Jason Ross

I only have the gameday app up for the game right now, but on his third walk, the app had three of the four balls he threw pitches as "strikes"

Let me weigh in a little more substansative right now: Good: I like what I'm seeing across the system pitching wide. The Cubs have a few arms from the recent years showing improved stuff and velocity. Ryan Gallagher, Grant Kipp, Evan Ashenback have all shown really encouraging signs of being useful arms. Beyond that, Jaxon Wiggins has exploded on to the scene and is performing about as well as Cade Horton was at the same levels. JP Wheat and Nazier Mule have flashes of improvement though both have more to do before they're legitimate. Luke Little and Jack Neeley have righted their ships as well. Riley Martin looks like he's found some command. Offensively, Rojas and Hernandez have had really great years. Moises Ballesteros and Jonathon Long are both on the up and up as well. Owen Caissie's power has really flashed this year and his defense has made strides again. Carter Trice, Ivan Brethowr and Eli Lovach of the last two drafts have had encouraging years, teetering on breakouts with a few extra tweaks. Christian Franklin, outside of a bad stretch, has made himself a real threat to be an MLB player. Bad: Injuries have been a pain for some guys. Brandon Birdsell, Jordan Wicks (not a prospect but I'm adding him into this system overview), Cole Mathis, and James Triantos have been negatively affected by them, throwing their seasons off. Long time to get it together, but a pain in the ass. Myrtle Beach just hasn't had a great year. There's interesting players there, but they're struggling a bit. Kevin Alcantara has been bad against non-fastballs. That's redflag territory. It's not "his ship is sunk" or anything, but thats not good. Caissie's K% has spiked heavily into the 30's this year. His power is helping offset this, but right now, you'd be hard-pressed to believe enough contact to be fully offset yet. Depth in the system is questionable. Losing Cam Smit to trade, Cade Horton and Matt Shaw to promotion and some iffy down-the-table performances means that there's a bit less meat there than has been. Overall: I still think this is an encouraging year on the whole, even if it's imperfect. I suspect the system will rank by the end of the year somewhere in the late teens, to low-20's range...say....18-23? That adds in some trades even with the draft coming. But it's a system that needs one good IFA crew to play well and their last IFA group was promising on paper. Last year's draft still has enough upside floating around to help too. There was a lot made of the system in the last few years that it didn't have a star player, and all Pete Crow-Armstrong has done...well I think we can say we were probably wrong there. I think the system may be deceptively low; if Juan Thomas or someone like that jumps off the paper, if the Cubs nail their first round pick or can add in a second rounder with big upside, we probably have more upper ceiling guys than we know.

Lovich hitting like a league average bat right away, in a terrible environment, would be awesome, man. Get the K's are in check, and he's a beanpole of dude. Add some weight and this guy has upside. His start in Myrtle is nothing but a massive positive in my books. Important to note, it's been 3 games in Myrtle. That the Cubs even promoted him there this quick should tell us they think good things of him!. I thought he'd stick in Arizona to add weight most of the year.

That's the goal! I want to let the month play out and take a mid-season stock of things. I'll say this in general; I think it's been a pretty good year! I think we'll drop in the rankings because Shaw and Horton will have graduated, but the progress in the lower levels, a few pop ups and I'm really encouraged. The rankings mean less to me than the progress.

Yeah that seems like a fair guess. They've been very "fastball heavy" on the MLB side of things recently and wonder if that'll play out in the draft; either players who already have strong fastballs, or pitchers they feel like they can reinvent a pitch mix by going heavy fastball usage instead.

Image courtesy of Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images Let's take a trip back around a month ago. It is May 6th, a slightly chilly, early-May night game in Chicago. The Cubs have made a dramatic comeback already, scoring twice off San Francisco Giants' reliever Ryan Walker behind big hits from much-maligned Justin Turner and their star outfielder, Kyle Tucker, in the bottom of the ninth, forcing the game into extra innings. As the game enters into the 11th still tied, the Cubs call upon their own supposed relief ace, Ryan Pressly, to hold the fort down and keep the game tied for their offense to have a chance in the bottom of the inning. Sadly for the North Siders, Pressly would see eight batters, would retire none of them, and would exit the game down 12-5 (two more runs would score on a double surrendered by Caleb Thielbar that would also be charged to Pressly). Mercifully, his very bad, no good night had come to a close, and with it, the reliever was essentially mothballed into mop-up duty. There had been troubling signs that something was off with Pressly, but the cause of the issue was hard to diagnose exactly. The former Astro had seen his K% and whiff rates plummet, striking out just five of the first 62 hitters he faced as a Cub. Part of this was probably unsustainably bad, meaning, with some natural course-correction, he'd just strike out a few more hitters. But, it was fair to wonder if there was something mechanically wrong with the pitcher, or if Father Time had come for him. Thankfully for the Cubs, it appears to be the former, and not the later. Since that fateful night in early May, Ryan Pressly has been on somewhat of a heater, throwing 13 scoreless innings since then. More importantly, he's seen his K% jump from basically "non-existent" to a very respectable 21.6%. To go with this, he's limited walks considerably, issuing just three free passes, and has a sterling 2.31 FIP and a 3.25 xFIP. If there was a bit of a "cause for pause" in the data, however, it was that the Cubs had banished him to pure mop-up duty. Many of the early innings in this sample size came in very low-leverage situations; a 7-2 deficit to the Mets on the road, a 6-2 win over the White Sox, and a 13-6 win over the Reds highlighted a few of his "re-introduction" innings, so it was fair to wonder how much of this would stick and how much of this was pitching in low-leverage situations, or pitching against some weak offenses. Pressly's usage has changed significantly over the last two weeks, however. He's been used more and more in higher-leverage moments and against better opponents. He even picked up a one-run save against the Pirates on Thursday. More importantly, there seems to be a reason for the uptick in the production: Pressly's fastball is showing signs of significant improvement. His last three outings have had some important signs of life from a pitch that looked rough early in the year. First, it's probably important to point to the most obvious thing: he's throwing his fastball harder. Over his last three outings, Pressly has seen his average fastball velocity sit at 94mph, and he's touched 95 once or twice on the gun as well. This is up a full tick from earlier in the season. That's great, and even though it's only one mph, it highlights that the Grim Reaper of Baseball hasn't taken his talent yet. There's some juice still there. Better yet, his fastball shape has changed a bit, as well. Especially early in the season, he was getting more glove-side run than he had previously. This wasn't playing well for Pressly, clearly, as hitters were really crushing his offering. Through April, opposing batters had a wOBA touching .400 on the pitch. While the raw numbers were better in April, an expected wOBA of .366 on the pitch let you know he wasn't there yet. Since then, he's ticked up on the velocity, he's seen much less glove-side run on his pitch, and hitters' xwOBA has dropped to .221 on his four-seamer. The answer to "what's changed" seems to be tied to his release point. Pressly has seen his arm angle flatten out just slightly while also increasing the vertical release point of his pitch. This seems to be helping him change the overall shape of the fastball. Lastly, he seems to be able to command his pitches better now as well, as he's getting the pitch on the edge far more often now. The result? A lot of ground balls, less hard contact, and better results for the pitcher overall. I will pump the breaks a bit and remind everyone that we're not entirely out of the weeds here with Pressly. The improvements we're seeing have been over just a few innings; the velocity bump is over just his last three. But, these are all very important signs that he's snapping out of what caused all of the strife early in the year. What it means for the Cubs is that he's much closer to being what they thought they had when they dealt for him back in the offseason. A version of Ryan Pressly who can average 94mph on his fastball and can be counted on in medium-to-high-leverage situations is a good thing to have. I don't believe he's back to being the closer just because he picked up a save on Thursday. I think Palencia was given the tougher inning in the 8th against the middle of the Pirates order, and suspect that had those hitters have been due up in the ninth, that their roles would have been reversed. In addition, Cubs' reliever Porter Hodge is on the mend and isn't too far off either. But, Pressly being back in the "Circle of Trust" is a great development for the team and the bullpen. Let's hope it sticks. What have you noticed different about Ryan Pressly over the last few outings? Do you have trust built back in him yet? What would he have to do to earn that trust? Let us know in the comments below! 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His best start yet.

Welcome, Jeff!

I know he's not hit great, but this is the kind of horsefeathers Turner does behind the scenes for why he won't get DFA'd. I'll also say this: he'll probably manage at the MLB level at some point. He seems to really get the "culture" aspect of this whole thing,

Clean. W.

Riley is straight up my favorite story in the system. Signed for peanuts (like a few K) out of a tiny, nothing school for slot savings before the new rules, he's got a good enough fastball and a *killer* curve*. I'm a bit limited with Triple-A, it means TJ Stats and my eyes. so bare with me a bit! You've got to give me a little lee-way on my eye test. The way his arm slot is, I'm guessing he's got some good ride. We will verify this when he makes the MLB, but he's getting guys off with his shape. Stuff+ loves his FB shape, I can get into individual game statcast stuff and he's getting some sick ride - less glove side run than Shota (who has a flatter arm angle from the eye test), so It think it's that. This helps him get the ball up-and-away from LHP and into the hands of RHP. Because he's got a sick curve, he's able to split-neutral on his breaking ball. They seem to tunnel well out of the hand - the fastball play up (and either in on RHP, or away from LHP) and the curve sits opposite) I think he's a dude. I've written a little about him in the past, but I do think he's a dude. I don't think he's like, a closer. But if you told me he was Caleb Thielbar 2.0? Yeah. I'd buy it. In fact, he's my favorite comp if he can figure the walks at the major league level. Or, in other words, he's almost like...LHP Ben Brown?

I heard that one live.

Rare mediocre Keller appearance. Good K at the end.

See-Ya Seiya

I'm not sure "Pete hits 40 home runs" is even the 99% outcome. With this said, may "we don't have a star level player" in our MiLB system never be uttered again. Because I've heard it too many times.

One thing to take into account with our 1-1 pick at #17 is to look back at recent classes and not necessarily just the 1-1 pick. I say this because the Cubs seem to have a holistic, "draft class" approach yearly under Kantrvotitz. Horton, while I'm sure the Cubs really liked him (he had ties to Nichols back to the Howard scouting days) was in large part a pick to ensure Ferris came in as well. That entire draft class was about pitching. Last year saw a draft class that focused on a lot more power than we've seen. With that, I think trying to figure out the "theme" of the year, or the holistic approach taken will help us ultimately understand the 1-1 pick. I'm interested to see what the 2025 theme is.

With Pierce? Maybe, But I think Hall ticks most of the Cubs boxes. I've been beating down his door for a bit, but I'd handicap him and Pierce as the two hitters who tick off the most this year.

Smoked it. Had second hit for 104mph as well.

That swing had an xBA of .690 We have to accept some poor EV's with Shaw. His average EV is likely going to be low because he has the great ability to take a pitch like he did, and a swing he did and single on it (that ball usually gets down). He trades K's for weak singles (and some weak contact overall). He also had a 97 EV on the single before. It's just the Matt Shaw experience.

Rare Tucker awkward swing.

He's an aggressive swinger. We saw this from PCA when he first came up. Saw this with Ballesteros. Nico is this as well. The Cubs like the profile of "aggressive swinger, lots of contact". It takes a bit of time for these types of rookies to adjust to the concept of "just because I can hit it doesn't mean I should hit it".

Nothing has been reported that the Cubs basically phoned it in and "just drafted the popular Chicago kid". Kantrovitz has been in this role since 2019 and he's crushed most drafts. It's okay to not have liked the Howard pick! But let's stop short of claiming every one was lazy and phoned in a draft, yeah? Howard was essentially the consensus prep-SS in the draft with a decent floor with his glove. Nothing about that is phoning it in.

Just to be fair to Squal, he highlighted a few players who were really struggling and said "the rest" of the offense had picked up the slack. Which...is true. Over the last two weeks: Happ - 108 wRC+ PCA - 132 wRC+ Suzuki - 97 wRC+ (but to be fair, if you add one game to this sample he's at a 106 wRC+ and a second gets him to a 146 wRC+ - it's the issue with looking at arbitrary end points) Tucker - 164 wRC+