Ivan Pineyro was signed by the Washington Nationals in 2010…for just $16,000. I'm assuming he probably had some instructs before his 2011 FRk debut in the Washington Dominican Summer League. Starting exclusively, Pineyro dominated in his ~70 innings in 2011 as a 19-year old, and was uneven in 2012 (but dealt with a line drive to the jaw in Extended Spring Training, so he lost a good chuck of time). Ivan started 2013 in the Sally League, where he earned a midseason promotion to Potomac, the Nationals A+ affiliate, and was traded to the Cubs for Scott Hairston and a PTBNL shortly thereafter.
Performance
After the Cubs acquired Ivan, he had a pretty nice half-season. He pitched in 8 games, starting them all, and got 45 total innings (just over 5.5 innings per start). He struck out 20.5% of his batters and walked only 4.9%, which is a great ratio, and combined that with a reasonable .316 BABIP. Put it all together, and he had a 2.89 FIP for Daytona (A+), and was generally seen as one of the better pitchers on that rotation. He pitched 125.2 innings this season, which is another great sign.
Scouting
There isn't a ton of tape on Ivan, since he hasn't pitched a ton of meaningful ball. Jonathan Mayo says he sits in the high 80s/low 90s, with a promising change and a change with some drop to it.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-UQ4bNU71A]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6Na5ufB29U]I like his motion. The first thing that pops to me is that he doesn't look 6'1" or 200 pounds, but a bit shorter and lighter than that. I like the run on his pitches, and his changeup seems like it's really good for a minor-league offering. Far be it from me to put a grade on anything, but it looks like it'll probably play at the major league level. That's good, because he'll need a good weapon to play off his fastball, which doesn't look like anything special. The curveball was also pretty weak in this limited sample, but I didn't see nearly enough to really make a real judgement or anything.
Baseball America was slightly more charitable concerning his fastball than Mayo was:
He commands the strike zone at 90-93 mph while also throwing a solid-average changeup and fringy breaking ball. Pineyro impressed the Nationals with his quick recovery from a line drive to the face during 2012 extended spring training, showcasing his toughness and poise.
Outlook
Pineyro might stay in Daytona to start the year, but he'll see some time in Tennessee before the year is out barring a huge setback, either injury or stuff-related. If he can develop his breaking pitch, he's shown the durability and good changeup that profiles him at the back of a rotation, but it's a big if; A+ is light-years from the majors, and if throwing a curveball was easy, everyone would do it. All things considered, getting a lottery ticket with #3-4 upside is a great return for the picked-over corpse of Scott Hairston, even if there's little chance he makes it that far (there are a lot of scenarios that end with Pineyro's secondaries getting launched at Tennessee and never progressing past that level, or getting to Iowa and not having the fastball to get through 6 innings). If the rotation doesn't work out due to the lack of a curve, he's got as good a shot as anyone to end up as a fungible reliever, but there's no reason to start considering that for probably 2 years (one to work on a passable third offering, and another to flash that at AA and AAA).
2013 Cubs Prospect Reviews
- Matt Szczur
- Trevor Clifton
- Trey Masek
- Logan Watkins
- Willson Contreras
- Corey Black
- Yoanner Negrin
- Tyler Alamo
- Marco Hernandez
- Shawon Dunston, Jr.
- Ben Wells
- Brett Jackson
- Armando Rivera
- CJ Edwards
- Dillon Maples
- Duane Underwood
- Zack Godley
- Justin Grimm
- Arodys Vizcaino
- Zeke DeVoss
- Jae-Hoon Ha
- Ivan Pineyro
Comments
From last thread….
@ Recalcitrant Blogger Nate:
It depends on when you evaluate trades. IMO, the Cubs got the better end of the Rizzo/Cashner deal from the day 1. This past season would lean towards the Padres winning. But if you feel Cashner is doomed to be injured, we can safely say the Cubs win this trade simply by the fact that Rizzo is on the field (even at his production level this year). Ultimately, I think we all believe Rizzo is a little better than he was this year. And if that turns out to be true, Cashner would need to be a consistent middle of the rotation starter to beat out Rizzo who would be a productive everyday player at a power position.
/2cents
srbutch5Quote Reply
@ srbutch5:
Yea, I agree with the Cubs logic in making the trade. I guess Cashner is just being better right now than I ever thought he’d be. And while I definitely agree with Rizzo’s value as an everyday player, the post on Vogelbach got em thinking that 1B have to be really good hitters to have value.
NateQuote Reply
Myles, when you copy the link in the back end by highlighting the link portion, it doesn’t work:
Myles wrote:
It will only work if the url is short enough.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ Nate:
Cashner always had the ability. There were just so many questions around him being a starter and if he could stay healthy (jury is still out on both of these). The hit tool of a 1B definitely needs to be huge and here’s to hoping Rizzo turns last season into an anomaly. Hope Monster sighting….
Wow, I’m already calling this season, last season…thanks Cubs.
srbutch5Quote Reply
@ srbutch5:
Yeah, I agree with this. I also think if you evaluate it at this point or later you have to factor in Rizzo’s long-term contract. Rizzo will almost certainly be paid more than Cashner will before he becomes a free agent.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ Nate:
I think the expectations were too high for Rizzo. While I do think he’ll hit better than this going forward, I don’t think he’ll ever be in the discussion for best first baseman in the league unless there’s suddenly a lot of injuries to others at the position. I also think the Cubs were way too quick in signing him long-term. Doing something like that can help the team out a lot, but it can also hurt the team. I’d have been happy if they waited another year or two to sign either of Castro or Rizzo. I just don’t think the Cubs, as a large market team, have as much incentive as other small market teams. Then again, it sounds like the Cubs payroll is only going to be about league average moving forward so we could argue they have a small market payroll. From what I gather, it sounds like the Cubs will return to the days in which they had a much smaller payroll than you’d hope. In other words, it’s like the Tribune when they weren’t having a spending spree.
dmick89Quote Reply
I forgot about this guy, nice to realize that the Cubs have a another half-decent pitching prospect.
BerseliusQuote Reply
[img]https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/6414594048/h8D6AAC82/[/img]
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ Suburban kid:
I’m not sure I buy that or a lot of those other images. They just can’t be real, can they? That’s the second or third time I’ve seen that same exact response (no, that can’t be right). Not sure I believe that’s a coincidence.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
Funscuker
Suburban kidQuote Reply
Exhibit 1. An email I received once. I was the contact for a website that had the word Yankees in it, but the site had literally nothing to do with baseball.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/more/news/20130908/olympic-wrestling-reinstated.ap/
Mr. Dick Pound is not very happy that wrestling was reinstated.
WaLiQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
For better or worse, I think the thinking on those extensions was that they’d add value. Neither of those guys is being paid much this year or next anyway, and I’m not sure either annual salary gets above 7-8M ever. So I still think they’re pretty good deals.
NateQuote Reply
@ Nate:
I think each was worth about $10 million less. I’m beginning to wonder if Castro was worth $50 million less.
dmick89Quote Reply
Maybe I’m naive, but I think the smaller payroll at the moment has less to do with available funds and more to do with the inefficiency of free agency. I think Theo got burned at the end of the red sox tenure by trying to be the yankees and throwing money around inefficiently on guys like Lackey and Crawford. I would think the way that the club is going to be “big market” is in the way it locks up the players that graduate out of their farm system.
In this way I don’t really mind that they were early with extensions for Castro and Rizzo…I think that’s the way you throw your weight around with money in the current environment: lock up everybody you want that wants to stay and buy as many prime years as you can.
sitrickQuote Reply
I don’t think Theo would have taken the job if he didn’t believe the payroll he wanted would be there when he needed it. Until he does, why not divert a bunch of funds into paying down the Ricketts debt from the sale? The last thing this team needs is to ever be in a situation like Frank McCourt was.
sitrickQuote Reply
sitrick wrote:
yeah i think/hope that ricketts would have gone out and picked up whats-his-name from tampa if that was the case.
EnricoPallazzoQuote Reply
@ sitrick:
But small market teams do the same thing. I think theo was surprised to learn that payroll would be as low as its going to be. That’s how I read his comments.
dmick89Quote Reply
New shit http://obstructedview.net/minor-leagues/2013-cubs-prospects-in-review-jae-hoon-ha.html
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
I get the feeling that the ownership is probably just as surprised at how low attendance has been, which might be driving some of this. At least they’re spending on the draft/international market.
BerseliusQuote Reply