The Chicago Cubs and Kansas City Royals completed a trade Monday evening, with the Royals sending starting catcher Martin Maldonado to Chicago in return for swingman Mike Montgomery.

While Montgomery was never part of the team’s stable of frontline talent, he’s been a useful role player for the Cubs since being picked up from Seattle in the Dan Vogelbach trade. Since that 2016 swap, Montgomery has put up a 3.68 ERA across 38 starts and 81 relief appearances for the Cubs. The idea of having a pitcher in a long-term role as a swingman/spot-starter is something largely dead in 2019 baseball, so Montgomery was a bit of throwback in this sense. He filled in admirably with a 3.69 ERA as a starter in 2018 with Yu Darvish injured and Tyler Chatwood issuing more walks than a corrupt local judge.

2019 has been a struggle for Montgomery, with shoulder and finger injuries limiting his availability and moderate control issues hampering his effectiveness. Montgomery is still likely a useful player over the long haul and isn’t a free agent until after the 2021 season, but the Cubs are quite rightly taking “now” as a priority over “later.” That Montgomery is the player heading to Kansas City is also fueled by the fact that Montgomery requested a trade this season. From a career standpoint, it makes sense for Montgomery to get an opportunity to start full-time; a starting pitcher is going to do better in free agency no matter how the CBA changes between now and the end of 2021.

If for nothing else, Montgomery will always possess a unique place in Cubs history as the pitcher who threw the final pitch of the 2016 World Series.

And in the “now,” the Cubs had other priorities. Catching has been a strength for the team, but Willson Contreras heading to the injured list with a foot issue creating some unwanted uncertainty at the position. Without Contreras, the Cubs only had a single healthy catcher on the 40-man roster in Victor Caratini. This close to the trade deadline, with no guarantee that Contreras would be back after the minimum IL stay, so the Cubs were put into a position where they couldn’t wait and see how his recovery goes. Remember, July 31 is now the trade deadline in Major League Baseball starting this year, which means that the Cubs can’t count on picking up a cheap catcher in mid-August if something unexpected happens in Contreras’s recovery. Read the rest of this entry »

Homer Bailey woke up Sunday morning expecting to start a game between two teams going nowhere, but instead discovered that he would be joining a playoff chase. Kansas City shipped the righty to the Oakland A’s in exchange for 23-year-old shortstop Kevin Merrell.

Bailey, 33, has been a cromulent arm for KC this season, with a 4.80 ERA and 4.47 FIP in 90 innings. His 1.1 WAR is his best figure since 2014, while his 8.10 K/9 is his best mark since 2013.

Merrell, the 33rd overall pick back in 2017, ranked 20th on Eric and Kiley’s list of Oakland’s top farmhands before the season. Speed is Merrell’s calling card, but his 80-grade wheels haven’t had much chance to shine this year in Double-A, as he’s sporting a meager .246/.292/.339 line in 82 games.

Oakland will be Bailey’s fourth organization in the last eight months. After a 12-year stint with the Reds, he was shipped to the Dodgers in a seven-player swap that sent Yasiel Puig, Matt Kemp, Alex Wood and Kyle Farmer to Cincinnati in return for prospects Jeter Downs and Josiah Gray. Bailey’s inclusion in the deal was motivated entirely by finances, however, as the $22.45 million he was owed in 2019 was a close match with the $21.75 million owed to Kemp; the structure of Bailey’s contract made it more luxury tax-friendly to the Dodgers. One day after the trade was completed, Bailey was released by Los Angeles, and in February, he signed a minor league contract with the Royals.

While he rarely lived up to his billing as a top prospect, Bailey was a pretty good starter early in the decade, when he accrued 6.3 WAR from 2012-13 while throwing more than 200 innings each year. The Reds rewarded Bailey, then 27, with a six-year, $105 million contract extension. Twenty-three starts into what appeared to be another good season in 2014, he was shut down with an arm injury. He underwent Tommy John surgery, made just a combined eight starts from 2015-16, and in parts of four seasons following his injury, held a 6.25 ERA and 5.13 FIP in 231.2 innings.

It isn’t difficult to see why two playoff aspirants didn’t have room for Bailey. Just seven months later, however, another win-now team was willing to part with a top-20 prospect to add him to their rotation. What changed?

Well, for one, it’s always been somewhat difficult to differentiate between Good Bailey and Bad Bailey. His average fastball velocity in 2012 was 93.2 mph. In 2018, it was 93.0 mph. His chase rate in 2013 was 34.5%. In 2018, it was 33.0%. His swinging strike rate, pitch usage, and ground ball rates were consistent as well. And yet he’d gone from a solid No. 2 starter to nearly unemployed.

Bailey’s numbers in many of those areas haven’t changed much this season, either. His average four-seamer is 92.8 mph. His chase rate is just a couple ticks lower than last season. His groundball rate is up three points, and his swinging strike rate has climbed modestly as well.

There is, however, one big difference in Bailey’s repertoire. His career fastball percentage sits around 60%. In years after his surgery, it was 55%. This year, it’s down to 49.3%. His slider percentage, 17% a year ago, is down more than four points. Those missing fastballs and sliders have turned into splitters:

Bailey’s thrown his splitter on 27.3% of his offerings in 2019, more than eight points higher than any other season of his career. It’s a great pitch for him to lean on: According to Statcast, opponents have just a .195 xBA .250 xSLG against the split, and their actual numbers aren’t exceeding those estimates by much. Of the five pitches Bailey has used in 2019, three of them have an xwOBA above .350. Finding a pitch as reliable as the splitter has been vital for him, and as he’s thrown it more, he’s been more effective. In his last five starts, he’s thrown 29 innings and posted a 2.48 ERA.

That was good enough for Oakland to add him to its starting rotation. The A’s have weathered Frankie Montas’ suspension well, but they still need rotation help. Montas had a 2.70 ERA and 2.9 WAR in 90 innings before receiving an 80-game suspension on June 21. Since then, Oakland starters have accumulated 1.7 WAR, good for seventh-best in baseball, though their 4.85 xFIP suggests they’ve been a bit fortunate.

Mike Fiers, Brett Anderson and Chris Bassitt have been serviceable starters, but all three are outperforming their FIPs by a wide gap. Tanner Anderson and Daniel Mengden are passable options, but the rotation is clearly Oakland’s weakest part of the roster. Critically, Oakland’s internal prospective reinforcements all have question marks. Jharel Cotton and Sean Manaea are on track to rejoin the team in August, but they’re both returning from serious injuries: Manaea hasn’t pitched this year and Cotton has been out since 2017. The two top pitching prospects in the organization in A.J. Puk and Jesus Luzardo, meanwhile, have thrown only a handful of innings this season, and probably aren’t realistic options to contribute down the stretch. The A’s need an arm or two, and they got a cheap one in Bailey.

Because the Dodgers are paying $22.45 million in salary owed to Bailey for the 2019 season, Oakland is on the hook for just the remaining $250,000. As far as prospect cost, a top-20 prospect isn’t nothing, but Merrell has a long road ahead of him. As Eric and Kiley wrote back in March, a move to the outfield is likely in his future, and there isn’t much power at all in his bat. His speed makes him interesting, but he’ll need to take a big step forward to profile as a regular.

That’s all that it cost to bring Bailey to Oakland, an organization that has done well with similarly beleaguered pitchers recently. Last June, they signed Edwin Jackson — a pitcher who hadn’t posted an ERA under 5.00 since 2015 — and watched him spin 92 innings of 3.33 ERA ball the rest of the year. They also coaxed 110 splendid innings out of Trevor Cahill’s oft-injured and sporadically-effective right arm. The A’s have been a good home for pitchers who once seemed over the hill, and perhaps Bailey will continue the pattern. Just seven months ago, he was a cast-off. But in Kansas City, he showed he wasn’t done. Now, in Oakland, he can show how much more he has left.

Some years ago, Ian Kennedy was a reliable mid-rotation starter, utilizing a four-seam-heavy attack and leaning on his ability to generate fly-ball outs for success. Kennedy eclipsed 190 innings pitched in a season five times, highlighted by a 2011 campaign in which he threw 222 innings for the Diamondbacks, finishing with a 2.88 ERA, a 3.22 FIP, 4.4 WAR, and fourth place in the National League Cy Young Award voting.

Kennedy’s fastball has always been his go-to pitch. Since debuting in 2007, Kennedy has thrown a four-seam fastball 61% of the time, the highest percentage among any pitcher with a minimum of 1,000 innings pitched during that timeframe. Kennedy’s fastball has shown flashes of brilliance, with impressive wFA/C totals of 1.43, 0.73, and 0.97 in 2011, 2014, and 2016, respectively.

Of course, someone with such a fly-ball-heavy approach could find himself running into some barriers to success as modern hitters continue to adjust and hit the ball out of the park. Kennedy’s success as a starter in 2016 for the then-defending World Series champion Royals dwindled in the next two seasons as his FIP ballooned and hitters continued to hit the ball out of the park against him. Kennedy’s 2017 and 2018 campaigns resulted in his lowest innings pitched totals in nearly a decade, as well as career-low strikeout rates. During those two seasons, opposing hitters were especially productive against his fastball, putting up a wOBA of .359 and hitting 48 extra-base hits against the pitch. Their average exit velocity and launch angle against fastballs in 2017 and 2018 were 90.7 mph and 24 degrees.

With Kennedy still owed $33 million through the end of 2020, the Royals needed to find a way to once again extract value out of their veteran right-hander and announced in spring training that Kennedy would move to the bullpen. The hope, ostensibly, was that Kennedy’s struggles would diminish as he no longer faced the task of turning over lineups. In 2018, Kennedy’s opponents had a .971 OPS the second time through the lineup, the worst mark in baseball out of 162 pitchers who faced at least 100 hitters a second time through. Opening up rotation spots could afford the rebuilding Royals a chance to challenge some younger pitchers while trying to extract value out of Kennedy in the bullpen. Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

I turned last Thursday’s edition in too late for publication (I lost track of time at an Extended game) but certainly won’t deprive you of the notes I have from that day. Here they are:

Xavier Edwards, SS, San Diego Padres
Level: Low-A   Age: 19   Org Rank: tbd   FV: 45+
Line: 5-for-5, 2B

Notes
After 21 Low-A games, X is hitting .390/.450/.455 and has walked more than he has struck out. He has just one extra-base hit and has been caught stealing a bunch, but even for one of the more advanced high school bats from last year’s class, this is a strong start. Gabriel Arias was just put on the IL at Hi-A Lake Elsinore and Edwards has out-performed Justin Lopez and Tucupita Marcano, so he might be in line for a quick move up depending on the severity of Arias’ injury.

Yordan Alvarez, LF/1B, Houston Astros
Level: Triple-A   Age: 21   Org Rank: 7   FV: 50
Line: 6-for-8, 2 2B, HR, BB (double header)

Notes
The use of the major league baseball at Triple-A combined with the PCL hitting environment has had, um, some impact on offensive performance. It’s important to keep this in mind when considering what Alvarez has done so far, though his line through 23 games — .386/.474/.916(!) with 12 homers — is remarkable. Notably, several of those homers have come against breaking balls, which Alvarez is particularly adept at identifying and adjusting to mid-flight. He does not have a sellout, max-effort swing — this power comes easy and it plays to all fields, as seven of Alvarez’s homers this season have been opposite field shots. He was toward the back of our 50 FV group pre-season because of concerns about his body and defensive limitations, but he’s hitting like someone who belongs toward the front of that tier, up near Pete Alonso. Read the rest of this entry »

A year ago, Hunter Dozier got his first real taste of the big leagues and it did not go well. In nearly 400 plate appearances, Dozier struck out a lot, walked very little, and did not run the bases well or add anything of value defensively. His calling card to the majors, and the tool that got him drafted in the top-10 in 2013, is his power, and he was merely average there. Dozier was below replacement-level a year ago, and at 27 years old heading into 2019, he looked like a replacement-level player with some upside as the weak side of a platoon. Instead, he’s been one of the best players in baseball for the first month of the season.

With seven homers, nearly as many walks as strikeouts, and a .364 BABIP, Dozier is riding a .337/.441/.663 slash line good for an American League-leading 189 wRC+. His 1.7 WAR is fifth in all of baseball behind only Cody Bellinger, Christian Yelich, Paul DeJong, and Mike Trout. This isn’t going to last. It can’t possibly last, but it is worth exploring how Dozier got here and the level he might settle in to once the magic wears off. Over at Royals Review on Tuesday, Shaun Newkirk discussed Dozier’s start and listed some reasons why he’s bound to slow down:

• His BABIP is .371, far more north than his near league average BABIP of .296 last year. While good quality of contact can lead to better balls in play, .371 is probably a bit rich.

• He isn’t a 194 wRC+ hitter. No one expects that number to continue as he’s not prime Miguel Cabrera, Mike Trout, or Barry Bonds.

• The projection systems don’t necessarily buy it yet. They project him going forward (this includes what he has done in 2019 by the way) for a 93-97 wRC+.

• He’s running a 20%+ HR/FB%, where the league average is more like 12-13%.

• He’s at almost double the league average infield hit%, which isn’t a big part of his game to be fair.

• He’s also yet to hit any any infield fly balls, whereas a typical batter hits ~10% of his batted balls on the infield

Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Nicky Lopez, SS, Kansas City Royals
Level: Triple-A   Age: 24   Org Rank: 7   FV: 45
Line: 3-for-5, 2 HR, 2B, BB

Notes
In our recently-published Royals list, we openly wondered if we should be heavier on Lopez largely because A) he plays shortstop and B) his peripherals are excellent. Shortly after publication, an executive reached out to us and they agreed we should be more enthused about Lopez, who we currently have evaluated as a second-division regular. He’s struck out just once so far this year. We don’t expect Lopez to hit for much power (he’s little and hits the ball on the ground a lot), but he may do enough to be part of Kansas City’s rebuilding efforts.

Brusdar Graterol, RHP, Minnesota Twins
Level: Double-A   Age: 20   Org Rank: 3   FV: 50
Line: 7 IP, 1 H, 1 BB, 0 R, 8 K

Notes
After two semi-wild starts during which his stuff was still too good for opposing hitters to do anything with, Graterol was slightly more efficient and utterly dominant last night. He’s holding upper-90s heat late into games, and while his slider is more horizontally oriented than is ideal (vertical breaking balls are typically better at missing bats), Graterol’s has enough length to be a real problem for hitters anyway. He’s only 20 and carving up Double-A. If there’s a scenario in which Graterol sees the big leagues this year, it almost certainly involves a tight AL Central race and a start like the one he’s off to.

Jarred Kelenic, CF, Seattle Mariners
Level: Low-A   Age: 19   Org Rank: 3   FV: 50
Line: 4-for-4, 2 2B, SB, BB

Notes
After a rough first week, Kelenic has heated up and is hitting like one would hope the most advanced high school bat would hit during their first full pro season. Both he and Nolan Gorman are performing and seem on the fast track. Kelenic has also looked comfortable in center field. Big and muscular aleady at 19, there’s some thought Kelenic may eventually move to a corner, but if he races through the minors, he’ll get to the bigs before he slows down.

Oscar Gonzalez, OF, Cleveland Indians
Level: Hi-A   Age: 21   Org Rank: HM   FV: 35
Line: 2-for-5, HR, 2B

Notes
Perhaps the epitome of the high-risk hitting prospect, Gonzalez continues to hit for power despite employing one of the most swing-happy approaches in pro ball. He still hasn’t walked this year and has just three free passes dating back to last June. The realistic ceiling for a player like this is a Hunter Renfroe-y sort of player.

Dispatch from Chula Vista

I’m in Southern California to see Eastlake High School infielder Keoni Cavaco, perhaps the most signifiant pop-up prospect in this year’s draft. Though his swing is a little unorthodox and handsy, Cavaco has big raw power and speed (he homered to dead center yesterday, turned what would typically be a gap single into a double, stole a base) and maybe the best body in the draft. He mishandled a ball at third base (where he moved, from second, late in the game) and saw little defensive action beside that.

We have Cavaco at the back of the 45-FV tier in this year’s class. There can only be so much confidence in his bat because he wasn’t part of last summer’s big showcases, where he would have faced better pitching than he’s seeing now. On tools, and based on what teams had extra heat in to see him (Seattle, Cleveland, Arizona), we’ll likely slide him up a few spots on The Board. I may head back to see more of him today.

In Kansas City, Alex Gordon is more than just a Royals outfielder. He is the Royal of the 2010s, the face of the franchise during their two seasons of triumph, during their incredible run of back-to-back American League pennants and the 2015 World Series title. Gordon is arguably the most important Royals player since George Brett. And, fittingly, since the franchise was founded in 1969, Brett (84.6 WAR), Amos Otis (42.0), and Willie Wilson (35.2) are the only three Royals position players to produce more WAR than Gordon’s 32.0. It’s an indisputable fact that Gordon is one of the best players in franchise history, and his legacy has already been cemented as a true Kansas City Royal.

Unfortunately, Gordon’s best days are long behind him. In a four year stretch from 2011 to 2014, Gordon was the fourth-most valuable outfielder in baseball, consistently producing solid seasons on both sides of the ball. Alongside his excellent .283/.356/.453 triple slash line over 2,754 plate appearances, Gordon put up a total of 23.9 defensive runs above-average, good for the sixth-best defensive outfielder over that stretch.

Since 2016, the aging curve has come to bite Gordon, resulting in a couple of subpar seasons (0.6 WAR in 2016, -0.1 WAR in 2017) before creating some decent value in 2018 (1.7 WAR), mainly due to his defensive contributions.

To start 2019, though, Gordon has come out firing on all cylinders. Through his first 57 plate appearances, he’s put up an excellent .356/.456/.667 line with three home runs, seven walks and just five strikeouts. His 1.0 WAR is the fourth-most in baseball, as is his 198 wRC+. Even in a small, 13-game sample, Gordon is at a level that he hasn’t reached since August 2016. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Kansas City Royals. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a new feature at the site that offers sortable scouting information for every organization. That can be found here.

Other Prospects of Note

Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.

Young Guys Who Might Pop
Rylan Kaufman, LHP
Wilmin Candelario, SS
Jeison Guzman, SS
Maikel Garcia, SS
Raymond Lopez, CF
Anderson Paulino, RHP
Rubendy Jaquez, 3B

Kaufman was a $722,000 JuCo 12th rounder who can really spin a curveball (2750 rpm average in pro ball). He’s still just 19, has a lanky frame, and already bumps 92, 93 on occasion. Candelario is a balletic defensive shortstop who adds little flourishes to just about everything he does. The entire offensive package is below-average right now, but we’ll see what happens with the frame. Speaking of waiting on the frame, Guzman is now 20 and has finally started to fill out in a positive way. He’s going to strike out a lot, but has a chance to rise into the main portion of the list this year. Garcia is a smooth, rangy defender and has a good frame but he’s very weak with the bat right now. Lopez looked intriguing (above average runner, gap pop, feel for center field) before he was seriously injured in 2017, and then he had a bad 2018. He’s a bounce back candidate. Paulino is a strong-bodied 20-year-old who sits 93-97. His upper-80s slider has vertical break, but it’s blunt and lacks that bat-missing bite. Realistically, he’s a developmental bullpen piece, but there are some late-inning components in place if that slider gets tighter. Jaquez is 20 and has above-average bat speed.

Potential Role-Playing Arms
Jonathan Bowlan, RHP
Zach Haake, RHP
Arnaldo Hernandez, RHP
Andres Machado, RHP

Bowlan’s stuff has been all over the place, sometimes even during the same start. He was 89-95 during his first outing and could be a sinker/slider reliever, but the Royals have done fairly well with sinkerballers lately. Haake will show plus stuff for an inning or two before his command starts to waivers. He could be a mid-90s, plus slider reliever. Hernandez is 23 and could be a changeup-centric reliever if his fastball ticks up in relief. Machado is a mid-90s/cutter reliever without a pitch that will obviously miss bats.

Bench Types
Michael Gigliotti, OF
Gabriel Cancel, 2B
Bubba Starling, CF
Blake Perkins, CF
Kort Peterson, 1B
Juan Carlos Negret, RF
Cristian Perez, SS

Gigliotti was a plus runner with feel for the zone who was a 40 runner this spring, his first back from an ACL tear. If the speed returns, he’s a likely bench outfielder. Cancel is a career .265 hitter, is at Double-A, and could be an infield utility bat. We still think Bubba Starling, who runs well and plays a fine center field but has never found a good swing foundation, plays in the big leagues. Perkins is now 23 and still lacks physicality, but he can really run and play center. Peterson is a corner guy with some contact skills. Negret has plus power but little feel for contact. Perez is an instinctive defender with some feel to hit.

System Overview

We spent a lot of effort trying to discern what the Royals were trying to do with their 2018 draft bonus pool, which was the biggest in baseball last year, because it was going to have such a profound impact on the rest of the draft. They ended up with all college value picks (and, eventually, Rylan Kaufman), which tasted disappointingly vanilla at the time, but now looks like a clear-headed approach as it yielded five of the org’s top 10 prospects and several other interesting ones, our Bowlan skepticism be damned.

This is a top-to-bottom reset, with maybe four or five players on the big league roster who are realistic parts of the next competitive Royals team, at the same that there aren’t any top 100 prospects currently in the system. The big wave of talent that represents the crest of the rebuilding wave is at Hi-A Wilmington right now, and whomever becomes the second pick in the upcoming draft (be it Adley Rutchsmann or Andrew Vaughn, the two players we think are the most likely to go first or second based on talent) should be advanced enough to join them pretty quickly, so long as the Royals don’t take a high schooler. Whoever the pick, barring a sizable leap from one of the 45 FV players on this list, the new 2019 draftee will immediately be the club’s No. 1 prospect. Perhaps, if enough of that wave actually pans out, they’ll be good again sooner than the overall quality of the farm indicates.

We also have them linked to outfielder Erick Pena, who is No. 4 among our 2019 July 2 prospects at the time of publication. So there’s some more exciting talent coming. But right now, the most important parts of the org are the amateur scouting and player dev staff who might help Kansas City create tradable big leaguers.

These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Seuly Matias, RF, Kansas City Royals
Level: Hi-A   Age: 20   Org Rank: 1   FV: 45+
Line: 3-for-4, 2B, 3B
Notes
Matias’ 34% career strikeout rate is a sizable red flag that ultimately is what kept him off our overall prospect rankings. With a few exceptions, even the most whiff-prone big leaguers struck out less than that when they were in the minors. But so gifted and physically dominant is Matias that we think he’ll be effective, even if it’s in a streaky, inconsistent way like Domingo Santana or Carlos Gomez. As a teen, he was already posting exit velocities on par with burly, Quad-A type hitters. We hope he learns to take a walk, but “Randal Grichuk with more raw power” is a good player, so we’re cautiously optimistic that the Royals at least have a good big leaguer here, and a potential superstar if there’s contact/approach refinement, which is admittedly easier said than done.

Nolan Gorman, 3B, St. Louis Cardinals
Level: Low-A   Age: 18   Org Rank: 3   FV: 50
Line: 2-for-5, 2 HR
Notes
The Cardinals gave Gorman some reps with the big league team during spring training, and a scout told me they thought it would make Low-A, where Gorman struck out 37% of the time for a month of 2018, appear slower and easier by comparison. He has reached base in each of his 2019 games, and six of his 10 hits have gone for extra bases. We considered Gorman one of the more advanced high school bats in last year’s class (he and Jarred Kelenic were the only two in that top tier) and thought he might move quickly if the strikeout issues that popped up during his senior spring could be remedied. It looks like Gorman is just going to strike out a little more than is ideal, but he also appears poised for a quick move to the upper levels of the minors. When is the right time for promotion? I’d give opposing pitchers the chance to make adjustments to Gorman, and vice versa, which means waiting until mid-May when he sees Beloit, Quad Cities, Wisconsin, and Cedar Rapids for the second time. If he hits until then, and those clubs can’t find a way to get him out the second time they see him, perhaps we see Gorman in Hi-A just after he turns 19.

Joey Bart, C, San Francisco Giants
Level: Hi-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: 1   FV: 55
Line: 2-for-5, HR, 2B, BB
Notes
Nothing to see here as Bart should be expected to hit for power in the Cal League both because of its offensive environment and because last year he teed off on ACC competition, which is second only to the SEC, in my opinion. It’s ironic that the top two picks in last year’s drafts seem likely to be ready for the majors well before their parent club is likely to be competitive, but perhaps it will behoove the Giants to move Bart to Double-A semi-early this summer if for no other reason than to get him working with that pitching staff, which I think has more future big league teammates on it than the group in San Jose does.

Josh Naylor, DH, San Diego Padres
Level: Triple-A   Age: 21   Org Rank: 11   FV: 50
Line: 3-for-6, 2 2B
Notes
Naylor should be monitored closely because he’s the type of hitter who could explode if he makes a relevant approach change. He has both huge raw power and excellent bat control, but his willingness to offer at pitches he can’t drive had limited his power output until 2018, when he homered 17 times at Double-A. If he learns to attack the right pitches, he’ll hit so much that it won’t matter that he doesn’t really have a defensive home. As Naylor is just 21, we’re cautiously optimistic that he will. It’s too early to draw conclusions from his stats but his pull% is currently much higher than is usual.

Trying New Things
I noticed two odd things while combing box scores last night. First, Astros prospect Myles Straw (17th on the Astros list) has been playing shortstop. A quick perusal of the interwebs unearthed this article in the Houston Chronicle, which reports that the Astros will give this a try for a few weeks and see if Straw can actually play there. Their upper levels have been so crowded with outfielders that many of those players have been traded, and seeing as Straw’s best tool (his defense) is made redundant by Jake Marisnick, it makes sense to explore his defensive versatility.

Similarly, the Rangers are trying 1B/LF/3B Andretty Cordero at second base. Unlikely to do enough damage to profile at first (where he’s seen the most time), Cordero’s bat was still notable enough to include him in the Others of Note section of the Rangers list. Should he prove passable at second base, he’ll be much more relevant.

Former shortstop Javy Guerra of the Padres has moved to the mound, and I’ve been told he’s sitting in the upper-90s with natural cut. He’s on the San Diego 40-man.

Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Jon Gray, Mark Gubicza, and Garrett Richards — on how they learned and developed their sliders.

———

Jon Gray, Colorado Rockies

“I started throwing a slider in probably 2012. I first learned how to throw a slurve, and that taught me how to throw a slider. I remember my uncle teaching me to throw one. He was like, ‘Don’t be throwing curves. You need to throw slurves and cutters, so you don’t mess up your arm.’ He didn’t want any action on my wrist.

“I learned how to throw that, a slurve, which is kind of the basics of a slider. In high school, I didn’t really have a grip. I didn’t know how to hold one, I guess. I just kind of made up my own grip and went with it. I didn’t watch baseball growing up — I watched none — so it was kind of hard. Read the rest of this entry »