Prospect Notes: Tseng, Pugliese, Remillard, Hatley, Zastryzny

jen-ho tseng kane cubsIt’s been a little while since I checked in on some interesting prospect stuff – you know, other than the obvious guys dropping bombs on the reg – so I thought we should go ahead and do that.

  • Think pitching prospect Jen-Ho Tseng is over his shoulder soreness? After missing a month at Low-A, partly for precautionary reasons, the Cubs big international pitching signing last year has thrown eight innings over two starts, allowing one earned run on three hits and two walks, and striking out eleven. On the year, over 40 innings, he’s struck out 43 and walked just 7, posting a 2.38 ERA. He’s also just 19-years-old, and scouts love him. Yes, you can look for Tseng to plan himself firmly in the Cubs’ top ten prospects if he keeps this up the rest of the way.
  • If I told you the Cubs had a 21-year-old righty posting a 1.05 ERA, a 12.1 K/9, and 1.6 BB/9 for Kane County right now, you’d want to know who it was, right? You don’t hear much about right-handed pitching prospect James Pugliese (except from Luke), which could be because he didn’t have a lot of hype coming out of the draft, or because he’s mostly been used as a reliever (and relievers in the low minors aren’t too sexy). But you can’t argue with the numbers this 21-year-old is putting up at Kane County: 1.05 ERA over 34.1 innings, 46(!) strikeouts and 6(!) walks. He’s been used largely as a kind of piggy-back starter, going two or three innings each time out, every three or four days. It really seems to be working for him, and I’d look for a bump up to Daytona in short order.
  • FanGraphs did a top ten list of projected prospect WAR – how much WAR would X Prospect produce if he were given a full year in the big leagues this year – and somehow not a single Cubs prospect made the list. I offer it to you for the read, but I’ll confess I don’t entirely understand it. There are some back-up catcher types on the list, but not Kris Bryant or Javier Baez or Arismendy Alcantara? I guess there’s an argument that that makes sense. And, hey, maybe Kris Bryant wouldn’t have been a 2.0 WAR player at the big league level this year.
  • A Tribune profile on catching prospect Will Remillard, who was tearing it up earlier this year before being sidelined by some back issues.
  • A great read from Tommy Birch on Cubs relief prospect Marcus Hatley, who seems to have been perpetually just on the brink of a big league look for the last three years. The 26-year-old righty is currently part of that killer AAA bullpen (which features Blake Parker dominating, as well as Arodys Vizcaino, Armando Rivero, Zac Rosscup, Alberto Cabrera, and Carlos Pimentel), and is posting a 2.57 ERA (1.59 FIP) with an LOL 33.9% K rate and a 4.5% BB rate. Just silly numbers, and, somehow, there’s nowhere to put him on the big league roster!
  • This dude’s been freaking awesome:
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    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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