Cubs offseason rumors/transactions

CSF77

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I think people misunderstand development. It's not a magic cure all. By that I mean you can't just hire the best coaching and turn a average player into a super star. There's basically 3 types of players. There's relatively clean players with few flaws. They are almost always 1st round picks and usually top 15. The second group is players with interesting tools but flaws that hold them back. Arrieta is a good example of this. They tend to be gone by the end of the 5th round. There the draft/development phase is about taking a player with a flaw but otherwise tools you like and fixing the flaw to turn him into the first group of players. The third group is basically average tool organizational filler types. Rarely you can pull some gems out of this group but they are almost always players who changed something and became different players. Justin Turner comes to mind.

If you look at teams who are particularly good at developing something it's not like they just have amazing coaches. It's often a case of knowing for the right type of player to look for. If you've read Big Data Baseball by Travis Sawchik he talks specifically about PIT and how they identified guys who they felt they could fix by adding a 2 seam fastball when the current thinking in vogue was 4 seam high velocity fastballs. If you look at the current cubs regime and what they've done with hitters they've found guys who had good power and good eyes and cared less about position. For example, there's obviously Schwarber but many weren't sure Bryant would stay at 3B. Happ was a weird prospect because he wasn't the prototypical bat for a corner OF and he wasn't thought of as a 2B at the time of the draft.

In terms of expected outcomes, the second and third groups are sort of mirrors. High tool guys are high risk/reward. The org filler types are generally useful but almost never amount to much. If they make the majors they are almost always going to be bench guys. There's a non-0 percent chance of these guys turning into your Hendricks/Matt Carpenter/Justin Turner types. However, theres like 1200 picks in a given draft and probably 900 of the picks fall into this category. In a given draft I can't imagine you're getting more than 5-10 of these type of players. The second group of players has a higher success rate but they are also guys who could be out of baseball in 2-3 years if they can't make any improvement to their flaws.

Regardless, the game here is always a numbers game. You don't develop your way around that. You want as many picks as possible and you want as much slot money. And teams want the slot money to turn org filler type picks into tool type picks.

Talent is talent. When you say a pitcher has talent is normally means the ability to throw the ball in the 90’s. Honing talent is getting that fastball over the plate. Next tier is putting the fastball into a weak zone for a hitter. Finally finding ways to create movement to that fastball so it doesn’t sit there to be hammered.

That is all about development. Talent is just potential.
 

anotheridiot

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the difference was Hendry developed pitching and Theo got here and flat out said "We are going to buy pitching" but then went out and bought fowler, heyward and zobrist too. Now with the lineup that should be locked for 5 years, (well, of course not, they have to gut it so they dont pay luxury tax) there should be two years of trying to get a pitcher.

It would sure be nice to see Schwarber catching some in the spring to get those boys in the lineup.
 

beckdawg

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Talent is talent. When you say a pitcher has talent is normally means the ability to throw the ball in the 90’s. Honing talent is getting that fastball over the plate. Next tier is putting the fastball into a weak zone for a hitter. Finally finding ways to create movement to that fastball so it doesn’t sit there to be hammered.

That is all about development. Talent is just potential.

I mean that's not what actual development is. It's not about "honing" anything. You don't start with terrible control and after 4 years in the minors come out like Hendricks. Development is fixing flaws. In regards to pitching, that means fixing minor issues in a delivery and making it repeatable. That's where command improves. It's also why guys who have complicated mechanics like Arrieta can just suddenly lose control of their stuff during a season. You don't totally "fix" someone. You just tone down issues they have and hopefully make them more manageable. Development is also adding a third offering. Most college pitchers will have 3 decent pitches. So they are sort of an exception but HS pitchers usually only have 2 pitches that grade as better than average. Typically that's a fastball and a slider/curve. Most of their development is about finding a third pitch that works for them.

Ultimately you have to have talent. That's entirely the problem with why the cubs haven't developed enough pitching via the draft. With a few exceptions, they haven't drafted guys who had much in the way of tools. They've repeatedly drafted college arms with low ceilings and average-ish floors. The point here is that no coaching fixes that. As I mentioned those low ceiling players tend to be useful but you're not going to find all-stars often. The other way to go is to take players who have flaws but better tools. Cease is a good example of this. Aside from the injury his other flaw was he only had 2 pitches. They were both really good but his change up to this day is still fringy which is why he still potentially may wind up in the bullpen. Another way is to gamble on someone who has good size but an immature body. Hudson is a good example of this and he also came with a lanky body. The idea there being you fix his lanky delivery and build up his muscle and he'll be throwing harder with great plane at 6'8.

Teams that are successful "developing" are teams that have money to draft/sign picks/ifa's who have specific flaws they are good at fixing. The entire thing about players is the difference between a 1st round pick and a 5th round pick is almost always the 1st round pick has fewer fixes needed. For example, Nelson Velazquez was available in the 5th round last year because he has a flaw(his hit tool). But if you look at his other 4 tools they are 55 for power run and arm and 50 for field. Blake Rutherford was the 18th pick in 2016 and his tools are 55 for hit and 50 for power, run, field and arm. The reason Velazquez so quickly popped up in the cubs top 10/30 rankings is because his hit tool was better than people expected.

That's the reason having picks in the first 5 rounds is so important. Well that and the slot money to sign them. Players with flaws and talent typically require money to sign them out of college commitments because they aren't dumb. They realize that often times if they go to college and fix whatever their issue happens to be that they will jump in the draft and make more money. It's why you almost never see the best of the best in terms of hard commits sign outside of cases where a top 5 drafting team specifically saves money to offer them say top 20 pick money. What you see is guys who probably wouldn't be 1st round picks anyways sign. The team is gambling that they can coax more out of a guy and the player is covering themselves in case they don't get better.
 

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