Jason Ross

Looks interesting! Love the bat. Defensively have read enough that suggests he could end up at 1b that I just don't think the Cubs do it. Since Kantrovitz has taken over, college has been prioritized over prep and Mathis is probably the first "likely 1b" profile they've taken in the first handful of rounds for a while. A prep bat with a decent likelihood of ending up at 1b feels like a reach for their draft profile. Ultimately, think the Cubs will pass but if you think he's got a real shot at 3b, then he's a worthwhile investment in the first round.

Yes. Probably. Id say a non-zero chance he makes it to Chicago-proper this year in a BP role. I would not bet on it, it's more likely not than to happen, but there's a path where injuries + Wiggins being that good that created a situation in which he sees some September innings out of the pen. But Id expect him in Knoxville sooner rather than later at this point.

He was unreal tonight.

Finishes the 7th! Struck out 2 more. Hit 97 and 96. 7IP, 7K, 0BB, 1ER Announcers thought it was the first SB Cub to go 7 since Brandon Little in 2018.

Wiggins (so far): 6IP, 5 K, 0 BB, 1 ER (70 pitches) Hes back out for a 7th(!!)

Good to see Rodriguez back! I was excited about him pre-season.

Honestly, had to look it up once you mentioned Cruz! I kind of forget Cruz and how great of a prospect he was. I knew it was in that "early 00's" but couldn't remember if he beat Mark by a year, or was a year after. 25 years ago was a long time ago. Mark Prior is really the first "prospect" I remembered following. Before that it was more like these guys appeared as if an apparition, out of thin air. Prior was kind of the first guy I knew of draft to first game.

Cruz made his debut in 2001. Mark Prior his debut in 2002. So I would give the nod to Prior as the "most recent" in this tier of upside. We had some cool prospects make some debuts, such as Hendricks but I think this is the most excited I've been to see a starting pitching get a shot since Prior. Also. This.

Tommy Birch, Iowa Cubs beat writer also confirming: Cade Horton will be called up

I think if the Cubs went HS prep bat, Steele Hall feels like he's a guy the Cubs would like. He's incredibly athletic, has strong bat to ball skills, capable at SS and young for the draft year, as he reclassified to 2025. The Cubs have been connected to similar types the last few drafts, and while they didn't ultimately go that route, Hall is getting buzz in the late teens and early 20's round. Of all the prep guys, he feels like he fits a mold the Cubs would go with.

Honestly, think you're missing the forest for the trees a bit and trying to look for things too deep. Why is Long's z-swing that low? Could be simply he's too advanced for this pitching and he's seeing it well, choosing to swing at his pitch so confidently that he's fine not-swinging at other pitches. The take away I would have, as I said before is: Long is seeing the ball really well and he's doing great. I don't think it really has to be much deeper. The broad overview of that data, I think, should be a clear "he's really hitting the stitches off the baseball at Iowa and doing things very well". There's not much concern there as is. We can always find slight imperfections, but I don't think there's much there to worry about as is. (with the pull rate I've clicked through most of the good hitters I can think of on TJ's page and I really cannot find someone over the 50% for pull rate. Again, I could be just finding the wrong ones, but I think there's something funky there. But I'm not a data analyst and I don't know how his app collects data. This includes Roman Anthony, Coby Mayo, Carson Williams, Dalton Rushing, Samuel Bassalo and Kyle Teel. EDIT: found TWO - Emmanuel Rodriguez and Marcelo Mayer, both are at the very top end of the percentile. I've yet to find someone between 50-95%. So I guess end result, regardless of how the data is collected, I really don't think it's a great indicator of who we should like as prospects - those are all good prospects) I wouldn't say he's a heavy ground ball hitter, he's just hitting a few too many. Ideally, you'd like his ground ball rate under 40%. As stated, his LA is 11 right now. Ideally, you'd like that up a few degrees, say, 15 or so. It's small swing tweaks. On his splits; this year the splits aren't great, but it's super small sample as you said. He hit lefties well last year. For him to be a good platoon guy with Busch he doesn't need to hit lefties better than righties. He needs to hit lefties better than Busch. He hit LHP pretty well last year. Also, part of being a good platoon hitter is simply being a RHH. We have to remember that pitchers are half of the equation. If a pitcher has a pitch mix that is just better against LHH. by proxy of being a RHH he's going to have a leg up.

The LA is an issue. But I think we have to accept something about Shaw and other high contact hitters: EV will always be a little wonky. Players who make a lot of contact hit some balls hard and also have the ability to hit some balls weakly (that hitters with worse contact ability just won't touch). He'll pick up some hits on low EV's and I don't think it's necessarily an indication that something is bad. For example, his first PA yesterday. 1-2 pitch, gets a pretty decent splitter low, and off the plate. Shaw reaches and pokes a ball to shortstop. It's a 75 mph ground out. EV? Not good. But I think guys without Shaw's contact ability swing over that and they're struck out. Shaw will rack up plays like that. He'll also poke a few of those into center or a hole and get some hits. It's the push and pull of the hit tool. Back to the LA - yeah that's funky. He's usually a pretty good LA guy. So while I think the EV is a bit of a red herring at times for Shaw the LA is weird. Definitely something still not exactly there. His second PA is probably a good example of what I am concerned about. Shaw is in a 2-1 count. Gets a mid-slightly-out sinker. 88mph. But it's a hittable and good pitch. Shaw hits a one hopper to shortstop. His front side is diving into the ball. Front shoulder drops. He should hit that ball in the air. It's a sinker that isn't below the zone so it's falling into your bat path.

Every team will drop series. The Cubs will eventually lose 5 games in a row at some point. The bats will go cold for a few weeks. A good reminder is this: when things are going really well, it's never as good as it seems at the top. When things are going really well, you're almost assuredly getting positive variance, and positive luck. Balls that shouldn't drop are, and balls that should for the other team don't. The same reigns true for when things aren't great. When the Cubs get swept against a team they shouldn't, or they lose five of seven in a week, balls that should drop won't be. The umpires will make calls that go against us. Things are never as bad as they feel when you're at the lowest. This is what happens over a 162 game year. Weird things happen. As hard as it can be, I just try to remain balanced. I think the Cubs are a pretty good team. Imperfect? Sure. But every team is imperfect. Even the Dodgers.

Ah good catch! His last start came during a time where I couldn't put my eye to the game so that makes sense. Checked the cast and noticed the oddball pitch mix from hin.

Yeah very good start today from Wicks. 13 whiffs in five innings is really solid. Big thing that stands out is the pitch mix. Last game, where he got beat up, he basically halved his change usage for the curveball. Today, more normal mixage - heavy fastball/change (change picked up four of the whiffs). more sparing curveball usage. Mixed in the curve and the sweeper, though. 6 curve, 5 sweeper. Fastball was just shy of 95 on his max, averaged 93mph.

I wouldn't read MiLB data like we read MLB data consistently. For example, reading his BABIP as a negative wouldn't be how I see that. Sure, he's not going to carry that BABIP in the MLB; but he's in the literal 100% for hard hit, LA-sweet spot, while also in the 97th xwOBA and so on and so forth. Yeah, he's hitting the hell out of the baseball. He's not going to be a 100th percentile in the MLB for hard hit, either. The way I'd read that instead is "so far, this dude is crushing Triple-A pitching". It's a good sign that he's better than what he's seeing. So it's not a bad thing...opposite. It's a good thing. Hitters who have "figured out a level" tend to do that stuff - have super high BABIP's and the like. Mostly because they're hitting the baseball super hard, finding barrels, hitting sweet spots, etc. They kind of all go hand-in-hand. We see that stuff far less at the MLB level because it's just that much harder to solve the riddle. Like, Aaron Judge has literally a .473 BABIP at the MLB level right now. He's kind of solved the riddle, you know? Not saying Long is Judge, just saying "guys who are really good for their level, yeah, they do that". When it comes to TJ Stats and PulL% I've noticed that most hitters tend to be low. I'm not sure if that's a function of his statistical gathering algorithm or what. Like, for example, Roman Anthony is crushing baseballs and he's in the 30 percentile for pull rate and 11th percentile for pulled flyballs. I really can't remember looking at many players and those numbers being high. Maybe it's just that I keep finding guys who don't pull, but I think there's something maybe wonky on how those display. Anthony is a killer prospect. I think they get funky. But that's a hunch. For Long, he's over 40% of the time hitting ground balls and he's LA sits around 11. I think the best version of Long ups that a bit and hits more things in the air. He hits the ball super hard, he'd hit more HR's. But those are tweaks and fixes that can occur. That said, I think there's a world where a 20 HR Jonathon Long is a good and productive MLB hitter. He might not be a star, but he'd be a good 1b or a DH in that mold if everything else stuck.

I think its likely, yes. There's a chance they go with a bullpen day where Flexen goes 3 to start, but I think Horton is the most likely scenario.

I would say he's got better than good batted ball data...right now, it's about darn-near the best in Triple-A. His defensive positioning as a 1b is probably holding him back some. But I also think he's just overshadowed. As much as it'd be great if top-100 lists were entirely perfect, I think there comes a human element for writers. Things such as "Can we really have that many from TEAM X on our list?" is probably something that enters in at least a subconscious way if not a more tangible one. As well, things such as pedigree; Long was not a high pick nor from a large school, and the fact that the Cubs have good prospects at all of the positions Long can play (1b, DH and if we want to be real generous, 3b and LF) who are already on most people's top-75 can skew that. I do think without a few other Cub prospects on top-100 lists that Long would find his way on a backend of a few. But that's as good of an argument as any to remind people that the gap between like 85 and 140 is minimal in most cases. So people leaving him off isn't really a major slight as it is a lack of a feather in the cap that probably doesn't really matter.

To blame last night on "the pen" is unfair. Six pitchers combined for 6 IP, 0 ER, and four base runners. One pitcher was charged with 8 ER, (9 in total) and six base runners without recording an out. One pitcher was bad. Pressley's bad inning doesn't mean that Keller, Pomeranz, Thielbar, Hodge, Palencia and Flexen were bad. It means Ryan Pressley was bad.

I think it's fair to say he gets more than 60 PAs. I'd give him more than 60 as well. But we're also at an age where I think I'm far less interesting in what he was. The reality is that the cliff is real and when guys fall of it, what they did prior just matters not any more. His batted ball data is some of the worst in baseball right now basically across the board. I think with the limited opportunities it's fair to say "he gets a few more weeks" to figure it out and see if he can find an upturn. But if the data is this bad on June 1st, and Long is crushing Triple-A as much as he is right now, then you probably come to a point when whatever struggles Long will have probably won't be any worse than Turner and could offer a significant step up.

I'm getting closer to being done with Turner than I am with Pressley. Turner also has a more pressing, immediate fix for the position on Jonathon Long. Not sure I'd DFA Turner tomorrow but we're moving into a territory where 60 PA's in he's not shown a sign of much life at all. I appreciate what he's been but he's looking fairly toasted at this stage. Kind of like Yan Gomes did last year.

Good throw. Keeps it to 3-0. Hopefully Ben can get us through 5.

Well, like I said, move him to low-leverage. He's not going to be the closer in low-leverage. Ultimately, I don't disagree that your best reliever needs to miss bats, but I'm suggesting a midpoint between closer and cut him.

There's just not a distinctly better option right now. He's getting ground balls and there's enough reason to suggest some of this is knee related that DFA'ing him is premature. I get that it hasn't always been smooth sailing, but he gave up one run prior to last night. So while last night was bad, and some of the underlying metrics are bad, it isn't like a Gavin Hollowell is so distinctly good they have to make a permanent spot. I'm certainly pretty skeptical of Pressley rebounding and become more so as we go. But the team isn't desperate right now and he's been good enough for long enough, and has the knee thing that you can still find an explanation short of cutting the chord entirely. They're probably okay with him in low-leverage for a few weeks as they wait to see what the fix is.

In terms of velocity it dropped a bit last year, but not to egergious levels, going from 94.3 to 93.8mph; noticeable, but not massive. Many times, even at this age, these things drop a bit and then stabilize. Pressley has dropped more this year even more, down to the 92 mph range.