The Instructional League has wrapped up its month of work for the younger prospects, and now the group will disperse to a variety of places for strength and conditioning-type work. Some will come back to/stay in Arizona for that work in November, others will go back home with an individualized plan. A very small number might participate in a winter league, but you have to remember that those are true professional leagues, and they’d take a player only if he was ready to help them win. Not sure that will be the case for many guys who were participating in instructional ball. Otherwise, these guys won’t be back in Arizona until the ramp up to spring camp after the flip of the calendar.
As for an instructs wrap, Arizona Phil has the final word here, where he’s quick and correct to caution that there’s only so much you can take away from a “league” where the whole point is to get guys working on specific things. Among the prospects who newly stood out to Phil: lefty fourth rounders Luke Little (2020) and Drew Gray (2021), righties Luis Devers (2017 IFA signing) and Tyler Schlaffer (2019 9th round), outfielder Parker Chavers (2021 7th round), and – though he didn’t single him out this time, I’ve heard Phil mention him a lot – outfielder Felix Stevens (2019 IFA signing).
Other Cubs prospect notes …
⇒ This is a very fun read on pretty extreme off-the-radar prospects from around baseball, and FOUR Cubs prospects show up out of the list of 32:
Not every prospect can be a top prospect, but that doesn't mean they aren't fun. @HoothTrevor lists 32 names that stuck out to him over the course of the 2021 MiLB season and what they did to catch his eye! https://t.co/eA1AbOJB1Y
— Prospects Live (@ProspectsLive) October 15, 2021
⇒ Check out the writeups there on righty Daniel Palencia, infielder Kevin Made, outfielder Jordan Nwogu, and then maybe the guy with whom you’re least familiar, even if you follow the Cubs farm system closely. Note that these aren’t EFFUSIVE writeups, because these aren’t top prospects! They’re just way off-the-radar guys to keep an eye on, so I really dug what Hooth had to say on Pertuz, about whom I’d otherwise only heard a little:
Fabian Pertuz, 3B, CHC
There isn’t much to say about Pertuz. He seemed a little overmatched all year in Low-A, but he still showed the skills that make me keep coming back. When I saw video of a teenaged Pertuz from a couple years ago, I saw a guy swinging out of his shoes every time. Max effort. When I see him now, I see a guy who has a quick bat and a flat bat path to go along with it. Those two things are enough for me to hold out hope that Pertuz is a slow burn kind of prospect. He very recently turned 21, but the hope is that he comes out and can prove he’s learned and the bat is too good for that Low-A level. I imagine he starts there again in 2022.
⇒ Make no mistake on the statistical side of things – the year was UGLY for Pertuz, who had previously been regarded as a fringe top-30 prospect in the Cubs’ (then-less-deep) system last year based solely on scouting. He was 20 for the season, and hit just .223/.287/.308 (67 wRC+), with a 28.6% K rate and almost no walks/power. Even accounting for the terrible park factor there in Myrtle Beach for bats (remember, minor league wRC+ doesn’t adjust for that), you would still be talking about, what, a 75-ish wRC+? Not good. But you can’t always just scout the stat line, and Hooth’s take is the description of a guy we expect to see a lot this offseason because of the lost 2020 season. The guys who took obvious steps forward and exploded in 2021, those will be easy to see in the stats. But there will be a ton of other guys who just kinda look slightly more interesting than they did previously, but are still very young, and it’s hard to know whether they are in the process of “a click,” or if there simply isn’t ever going to be a big step forward after the lost year (in which case, well, they aren’t all that interesting). In Pertuz’s case, you like what you see physically, but next year is when the results would have to show up – and probably in a big way – for him to stay interesting.
One of the more interesting guys I got to write up this off-season was Cubs Fabian Pertuz. The skill set seemed interesting to me and like he could pop off at any moment. Seems like he’s still getting his bearings in Low-A, but did knock his first HR last night. pic.twitter.com/lBeJOQhx03
— Trevor Hooth (@HoothTrevor) June 24, 2021
⇒ Warning for folks who will have Mark Prior flashbacks, but it was good to hear that James Triantos was OK after this:
Charging a slow roller, #cubs @JamesTriantos gets blindsided by base runner. Dazed for a minute, but back the next inning doing his usual acrobatic wizardry. pic.twitter.com/ZMgOliyq9D
— John Antonoff (@baseballinfocus) October 17, 2021
⇒ The Arizona Fall League continues on, and Keith Law got an eyes-on this past weekend, and the only Cubs-related mentions were not good:
Some prospects really didn’t help their causes this week, unfortunately, even though most of the news was good …. Cubs right-hander Caleb Kilian, who was part of the return for Kris Bryant, faced seven batters Saturday night, and they all reached safely and scored, culminating in a home run for Rockies first baseman Michael Toglia (which I predicted — I have a witness). Kilian was just 91-93 with four pitches, getting hit hard, with no ability to finish his curveball and too little deception. He was followed by Cubs lefty Brendon Little, who was 93-96 but all over the place and left the game with the trainer.
⇒ Kilian didn’t get in a lot of time with the Tennessee Smokies after the trade because of a COVID outbreak, so he’s in Arizona primarily just to get his innings up. An outing like that is … not what you want to see from a guy who otherwise had a standout season on the production side:
Best MiLB K/BB ratios among SP’s (Min. 70 IP)
1. Shane Baz – Rays (8.69)
2. Miller Hogan – Rays (8.67)
3. Caleb Killian – Giants (8.62)
4. Antonio Velez – Marlins (8.45)
5. Andrew Albers – Twins (8.00)— Aram Leighton (@AramLeighton8) October 15, 2021
⇒ As for Brendon Little, he is in Arizona primarily as a way to get more information in advance of the Rule 5 decision. The former first round pick is eligible for selection and flashed some excellent performances/stuff at Double-A and Triple-A this year as a reliever, so he’s ticking all the boxes of the TYPE of guy who could get poached. So the Cubs need to decide whether to add him to the 40-man roster in November to protect him. If he were injured, though, that might scratch the whole thing, so who knows what happened there.