Each Saturday, I'm going to summarize the weekly performance top prospects at each level. Hopefully, this will give more of a snapshot of how our future Cubs are doing.
AAA
Brett Jackson 2: The Two Flounders has come to a 31.9% K rate this season. That's not appreciably lower than his 33.8% AAA rate last year. His line of .244/.340/.366 is held up by a .385 BABIP, so something has to has to has to change. Even his walks are down to 8.5% (career number is around 11%). He's not a league-average player at AAA this year, which is pretty damning.
Logan Watkins has a pretty huge K% rate too this year (26.7%). His line is .224/.367/.408, and his BABIP of .290 suggests that's where his talent truly lies. When the Cubs talk about shaking up the roster, part of me hopes that means calling up Watkins. However, I'd rather him get to play every day and that probably won't happen at the major league level (unless you put Watkins at 3B, which isn't a natural position for him). If he gets his strikeouts down (and his career would indicate he will), he could force the issue at some point.
Josh Vitters still has just the 1 PA. Who knows? Who cares? He's on the DL.
Nick Struck didn't pitch last week.
AA
Arismendy Alcantara rebounded from a really poor Week 2 to come up with a .288/.368/.407 line. That's a .364 wOBA and a 132 wRC+. The primary driver of his success this year isn't increased power but increased patience (11.6% walk rate); that's great to see. He's been an absolute butcher in the field, as he has been all his career. A positional change may be in his future.
Christian Villanueva has had a pretty awful start to the season. His .243 BABIP is quite low and his other peripherals are fine, so I'm not that worried so far (line: .204/.291/.347), but a prolonged slump can be self-fulfilling. I hope he turns it on soon and those balls start falling in for hits.
Matt Szczur finally broke the OBP/SLG barrier! .288/.348/.373 is good for a wRC+ of 116; what is problematic is his falling walk rate (7.6% this year). He needs to draw walks to have value so he's got to work on that.
Kyle Hendricks hasn't really blazed a trail so far this season. He's walked as many as he's struck out (6), and his ERA is a very Volstad-esque 5.54. However, his strand rate and BABIP are both poor. When those normalize, so too shall his ERA.
Tony Zych saw quite a bit of action last week and gave up his first 2 ER. He also has struck out and walked the same amount (3), but he has yet to surrender a long ball.
A+
Javier Baez has started to hit a little more; unfortunately, it's still not very much. His line to this point is .212/.239/.455 (an improvement over .147/.211/.324 to be sure), but his BB/SO ratio is now a sick 2/20. He is hurtling down prospect lists; Soler is clearly better at this point and Almora probably is too (though he hasn't played yet).
Jorge Soler didn't really miss anything after being suspended. He still stands tall with a .414/.514/.690 line, good for a wOBA of .526 and a wRC+ of 236. Those numbers lead the league, and after Jose Mojica (a 24-year old), 3rd place isn't really very close. He's destroyed this league, and in a month or so he should be promoted.
Stephen Bruno is 10th on the list with a .442 wOBA. His slash is basically identical to the one he had last year (.386/.463/.509), which is great to see. He's 22, so a midseason promotion wouldn't be out of the question with him either. The problem there is that he's "blocked" by Ronald Torreyes, who is still a prospect. 3B is manned by Christian Villanueva, and SS is blocked by Alcantara. I'd hate for Bruno to be shunted to the outfield just to play everyday, so I'm fine with him spending the whole year in Daytona unless he keeps murdering the ball.
Zeke DeVoss has had a great year. He has a walk rate of 17.3% and a K rate of 18.7%. That's pretty good. Also good is his way increased ISO (.211), despite his lowest BABIP of his career (still .317). Put it together, and you have a .263/.432/.474 line, better even then his breakout 2011 performance. He has 75 PA under his belt already and has progressed nicely.
Ben Wells has had 1 poor start and 2 good ones so far (this is being written before his start today). He's been lucky with his strand rate (81.3%), but his BABIP is .391 which is bound to regress. He needs to strike out more people to have sustained success, but he's been good enough so far. He should be an early promotion.
Starling Peralta has been ridiculously lucky and still bad. His strand rate? 95.2%. His BABIP? .238. His FIP? 7.36. He's had 2 starts and had 10.1 IP, 9 H (4 HR), 3 BB, 2 HBP, and 12 SO.
A
Pierce Johnson pitches tonight.
Gioskar Amaya has had a really rough go of it so far. His BB/SO is 2/13 and he has only 4 extra base hits this season. His .240/.264/.340 mark is really bad. Something is wrong here.
Jeimer Candelario has done what he's needed to do so far. He is walking a lot and striking out less than ever, and that's a recipe for success. His line is .292/.386/.375, with a .361 wOBA and a 128 wRC+. It's kinda cool that he's only going to be 19 this year; when I was 19, I was way too busy playing poker with the other actuaries to be good at baseball.
Marco Hernandez needed some good performances and he got them. He's up to .250/.279/.300 on the year, which is a lot better than .111/.111/.111. His walk and strikeout rates are absolutely miniscule this year, so he was just finding fielders early in the year. He has had problems fielding the ball this year, unfortunately.
Daniel Vogelbach has not shown any of the power we were accustomed to in his first 2 years. That has brought down his line to earth; he sits at .294/.333/.373 right now. That's not awful, but it's not exactly the stuff of greatness. He'll need to turn on the power at some point; his ISO this year is .078; at A- it was .287.
Performance of the Week
I'm going to give it to Eric Jokisch for the second week in a row. He had another 6 inning start where he walked none, struck out 7 and allowed 4 hits. He didn't allow a run to score, so he brought his overall line to 18 IP, 11 H, 2 ER, 1 HR, 3 BB, 17 SO. That's phenomenal.
Prospect Performance of the Week
I'm going to give to Stephen Bruno. In his past 10 games (including today, the 20th) he's hit .378/.439/.514. He has struck out 10 times, but that's ok when you get around 2 hits a day.
Comments
I could see a scenario in which a team gave up picks to go overslot, but it would take a very specific set of circumstances. If a high school guy with first or second overall-type talent made it clear that he really wanted to go to college, a great team would be wise to take a late flier and offer him the moon. That team would essentially be trading two very late first round picks (plus a ton of cash) for a 1-1 type. That’s worth it, on average. I can’t see this happening more than once every 10 years or so; guys who show those type of skills in high school usually skip college.
GWQuote Reply
I was gonna post this in the last thread, but new stuff was posted before I finished…
Am I allowed to rant about the game tonight here? Actually, not the game, the reaction to it.
I turned on the postgame show and was greeted with the overtanned, anger-filled face of shitty former MLB’er Todd Hollandsworth, practically spitting with anger over the unacceptably poor play of… Starlin Castro? Listen, yeah, he’s made 4 errors so far this year (at least one of which I’ve seen came on a very difficult play), but he’s one of the few guys hitting the ball right now. He’s got a .345 wOBA and he’s looked better than that, and the power is coming. That Hollandsworth is that angry at just Castro is ridiculous. This team fucking blows, and it has been a team effort so far. It bugs me on so many levels:
1) Why is it ALWAYS implied that errors are a result of poor concentration? I think Dylanj said something about this on twitter too, but what is the point of benching players, like Kap suggested, or tearing into them like Hollandsworth suggested on the post-game? WHAT WOULD THAT CHANGE?! Do these assholes think that Castro (they were clearly talking about Castro in both cases) is just sitting out there not paying any attention, and his errors stem from a total lack of care? Sometimes players are just really inconsistent. Derek Jeter makes a bunch of errors every year – is that cause he just drifts off every once in a while? Obviously not. Its because playing shortstop at the MLB level is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do. If it was so damn easy to play that getting yelled at would make you better at it, there’d be a shitload of them lying around and teams wouldn’t be throwing 6-7 figures at teenagers in Latin America on the remote chance they’ll be capable of doing it.
1a) Never is it ever mentioned that a lot of the errors Castro makes come on plays that few shortstops even get their fucking glove on.
2) The most disgusting part of the whole diatribe from Hollandsworth was the “Castro is lazy” subtext. Ignoring the obvious racial connotations, they’re talking about a 23 year old who has, by all accounts, greatly improved his defense over the last two seasons and is continuing to make adjustments while having to constantly adjust to MLB pitching. The “laziness” bullshit is unreal.
3) This is a non-Castro related point, but to the clowns at CSN and all the apoplectic people on twitter, what the fuck did you expect out of this team? Did you seriously look at their roster and expect a top-flight baseball team? How could you possibly be this mad? If the 2004 team had come out of the gate and played like shit, anger and world-is-ending type language would be totally expected. This 2013 team gave ~30 PAs to Brent Fucking Lillibridge.They’re starting Luis Valbuena on a daily basis. Anger (and believe me, it’s anger from a lot of these people) is a product of being disappointed. Astros fans aren’t angry, not at the team on the field anyway. How could any fans be angry at the team on the field? Its as if they’re surprised this team blows.
You can be disappointed in Rizzo’s start, but anger towards him is fucked up because he’s 23 and still learning the league.
Are they angry at Soriano? He’s like 52 and busting his ass all game. Not his fault he hasn’t been a very good hitter in a long time, people just get old.
Anger at the bullpen? Sure, maybe, but bullpens are volatile and being so upset over such a small sample is weird (to me, anyway). Marmol always walked people, I don’t know why this year made people angrier at him about it..
Are they angry at….Castro? Sure seems that way…
4) This anger towards Castro has been going on for fucking forever and I just don’t get it. I don’t know if people thought Castro was the next Nomar, but if they did it’s their own fault for being so goddamn stupid. Castro is the best young position player this team has had in decades. He posted 8 fWAR before he turned 23. That’s outrageous. He’s a very good ballplayer and has been since breaking into the league. And yet, the narrative I hear about more than any other is the “he’s lazy/bad/root of all the problems” one, and I’ve been hearing it since 2011. Every time the Cubs lose a game that Castro makes an error in, the writers/dumbass fans act like the world is ending. “he should be benched! demoted! get his head in the game!” Like tonight. The Cubs scored ONE FUCKING RUN against a 25 year old non-prospect making his MLB debut, and yet everyone I see is bashing Castro still. They led off the postgame show with 5 minutes about how bad he’s been.
Why does everyone pile on Castro all the time? He’s the most talented player on the team by an immense margin. He’s a 23 year old All-Star Shortstop who’s been very good at a young age, but for 3 years now people have acted like he’s dragging down the team. I don’t get it at all. Yes, I wish he’d cut down on the errors. Yes, I wish he’d start hitting more HRs. But he’s 23. All of that is likely to come. That he made any defensive improvement of this size since joining the league is great anyway (if I remember correctly mb21/dmick89 made a post a year ago about how rare that is).
Castro is not the biggest problem on this team. He’s not even on the top-10 list of problems on this shitstain of a roster. Why don’t people realize that.
/rant
TCQuote Reply
I was at the Kane County games today and saw Johnson. His stuff looked pretty good, and was 89-91 with his fastball most of the day.
Amaya looked a lot better at the plate today, had a hard-hit triple and had a long opposite field fly-ball, which was good to see.
Candelario is very impressive at the plate. He’s got a great eye, makes adjustments mid swing, and barrels up a lot of balls. He looks so much better in the field than all the reports said last year. Looks great so far.
Dude who’s been really impressive so far though is Shoulders. Ive seen 5 KC games so far, and he’s been a big factor in all of them. He’s got a good approach, and he seems to be making much more contact than he did last year (based on last year’s K%). he fights off a lot of pitches and has been driving pretty much everything he puts in play
TCQuote Reply
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?c_id=mlb&content_id=26442715&partnerId=as_mlb_20130421_7325324
Well then. 8-unassisted.
Also, +1 to TC rants.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ TC:
This has become one of my favorite comments evar on this blog.
TC wrote:
I can’t even begin to explain this to you. People are weird.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
Hak-Ju Lee —–> out for the season
GWQuote Reply
Gotta give Baez time. I am sure Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez had Aprils that have looked like his so far. Heck Rizzo is having one right now. Too early to stop paying attention because once he gets going, i expect a ton of good things to happen
AndrewQuote Reply
@ GW:
I think it will happen on a rare occasion, but mlb effectively made the penalties so harsh that they eliminated what they viewed as a problem.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ TC:
The anger is very much a product of the Cubs’ own hype/hope machine. They spend so much time focusing on the casual fans and whipping them into a frenzy of love for Cubs baseball and hope for the new season, they tune out whatever Negative Nellies, Debbie Downers, or fun-suckers say about the team being bad.
I think in a lot of cases, these peoples’ only exposure to information about the team is VineLine and other Cubs’ owned propaganda. So, unfortunately, I think a lot of these people actually are surprised.
But the ability of people to be willfully ignorant about facts just because those facts may be unpleasant is staggering. You could talk about Luis Valbuena being the starter until you’re blue in the face and a lot of these people will convince themselves that any season can be a 1989 where everybody over-achieves.
Aisle424Quote Reply
Nice article, Myles. Can’t say enough good things about Soler to this point and the same goes for DeVoss and Candelario.
dmick89Quote Reply
I don’t think it helps that Castro has earned a reputation of being a player who doesn’t focus as much as he should. Two managers have called him out for this, announcers for other teams have talked about it and the Cubs announcers and beat writers have too. But it’s one thing to complain a bit about it and mention that he really needs to focus more and a completely different thing when you blame every single mistake on a lack of focus.
It’s as if these people think if he focused more, he’d make 0 errors, suddenly hit .400 and so on. Castro isn’t the first player we’ve seen this with. I don’t think the average fan understands how difficult MLB is. I don’t think they get that a person who was great in the minor leagues might not be great at the MLB level.
Castro came up at a young age, performed well and people began to call him a future superstar. It’s now his fourth season and he’s clearly not a superstar so people are looking for anything to blame it on. So they blame his attention problems.
Both berselius and I mentioned after his rookie season that a lot of fans were going to end up being disappointed in Castro because they had set the bar so high. It was literally superstar or bust for him and he’s never shown the ability to be a superstar. He has shown the ability to be a very good player and he’s lived up to any reasonable expectation.
I think Tim is right in that a lot of is the propaganda that teams sell their fan bases on prospects. They’re what’s going to fix every ailing organization or what is going to continue the success of the good ones.
I saw something on twitter late in spring training wondering if Javier Baez should be playing at the MLB level. I shook my head in disbelief. Here was a player who done nothing above A ball. He sucked ass in High A, clearly had some things he needed to work on and here are people wondering if he’s ready to play at the MLB level. Javier Baez will NEVER live up to the expectations that the fans have for him. Even if he becomes an all-star on an annual basis, he will still not have lived up to those expectations.
To the average fan, a top prospect is someone who will work out at the big league level and become every bit as good as his potential. Otherwise, he’s a lazy scumbag.
I think the same is true here with Castro due to the early age at which he had success. He’ll never live up to the expectations that many people still have for him.
dmick89Quote Reply
After Castro’s walk off hit a few days ago, Sahadev (from Brett’s podcast) got a text from a scout along the lines of “Maybe now Cubs fans will actually like their favorite player”. I just don’t get it with Castro.
BerseliusQuote Reply
Now that Castro is being paid, it’s going to get even worse.
dmick89Quote Reply
Berselius wrote:
you could say the same thing about so many good Cubs players in the last 10 or so years.
I just don’t get it with Sosa. I just don’t get it with Ramirez. I don’t get it with Zambrano. I just don’t get it with Theriot. I just don’t get Cubs fans.
dmick89Quote Reply
New Shit
MylesQuote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
Suburban kidQuote Reply