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#Post#: 456417--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cubs Draft 2022
DIR By: craig
Date: July 23, 2022, 12:16 pm
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Birdsell $385, $17 K below slot.
I'm figuring that Kantro has the savings to go $3/$1/$1 on
Ferris, Paciolla, and Mule. If McGwire and Frisch sign for
slot, he'd have ~100-200K left for 3rd-day overslots. I'm
curious whether McGwire will get a little extra? And which
between Paciolla and mule gets more?
#Post#: 456419--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cubs Draft 2022
DIR By: craig
Date: July 23, 2022, 12:33 pm
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deeg, I understand all three of: 1) disagreeing with the Cubs
scouting eval. 2) Not wanting to ever "trade" down at all, but
always to go with your totally top-rated remaining player, price
regardless, and even if the separation is slim, and 3)
preferring a safer hitter over a more injury-vulnerable pitcher.
I also understand the preference for safer college over riskier
HS.
I do think this largely comes down to the scouting eval, and the
willingness to accept the risk that comes with a pitcher. I'm
not sure any of Lee, Collier, or Pareda are going to get paid
all that much more than the Cubs paid Horton.
I do admit that I'm kind of fired up about getting some rotation
prospects who can throw hard. We've been working with a lot of
soft-toss finesse guys for the last decade. Hendricks of
course. Lester wasn't fast, especially after the World Series
season.
Stroman doesn't throw very hard. Quintana had below-average
velocity. Mills. Darvish had/has really good, above-average
velocity, but he's kinda been the exception.
I think it might be fun to have a collection of good-velocity
starters with high ceilings.
#Post#: 456421--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cubs Draft 2022
DIR By: Reb
Date: July 23, 2022, 1:16 pm
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Maybe similar to Deeg, I was disappointed in real time to hear
the name Horton instead of Brooks Lee on the draft broadcast.
But, what do I know about these guys? Or anybody else here? We
have not much to work with as to any individual player. So, as
I look at it, we just have to defer to the strategy of the front
office folks with the information.
By the way, who knows if Brooks Lee would have been the pick in
a one-round draft. We probably will never know who Cubs
preferred over who. It might have been some guy mocked
consistently way down, for all we know.
#Post#: 456423--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cubs Draft 2022
DIR By: CUBluejays
Date: July 23, 2022, 2:08 pm
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Cubs went so pitching heavy as well because the didn’t have a
lot of positional openings in the minors and they have more
innings available. Cost of losing 2 short season teams.
#Post#: 456425--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cubs Draft 2022
DIR By: CUBluejays
Date: July 23, 2022, 2:38 pm
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--- Quote from: craig link ---
>
> I wonder how tweakable fastball stuff is.
>
> I think that in context of new draftees. College guys Horton
and Birdsell (both of whom have signed), both throw pretty fast,
but without necessarily have fastballs that are all that good.
How much can that be tweaked?
>
> From Sharma on Horton: "while the fastball is a 70 pitch
according to scouts on velocity alone, it plays more average.
.... The heater for Horton is an area the Cubs will focus on,
along with likely adding a pitch that can move arm-side to
counter his sweeping slider. The current belief is it could be a
power changeup..."
>
> At least one of the Horton scouting reports seemed kinda
similar, his fastball is fast, but it wasn't especially hard to
hit.
>
> I get testing different grips for breaking balls. If Horton
is 70-velocity fastball, but it plays average, and it's an area
the Cubs will focus on, I wonder what you do to tweak that. I
can't imagine it would be arm slot or stride length or whatever.
I'd imagine it has to be something more nuanced in the grip and
release, I guess, if possible. Or, perhaps it's less a matter
of changing it, but more a matter of locking into the best
version? I imagine a guy who's only thrown 50 innings, that
he's not been throwing the exact same ball every time. So maybe
20% he throws ones that have excellent metrics; but 40% of OK,
and 40% are lousy. The composite might come across as
"average". But maybe the goal is to identify what makes the
excellent ones excellent, and figure out how to do that all the
time, or maybe at least 70% of the time, rather than only 20%?
>
> I imagine some of the same will go with Birdsell.
>
> I think D+D look for guys who can throw really good pitches
sometimes, and figure it's development's job to make that the
norm. The flip is that a lot of mediocre pitchers throw a lot
of terrific pitches. But a lot of the damage comes on the
mistakes. So success is impacted largely by how good the good
ones actually are, but also the frequency-rate of less-than-good
ones.
>
--- End Quote ---
Read a little bit more about it. What the Cubs are targeting is
something called a cut/ride fastball. Basically it is a 4 seam
pitch that is thrown from an arm slot that will give the
appearance that it will cut, but it doesn’t instead the fastball
has ride (doesn’t fall as much). A four seam fastball has about
7.5 inches of horizontal break, a cut/ride fastball will have
less than 3 inches of horizontal movement. It will also have
great than 16 inches of induced vertical break.
So it will be a fastball that when you look at the numbers will
have the appearance of being straight and easy to hit, but
because of the arm slot will end up in the wrong spot where the
hitter is expecting it. Examples of Cubs with this type of
fastball are Steele, Strowman, Killian, Riley Martin and a few
others.
There is a Creighton analytics account that released some of
data on Horton’s fastball and slider from the CWS.
Horton had one fastball at 96 with 16 inches vertical and 3
inches of horizontal another at 97 with 21 inches of vertical
and 0 horizontal (which is an amazing pitch). So assuming the
arm slot is correct it seems to be the fastball that the Cubs
want. I saw another article where the Cubs have a change up in
mind for him.
The Cubs seem to be going after this because it is rarer and
scouts analytic people grade the fastball out worse than what it
actually is.
#Post#: 456426--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cubs Draft 2022
DIR By: craig
Date: July 23, 2022, 2:40 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: CUBluejays link ---
>
> Cubs went so pitching heavy as well because the didn’t have a
lot of positional openings in the minors and they have more
innings available. Cost of losing 2 short season teams.
>
--- End Quote ---
Blue, I think that's kind of contextual. I think both that
comment and that reality are more for 3rd day back-of-system
take-a-shot picks. I don't think thats a factor for the dollar
picks taken prior to senior-signs and 3rd-day guys.
#Post#: 456427--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cubs Draft 2022
DIR By: craig
Date: July 23, 2022, 2:49 pm
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--- Quote from: CUBluejays link ---
>
> ....
>
> There is a Creighton analytics account that released some of
data on Horton’s fastball and slider from the CWS.
> Horton had one fastball at 96 with 16 inches vertical and 3
inches of horizontal another at 97 with 21 inches of vertical
and 0 horizontal (which is an amazing pitch). So assuming the
arm slot is correct it seems to be the fastball that the Cubs
want. I saw another article where the Cubs have a change up in
mind for him.
>
> The Cubs seem to be going after this because it is rarer and
scouts analytic people grade the fastball out worse than what it
actually is.
>
--- End Quote ---
Fascinating. Those are some striking numbers. I'm guessing
that it's "a" fastball that they view as promising; perhaps not
as "the" fastball that they like for everybody. I imagine they
can recognize a variety of different fastballs that can perhaps
work well in different ways. But yeah, I'd think *if* they saw
some really special fastballs, they probably figure he's got the
capacity; and they can figure out how he does it when he does
that, and make it possible to do routinely and at situational
will.
#Post#: 456428--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cubs Draft 2022
DIR By: craig
Date: July 23, 2022, 2:50 pm
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"Cubs have signed 8 of their 1st 10 picks from the ‘22 draft so
far, including 1st round pick Cade Horton. Jackson Ferris (2nd)
and Nazier Mulé (4th) are the 2 who have yet to sign."
HTML https://twitter.com/ryan_a_herrera/status/1550910513760067586?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1550910513760067586%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fs9e.github.io%2Fiframe%2Ftwitter.min.html1550910513760067586
#Post#: 456430--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cubs Draft 2022
DIR By: CUBluejays
Date: July 23, 2022, 2:53 pm
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--- Quote from: craig link ---
>
> Blue, I think that's kind of contextual. I think both that
comment and that reality are more for 3rd day back-of-system
take-a-shot picks. I don't think thats a factor for the dollar
picks taken prior to senior-signs and 3rd-day guys.
>
--- End Quote ---
I think it probably came into play after the first 2 picks. It
was mentioned that anybody the drafted would have to be better
than what was already in the minors to get playing time.
#Post#: 456436--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cubs Draft 2022
DIR By: Dave23
Date: July 23, 2022, 4:19 pm
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Cubs Live! is doing a live draft recap show right now on
Marquee. Carter Hawkins is getting ready to speak for a bit.
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