NEWSLETTER
It’s a big day around baseball for prospects and team roster construction at the margins. Today is the deadline to add Rule-5-eligible prospects to your 40-man roster if you want to protect them from the draft next month (or whenever it winds up being held, lockout-pending). We’ll see the Cubs adding a few prospects today, and we may also see some maneuvering around baseball as teams (1) clear out space to make room for prospects, and/or (2) trade guys that another team is willing to keep/protect, but who is on the fringe for that original team.
That is to say: in addition to a few added prospects, a minor trade for the Cubs today would not surprise me. Stay tuned.
• One of the guys who’ll be added to the 40-man today is outfield prospect Nelson Velazquez, who celebrated by putting a capper on his AFL MVP campaign:
Nelson Velazquez is coming for the AFL MVP.
The @Cubs’ No. 29 prospect slugged this double 111.1 mph off the bat. pic.twitter.com/7Fvsg28BIF
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) November 19, 2021
Make it 3-for-3 with 3 RBI after Nelly knocks a heart-of-plate fastball back up the middle. Lulz. pic.twitter.com/IVgEGjIvPV
— Cubs Prospects – Bryan Smith (@cubprospects) November 19, 2021
There’s hot, then there’s Nelson Velazquez hot.
The 29th-ranked @Cubs prospect reinforced his case for AFL MVP with a perfect night at the plate: https://t.co/9AJ9ZRxTra pic.twitter.com/yKLDUh7LIO
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) November 19, 2021
• From that article:
“Just be ready for the fastball, be on time for the fastball and on time with the breaking ball as well,” Velazquez said. “That’s what I was thinking tonight.”
The approach, as it has all season, worked and Velazquez squared up everything thrown his way. He scorched a 111.1 mph double off the left-center-field wall in the first inning to extend his hitting streak to five games. Velazquez then tacked on run-scoring singles in both the third and fifth innings, the latter of which had a 107.8 mph exit velocity.
“I know I have the power, so all I try to do is try to be on time with the pitches because I know if I hit the call, I can hit the ball hard,” Velazquez said. “If I’m on time and I hit the ball hard, I know good things can happen.”
• Here’s the list of all the MLB Pipeline top 30 team prospects who are eligible for the Rule 5 Draft and thus must be protected today or otherwise will be exposed to the draft. The Cubs have only two, Velazquez and righty Riley Thompson, who missed this season due to injury, and then had the pandemic season before that. Thanks to call-ups late in the year, as well as so many holes on the big league roster, the Cubs really don’t have a crunch this year. Plenty of room to add whomever they want to protect. Some other clubs, however, have a much older prospect base and have a crapload of prospects to add.
• The New York Mets finalized their deal with Billy Eppler to become the new GM, at last. What’s unknown is whether he’s actually going to be in charge, whether he’s going to functionally become an assistant next year anyway (the Mets reportedly still want David Stearns), and what exactly his role will be. From Mets.com (I mean, even METS.COM is saying this):
It remains to be seen, however, exactly how much autonomy Eppler will have in Flushing. Upon commencing their baseball operations search in September, the Mets intended to appoint a president of baseball ops who would then hire a GM beneath him. Current Mets president Sandy Alderson, in turn, intended to step away from the baseball side of the organization.
In recent weeks, Alderson has amended that stance, indicating that he could stay involved in baseball matters in some capacity and could still hire a president of baseball operations over the incoming GM next winter. In that sense, Eppler’s new role is not ironclad; he may have to answer to Alderson in some respects, and he may need to answer to someone else entirely in the future. It’s also unclear how much hiring and firing power Eppler will have, as he enters an organization with two prominent assistant GMs — Ian Levin and Alderson’s son, Bryn — already in place.
• Although Dish and Sinclair came to a carriage agreement, don’t get your sports-related hopes up: Dish is still passing on all RSNs. They seem to be permanently(?) out of that business, and now Sinclair has allowed them to sign a carriage deal (local broadcast networks and Tennis Channel) without requiring that the RSNs be included. So that’s probably that, and it’s another bad sign for the health and wellbeing of the RSNs long-term.
• Lanterns, water filters, pants, and more are your Early Black Friday Deals at Amazon. #ad
• Shohei Ohtani’s season was probably the MVP’iest in our lifetime. I’m not sure our systems are quite equipped to quantify how valuable it is to do what he did while taking just one roster spot, since simply adding his pitching WAR and hitting WAR doesn’t really sum up the value. Because he’s just one guy taking one spot doing that, and he’s available to do either or both at all times. I mean, I think if you could be a league average pinch hitter and a league average reliever, that’d be an incredible valuable player to have. And this guy was one of the best hitters in baseball while also being a top tier pitcher.
• Some wild facts about Ohtani’s season here from Sarah Langs. I don’t even know which one to share, because they’re just wild. Here’s one that puts into context just how ridiculous Ohtani’s season was, *EVEN IF* you go back to the days of Babe Ruth: “There are so many historic combinations of stats that demonstrate Ohtani’s unique, never-before-done season that we can’t possibly list them all. But one other combo worth noting is his 30-plus homers and 30-plus strikeouts on the mound. And again, Ohtani had 46 homers and 156 strikeouts — nowhere even close to those modest qualifiers. The prior most strikeouts in a 30-homer season was three, by Babe Ruth in 1930 (49 homers). The prior most homers in a 30-strikeout season was 29, by Ruth in ‘19, when he struck out exactly 30 batters.”
https://twitter.com/DanEvans108/status/1461652930990198785
• Yup, I got emotional:
This video of @kb1413's daughter Tenley asking Kris Bryant for advice on furthering her softball development is the sweetest thing you'll see today. Not gonna lie. Got some tears going. pic.twitter.com/Ja4RBz3CO5
— Bleacher Nation (@BleacherNation) November 18, 2021
• Wild every time I think about it:
The craziest thing about 2021 is that the Cubs threw a no-hitter against the Dodgers while in first place in late June.
— Michael Cerami (@Michael_Cerami) November 19, 2021
• If you missed Bryan’s write-up on relief prospect Ethan Roberts, who also should be protected today, the South Bend Cubs shared it with a great pic of Roberts and his kiddo:
Our favorite @EthanXXVI photo.
Read more from our friends at @BleacherNation on this awesome human.
Story by @cubprospects ➡️ https://t.co/I0ExQwFYyc pic.twitter.com/PnBm9d3TPL— South Bend Cubs (@SBCubs) November 18, 2021
• The Bears are bringing in a friend of Mack’s, and other teams wish they could have a do-over:
The Bears Are Reportedly Signing Khalil Mack’s Former Raiders Teammate Bruce Irvin to Help Their Pass-Rushhttps://t.co/UmXsZP0TY7
— Bleacher Nation Bears (@BN_Bears) November 19, 2021
Ope! It Sounds Like Some Teams Regret Passing on Justin Fieldshttps://t.co/AEcJPFW0a3
— Bleacher Nation Bears (@BN_Bears) November 18, 2021
