Cubs Farm System And Prospects Discussion Thread

[CSF77]

Game in extras. 0-0. Alzolay 5 innings 2 hit ball. 10 SO's. He might be getting better.

He really has the makings of a TOR

 

[chibears55]

Probably see alzolay and tseng pitching up here in September

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[beckdawg]

Game in extras. 0-0. Alzolay 5 innings 2 hit ball. 10 SO's. He might be getting better.

He really has the makings of a TOR

Not according to scouting. Most think he's more mid rotation albeit good mid rotation.

 

[CSF77]

Not according to scouting. Most think he's more mid rotation albeit good mid rotation.

More of a sure thing: control: 55. Clifton: 45. Underwood: 45. Alberto's: 50. Cease: 45.

DeleCruz has a 55 which is why he has a high floor talk.

Honestly Alozay has been under rated is is in a break out. Has a 60 fastball and a 55 curve. 50 change. And for some reason he gets a 45? Again a under evaluation.

IMO him and Tseng are pretty safe bets to make it. DeLaCruz if he can prevent injury. This one is not his first brush with it. Cease is still raw tools. Clifton gets wrecked too often.

So at the end of the day you have to ask: who is a starting pitcher or who is tools favored?

 

[beckdawg]

More of a sure thing: control: 55. Clifton: 45. Underwood: 45. Alberto's: 50. Cease: 45.

DeleCruz has a 55 which is why he has a high floor talk.

Honestly Alozay has been under rated is is in a break out. Has a 60 fastball and a 55 curve. 50 change. And for some reason he gets a 45? Again a under evaluation.

IMO him and Tseng are pretty safe bets to make it. DeLaCruz if he can prevent injury. This one is not his first brush with it. Cease is still raw tools. Clifton gets wrecked too often.

So at the end of the day you have to ask: who is a starting pitcher or who is tools favored?

Keep in mind at this point Cease is probably the only one scouts would consider a top of the rotation potential. Scouts don't throw out that term lightly. You almost always have to have 2 plus pitches or 3-4 55 grade pitches that play off each other well. Albertos might also be consider TOR type depending on who you talk to. I've heard some suggest he has 3 potential plus pitches.

None of this is a knock on Alzolay. But his stuff is closer to Hatch than it is Cease/Albertos/De La Cruz. And I like him but scouts are going to be dubious on pitchers without great stuff. Hendricks for example never got enough credit as a prospect.

 

[CSF77]

Keep in mind at this point Cease is probably the only one scouts would consider a top of the rotation potential. Scouts don't throw out that term lightly. You almost always have to have 2 plus pitches or 3-4 55 grade pitches that play off each other well. Albertos might also be consider TOR type depending on who you talk to. I've heard some suggest he has 3 potential plus pitches.

None of this is a knock on Alzolay. But his stuff is closer to Hatch than it is Cease/Albertos/De La Cruz. And I like him but scouts are going to be dubious on pitchers without great stuff. Hendricks for example never got enough credit as a prospect.

I get it. That is why I said who was a SP and who has great tools. There have been plenty of high tools guys that never made it. I'll take a high floor guy every day.

IMO the best arm in the system is DeLaCruz but again this is not his first time extended DL. That is a red flag.

Albertos has a plus Change. Seems it is a better pitch than his fastball. His main issue will be control. Again another high risk high Celing type.

Alozay imo has the makings of a 2/3. Good fastball with a good curve and a useable change. Strong command. Strikes guys out doesn't beat himself with walks. There is a reason why TB covets him.

 

[JP Hochbaum]

The pitching wave is gonna be exciting to see in 2018-19. It is going to come in bunches like hitting did two years ago. Drafting pitchers in the 2-10 rounds is going to pay some nice dividends. We may have to pony up for those TOR's but I can accept that if our wave of pitching is all 3s.

 

[chibears55]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sport...or-league-report-spt-0711-20170710-story.html

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[CSF77]

Kyle got 45 pitches in yesterday. 3.1 IP 2 hits and 1 run. I'm thinking that they let him get 1 more game in before letting him back into the rotation.

 

[CSF77]

Add to that: Anderson pitched out of the pen. I'm honestly thinking that they may force him to walk into F/A. There has been no rush to push him back.

 

[CSF77]

http://www.chicagonow.com/cubs-den/...nd-drives-in-six-sierra-hits-first-career-hr/

 

[beckdawg]

Matt Carasiti picked up in the Rosscup DFA deal looks like he could be a pretty good piece out of the pen next year. He had a 12.76 k/9 and 3.86 bb/9 over 30.1 innings with COL before coming over in trade. In 5 innings at Iowa he's at 12.60 k/9 and 1.80 bb/9. Looks like a pretty good replacement for Rondon/Strop.

 

[beckdawg]

I've brought him up before but i don't think Isaac Paredes is on enough cub fans radar yet. He's still a young 18(feb bday) and has hit .269/.354/.418 in A ball. Last time I brought this up I mentioned he was one of 5 18 year olds playing in A ball well in the midwest league anyways. There's apparently 4 more in the south atlantic league(Leody Taveras, Andres Gimenez, Cristian Pache, and Juan Soto). The 5 in the midwest league are Mario Feliciano, Paredes, Fernando Tatis, Vlad Guerrero Jr. and Keibert Ruiz.

So now that midseason rankings are out and something struck me as interesting. Vlad Guerrero Jr. really shot up lists. BA has him as their #2 prospect in baseball behind Moncada. He's hitting .316/.409/.480 so he clearly deserves some hype. Tatis Jr is 101 on BA's list. He's hitting .277/.373/.492. Feliciano isn't really doing that much with a .249/.317/.342 line. Ruiz is hitting very well at .317/.372/.423. MLB.com hasn't updated their rankings yet but at the moment he's #12 on a pretty loaded Dodgers top 30. Leody Taveras is hitting .260/.315/.367. BA has him as their #34 prospect. Andres Gimenez is hitting .264/.324/.340. BA didn't have him in their top 101 but his name is hashtaged at the bottom. Not sure what that means but probably honorable mention. MLB.com has him as #7 in the mets system. Cristian Pache is hitting .283/.345/.357. He's not on BA's top 101. MLB.com has him as #14 in a pretty deep ATL system. Juan Soto is hitting .360/.427/.523. BA has him as #95.

For a quick catch all if you compare all 9's OPS it looks like this
Soto - .950
Vlady Jr - .888
Tatis jr - .865
Ruiz - .795
Paredes - .773
Pache - .701
taveras - .682
Gimenez - .664
Feliciano - .659

I bring this up to highlight largely what he's doing against a number of well regarded peer prospects. In terms of positions, Vlady is a 3B. Tatis is a SS as are Paredes and Gimenez. Soto is OF playing apparently RF at the moment but scouting grades looks like he may go over to LF eventually. Ruiz is a C as is Feliciano. Pache is a CF as is Taveras. So for comparison sake it's probably best to talk about Tatis Paredes and Gimenez. Scouting on Paredes atm suggests he wont have much range and isn't the best glove but has enough arm to stay on the left side.(45/55/45 run/arm/field grades). Tatis is also probably eventually going to 3B like his father. He has 45/60/55 grades. Gimenez is more of your true SS with 60/60/55 grades. I will also note the cubs haven't yet given up on Paredes at SS. He's played 479.1 innings there and 51 at 3B. And given he came from the less scouted mexican leagues the evaluations could be premature on him where as at least on Tatis he was a pretty well known player. Not sure on Gimenez. He got a $1.2 mil deal in 2015 so he was probably pretty well known.

What I make of all of this is that Paredes definitely hitting well for his age. Torres as another example had an OPS of .739 at 18 in south bend. However, given that the early scouting indicates he may move to 3B he probably needs to hit better than Torres did. They don't keep good defensive metrics for minor league guys so it's hard to go off anything but the scouting. But I will say this. Torres had a fielding % of .948 and 4.33 range factor per 9(9 * put outs + assists / innings). In an extremely limited sample(479.1 innings) Paredes is at .975 and 4.41 respectively. One of the knocks against Torres coming up was he wouldn't stay at SS but he's shown better than expected there. Think Paredes might as well.

Anyways long story short, I think Paredes may very well be in a similar state to 2015 Torres only with less name recognition(most thought Torres was the #2 IFA prospect before signing). It'll be interesting to see if they promote him before the end of the year. They promoted Torres to A+ in 2015 IIRC because they made the playoffs and south bend didn't. Think the way playoffs work in A ball is you take the top 2 teams from each division in the first half and the top 2 in the second half excluding first half winner and it's a 4 team playoff. South Bend came up second in the east division in the first half. Myrtle Beach did finish first in the south division of the carolina league. Trent Giambrone and Andruw Monasterio are the primary SS in south bend and aren't really hitting that much with an OPS of .722 and .600 respectively. So wouldn't shock me to see them promote him even if it's just for the playoffs.

 

[CSF77]

I think we don't notice because he is not in a team need area.

 

[CSF77]

Out of the position players I'm watching DJ Wilson right now. He has come back on fire at A ball. Wouldn't be shocked to see him at MB.

Think there was a bit on that LH RF that you brought up Beck. In Azl. Think he hit his first HR a few days back. So he looks like a potential Heyward replacement.
But I'm all about the pitching right now.

 

[beckdawg]

I think we don't notice because he is not in a team need area.

Well sure but but I'm more interested in him as a trade piece as Torres ended up being with Baez and Russell on the MLB roster. If Paredes sticks at short or if he puts on more muscle for power at 3B he's going to be an intriguing trade piece. You don't have places like BA putting Paredes in the top 100 right now but I think he's close. Tatis had more sizzle as his dad was a player and he has a tad more power and just snuck onto the list hitting .277/.373/.492 with a 12.3%/25.9% bb/k rate. Paredes is at .269/.354/.418 with a 8.5%/14.2% bb/k rates. So, Tatis looks more the chicago brand of hitter we see at the major league level and Paredes is more contact oriented.

But given their roughly similar batting average with Tatis having slightly better walk rate and power I think you could argue for Paredes in say the top 150 right now. I think you could make a case for him vs someone like Austin Beck who was the #6 overall pick or Jo Adell who was #10 both out of HS. I'd be surprised if either is in A ball before the end of the year and both are 18.

 

[beckdawg]

Out of the position players I'm watching DJ Wilson right now. He has come back on fire at A ball. Wouldn't be shocked to see him at MB.

Think there was a bit on that LH RF that you brought up Beck. In Azl. Think he hit his first HR a few days back. So he looks like a potential Heyward replacement.
But I'm all about the pitching right now.

Yeah that was Jonathan Sierra. He's not killing it like I thought he would be he's not been terrible either hitting .240/.309/.380. I'm guessing the competition jump is biting him a bit because his bb/k rate is way off what it was in the DSL 7.3%/30.9% vs 14.0%/18.2% but he has indeed shown more power(.140 ISO vs .077). Then again all this is only over 55 PAs and I'm not sure how much they actually playing prior to the start of summer leagues. Could just be a bit rusty.

 

[CSF77]

It is Azl so most numbers are wack there

 

[beckdawg]

After a couple of down starts(4 ip 9 hits 4 ER 3 BB and 5 ip 8 hits 4 ER and 1 BB) rucker was dominant again. Threw 7 innings of 1 hit ball with 1 walk and 7 K's. Mekkes also pitched 2 really good innings to close the game out giving up a hit 2 walks and 5 k's. Mekkes has still yet to give up a earned run in A+. I doubt we see Rucker promoted again this year but I'm really curious to see how he handles AA.

It's not just that he's striking out a lot of people but he's doing it fairly efficiently. Keep in mind we're talking about minor league arms so it's skewed a bit comparable to MLB arms where you usually go 100 pitches. But in his starts since joining the starting rotation he's gone 5 innings 60 pitches, 4.2 77 pitches, 6 innings 75 pitches, 5 innings 56 pitches, 5 innings 85 pitches 4 innings 77 pitches and this past outing was 7 innings 80 pitches. There's a couple of iffy starts in there such as the 2 down starts i mentioned and the 4.2 inning 77 pitch one. But on the whole you're talking about 7 starts where he's thrown 36.2 innings and 510 pitches or 13.9 pitches per inning. I'm not quite sure how that fairs in the minors but i know anything below 15 at the major league level is quite good. 327 of those 510 pitches were strikes or 64%. As a comparison for someone who throws strikes Kyle Hendricks in the majors is at 65% strike rate. Obvious difference here being Hendricks doesn't have an 11.2 k/9.

Overall haven't seen all that much scouting on him. Fangraphs had the piece below. Sounds like he might have a high spin rate on his fastball making it better than the speed would indicate. This was just prior to Rucker's first start of the season when he was still working out of the bullpen.

Rucker has terrific command — especially to his glove side — of a deceptively hard fastball that will creep into the mid-90s, and he mixes in two slurvy breaking balls and a moving changeup, all of which are fringe to average. He largely lives off of his fastball and his deceptive, slingy delivery, but he’s pitched well enough in long-relief stints to generate conversation about how he might look in a rotation. His pitch counts have been ticking up since he was promoted to Myrtle Beach and his outings have been more spaced out, a sign the Cubs are having that discussion, as well. Rucker is old for the level, largely because he was drafted as a redshirt junior after transferring from Gonzaga to BYU and sitting out a year.

 

[beckdawg]

Also at A+ Eddy Martinez is rebounding pretty hard after a rough start. He hit .213/.280/.307 in April, .219/.259/.314 in May, .262/.295/.345 in June and .333/.394/.667 so far in July over 33 PAs. He did this last year too. Not sure what's up with that.