beckdawg
Well-known member
- Joined:
- Oct 31, 2012
- Posts:
- 11,729
- Liked Posts:
- 3,726
People seemed to like the one i did for April so figure i'd do it again. I'm gonna try to keep it a bit more brief but if anyone has questions feel free to ask for more details and i'll give them if I have them.
Hitters
SB
Probably biggest news among the hitters is Roederer and Velazquez both getting hurt. I haven't heard anything about a serious injury so they might not be out long but both have been out for a week or two. Velazquez still has really good stats though his BABIP is pretty inflated. He's currently sitting with a 110 wRC+ but if you account for some of that being luck he's probably a tick or two above league average. Roederer is struggling a bit. His walk rate's good but he's strike out too much and his power is a little suppressed. I wouldn't worry too much about it because he's still 19 and the average age in the midwest league is 21.2. I suspect he's having similar struggles to Ademan last year at A+ in that it's just an aggressive assignment.
The most interesting thing for me anyways this month also relates to those two injuries. Because they were hurt the cubs called up two guys. One was Edmond Americaan who was a really late round CF out of puerto rico who signed over slot. He only has 8 PAs but i'm interested to see how he handles things as a precursor to a likely A- assignment after the draft. The other guy they called up was 2nd round pick Brennen Davis. I mentioned this once or twice in the prospect thread but this is my dude to watch. Simply put he's got 55 or higher grades on all of his tools except for his hit tool. That effectively means if he hits you're likely looking at a top 20 prospect in all of baseball because he can play CF. And like Roederer this is an aggressive assignment because he's 19. So, it will make you happy to see he's currently hitting .389/.450/.556 over the 20 PAs he's had in A. When you combine that with what he did in Mesa last year after the draft he's now hitting .320/.435/.387 over 92 pro ball PAs.
As for the rest of the dudes, Delvin Zinn has likely been the best hitter for SB. His BABIP is a little lower than Velazquez's but still kind of elevated. I'm not sure how good he is/can be but he's doing enough to likely warrant consideration for the top 30 when mlb.com re-ranks guys in july. D.J. Artis is playing decently as well. He's got a really good eye and takes tons of walks. But he's currently got similar problems to Schwarber in that while he takes walks he's also striking out a lot. Regardless, he's still at a 111 wRC+. Tyler Durna is also at a 110 wRC+ though it's hard for me to get too excited about 1B prospects unless they utterly rake and he only has a .126 ISO so he's not really much of a power guy. Jonathan Sierra is the only other guy I'd mention. He's not exactly killing it but his numbers to me look like he's just missing power and the scouting reports on him seem to indicate he has batting practice power it's just not showing up in games yet. He's only 20 and he's hitting .257/.302/.348 which is a 87 wRC+. His K rate is really good at 14% but his ISO is pretty low for a corner OF and I suspect that's why his walk rate is lower than previous levels. Either way, I wouldn't be too discouraged by this. He's the type of guy where if one thing in his game clicks the rest will fall into place.
MB
I'll cut to the chase here.... MB isn't pretty. Ademan and Amaya are the only two I am even going to bother to mention. Amaya has been pretty good in terms of OBP and SLG but he's only hitting .218. I think that's almost entirely BABIP related. Ademan in his second go around is killing A+. He's hitting .263/.377/.401(126 wRC+) with 14.0%/21.3% bb/k rates. If I wanted to nitpick I'd like to see a touch more power from him but that's really splitting hairs. I'd be some what surprised if he isn't in AA soon.
TENN
Here isn't MB bad but it's not great either. Jared Young looks pretty good but he doesn't look much more than a bench piece type guy to me. Maybe if you wanna dream slightly you could say he's Bote. Hoerner still isn't playing with a fracture in his wrist. Roberto Caro has hit well but he's 25 and i'm not sure he's really even a real prospect. He strikes me as good AAA filler and maybe a last guy on the roster type at best. Jhonny Pereda is pretty sneaky good as a C prospect. He's probably only ever going to be a back up C but as we've seen with guys like taylor davis even if you can only hit a little, it's hard to find good C. Connor Meyers is basically a CF version of Caro. Vimael Machin has also been pretty good in limited action. He might be a guy worth looking at as a top 30 type but i'm not sure. I don't know enough about him.
IOWA
Iowa has mainly been about 3 guys all year thus far. That's Dixon Machado, Phillip Evans, and Donnie Dewees. All have seen their walk rates skyrocket and as such they've all been pretty good pick ups this offseason for the cubs. Machado and Evans at 27/26 are on the older side but are probably worth something in trade talks to a rebuilding team. I think they've proven they deserve a shot to play in the majors and I doubt that's coming with the cubs. Dewees in my estimation has a decent shot of making the team next spring training as their last outfielder. He's a lefty which is useful off the bench and can play LF/CF. And with his 11% bb/k rate and .177 ISO he's got some intriguing underlying numbers.
Ian Happ is probably the name most care about in Iowa. That being said, I'm not sure how much better he is than last year. His walk rate is more or less identical to his MLB walk rate and ditto for his ISO. His K's are down to 25.5% which is encouraging but still seems high. So, barring injury I wouldn't expect him in the majors before Sept.
In my previous post from april I'd mentioned Robel Garcia as part of AA. He got promoted. The good news is he's still raking in AAA at .279/.364/.544(120 wRC+). The bad news is he's striking out a fuck load at 37.7%. It's only 77 PAs so not the largest sample and his other numbers look some what ok.
Conclusions
So I think I was a bit more optimistic in my talk from April. I think that a the teams approach of spending so much pick wise on pitching the past several years really shows in terms of hitting in MB and TENN and had they not stumbled upon a few under the radar guys for Iowa it too would look pretty bleak in terms of hitters. I still however really like the group in SB and that was before Davis was called up.. I don't want to entirely over hype him but if he continues to hit he's not like say Almora was as a prospect. Almora was obviously a fantastic defensive prospect. He could hit a little and I mean we more or less have seen that type of profile in the majors. Davis if he can hit for even like a .270 average has legitimately 25-30 HR potential and might steal a similar amount of bases in CF.
Additionally, I mentioned two of these guys previously but since then MLB.com has put out their top 30 international prospects. Cubs are likely to sign 3 of the top 3 guys. They are linked with the top C in the class Ronnier Quintero(#6 overall). They think his best case is like .280 with 25 HRs as a solid defender. Kevin Made is one of the top SS in the class(#11 overall). He kinda looks tool wise similar to where they pegged Ademan prior to him signing. That is to say a decent SS defensively with a chance to hit a little. The last guy they are linked with is catcher Brayan Altuve(#30 overall) who coincidentally reminds scouts of Contreras. I'd likely throw a bit of caution on the last two as while they may end up being top 30 types, I don't think they are likely to be stars. I think you're hoping they are Ademan level of prospect. Quintero though might be more than that. Elite hitting C's are super super rare.
I'd also expect to see the cubs go pretty heavy into position players in the first 10 rounds of the forth coming draft. From my understanding the pitching isn't very good in this class to begin with. I plan to make a draft topic where i may go into more detail but suffice to say it wouldn't shock me to see the cubs maybe go pitcher in the first and then focus solely on hitters for most of the next 9 rounds.
Hitters
SB
Probably biggest news among the hitters is Roederer and Velazquez both getting hurt. I haven't heard anything about a serious injury so they might not be out long but both have been out for a week or two. Velazquez still has really good stats though his BABIP is pretty inflated. He's currently sitting with a 110 wRC+ but if you account for some of that being luck he's probably a tick or two above league average. Roederer is struggling a bit. His walk rate's good but he's strike out too much and his power is a little suppressed. I wouldn't worry too much about it because he's still 19 and the average age in the midwest league is 21.2. I suspect he's having similar struggles to Ademan last year at A+ in that it's just an aggressive assignment.
The most interesting thing for me anyways this month also relates to those two injuries. Because they were hurt the cubs called up two guys. One was Edmond Americaan who was a really late round CF out of puerto rico who signed over slot. He only has 8 PAs but i'm interested to see how he handles things as a precursor to a likely A- assignment after the draft. The other guy they called up was 2nd round pick Brennen Davis. I mentioned this once or twice in the prospect thread but this is my dude to watch. Simply put he's got 55 or higher grades on all of his tools except for his hit tool. That effectively means if he hits you're likely looking at a top 20 prospect in all of baseball because he can play CF. And like Roederer this is an aggressive assignment because he's 19. So, it will make you happy to see he's currently hitting .389/.450/.556 over the 20 PAs he's had in A. When you combine that with what he did in Mesa last year after the draft he's now hitting .320/.435/.387 over 92 pro ball PAs.
As for the rest of the dudes, Delvin Zinn has likely been the best hitter for SB. His BABIP is a little lower than Velazquez's but still kind of elevated. I'm not sure how good he is/can be but he's doing enough to likely warrant consideration for the top 30 when mlb.com re-ranks guys in july. D.J. Artis is playing decently as well. He's got a really good eye and takes tons of walks. But he's currently got similar problems to Schwarber in that while he takes walks he's also striking out a lot. Regardless, he's still at a 111 wRC+. Tyler Durna is also at a 110 wRC+ though it's hard for me to get too excited about 1B prospects unless they utterly rake and he only has a .126 ISO so he's not really much of a power guy. Jonathan Sierra is the only other guy I'd mention. He's not exactly killing it but his numbers to me look like he's just missing power and the scouting reports on him seem to indicate he has batting practice power it's just not showing up in games yet. He's only 20 and he's hitting .257/.302/.348 which is a 87 wRC+. His K rate is really good at 14% but his ISO is pretty low for a corner OF and I suspect that's why his walk rate is lower than previous levels. Either way, I wouldn't be too discouraged by this. He's the type of guy where if one thing in his game clicks the rest will fall into place.
MB
I'll cut to the chase here.... MB isn't pretty. Ademan and Amaya are the only two I am even going to bother to mention. Amaya has been pretty good in terms of OBP and SLG but he's only hitting .218. I think that's almost entirely BABIP related. Ademan in his second go around is killing A+. He's hitting .263/.377/.401(126 wRC+) with 14.0%/21.3% bb/k rates. If I wanted to nitpick I'd like to see a touch more power from him but that's really splitting hairs. I'd be some what surprised if he isn't in AA soon.
TENN
Here isn't MB bad but it's not great either. Jared Young looks pretty good but he doesn't look much more than a bench piece type guy to me. Maybe if you wanna dream slightly you could say he's Bote. Hoerner still isn't playing with a fracture in his wrist. Roberto Caro has hit well but he's 25 and i'm not sure he's really even a real prospect. He strikes me as good AAA filler and maybe a last guy on the roster type at best. Jhonny Pereda is pretty sneaky good as a C prospect. He's probably only ever going to be a back up C but as we've seen with guys like taylor davis even if you can only hit a little, it's hard to find good C. Connor Meyers is basically a CF version of Caro. Vimael Machin has also been pretty good in limited action. He might be a guy worth looking at as a top 30 type but i'm not sure. I don't know enough about him.
IOWA
Iowa has mainly been about 3 guys all year thus far. That's Dixon Machado, Phillip Evans, and Donnie Dewees. All have seen their walk rates skyrocket and as such they've all been pretty good pick ups this offseason for the cubs. Machado and Evans at 27/26 are on the older side but are probably worth something in trade talks to a rebuilding team. I think they've proven they deserve a shot to play in the majors and I doubt that's coming with the cubs. Dewees in my estimation has a decent shot of making the team next spring training as their last outfielder. He's a lefty which is useful off the bench and can play LF/CF. And with his 11% bb/k rate and .177 ISO he's got some intriguing underlying numbers.
Ian Happ is probably the name most care about in Iowa. That being said, I'm not sure how much better he is than last year. His walk rate is more or less identical to his MLB walk rate and ditto for his ISO. His K's are down to 25.5% which is encouraging but still seems high. So, barring injury I wouldn't expect him in the majors before Sept.
In my previous post from april I'd mentioned Robel Garcia as part of AA. He got promoted. The good news is he's still raking in AAA at .279/.364/.544(120 wRC+). The bad news is he's striking out a fuck load at 37.7%. It's only 77 PAs so not the largest sample and his other numbers look some what ok.
Conclusions
So I think I was a bit more optimistic in my talk from April. I think that a the teams approach of spending so much pick wise on pitching the past several years really shows in terms of hitting in MB and TENN and had they not stumbled upon a few under the radar guys for Iowa it too would look pretty bleak in terms of hitters. I still however really like the group in SB and that was before Davis was called up.. I don't want to entirely over hype him but if he continues to hit he's not like say Almora was as a prospect. Almora was obviously a fantastic defensive prospect. He could hit a little and I mean we more or less have seen that type of profile in the majors. Davis if he can hit for even like a .270 average has legitimately 25-30 HR potential and might steal a similar amount of bases in CF.
Additionally, I mentioned two of these guys previously but since then MLB.com has put out their top 30 international prospects. Cubs are likely to sign 3 of the top 3 guys. They are linked with the top C in the class Ronnier Quintero(#6 overall). They think his best case is like .280 with 25 HRs as a solid defender. Kevin Made is one of the top SS in the class(#11 overall). He kinda looks tool wise similar to where they pegged Ademan prior to him signing. That is to say a decent SS defensively with a chance to hit a little. The last guy they are linked with is catcher Brayan Altuve(#30 overall) who coincidentally reminds scouts of Contreras. I'd likely throw a bit of caution on the last two as while they may end up being top 30 types, I don't think they are likely to be stars. I think you're hoping they are Ademan level of prospect. Quintero though might be more than that. Elite hitting C's are super super rare.
I'd also expect to see the cubs go pretty heavy into position players in the first 10 rounds of the forth coming draft. From my understanding the pitching isn't very good in this class to begin with. I plan to make a draft topic where i may go into more detail but suffice to say it wouldn't shock me to see the cubs maybe go pitcher in the first and then focus solely on hitters for most of the next 9 rounds.