CaliforniaRaisin

Callis mock today (Abel, Bitsko, PCA, Howard, Foscue, Miller & Beeter were also available): Law mock today (Abel, Howard, Mitchell, Crochett, Beeter & Miller were also available):

BA:

Mitchell played for Team USA last summer but hurt his leg early on.

Kiley has another mock: Hassell went 8, Hendrick 12, Soderstrom 13, Crochet 14, Abel 17, PCA 18, Howard 37 and no Burns. Risers include Bitsko at 15 and Foscue at 19.

The Cubs have never taken advantage of this and might be poor now but this seems like the perfect year to poach some extra draft picks. I bet the Marlins would love to trade theirs away. Okay, I’m done spamming this thread.

Nick Bitsko: https://www.instagram.com/p/CAgXCNCHfvZ/?igshid=1ndmb4te4vx90

I expect we’ll see a few more of these before this year’s draft, definitely more than in a normal year.

BA mocked Hassell to the Cubs last week. The mocks seem to be giving the Cubs a second tier college arm (like Burns) unless a well-regarded prep bat falls and is available. Here’s the story where Franklin mentions working out with Cavalli: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fox23.com/sports/bas-franklin-focusing-long-game-with-pro-baseball-hold/5P5FMNIO2VH67KD4J3IDV37VSQ/%3foutputType=amp

Hassell, Abel and Soderstrom were unavailable (picked 10, 13 and 15 respectively). Tanner Burns wasn’t picked in this mock. Mitchell went 17, PCA 18 and Howard 27.

I just assumed they were brothers and was thinking the Cubs should draft Kevin even if he isn’t completely healthy to get a discount with Mick or ensure his signability.

Since we’re talking changeup, this is from BA’s best tools in the draft: Ben Hernandez is a local kid.

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. 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.

Christian is the top IFA on here (the first 9 are draft prospects).

I think there's value in the prep pool at 16 since more prep players are expected to fall as teams prefer the safety of college players who they have 3+ years of info on. If you can get a guy who normally would go 8-14, it's worth the risk I think. Obviously you have to be relatively confident in the looks you got last year/early this season and any videos submitted but I feel like any of Hendrick, Hassell, Crow-Armstrong (who had a rough summer showcase but rebounded during the few weeks of this season), Soderstrom, Abel and maybe Howard are better value than the remaining college SPs or bats. And I really dislike the risk of prep pitchers in the first round but think Abel would be good value. I think Tom is right about no one willing to risk taking Bitsko in the first since he re-classified (it sounds like he'll go to one of the teams with multiple picks who can take on a bit more risk like Arizona).

Callis’ first mock: I like it. Guys like Abel, PCA, Howard, Burns and Miller were still available at 16.

So I put together a consensus top 30 based on the combined draft rankings of BA, ESPN (Kiley McDaniel), FanGraphs (Eric Longenhagen) and MLB Pipeline (Callis/Mayo): 1. Spencer Torkelson, 1B, Arizona St 2. Austin Martin, 2B/CF, Vanderbilt 3. Asa Lacy, LHP, Texas A&M 4. Emerson Hancock, RHP, Georgia 5. Nick Gonzales, 2B, New Mexico St 6. Zac Veen, OF, HS (Port Orange, FL) 7. Garrett Mitchell, OF, UCLA 8. Max Meyer, RHP, Minnesota 9. Reid Detmers, LHP, Louisville 10. Jared Kelley, RHP, HS (Refugio, TX) 11. Heston Kjerstad, OF, Arkansas 12. Austin Hendrick, OF, HS (Imperial, PA) 13. Mick Abel, RHP, HS (Portland, OR) 14. Patrick Bailey, C, North Carolina St 15. Nick Bitsko, RHP, HS (Doylestown, PA) 16. Garrett Crochet, LHP, Tennessee 17. Ed Howard, SS, HS (Chicago, IL) 18. Tyler Soderstrom, C, HS (Turlock, CA) 19. Robert Hassell, OF, HS (Thompson's Station, TN) 20. Cade Cavalli, RHP, Oklahoma 21. Pete Crow-Armstrong, OF, HS (Los Angeles, CA) 22. Cole Wilcox, RHP, Georgia 23. Carmen Mlodzinski, RHP, South Carolina 24. Slade Cecconi, RHP, Miami 25. Bobby Miller, RHP, Louisville 26. Tanner Burns, RHP, Auburn 27. Dillon Dingler, C, Ohio St 28. Austin Wells, C, Arizona 29. JT Ginn, RHP, Mississippi St 30. Bryce Jarvis, RHP, Duke

BA has its mock out today too. The Cubs get a falling Hassell:

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?). Kiley McDaniel was the other to mock Burns to the Cubs but neither has really “connected” the Cubs as much as just guessed college arm, which seems logical based on Kantrovitz’ history and the number of college pitchers in this draft. Both McDaniel and Law was careful to say they don’t have much info linking players to teams (they start getting that info about a month before the draft because you can see which teams are bringing decision makers to games, etc). I wouldn’t assume too much outside of Burns being there at 16 yet. I too would like the Cubs to go with a prep guy if all these teams are going college. Preferably a “famous” prep guy they have more info on (Hassell, PCA, Soderstrom & Abel have all been there at 16 in at least one mock and I’d like any of them; Ed Howard is another option if you’re confident in him). Basically, I see value in taking 4th prep guy at 16, rather than the 12th college guy. The prep class isn't that weak - especially prep OFs - teams are just inclined to trust the college player more.