Cubs Prospect Notes: Howard, Alcántara, Triantos, Devers, Palencia, Davis, Ballesteros, Jensen, Perlaza, Gray, More

I hadn’t intended to do a Cubs Prospect Notes first thing this morning, but there was just so much stuff to share from last night in the farm system that I had to do it (plus I needed something nice to think about after more big league BS last night )…

  • Ed Howard is back! The long-awaited return for Howard from his nasty hip injury last year came after a lengthy rehab process and a full go at extended spring training. So last night was Howard’s 2023 debut, and it went as well as anyone could have hoped:
  • That last throw to first was HAUNTINGLY off-target, reminiscent of the play on which he suffered the injury. Thankfully, that time, the first baseman got out of the way. Love that hard contact, and I can’t wait to follow Howard’s season.
  • Meanwhile, at South Bend, the team had a huge night at the plate, including a four-hit evening from Kevin Alcántara. One of those four hits looked like such easy power:
  • Alcántara is working an eight-game hitting streak, and has seen his season slash climb from .219/.253/.351/72 wRC+ to .253/.280/.393/90 wRC+ in that time.
  • James Triantos had just one hit on the night (though he almost sent one out oppo), but that hit was a double, and he didn’t strike out. That means he’s up to 7 extra-base hits this year against just 5 strikeouts (and 9 walks). It’s still early for him, but my word. Doing that is ridiculous. Not even just for a 20-year-old in High-A, for anyone.
  • It definitely wasn’t all great news in that South Bend game, as Luis Devers’ return appearance lasted just two outs. He wound up walking four and giving up three singles in the partial inning of work before he was pitch-counted out of the game. If Gameday is to be trusted, though, the walks were incredibly close (some probably shouldn’t have been walks at all), and on another night, he gets just one call early in the inning and instead of 0.2 innings pitched with a torrent of earned runs, he goes multiple innings of unremarkable ball. I wouldn’t worry about Devers based on that return appearance unless I hear that his velo was barely 90 mph or something like that.
  • On a night when the big league bullpen featured a couple guys who may need to head down to Triple-A Iowa, you had Daniel Palencia have an implosion outing: groundout, single, double, walk, strikeout, grand slam, single, groundout. That happens sometimes, obviously, but if you’re looking to Palencia to rapidly rise to the big leagues, you would obviously prefer that kind of inning was not possible for him at Triple-A.
  • Not-so-fun fact, that was the second grand slam Iowa gave up in the game, with minor league signing Jordan Holloway, finally back at that level after a long rehab, also getting tagged for one.
  • Even worse news from the Iowa game:
  • Just hate the way that sounds. No other information at this time on what exactly happened, or what Davis is dealing with. All you can do is hope it was something painful in the moment, but that clears up with a little rest. Davis missed almost all of last season following back issues and surgery. He had just finally hit a little patch where he’d gone three straight games with an extra-base hit, too.
  • One bit of good news from that Iowa game, though, is that Yonathan Perlaza has gone out of his mind:
  • Perlaza, 24, has a hit in 15 of his last 16 games, and an extra-base hit in all but 5 of those 16 games! He’s also walked 10 times, against just 12 strikeouts. The switch-hitting outfielder will PROBABLY go through a cooling off period at some point, but right now he’s hitting like one of the best in the International League. Add him to the list of guys who are probably clearly too good for Triple-A, but who would need extended reps in the big leagues to evaluate and develop (and as we’ve seen, you can really only have so many at bats available for Christopher Morel, Matt Mervis, and Nelson Velazquez all at once (the latter being back at Iowa)).
  • Really thought Moises Ballesteros would be part of the promotion movement to South Bend yesterday, because the bat is too good for Low-A. But there are a lot of considerations that go into these things, so Ballesteros stays at Myrtle Beach for now, and does stuff like this:
  • At Tennessee, all of Pete Crow-Armstrong, Owen Caissie, B.J. Murray, and Haydn McGeary had multi-hit nights, though Jordan Wicks had his first forgettable outing in a while (4.0 IP, 4 ER, 8 H – though 1 BB and 6 K is always a nice ratio). Luke Little and Danis Correa combined for 7 strikeouts in their 3.0 innings of relief work. You’d love to see one of those guys get the bump to Iowa soon.
  • Speaking of which, Ryan Jensen did get the bullpen bump to Iowa, joining Palencia in the quickly-converted-and-promoted path. Jensen actually pitched in relief at Tennessee for a while before his promotion, and put together a string of four scoreless outings over the past couple weeks. The strikeout rate has been above 30% in relief, while the walk rate has stayed under 10%. That’s what you want to see from Jensen, who OBVIOUSLY has the caliber of pitches necessary to be a high-quality reliever (hell, he’s got six pitches to choose from when distilling his mix!). It’s just that he’s never been anything close to consistent with the fastball control, and that sank him as a starter. You have a little more leeway in relief, but he’ll still have to start commanding the fastball if this conversion is going to work.
  • I’ll end where I started, with a Cubs prospect coming back from a long injury rehab. Lefty Drew Gray has been rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, and made his season debut in the Arizona Complex League last night: 2.2 IP, 1 ER, 0 H, 3 BB, 7 K. I’m guessing the command/control are still coming back, but it’s good to know that the stuff is too good for ACL hitters. I expect Gray to be with Myrtle Beach for his full-season debut sometime later this season. Hopes are still quite high for the 2021 third rounder.
  • 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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