The Cubs’ Secret Prospect (+ Gameday, Cubs/Sox, 5/11/2018)

In Better Know a Cub, Game Threads by myles164 Comments

In the 2016 MLB Draft, the Cubs didn't draft a single player until pick 104 (and I'm not telling you who that was until the end of this article – trivia. yay!). With the possible exception of that 3rd round draft pick, there are exactly zero players that you would expect to rise to the level of "MLB-prospect," and you'd be lucky to get one 5th-arm-out-of-the-bullpen or quad-A bench player out of all of them.

That's what makes what Zack Short is doing all the more remarkable. Drafted in the 17th round, right before Matt Frawley but right after Dillon Drabble, Short profiled as an "organizational filler" guy. The pride and joy of Sacred Heart University, Short first took an assignment to Rookie ball, where he literally reached base half the time he stepped up to the plate. A late-season cup in Eugene yielded similar results, and he drew a South Bend assignment in 2017. He did well there in 300 PA and was promoted to Myrtle Beach, where he put up an eerily similar line. 

In 2018, he's played exclusively in Tennessee. He's put up the same OPS and he did South Bend, now with a little less patience and a little more power. AA is usually the great filter for college bats; basically everyone at this level and above has some secondary offerings to be afraid of, so I consider it at least mildly meaningful that Short has succeeded here. The only problem with Short's game is the huge strikeout numbers (the first time he's had that problem in his career, but at the most meaningful time of his development). You can strikeout if you take walks and have power, so it's not completely disqualifying – and that's especially true if you can play shortstop.

Sometimes, scouting can miss the forest for the trees. Zack Short was a 22-year old draftee who went in the 17th round and didn't figure into any organizational plan beyond "we need bodies in the middle infield." At some point, demonstrating success at 5 different levels across 3 different seasons and nearly a thousand plate appearances means something about your ability to play professional baseball. Zack Short isn't a top prospect. He may never even reach the majors. That said, he's wildly overperformed expectations as a 17th-round 4-year college guy (who had no power in college!), and it's not crazy to think he'll be on a 40-man roster in 2019 for some MLB team (probably not the Cubs). 

Cubs @ White Sox

Time: 1:20 PM CST
TV: NBC SCH, MLB Network (OOM)
Radio: 670

Cubs

BenZo RF
KB 3B
Rizz 1B
Baez 2B
Schwa LF
Willy C
Addy SS
The Happening CF
Ball 4 SP

White Sox

Delmonico LF
Garcia CF
Abreu 1B
Sanchez 2B
Palka RF
Castillo C
Davidson 3B
Anderson SS
Carson Fulmer SP

(the player was Tom Hatch)
 

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  3. Tyrone

    myles,

    Not sure how to answer that question. Maybe if you tell the most recent issue you heard about and we’ll tell you if one has been releases since then.

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  10. Author
    myles

    Tyrone:
    myles,

    Not sure how to answer that question. Maybe if you tell the most recent issue you heard about and we’ll tell you if one has been releases since then.

    The one with your dad

    wait, shit

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  31. dmick89

    Jesus Christ. Chatwood has horrible control. If the White Sox weren’t terrible they’d have a run in and the bases would be loaded with only an out.

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  37. dmick89

    dmick89:
    The Cubs have scored 10+ runs in 21.6% of their games.

    Oops. I thought they’d played 37 games including today’s game. They’ve scored 10+ runs in 22.9% of their games so far this year.

    On the other side of that, the Cubs are only 12-15 in games in which they fail to score at least 10 runs.

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  43. dmick89

    berselius,

    I know it’s probably not likely, but I’d think DC’s new standalone service could use a show like Lucifer. The only live action show they have going live this year is Titans so Lucifer could give people another reason to sign up. I think a shortened 13-episode season would be good for the show.

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  44. dmick89

    dmick89,

    DC and Warner Bros have wanted to make a Sandman movie for a long time, but that comic is probably better off as a tv show. So if they did bring Lucifer aboard, they have another reason to start thinking about Sandman as a tv series.

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  54. berselius

    Waiting out this rain delay by watching the 2016 World Series, which the Cubs won. People forget that.

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  68. dmick89

    cerulean,

    I remember liking Stone when he was with Harry, but I was also young. I haven’t liked him for a long time and was glad to see him go. I’ve thought he was the most overrated announcer for almost all of my adult life.

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  70. cerulean

    dmick89,

    I remember him carrying Harry when he started to become embarrassing enough to be lampooned by Will Ferrell. Harry never seemed belligerent like Hawk, but my teenage self was impressed by the way Stone never spotlighted his non-sequitors. The man is patient. I also missed the whole Team and Tribune vs Steve and Chip falling out when it happened, but by all accounts I have read, he wasn’t wrong in his assessment.

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  83. Rizzo the Rat

    The best part of the Sox broadcast was their glowing praise of Adam Engel. “I think we found our new leadoff hitter!”

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  84. Eddie felson

    Haven’t posted in a while, just wanted to say those first 2 Javy at bats got me loving him more and more

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  87. cerulean

    The Dodgers don’t stand a chance against the Reds vaunted bullpen he says to himself in all sincere truthiness.

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  111. dmick89

    cerulean,

    There was some issue with the back end of the site that needed fixed and fixing it caused some other issues. Trying to get that taken care of before we move to a new host, which kind of sucks since this one has been so awesome. They’re no longer offering it so it must be done.

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  114. dmick89

    cerulean,

    It should be fine now, but there will be probably be some strange behavior over the next couple weeks. I first have to move to the domain so that could cause an issue and once that’s done in about a week I’ll take care of the migration. At least the company that we’re leaving provided us with some promo codes and one of them is good for as long as you’re with them. So the cost will about the same with that promo. I just wouldn’t expect the overall service to be as good. I’ve been doing this for 15 years and have had a lot of hosts and none come close to as good as this one was. The customer service was outstanding and in this business it seems you’re lucky to get even decent customer service. There was rarely an outage and if there was it was back up in no time.

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  116. cerulean

    Dodgers got swept by arguably the best team in baseball, the Red Sox.

    I’m sorry—it says here that they got swept by the Reds. I am pretty sure that’s a typo.

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  117. cerulean

    Nearly a quarter of the way through the season and the Atlanta fucking Braves are all alone atop the NL. Remember when Braves fans were freaking out about how hopeless their outlook was? Ugh. I guess I should want them to win so the fans can return to their casual wake-me-when-we-get-to-the-World-Series indifference.

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  138. cerulean

    Something I did not expect—the Cubs lead the league in BsR coming into today.

    (So of course they TOOTBLAN)

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  149. Rizzo the Rat

    I think the thing that most annoys me is the Bote AB. His bat should be kept as far from those situations as possible.

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  150. Rizzo the Rat

    I’m also annoyed at that blooper by Bautista that the wind turned into a homer, but that’s a different kind of annoyance.

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  151. Wenningtons Gorilla Cock

    dmick89:
    cerulean,

    It should be fine now, but there will be probably be some strange behavior over the next couple weeks. I first have to move to the domain so that could cause an issue and once that’s done in about a week I’ll take care of the migration. At least the company that we’re leaving provided us with some promo codes and one of them is good for as long as you’re with them. So the cost will about the same with that promo. I just wouldn’t expect the overall service to be as good. I’ve been doing this for 15 years and have had a lot of hosts and none come close to as good as this one was. The customer service was outstanding and in this business it seems you’re lucky to get even decent customer service. There was rarely an outage and if there was it was back up in no time.

    I’m not paying $129/month for OV Prime to listen to you bitch.

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  154. dmick89

    Tyrone,

    Thoyer have a pretty good track record in the first round with the Cubs, but it’s been mostly shit after that. It would be nice if they could get some of those guys drafted after the first to make an impact at the MLB level.

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  156. Rizzo the Rat

    Mucker,

    He’s claiming it was a drug prescribed to him by a D.R. doctor that he didn’t know was banned. You’d think teams and players would do a better job of communicating what substances they can use.

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