Cubs Prospect Notes: Canario Goes Nuclear, Mervis Could Break Records, So Much More Power, Results Everywhere, More

What an unbelievable weekend for the Chicago Cubs farm system. Every time you turned around, some prospect was having a monster game and the Cubs team was winning. There were so many good things and I want to touch on a handful here, though make sure you catch up with a group of ten in Bryan’s most recent piece from yesterday. He’s got a whole lot in there!

  • Alexander Canario’s weekend was a hilarious explosion of performance, which came on the heels of a hilarious explosion of performance all month. He is arguably the single hottest hitter at any level of baseball, and it’s not even like his perfect day was unusual for him these days:
  • Canario’s July numbers just make me chuckle: .371/.513/.839/242 wRC+, 15.0% K rate, 22.5% BB rate. Look at that last one! He’s not even getting pitched to, and he is crushing the ball whenever he DOES get pitched to! When the season started, I never would have thought Canario would have a real shot at reaching Triple-A. But what he’s done this month is ridiculous. So ridiculous that a 22-year-old who is already on the 40-man roster might just justify a double bump this year. The Cubs have already shown a willingness to do it with Matt Mervis when he could not be stopped at Double-A, and maybe they will want to open up a Double-A outfield spot sometime soon anyway.
  • Speaking of Mervis, just another no-big-deal, homer-and-a-triple day for him:
  • Not that RBI is a great predictive or even evaluative stat, and the offenses he’s been playing with sure help, but this is still pretty awesome stuff:
  • Constantly overshadowed by the other big offensive performances this year, Chase Strumpf just keeps raking, going back to last August:
  • Speaking of Strumpf, Mervis, and Canario, they are part of an emerging home run power binge for the Cubs this minor league season:
  • Great news on the injury front, as whatever knee surgery Reggie Preciado seemed to have (remember how he hurt his knee just as he seemed to be figuring out Low-A?) was not necessarily season-ending. Rich Biesterfeld heard from Preciado that he hopes to be *playing* again sometime in August.
  • This is the kind of thing that will need a deeper dive at the end of the year when the full slate of data is in, but, until then, holy crap:
  • Remember, the Cubs farm system these days is populated almost exclusively by legit prospects, not just a bunch of journeymen putting up huge numbers against younger competition. That the Cubs have gotten some of the best results on the pitching AND hitting side this year is really something.
  • You absolutely LOVE to see it:
  • Maybe this is something lots of orgs do, but I have not seen this specific type of setup before. It’s just another one of those things that, yes, takes an investment of money, but seemingly is so worth it in the long run.
  • written by

    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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