Author Topic: Cubs Draft 2021  (Read 5083 times)

CurtOne

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Re: Cubs Draft 2021
« Reply #30 on: July 12, 2021, 09:23:55 am »
So we now have a Wicks, a Wick, a Wieck, and when the Cards are the opponent, a Jordan Hicks.  Fun.

davep

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Re: Cubs Draft 2021
« Reply #31 on: July 12, 2021, 11:01:03 am »
When I read the various scouting reports on Wick, I get the impression that we drafted a Quintano, assuming that his velocity does NOT have an uptick.

Drafting a Quintana on the 21st pick of the draft is not a bad thing.

And if a velocity uptick does actually take place, it could be a heck of a good thing.

Or, he can end up mediocre to bad, like the vast majority of the 21st picks in the draft.

CUBluejays

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Re: Cubs Draft 2021
« Reply #32 on: July 12, 2021, 11:04:43 am »
When they first announced the pick I was kinda like another boring college pitcher, to add to the the boring collection of college pitchers that the Cubs have taken over the years.

Then you kinda read into and the things that he does well command, change-up are hard to teach.  What does he need to be a better prospect 1) Velocity- the Cubs have finally figured out how to add velocity 2) Better curve ball, the Cubs are really good at this.  3.) Slider, maybe make it more of a cutter. 

A year from know he could still be a below average fastball with a plus change and middling breaking balls with command.  He'd be a hard throwing version of Davies.  I nice back end of the rotation pitcher, which is perfectly fine for the 21st pick in the draft.  He could be a guy sitting mid 94-96, with a plus change, better curve and cutter with command.  That is a Jon Lester starter kit.  His weakness are what the Cubs in the pitch lab fix well.

The next couple rounds I'm hoping for starters with some projection, contact hitters and power hitters. 
« Last Edit: July 12, 2021, 11:06:45 am by CUBluejays »
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craig

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Re: Cubs Draft 2021
« Reply #33 on: July 12, 2021, 12:22:00 pm »
Blue, well stated.  Velocity and curve/breaking stuff is exactly what pitch-lab can help with.  Command and changeup, seemingly much less so.  So, it kinda seems like he's got the stuff pitch lab can't give, and he needs the things that pitch lab can assist with. 

You guys with Q/Lester analogies are kinda depressing me, though.  Yeah, I know you could do worse, but at some point you do need to get some actually flat-out good players, not just anti-awfuls.  And obviously what was good velocity back when Lester was young, everybody is faster now.  *IF* Wicks has velocity little better than Q and Lester in their recent Cubs years, that would be awfully disappointing; sitting 94-96, that would be a very different story than the Lester or Q in my recent memory for sure. 

As always, the level of "good command" is central to everything.  Davies and Hendricks both generally scout under the "very good command" umbrella.  But game to game we see games when they're really sharp, and games when they're not.  Q was supposed to be a command guy, but in practice that was very inconsistent, and his stuff was so sub-average that when his command was inconsistent, he was super vulnerable.  Abbott is supposed to be a command/control guy, but his command doesn't seem to be good enough for the stuff he's got.  We'll see how good Wicks' command really is, and how consistently so.  But hopefully his stuff will be good enough so that he can win games without being super-duper-sharp all the time. 

davep

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Re: Cubs Draft 2021
« Reply #34 on: July 12, 2021, 12:39:25 pm »
Craig - I think that the key with Wick is that his strongest pitch is the change up.  Hendricks has shown that you can pitch extremely effectively with very poor velocity, if you have good command and an excellent change up.  Also, my comparison with Quintana is based on the assumption that the pitching lab can NOT increase his velocity.  If they can, then we could have someone special.

I think as with most high pick pitchers, the greatest danger is with physical problems, not with "stuff problems".

JeffH

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Re: Cubs Draft 2021
« Reply #35 on: July 12, 2021, 12:41:27 pm »
56 - James Triantos, HS SS (drafted as a 3B)

davep

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Re: Cubs Draft 2021
« Reply #36 on: July 12, 2021, 12:42:18 pm »
Cubs choose James Triantos, high school third baseman.

Expect Bryant to be traded tomorrow.
« Last Edit: July 12, 2021, 12:46:18 pm by davep »

craig

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Re: Cubs Draft 2021
« Reply #37 on: July 12, 2021, 12:42:52 pm »
James Triantos, 6'1" HS shortstop who won't stay at SS. 

CurtOne

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Re: Cubs Draft 2021
« Reply #38 on: July 12, 2021, 12:53:34 pm »
Cubs choose James Triantos, high school third baseman.

Expect Bryant to be traded tomorrow.
Sad, but the sooner we trade the boys, the more we will get in return.  Nobody will pay for a short term rental.


JeffH

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Re: Cubs Draft 2021
« Reply #40 on: July 12, 2021, 12:55:00 pm »
There's your contact hitter, CBJ.

CUBluejays

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Re: Cubs Draft 2021
« Reply #41 on: July 12, 2021, 12:59:34 pm »
Triantos reclassified from the 2022 class to 2021.  He a pop-up guy that has bat to ball skills and might have some power potential down the road.


You guys with Q/Lester analogies are kinda depressing me, though. 

Lester was a 5 fWAR pitcher that the Cubs gave $150 million dollars.  Quinatana was a 4 fWAR pitcher that the Cubs traded a ton of capital to get.  Getting that with the 21st pick in the draft would be a really good outcome.  That is a front of the rotation pitcher that you control for maybe 6 years depending on the next CBA.  A lot has to go right to get there, but he's more than just a safe college guy.

craig

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Re: Cubs Draft 2021
« Reply #42 on: July 12, 2021, 01:13:39 pm »
Yes, Blue, if we get the Red Sox/White Sox versions of Lester/Q out of Wicks, it will be a fantastic pick.  And Lester was an asset pitcher during his first two years with the Cubs, too.  But for his last four years with the Cubs, he was a finesse overachiever JAG, so recentism kinda makes that Lester what comes to mind, not the Red Sox guy with the asset stuff.  :):). And yeah, I also get the argument that even the mediocre 2018-2020 versions of Lester and Q were still probably better than what the typical #22 pick provides.  And it's better to get 6 years of average from Hicks than to be paying FA Lester/Q/Hamels type dollars for average pitching. 

But for all of that, I'm going to hold out hope that Wicks has a lot more stuff and is a lot more good than the last Cubs years of Lester or Q.     


craig

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Re: Cubs Draft 2021
« Reply #43 on: July 12, 2021, 01:14:23 pm »
Quote
Longenhagen

Triantos is on tape facing just shy of 350 pitches throughout the course of the summer/fall 2020 showcase season. He puts 70 of them in play and only swings and misses six times. That’s the most extreme BIP-to-Whiff ratio I’ve encountered while perusing players on Synergy. It’s becoming more common for teams to sign high school players to over-slot deals based largely on measurable feel for contact. Nick Yorke (Boston), Thomas Saggese (Texas), Joe Naranjo (Cleveland), and Tyler Freeman (also Cleveland) are examples that come to mind immediately, and there are many others. Triantos is in this sort of player bucket. He’s a below-average athlete and his swing has a non-traditional look, but he has remarkable feel for contact and enough physicality for pro ball. He’s a North Carolina commit, too, so it’s not as though this kid is coming out of absolutely nowhere. Triantos is a bucket strider whose front side flies open during his swing, and he swings with a lot of effort. It’s not a traditional-looking swing and it appears as though Triantos is making some mechanical concessions to swing as hard as he does, but he also has fantastic vertical plate coverage and shows no signs of swing-and-miss issues despite his traditionally unsound in-the-box footwork.

Like Saggese, Triantos makes routine plays at shortstop but he isn’t a superlative athlete, and he doesn’t have all that much room left on a frame that has added a ton of strength between 2019 PG Junior National and the summer of 2020. He also had a private workout at the Rangers’ stadium. Though he is listed as a switch-hitter in some places, Triantos only hit right-handed last summer. I think he’s strictly better than Saggese and more comparable to Yorke. Yorke got $2.7 million, which I thought was excessive, but Triantos feels likely to come off the board fairly early as this type of player is more sought after now than in the past.

JeffH

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Re: Cubs Draft 2021
« Reply #44 on: July 12, 2021, 01:33:36 pm »
93 - Drew Gray, HS LHP/OF (drafted as an OF)
« Last Edit: July 12, 2021, 01:40:16 pm by JeffH »