrow. Pick 16: Garrett Mitchell, OF It seems like this is a relatively common pick in mocks, most likely because it’s hard to place Mitchell and the Cubs look like they’re keeping things close to the vest. I know that he’s not the most universally popular pick. I’ve gone through different phases of interest in Mitchell. It was exciting at first to see a top 10 player possibly fall, but that swing is going to need some work. I’m somewhere in the middle now. This is the highest the Cubs have picked in 5 years and there should be some talent available. They should go upside and Mitchell is one option that has upside. The Cubs have done a solid job on swing changes (Hoerner and Brennen Davis) and invested heavily with a director of hitting. Mitchell is listed as plus raw power, but even if they can get the swing ironed out to give about average power, that would be massive for his profile. I could see an optimistic view of his future as a LH CF Trea Turner, plus hit tool, low to medium power, plus defense, plus-plus speed. Admittedly I’d have several players who could be available over Mitchell. All of Able, Bitsko, PCA, Ed Howard, and probably Soderstrom. I could even buy-in on Austin Wells for an underslot since that bat looks like it’ll play (maybe around pick 23 slot value?). However, if I’m just guessing for the sake of a mock, I’ll say Garrett Mitchell. Alternate: Mick Abel, RHP. There’s a good chance he’s gone by this. The Cubs had a lot of chatter even last year of looking at HS RHPs in the first round. Was it Passen that was convinced the Cubs had an agreement for $2.5 million with Matt Allan? Both Sahadev and Mooney mentioned that if Quinn Priester had made it to their pick, they’d have taken him. I really think Jered Jones could be fun too, but is this too high? Pick 51: Logan Allen, LHP Alternate: Nick Swiney, LHP Pick 88: Ben Hernandez, RHP Alternate: Ricky Tierderman, LHP Pick 117: Tyler McDonough, OF/2B Alternate: Jimmy Glowenke, SS (likely a 2B) Pick 147: Bryce Bonnin, RHP Alternate: Mitchell Parker, LHP Edit:Jared Jones not Josh Jones

Just revisiting a few topics, especially with some position player information from Kantrovitz’s time with the Cardinals and A’s. A quick disclaimer, there’s countless data points to consider and a good amount is proprietary information. This isn’t any sort of method to “reverse-engineer” draft boards, but I thought a few points were interesting. Many of these notes are more comments on how the Cardinals and A’s organizational philosophies differed. Cardinals Cardinals tldr: Cardinals 2012-2014 drafts focused on a lot of college (especially pitching), but when they went with overslot HS, they tended to be in the second round and carried some risk. A’s A’s tldr: The A’s drafted a lot of guys who performed really poorly in wood bat leagues. One of the 4/15 hitters who hit well with wood bats is now in the Cubs system.

I’m a little skittish with Kelley since there haven’t been glowing reports about his ability to spin a breaking ball. That plus the risky demographic is a bit scary. I’d prefer Abel (like you mentioned) and I think Fulton will likely make Baltimore very happy. But I can’t say there isn’t a fun thought about the Cubs taking Kelley and teaching him one of those knuckle curves.

I'm not optimistic Abel is there, but man would this be a fun pick. Pretty much all of the names mentioned in that blurb would be exciting (except Austin Wells). I hope the chatter about the Cubs being more open to upside comes true. It doesn't have to be prep, but if the board falls that way to have one of Abel, Soderstrom, or Pete Crow-Armstrong (I doubt Hassell gets past picks 8-10) be the pick. There's risk there, but I would much prefer coming out of the draft with one of those three rather than a safe guy like Chris McMahon or one with previous health issues and reliever questions like Cavalli or Beeter.

The Cubs were mocked Garrett Crochet in a recent Prospect 365 article Some familiar names mentioned. I believe Crochet has been mocked to the Cubs a couple of times and Tanner Burns has been mentioned as well. Just for the sake of discussion, it's interesting to look at AJ Puk as a recent comp to Crochet. They possess similar builds and arsenals. They also dealt with health issues during their draft year. Puk had much more experience in the weekend rotation for Florida, but was a common pick for 1-1 in 2016 projections. MLB Pipeline's report on AJ Puk's pitches in 2016; 6'7" 230 lbs, LHP Florida MLB Pipeline's report on Garrett Crochet's pitches in 2020; 6'6" 218 lbs, LHP Tennessee

Am I the only one that didn't know Mick Abel was not directly related to Kevin Abel? I guess I always had just assumed. I literally work at Oregon State and didn’t know that so I’d say you’re off the hook!

Ben Hernandez is a local kid. And this is the first I had seen (I'm sure the reports are out there) about Jared Jones having a top change-up. He and Ben Hernandez are awfully exciting.

Love it. Thanks! I was thinking of doing something like this just to see who exactly Kantrovitz picked but the additional info on changeups and draft rankings is fantastic. I’m not sure how much of his past history we will be able to apply to this year since this draft is so weird but it’s really helpful. Re: Mitchell, you have to be confident you can work on his swing to help him tap into his power. The Cubs aren’t quite the Dodgers of course but they’re still really good at minor league swing changes (see Nico & Brennen recently) so I’d be excited to see what they can do with him. The defense and speed are a nice bonus with Mitchell if you can get some more power. Thanks! Yeah this year will be even more of a crapshoot. What will be really interesting is the path teams take. Do they shift to reliable college players or do some draft hard-to-sign guys and offer lowball 40-50% of slot value to get a 2021 pick. Mitchell will be a fascinating case come draft day. If he’s really just falling due to his type 1 diabetes, then I’m even more interested. You’d have to imagine Kantrovitz and company felt comfortable with him health wise to draft him high enough to try to sign him out of his UCLA commit (oh yeah CR, you’ve seen him likely more than anyone here). Mitchell’s tools are pretty impressive and I like the blend of that high ceiling with a pretty decent floor as a speedy, plus defender CF. That’s a great point about the Cubs actually succeeding on swing changes with Nico and Brennen (man that feels like forever ago). Even moderate (15 homer power) would be an enormous upside. I don’t want to get too optimistic he’ll fall. It only takes one team to jump on the upside. I’m going to look into Kantrovitz’s position player trends, but I still really like the prep group. Zac Veen, Pete Crow-Armstrong, and Robert Hassell would be awesome and I could be convinced on Soderstrom and Ed Howard. Even Jordan Walker is really intriguing.

There's obviously no sports right now so forgive the length. I spoilered a lot of the longer discussions. The addition of Kantrovitz as the Cubs new scouting director adds another wrinkle to evaluating which players they may be prioritizing. I looked at the drafts when he was the scouting director for the Cardinals (2012-2014) and the AGM with the A’s (2015-2019). During his time in Oakland, the A’s described his role on their website I factored in the players selected by the A’s as far as traits of players selected. I’m still diving into it, but a few notes (I primarily looked into pitchers here and will look into position player traits later): Where players have been selected in the first and supplemental round: Kantrovitz has put a strong emphasis on polish with the selections of college pitching. He drafts from “power programs” (7 of 14 first-round picks) and heavily from Florida. Five of the first-round sections from 2012-2019 and a total of 11 of his top 5 round picks were from Florida. He really likes polished college pitchers with change-ups. Three straight drafts featured first-round picks on polished college pitchers who featured a strong change-up: Michael Wacha (2012), Marco Gonzales (2013), and Luke Weaver (2014). His HS pitching targets also feature an emphasis on change-ups. His teams have drafted HS pitchers five times in the first five rounds from 2012-2019. Everyone features at least an improving change-up. Several pitchers feature plus to plus-plus change-ups. I think it'd be foolish to not factor in that every organization is going to have their own preferences, but as far as pitchers I'd imagine there will be players targeted who have solid to plus future change-up grades. I went through the top 150 on MLB pipeline and highlighted players who have similar change-up grades to the players above. His time with the A’s was a fairly even mix of “high floor” and “high ceiling” Richie Martin (2015-floor), AJ Puk (2016-higher floor at least as a reliever), Austin Beck (2017- ceiling), Kyler Murray (2018-ceiling), Logan Davidson (2019-floor). When players have “fallen” in the draft, Kantrovitz’s teams have often been the team to pick the player. Wacha 19th (BA 8th, MLB 11th), Piscotty 36th (BA 26th, MLB 18th) AJ Puk 6th (1st by BA). The A’s also drafted Garrett Mitchell in the 14th round in 2017. If he fell in this draft, I would not be surprised to see the Cubs take him. It was a lot to go through the pitchers so I'll look into position player trends later and combine those for a list of possible draft targets.

Law’s mock on The Athletic dropped today. That’s the second national writer to recently connect the Cubs to Tanner Burns. If we go college pitching I’d much favor Burns to any of Cavalli/Wilcox and likely Crochet. I still wouldn’t be surprised to see the Cubs with Pete Crow-Armstrong. He’s the best CF defender in the class. He’s suffering from some draft fatigue and Kantrovitz has drafted a lot from CA (granted what scouting director hasn’t?).

I am also really interested in Hurts if the Bears were able to trade down and pick up a 3rd and 4th. I'm not really very experienced with evaluating football players, but I remember one of the knocks on Hurts is he's a "general accuracy" passer rather than "pinpoint accuracy". I do still like him as a solid developmental guy behind Foles and Mitch this year. If he gets a full redshirt year in an NFL system, I'd be very interested in seeing what he could do in 2021. I ran a mock on The Draft Network today involving trades. The simulator definitely does not give much leeway in the trade evaluation so even though the trade charts say it's a fair deal the other team may not "accept" it. Ultimately I only did five rounds, but traded down three times: Chi #43, #163 to BAL #55, #92 Chi #55 to SEA #64, #133 CHI #92, #200 to PIT #102, #135 Spoilers contain a TDN analyst's scouting report summary. It's free content, just spoilered for size. 50. Chicago Bears Josh Jones OT, Houston 64. Chicago Bears Chase Claypool WR, Notre Dame 102. Chicago Bears Alohi Gilman S, Notre Dame 133.Chicago Bears Ben Bredeson IOL, Michigan 135. Chicago Bears Alton Robinson EDGE, Syracuse I really should have targeted CB/S earlier, but Josh Jones was hard to pass up. He could sit behind Leno/Massie for a year and step right in next year as a high ceiling OT. I'm very happy with getting Bredeson and Robinson in the 4th. No QB, but James Morgan would have been available at the start of the 6th round.

And their minor league players. Theo mentioned finding them meals and that’s great, but what about a salary/per diem?

It’s great to see Winkler and Sadler standing out. Winkler was mentioned hitting 96 with a high spin rate and a solid slider. I’m less enthused about Tepera. I’d rather take a chance on Underwood since Tepera Is on a split contract. It also really depends on Wick. He’s probably working on his slider/cutter “thing”, but if they don’t feel like he’s clicking he’d be another option to start off in Iowa.