Named After Maddux

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.

I imagine the Nationals at #22 or #56 would be a possible landing spot for Ginn.

I’m very interested in the pitching placements. I do wonder if they’re a bit more aggressive with Marquez. Unfortunately Jeremiah Estrada had TJS surgery last August.

With all the SP injuries to the Yankees and Angels coupled with the inevitable move to get under the LT, I’d wonder what Q could bring back. It seems like we talked about it all offseason and the Cubs FO just didn’t get substantial offers to move anyone, but there’s a lot of urgency from teams. Jettisoning Q would really affect the SP depth and counter all the talk about competing/running the team back out there (through walls) with Ross, but I’d be very interested in seeing if they could acquire Joe Musgrove. He’s cheap and controlled so Pittsburgh would need to get similar controllable value. I wonder if there’s players in the group of Bote, Almora (if they buy the stance changes), relievers out of options (Underwood, Sadler), SP down in the depth chart (Alzolay, Rea, Tyson Miller) that could interest the Pirates. He’s not an all world SP, but he’s pretty intriguing.

I still think the Benintendi comp fits pretty well here. Fangraphs has Roederer with a 45 arm and Benintendi with a 50. AB is kind of a CF offensive profile playing mostly LF. Benintendi is likely Roederer’s ceiling, but it’s still a valuable one if he can reach it. Roederer is definitely more projection than results at this time and he’s overshadowed by Davis. But Cole did put up a 101 wRC+ At 19 in the MWL so it wasn’t a complete flop. It wouldn’t surprise me if he has a very solid year in Hi A if he doesn’t try to sell out for power like he did last year.

If it was something to the extent of the Astros, then I would be truly devastated. If it was something like the Red Sox, It'd feel a bit cheapened, but I can't say it would bother me too much other than hearing teams with a little-brother complex (WS, MIL) rag on the Cubs needing to cheat to win a title. While I disagree with what Boston did, that still feels like a small jump from scouting prior to the game and relaying it from the basepaths. It is over the line and they deserve punishment, but of the information available on Boston's infractions they appear much more minor. Alex Cora is really likely going to face the wrath of MLB far more for his work in Houston than Boston. But like I mentioned, something so pervasive as the Astros cheating scandal where it almost definitely turned the tides of several playoff (especially World Series) games and resulted in a gutting of top executives and the Manager/coaches would be terrible to think about. My head would spin if I had to figure out which incredible hits in Cubs history were likely tainted.

Well let’s see, the harshest penalty ever given out was a lifetime ban So they will get a lifetime ban on stealing signs? I don’t expect it, but if MLB found proof they used electronics to effectively steal a World Series then I don’t see why not. John Coppolella was banned from the game a few years ago due to IFA violations with Atlanta.

*face palm* that’s right. I completely forgot his full name was Abraham Toro-Hernandez. That makes more sense. Still I can’t put much stock in this. The names don’t match the suitors we’ve heard for Bryant outside of Philly. Even if it wasn’t directly fabricated by this guy it feels more like what someone in the industry felt might be what the Cubs are looking for via scuttlebutt. I mean Detroit is about as bad of an example of a team targeting Bryant as there could be. So yes I’m sure the Cubs would like Mize in a vacuum, but Detroit is far more likely to sell off further than go all in for the next two seasons.

There's a lot of caveats here (not sure about this guy's legitimacy, if this is legit who this came from, names listed are only the first or second player targeted etc), but presented on the slim chance this is anything: [tweet]https://twitter.com/JohnMcGrathMLB/status/1206344780009164800[/tweet] This guy was at MLB Winter Meetings (that doesn't necessarily mean anything since my Dad and I went last year) so maybe he has some connections. He has 1200 followers, not verified though. So this looks like: Bohm + N (Guessing Neris not Nola for obvious reasons). If It's "M", then likely Medina India Toro + Hernandez (?); I can't find a "Hernandez", which is one of the reasons I'm skeptical. Unless the intern writing didn't realize it was "Alvarez". Robert (certainly higher ceiling than others, but wouldn't understand why this would be ranked lower if this is a ranking) Adell (same thing as Robert) ... "ire" (heck if I know) Overall if legit, I'm not impressed. I'm already in the camp of don't trade KB, but unless they get huge returns from ATL, LAD, WAS, PHI I'm not likely to look forward to the return. Adell and Robert do have the ceiling you'd like to see, but need a controllable SP to come back too.

Per Craig Mish and a few guys at BA, the MLB draft will now be held in Omaha starting next year. I’m a big fan of that change.

Sorry TT. Read it twice and still missed it. I meant assuming they trade Bryant and DON’T sign Rendon or obtain another 3B option I’d be okay without Bote/Frazier. Oh I know that’s what you meant. What I’m getting at is if I think Bote is for real enough to trust him v. RHP, I won’t bother getting a platoon partner for the pitchers Bote already has platoon advantage against, even if their career numbers are a bit better. And I can buy that as well. I’m curious to know the internal evaluations of someone like Bote (I suppose we’ll likely find out the gist this winter). He’s someone that played a decent portion of the season with a broken toe and seemed like he made changes later in the year, but he could completely flop as well. I suppose Frazier or someone of that same level should at least be brought in since there aren’t too many internal replacements if Bote flops in that scenario. I’d agree that spending resources on the small side of a platoon isn’t ideal.

The reporting could be wrong, but nothing in the Bryant trade news I’ve seen indicates that a big FA move would come on the heels of it. Either way, there’s no outcome with Cole, Rendon, or Strasburg. How to backfill Bryant depends on the specifics of what he’s traded for, bit I vote that if you’re willing to trust Bote v. RHP, that you just give him the job. He’s a good defender there and lets you focus resources elsewhere. Sorry TT. Read it twice and still missed it. I meant assuming they trade Bryant and DON’T sign Rendon or obtain another 3B option I’d be okay without Bote/Frazier.