Jason Ross

I actually think the last little bit is where I settle on the velo drop. There's some reason to believe that velocity (high and low) can increase or decrease movement. The Cubs love things like seam shifted wake and creating and tinkering with pitches in a way that creates movement or hides spin. My best guess is that they're making these changes now at Iowa as he gets used to the slightly different baseball to make his fastball go from "fine" to "really good" . A slight step back in velocity may add enough run to the fastball that actually makes it better.

Ive suggested something similar in the past. Keegan Thompson saw a velo spike when returned to Chicago this year, and Steele's velo was down a bit at Triple-A. I can't say for sure that they're having guys ease off, but there's a small pattern there. I'm also not entirely sure we're not seeing something where the Cubs are playing with the idea of movement on the fastball being created with a small tick off from the velo, too. His fastball movement in Double-A was considered to be "okay" at best, so I wonder how much of this is tinker-and-play time, as well. The Cubs have seemingly been big on the concept of seam shifted wake, and I wonder how much that's playing in here, too.

Awful luck for Happ there.

I like it when Mark strikes people out.

Glad to have you aboard!

Not trying to be the pedantic guy, but Slaughter was moved for Tyson Miller. Overall, I kind of agree. As of right now, it feels like the Cubs are in a weird spot. The Madrigal place on the team right now has been one that hasn't gotten much action over the course of the season when the Cubs have been healthy (which hasn't been a ton) as I think Madrigal is down to the old-Mastrobuni-spot from the start of the year. Caissie and Davis should be playing every day. PCA as a 3-start guy a week I'd be cool with, but I'm not sure that's possible with the 4 OF'er the Cubs have and like to play. Canario feels like a better fielding, more risky version of Wisdom, so I'm not sure he's a super fit...it feels like they're treading water here for a bit until they can either justify calling up a rookie to take the DH spot more easily, or, frankly, another injury.

Oh, fully. I didn't mean to seem like there were 20 guys where it was "horsefeathers it" territory. There are like 20 guys who have legitimate MLB upside in some fashion. I meant more in the terms of "right now, they're all so close in terms of warts, age, potential..." that this next group is homogenous enough that I could have a guy at 27, and you could have him at 12 and I think we'd both be justified in it. And regardless of him being 12th or 27th, I think we'd both agree that there was some level of MLB upside there.

Yeah the Cubs system is in a ton of flux right now. There's a clear...like 8 guys who are all really good and two or three of them are about to fall off due to graduation. The lower levels are pretty foggy right now, so there's probably like 20 guys you could list between 11-20 and all I could do is shrug and say "Might not be my 10, but it's defensible!"

Projection systems work based on input data. Right now, the only real input data we have on Shota Imanaga is the 52.3 IP he has in 2024. So it shouldn't be shocking that the projections are going to take the input and then output something very similar. Check out Yamamoto's projections and they're pretty similar, too. Same issue. I think logically, we know that Shota Imanaga is likely not going to limit HR's to a >5% rate. One pitcher in baseball kept his HR% near 5%, and that was Sonny Gray at 5.2%. Nine kept it under 10%. So we can probably expect some serious regression there. That's fine! He's a FB guy, it's going to happen. None of that is shitting on Shota. Listen, if you told me at the start of the season he was going to be a top-10 pitcher in the NL we'd have all been beside ourselves and that's where he's tracking, even with HR rates that are likely to climb as the weather gets warmer. He's had an A+ season, and so far, looks nothing short of an A+ signing. I just think he's probably going to have a hard time winning a Cy Young unless he keeps a stupid low ERA.

I don't live and die as much as you do on MiLB batted ball data such as GB/FB%. I would agree, he could use a bit of a LA adjustment, but it's not enough for me to just ignore the rest of the package, and probably not others, too. Yes, he's 1b/DH type, and that's going to limit the path to the Major Leagues (and where you'd list him on a top-20!). But he's also posted the right kind of BB:K you'd look for, and the ISO's have been in the ballpark of what you'd want (though I think .180 is right on the low end of that from Double-A standards). So I think there's a few sides to the dice. Like I said, 2024 has been a rough go for McGeary on the overall season line. When you couple that with the worsening batted ball data, there's something clearly wrong today (even with a recent go that seems better - more on that later). What that is...not super sure as I can't say I've spent what little time I've had the last month on a ton of McGeary PA's. And as stated, I'd probably have left him off a top-20, but I can see an argument for why you'd keep him in the top-20, as well. I'm pretty patient about moving guys up and down, and if you were someone who looked past the GB% as something of a polish, there was enough there that throwing him in the 17-20 range is defensible even with a tough start to 2024. If there's a positive, he's been better over his last month, posting a 126 wRC+ (though with much worse K numbers than the past and much worse HR numbers). McGeary's first 40 PA's where he had a -27 wRC+ are doing some heavy lifting right now still. It seems like the nosedive is past him, but now the real work comes in, so I think if you thought he was, say, the 18th best prospect in the system, holding serve is probably fine. Would I have him 18th or whatever? Probably not, so please, don't think I'm Captain McGeary over here. I'm just saying, I, personally, can buy that argument enough that it's something within reason. If you can't, that's why you have your own list. There's little to no consensus when it comes to such subjectivity.

McGeary is an interesting guy right now. I think you can make a case on him being in the bottom quarter of a top-20 based on his 2022-2023. He's had a pretty rough 2024. I guess it just depends on if you buy McGeary as broken right now or something under the hood is happening. His swing just feels messed up. I didn't have a chance to really think through a top-20 with how busy life has been, and I think he'd have been in the 18-25 range or so in my head. So I think maybe I'd have slipped him in, but probably more likely he wouldn't have made it.

As of today, I'd say he'd win it, maybe not going away, but by enough that it wasn't super in doubt. He's tied in fWAR with Sale, but has a clear advantage on ERA, and you know there's always going to be a population of voters who are going to default to the guy with the >1 ERA. In the end, I can't imagine he's going to keep that ERA up. His HR/FB% is immaculate right now and that's never going to keep that low considering his FB nature and the nature of Wrigley. I wouldn't handicap him as the favorite because I think guys like Sale and Wheeler have name recognition and are on pace to strike out more. Regardless, how cool is it that Shota is even in this stratosphere right now?

It's not a bad strategy. PCA is more valuable developing versus just sitting. This gives the Cubs another infielder they can choose to give a chance over Madrigal, and Madrigal can take up 26th man duties which Mastrobuni was taking care of earlier this year...when he got like 13 PA's in the first 3 weeks or so (before injury-Armageddon). Someone has to take that role...might as well be him.

I'll do a deep dive in a bit! Sorry I've been so absent. I've had state testing (no tech at work), end of the school year stuff and I also run the local adult baseball league in Lexington,KY so I've been handling the registration process (deadline is tonight) - and adults might be worse than middle schoolers. Give me...a day? I'll give some insight.

This is another bite of the same apple that Jose Cuas is from. Righty, side-arm delivery, cutter/slider/fastball mix (the slider is very new and seemingly a quality pitch). Really solid extension numbers. The hope here is that he continues to throw strikes and develops into a quality mid-inning RHH neutralizer. Slaughter is a nothing burger for me when it comes to prospect capital. There's a world he is a decent bench bat, but he's blocked at every level with the Cubs right now and wasn't a worthwhile 40-man add long term for the Cubs. Wish him the best with Seattle and he could earn a bench spot there. Worst case, the Cubs got back a similarly roster-crunched player they can use and Seattle did the same. Both teams win here.

They're not great, but he's young, and has a hole that's exploitable right now. You can see it here: That's since his walk-off home run in the same spot. Teams just keep going there. If there's a positive: his chase rate over the last week is down by 5%. So while he's getting beat in the zone right now there, he's not chasing and expanding the zone at a poor rate. It's likely going to be steps where he begins to not chase, then starts to fix in-the-zone stuff. Once he can force pitchers back inside he'll likely take off again.

Well, guess we just need the Pirates to walk us 8 more times in one inning. No worries.

Bellibomb. Impressive on two strikes.

He did. But I also remain skeptical of one game velo drops. Sometimes you're tired, or under the weather, or the gun is cold, or you're holding something back a bit...It's anecdotal. I'm not overly concerned in either way when I see those (same as one game velo bumps). I don't know why the velo dip, but I'd suspect it's just a blip more than anything.

I expect the Pirates will let the gloves off a little. He was over 20 batters faced and 6 IP the second most recent outing and faced 17 and 19 in his other two starts (of his last three). If Skenes is pitching well, I think 20-23 hitters is probably on the table or around 5-6 IP. Hopefully the Cubs just give him a rude greeting regardless and knock him out in the third after 3+ runs.

So, here are some league statistics vs the two: League outerhalf% - 58.7% League oppo% - 27.1% Ian Happ outerhalf% - 53.6% Ian Happ oppo% - 28.7% Dansby Swanson outerhal% - 63.1% Dansby Swanson oppo% - 25.8% So it looks like Happ needs to pull the ball more and Dansby needs to find a way to force pitchers back inside...likely by going the other way more. Yeah, the numbers are interesting. I can't prove anything, but I have a feeling that when teams aren't hitting well, the general feeling is "well these guys are just too pull happy!" (it feels like an easy boogeyman). Not trying to throw you or anyone under the bus, I'm just as guilty of it, so it's not at anyone, just I think a bad habit many baseball fans/former players go to. Baseball savant makes me look stupid constantly for my preconceived notions (case in point, Alonfo Soriano didn't strike out nearly as much as I thought I remembered him doing. Damn you, selective memory).

I'm not sure they're not going that way enough, though; they're 11th in opposite field hits and 13th in opposite field%. As well, while they've been thrown to the outer half more than league average (581% vs 57.7%) they're just 13th in seeing pitches on the outer half, it isn't like they're being pitched there in some extreme way. Even looking recently...that number is 19th over their last 16 game stretch (below the league average)...so teams aren't going away from them, the inverse is occuring. They don't seem to be in the bad quadrant here; they're one home run away from league average in oppoHR, they're slightly above league average in outer half pitches, and they're slightly above average in oppo hits and oppo%.

The Cubs have three opposite field home runs, and the league average is four. We are tied for 18th six other teams. One of those three was hit by a RHB. The Cubs are 13th in oppo% as well. It's really hard to do damage opposite field.

In the Cubs defense, they went from the 14% highest (Prior to their 16 game in a row schedule) in first pitch strike to the 7th highest first pitch strike. Teams are clearly not allowing the Cubs to be patient early in the count. The Cubs, prior to the 16 game stretch were the 4th best team in baseball when in hitter's counts. Cubs opponents have identified that they don't want to be behind in the count and have upped their first pitch strikes accordingly. When teams throw first pitch strikes, you're put in a situation where you're forced to adjust to that. This makes sense, as well, in the context that Cubs have lost two of their best hitters over that span and were among the lowest in chase rate in baseball (8th in baseball at the time of the 16-game-in-a-row-stretch), as well. If there's a positive, the Cubs are still top-10 in first pitch wOBA on the season, I think we just have to take a breath, and let things work out. Yes the offense is scuffling but these things happen. Even more so when you've got two of your best offensive weapons on the shelf and you're up against some really good pitchers. The Cubs have twice gotten the Padres, a team in the bottom-1 in xwOBA and twice gotten Darvish and Cease. That's four of six games of a bottom pitching staff and you're gritting it out against the 2nd best pitcher in baseball based on fWAR on the season and Darvish's 3.86 xFIP. That's rough.

I think Wesneski is doing some of the seam shifted wake stuff we've seen. There seems to be a difference in his tilt/spin of his cutter this year. I think it's throwing left handed hitters off because his cutter was crushed last year to the tune of a .477 wOBA and this year it's been arguably one of his better pitches. Sample size is too small to definitive say anything yet, but it's having drastic outcome changes this year in the small samples we're seeing.