I can’t get enough Brailyn Marquez right now. The 20-year-old lefty is the Cubs’ cleaarrrrrr top pitching prospect, and almost inarguably the best pitching prospect they’ve had since Kyle Hendricks finally started convincing outsiders he was legit.
Not only is Marquez still pumping 100-ish MPH fastballs deep into his starts, he’s also intermittently working a plus slider or very good changeup, and making High-A hitters look helpless. He’s getting better as the year goes on, “developing” rapidly in-season, and is everything you’d want to see in a top-tier pitching prospect.
Thus, I am going to enjoy reading this – right now, in this moment, as soon as I click ‘paste’ – from Sahadev Sharma on Marquez, and you should, too:
The Cubs tweaked Brailyn Marquez's delivery along with grips on his fastball, change & what Brendan Sagara called a spike slider. It's resulted in the once-raw lefty dominating the lower levels. “It’s almost like this perfect storm of development." https://t.co/Au9AbaTu7p
— Sahadev Sharma (@sahadevsharma) August 23, 2019
The article is an extremely deep dive on Marquez’s development with the Cubs, his physical changes, his extreme velocity gain, and the way the Cubs have worked on his mechanics and grips.
The wrap-up quote about Marquez, from Minor League Pitching Coordinator Brendan Sagara, should get you pumped: “He’ll dictate a lot of the rate of speed of his advancement. Physically, he’s major-league ready. It’s just a matter of consistency and polishing gamesmanship, playability — those kinds of things. Pitching with secondaries, both sides of the plate, elevation for chase. All the more advanced aspects. As quickly as he can do that will be as quickly as he can force our hand.”
On the radar for 2020? Why not? Marquez has quickly become that special.