First base prospect Matt Mervis, 24, is hitting sufficiently well at Triple-A Iowa, that you might really want to see him start his transition to the big leagues as soon as possible. The counter to that, among others, is that Mervis is only now in his first full professional season (there was no minor league season in his 2020 draft year, and his 2021 season was limited to just 72 games). And with just 38 games at Triple-A under his belt, it’s hardly unreasonable to want to be cautious before pushing him to face big league pitchers.
It isn’t in everyone’s development plan to get a few weeks of big league action at the end of the year, especially when that player doesn’t even have 800 professional plate appearances yet. (Dang, Mervis’s ascent has been fast!)
All that said, I think it’s been fair to presume – and we have – that the primary reason Mervis is not going to get the call to the big leagues this year is because, as a player who is not yet eligible for the Rule 5 Draft, the Cubs don’t have to protect Mervis on the 40-man roster just yet. So if they were to call him up now, that would be one fewer prospect who is Rule 5 eligible that the Cubs can’t protect, since Mervis would now occupy that 40-man spot. You wouldn’t risk crushing Mervis’s development for a decision like this, but if that’s not a serious risk, then you simply have to proceed with a plan to keep BOTH Mervis and whichever extra prospect you can protect. It would be organizational foolishness to do anything else.
Anyway, that’s all background to the latest from Patrick Mooney, who confirms that there are currently no plans to call up Mervis, and the roster construction concerns are at the fore:
The Cubs won’t publicly rule out the idea of calling up Matt Mervis from Triple-A Iowa in September. But internally, the Cubs have no plans to promote Mervis for a late-season look, according to sources familiar with the club’s thinking. Mervis is not eligible for the Rule 5 draft this offseason and the Cubs have been strategizing for that looming 40-man roster crunch. Adding Mervis now would complicate those plans for a team that faded from the playoff picture months ago.
So, barring a dramatic change in thinking, Mervis will finish out his season at Iowa, and then head out to west to play in the Arizona Fall League. In theory, that will still be another step up in pitching competition from Triple-A.
Elsewhere around the Cubs farm system …
I feel like it’s been a while since Jake Slaughter has gotten our attention, but he certainly did his part last night:
The 25-year-old utility infielder has kind of(?) come back to earth at Double-A, but not really. He’s still hitting .310/.402/.566/152 wRC+ over 341 plate appearances, and can play first, third, and second base (or at least he has been playing those spots this year). You’d love to see what he could do at Triple-A Iowa if there were still time for it.
At his age, and at this level, Slaughter makes for a difficult 40-man decision after the season. He is Rule 5 eligible, but is it realistic that a team would poach him, straight from Double-A, for their 26-man big league roster? That’s not a rhetorical question. I genuinely wonder. It’s clear that Slaughter can hit the crap out of the ball (all while striking out only 20.2% of the time), but does it project at the next-next level? I can’t help but wonder if the Cubs slow-played a promotion to Triple-A Iowa precisely so that question remains a tough one to answer. It’s inarguable at this point that the Cubs are going to have more Rule 5 eligible prospects that they want to protect than they’ll have 40-man spots with which to protect him, so it’s possible a guy like Slaughter will have to be exposed (or earlier traded), even if it burns the Cubs up to risk losing him.
I tend to think Luis Devers is going to run away with it in the end, but Luke Little is very quietly putting together a pitcher of the year type season between Low-A and High-A:
Little, 22, was the Cubs’ 4th round pick in 2020, and he’s been brought along very slowly. He’s got a 2.47 ERA this year over 22 games and 65.2 innings (you can see how carefully the Cubs are taking it with him). His strikeout rate is a whopping 35.4%, against a 13.3% walk rate, and his huge frame, funky delivery, and power stuff are assuredly just too much for low-level hitters. But the Cubs clearly want to take it slowly and deliberately with Little so that they can TRY to develop him as a starting pitcher in the years ahead. It’s tough for a giant dude like Little to keep his mechanics consistent through a 100-pitch outing, let alone when you have a funky delivery to boot. It’s just a unique mix that helps explain how he’s getting such dominant results, but also why there’s a whole lot of caution about whether he can actually start at the higher levels.
Kevin Alcántara and James Triantos are both getting mighty hot to close out the year at Low-A Myrtle Beach, and you love to see it. Alcántara since August 20: .351/.424/.491/154 wRC+, 10.6% BB, 18.2% K. Triantos since August 20: .408 .473 .510/177 wRC+, 10.9% BB, 9.1% K.
Bonus Alcántara? He can hit the ball so high that it leads to the rare walk-off, pop-up error:
I love arbitrary end points! I’m not kidding. I think they’re fun:
Matt Mervis opened these notes, and he’ll close them with some love. Even after winning prospect of the month honors in August, Mervis has opened September on a tear, hitting .368/.400/.895/230 wRC+ through the first week. It earned him a spot on the Prospect Team of the Week over at MLB Pipeline:
NEWSLETTER
