NEWSLETTER
I’m just over here dreaming about MLB making draft picks tradable, and then freaking out on draft night when the Cubs trade up from pick 20 to pick 14, and being like, OMG WHO DID THEY GET THIS IS CRAZY I LOVE IT!!! I just want to enjoy it, even if it’d be really weird in the MLB context.
Meanwhile, some Cubs prospect bits for your system-wide off-day …
⇒ When the opening minor league rosters were announced, a whole lot of top Cubs prospects were not included. Some had injuries we knew about, some were on the very young side and were always expected to remain at minor league extended spring training. But some others were simply absent for generically-described “behind schedule”-type reasons. Not an injury. Just behind. I cannot say to which players what follows applies, at least beyond top pitching prospect Brailyn Marquez. He was behind, specifically, because of COVID:
Cubs young LHP starter Brailyn Marquez is slowly getting back into shape after having dealt with COVID before camp. @jimcallisMLB first reported he will go to Double A Tennessee when ready to compete.
— Bruce Levine (@MLBBruceLevine) May 7, 2021
⇒ Ah, so that explains why Marquez isn’t out of extended spring training yet. When he does arrive, it’ll be at Double-A Tennessee as a starter, and I think the Cubs will continue to take it very slow and steady with him to try to give him a chance to stick in the rotation. He’ll need to continue to improve his secondaries, as well as his conditioning to be able to maintain that delivery through 5+ innings. Don’t take his brief call-up last year as any kind of signal that he’ll arrive this season in the big leagues – that was a total time-and-place situation where the Cubs simply wanted to give him that opportunity in a year without real game action. Yes, him being on the 40-man and the possibility that he is so hot by July that the Cubs want to use his bullets in short relief? Those are things. But if you want my bet, it’s that the Cubs just try to get him 80 to 100 healthy starter innings at Tennessee this year. Hopefully he arrives soon.
⇒ When NBC wrote up the reveal on Marquez’s delay, they included this section that might explain other delays, too: “The Cubs did closely monitor any minor league players with COVID-19 antibodies, putting in place a specific ramp-up process. Medical experts are still working to fully understand the long-term effects of COVID-19, hence the added caution. There have been cases of serious conditions such as post-COVID-19 myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle.” In other words, anyone who came to camp having previously had COVID at any point got a very slow and deliberate ramp-up process just in case. For so many reasons, that is the smart, caring, and long-term-thinking approach. To be honest, I’m embarrassed I never thought about the connection between past COVID and caution in the start-of-season ramp-up process (I’m not sure that other orgs are doing it quite the same way). I don’t want to name any names, but I’m think of other players – including big league Cubs players – who were termed slowed by the protocols, and I’m now immediately wondering whether a past case of COVID, and the Cubs’ caution, was the explanation.
⇒ This is a guy who put up some really competitive starts at 19-20 in the Mexican League this offseason, so I have been very eager to see how he looks:
https://twitter.com/cubscentral08/status/1391512567156199425?s=21
⇒ I watched a little of D.J. Herz’s outing because he was a guy who reportedly popped during the shutdown, and it did look really impressive:
DJ Herz. Loose, plus athlete. Cross-fire delivery with plus extension. Mechanical inconsistency causing FB control inconsistency. 91-95 with good ride. 1-to-7 CV plays now as plus to LHH, avg to RHH. Showing some plus changeups already. Exciting prospect with high ceiling.
— Cubs Prospects – Bryan Smith (@cubprospects) May 9, 2021
DJ Herz shows off the spike-curve he learned from Chris Clarke pic.twitter.com/PpNAmlXkJu
— Ivy Futures (@IvyFutures) May 9, 2021
⇒ Herz was the Cubs’ 8th rounder in 2019, but was signed out of high school at third round money. The development he made from that time to now, despite the shutdown, has been really impressive – like, even if you didn’t think the pitches looked eye-opening (they do), the physical changes when there was no baseball would really impress you about his future. He really put in the work. That said, as Bryan notes, the crossfire delivery is going to be a little challenging to keep up consistency, especially as the velocity climbs. It makes him a really tough-looking at bat (at least to my eye), but he’ll have to keep putting in that work to keep it up.
⇒ Infielder Matt Burch was one of the Cubs’ undrafted free agent signings last year (recall, the draft was only five rounds, so there were far more notable undrafted signings than usual), and because of injuries and promotions at Triple-A, he was needed to make his pro debut all the way up there:
Let me introduce you to @IowaCubs infielder Matt Burch, the non-drafted free agent who made his professional debut on Thursday…at Triple-A. https://t.co/8onSiDWVqo
— Tommy Birch (@TommyBirch) May 8, 2021
⇒ The skinny on Burch from when the Cubs signed him last year:
Burch, 22, was an everyday starter for ODU the last couple years, putting up a slash line strongly suggestive of a line-drive hitter with great contact ability, good discipline, good speed, and very limited power. It’s the kind of profile that the Cubs have had a lot of success targeting in recent years to get useful players that tend to move up the farm system, but it isn’t a profile that frequently translates to a future big league job. Burch, a lefty batter, is listed at BR as 5’8″, 180 lbs, so he’s on the shorter side but well-built. Maybe there’s power potential in there?
⇒ Ultimately, Burch will head to Low-A or High-A to actually play out his debut season, but it’s a nice nod to his makeup that the Cubs were willing to say, all right new guy, go play three levels up real quick.
⇒ The Cubs’ 20th rounder in 2019 getting some attention:
Darius Hill has been the best hitter in this @Pelicanbaseball lineup to start the year.
With a double today in the sixth, he extends his hitting streak to the first six games and is hitting 9-27 (.333) with two doubles and five RBIs in that span. #MBPelicans
— Sam Weiderhaft (@sam_weiderhaft) May 9, 2021
⇒ Doing the right thing (which can also prove to be the smart thing in the long-run):
“We kept everybody on full pay and benefits the whole time. We lost $4 million, but they needed the money more than I did,” Iowa Cubs owner Michael Gartner said. https://t.co/TYudLpwld8
— Des Moines Register (@DMRegister) May 10, 2021
⇒ Brad Wieck appreciated being part of the Iowa no-hitter:
First no hitter I’ve been a part of 👊🏼 https://t.co/EIEcTu0DDD
— Brad Wieck (@WieckBrad) May 9, 2021
⇒ This is interesting to check out:
Great map per @axios & @TheKendallBaker on where all #MILB teams are this year. link is interractive #sportsbiz #sporttech #MLB https://t.co/ZTYCWKvB79 pic.twitter.com/xEesEcbfHB
— Joe Favorito (@joefav) May 10, 2021
