NEWSLETTER
Yesterday we spent the day with family in the suburbs, watched a fireworks show, and drove back into the city around 9 or so. This meant for the hour ride home, we were treated to a wild view from our car of about 40 different suburban fireworks shows from the highway. The kids thought we’d planned it and we came away looking like heroes. Love when that happens by accident.
Let’s break down the day in the minors for the Cubs.
Five Stars of Cub Farm, Fourth. (And 4-0!)
5. Nelly Velazquez
4. Ethan Hearn
3. Brennen Davis
2. Jared Young
1. The bullpens! Seriously, all 4 affiliates! Nance, Leeps, ManRod, Hughes, Huddy, Short, ERob, Suellentrop, Bigge, TJD, Reindl, Reid, Ocampo. 17.1 IP, 0 R. Respect.
— Cubs Prospects – Bryan Smith (@cubprospects) July 5, 2021
Honorable Mention: Didier Vargas struck out 10 batters in five innings in his fourth start of the season for Low-A Myrtle Beach … The Pelicans scored 12 runs in that one, a 9-inning season high, with these guys getting two hits in addition to Hearn: Yohendrick Pinango, Ryan Reynolds, Luis Verdugo … Shout out to Chase Strumpf for drawing three walks in the Tennessee 7-6 comeback victory. This now gives him eight walks in 42 plate appearances over his last 11 games. The bust-out is coming … Tony Wolters homered for Iowa, his fourth straight game with an extra-base hit. Wolters has been rather incredible over his last 11 starts, so there’s no question who the next man up for the Cubs would be when the inevitable need for another back-up catcher surfaces.
Five: Nelson Velazquez
We’ve already had three parts to the Velazquez season. The first part was right out of the gate, when Velazquez, 22, immediately walked into being one of the hottest hitters in minor league baseball. The second part was the inevitable struggles that followed, with a really bad strikeout rate accompanied with almost no walks. It’s been the last 25 games where I think we’ve seen Velazquez adjust and show us where the true talent level lies. Those 25 games: .272/.337/.565 with a 7/33 BB-K in 101 plate appearances.
That’s who this guy is as a hitter right now: smacks the heck out of the ball, is going to swing and miss a good amount, and is trying as best he can to walk a little more often. While I have been considering this a breakout season in my mind, this was actually useful context for me: in 2019 with Low-A South Bend, Velazquez had a really solid 121 wRC+. This year with High-A South Bend: 128.
Four: Ethan Hearn
I’ll catch some flak for tossing optimism on the guy hitting .179/.289/.263, but I’m telling you: don’t give up on this kid yet. He’s looked like a completely different hitter in the last 10 games (.290/.400/.410), and he has seven walks in his last seven starts. We’ve seen it with Ed Howard, too: the pitching at this level was a level of advancement beyond the hitters in May, but slowly, the hitters are catching up. Hearn’s a guy with a big difference in raw and game power right now, too, so the offensive numbers won’t always tell the story of the offensive ceiling.
Last night was a good example, where a double in the scorebook will be a home run in a few years as Hearn matures. See it at 0:29 in the video below:
Three: Brennen Davis
I just fail to see how this guy isn’t a top 25 prospect in the game right now. The wRC+ is now 120 in Double-A. He’s 21 with limited pro experience. He’s hit .287/.402/.500 against right-handed pitching this year. I really believe he has top five plate coverage in all of minor league baseball.
— Brad (@ballskwok) July 5, 2021
https://twitter.com/CubsCentral08/status/1411858788068495361
With the Big League Cubs situation being what it is, I think it healthiest if we all just begin to employ irrational levels of excitement about Brennen now.
Two: Jared Young
The hottest hitter in the Cubs farm system, Young has returned from an injury with an immediate 5-game hit streak where he’s 10-for-18 with zero strikeouts.
A big breakout guy in 2018 – he was the 2018 Cubs Minor League Player of the Year – Young is one of those guys that hit a serious wall the first time he reached Double-A in 2019, where he hit just .235/.297/.319 in a full season of work. The biggest culprit for those struggles, in my opinion, was the increase in the usage of the shift between A-ball in 2018 and what we were seeing Double-A teams employ in 2019. Young hit just .217 on ground balls that year with a sub-700 OPS when pulling the ball. Remember, the shift rule change is in place in Double-A this year, and while I haven’t kept up on the BABIP of groundballs at the whole level, Young will be an interesting anecdotal test case for the rule’s effectiveness. This year in the tiny sample that is his season, however, he’s really just hitting the ball harder and in the air more.
Young will turn 26 in just four days, and the Cubs are most comfortable with him at first base, so while I’m not really thinking of him as a “prospect,” that doesn’t mean he force his way into a Major League contributor.
One: All the Relievers!
I’m not going to touch on all 13 relievers from the tweet. I actually just want to talk about Ethan Roberts today.
Roberts turned 24 yesterday, and he rang in the birthday with a dominant save in the Smokies victory. Roberts struck out the side in order with just 15 pitches, 11 for strikes, six producing swing-and-misses. I want to be clear about this one: this should be the last pitch Roberts ever throws in Double-A.
Tonight's final out courtesy of Ethan Roberts. pic.twitter.com/1rh2EaEJuB
— Tennessee Smokies (@smokiesbaseball) July 5, 2021
Roberts hasn’t allowed a run in his last seven appearances, a streak of 9.2 innings, the last five of which have been hitless. If we just chop off Roberts’ first two appearances of the year – which honestly weren’t even that bad – here’s the remaining line: 19.2 IP, 7 H, 0.92 ERA, 8 BB, 30 K.
The Cubs fourth pick in the 2018 draft, Roberts will be Rule 5 eligible after this season. I think it’s important the Cubs see how his stuff might play at Triple-A for the next two months. Roberts is a unique guy, the ultimate Vertical Approach Angle pitcher, with a super-low release point and all-world spin rates (well over 3000 rpms on the breaking stuff). That swing from the video, well under a Roberts fastball, is a carbon copy of so many swings Roberts has induced this year. The stuff is a grade under elite (though his 96 mph fastball with cut movement last night was pretty much there), but when you put that stuff from his unique build, it plays as elite. Such a fun guy to watch compete.
