Darvish & Caratini to the Padres for Zach Davies & 4 Rookie Ball Prospects

[UMFan83]

Also I cannot horsefeathering wait for Tom to give his "we didnt direct baseball operations to dump salary, they did this on their own" BS when asked about what's going on.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

horsefeathers the Cubs

[toonsterwu]

Longenhagen's take on Preciado is fascinating. If he's that intriguing (and honestly, it's a positive sign that there's positive signs so far ... so many kids struggle out of the gate ... I recall very early reports that Juan Soto was the one the Nationals were excited about but it took some time ... of course, there have bene guys in recent years that they've been wrong about too), and one has to think that the Cubs probably view it somewhat similarly, then this is trade is arguably a coup right now. Getting basically a top 15 or so pick (Longenhagen would pop a 50 on him, and slot him above Ed Howard), plus lottery tickets, and Davies, while moving most of Darvish's money left, even with tossing in Cartini, would be well worth it.

It seems likely that BA would slot him lower than that. Hard to see them popping a potential top 15 pick in the mid-teens of any system (I'm sure there probably has been one at some point in time, but I don't recall it). So, there's a level of risk in there. I'm also mildly fascinated that Longenhagen thought Made/Santana would go to full-season ahead of him. Strikes vaguely similar to the Marco Hernandez (who I really liked ... oops)/Javier Baez debate on A ball many moons back.

* to be very clear, I'm not saying Longenhagen is right or wrong. Just that, if he's right, this is a good deal when viewed right now, but he's probably on the high end.

[UMFan83]

The other horsefeathers thing about getting such raw prospects is that it means the Cubs have to develop them. Now I know the FO has tried to revamp their development system over the last 1-2 years, but this is still an org that has had virtually no success in developing big leaguers from their draft picks (outside of the 1st round of course). They may be the worst in baseball in WAR from draft picks picked after the 1st round since Theo initially took over. It sounds like things are improving but I'm not exactly at the point where I trust that the Cubs can take raw talent and translate it into MLB success. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise though

[Cubswin11]

The other horsefeathers thing about getting such raw prospects is that it means the Cubs have to develop them. Now I know the FO has tried to revamp their development system over the last 1-2 years, but this is still an org that has had virtually no success in developing big leaguers from their draft picks (outside of the 1st round of course). They may be the worst in baseball in WAR from draft picks picked after the 1st round since Theo initially took over. It sounds like things are improving but I'm not exactly at the point where I trust that the Cubs can take raw talent and translate it into MLB success. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise though

I still trust them to develop bats decently. They have traded away Eloy, Gleyber, Jeimer, and Jorge (maybe forgetting someone) but they largely developed those guys outside of the main core and should get at least partial credit. Plus developed Vic, Nico and Bote in the last 2-4 years. And there’s enough bats the prospect guys seem to like it seems like they’re doing a decent job (you don’t hear prospect guys say they like Brennan Davis but don’t like he’s in the Cubs hands as an example). Strumpf and Amaya seem close to being something at the ML level too.

They hit an insane level early, then traded away a lot of other guys and also got good so they were drafting later/had less IFA money/rules changed. They had to correct some things with how they were developing, they fell behind. But that seems to be corrected to a degree and the prospects they had to develop were depleted and bad. They seem to be stocking up better players to develop the last few years and the pitching seems turned around a bit too.

[UMFan83]

The other horsefeathers thing about getting such raw prospects is that it means the Cubs have to develop them. Now I know the FO has tried to revamp their development system over the last 1-2 years, but this is still an org that has had virtually no success in developing big leaguers from their draft picks (outside of the 1st round of course). They may be the worst in baseball in WAR from draft picks picked after the 1st round since Theo initially took over. It sounds like things are improving but I'm not exactly at the point where I trust that the Cubs can take raw talent and translate it into MLB success. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise though

I still trust them to develop bats decently. They have also traded away Eloy, Gleyber, Jeimer, and Jorge (maybe forgetting someone) but they largely developed those guys outside of the main core. Plus developed Vic, Nico and Bote in the last 2-4 years. And there’s enough bats the prospect guys seem to like it seems like they’re doing a decent job (you don’t hear prospect guys say they like Brennan Davis as an example but don’t like he’s in the Cubs hands). Strumpf and Amaya seem close to being something at the ML level too.

All those guys you mentioned were either IFAs, drafted by another team (Vic), a 1st round pick (Nico) or in Bote's case, virtually the only player drafted after the 1st round under Theo that has produced any positive WAR. But in that case maybe the issue is identifying talent in the draft rather than developing that talent. Or its just a weird anomaly that the Cubs have had above average success developing IFAs, 1st round picks and other team's draft picks while having extremely below average success developing draft picks taken after the 1st round.

List of (I think) every player to accumulate major league WAR with the Cubs that was taken after round 1:

2011:
14 - Maples (-0.6)
16 - Raul Lopez (0.2)

2012:
2 - Underwood (0.0)
18 - Bote (3.3)

2013:
2 - Zastryzny (0.2)

2014:
3 - Zagunis (-0.1)
7 - Norwood (-0.2)

2015:
None

2016:
4 - Tyson Miller (0.0)

2017-2020:
None

Excluding Bote, the rest of the Cubs non-1st round draft picks since 2011 have yielded a combined -0.5 WAR for the Cubs.

Anyways, I'm getting off topic. This is "look at this mildly interesting stat I uncovered all by myself" more than anything.

[Cubswin11]

The other horsefeathers thing about getting such raw prospects is that it means the Cubs have to develop them. Now I know the FO has tried to revamp their development system over the last 1-2 years, but this is still an org that has had virtually no success in developing big leaguers from their draft picks (outside of the 1st round of course). They may be the worst in baseball in WAR from draft picks picked after the 1st round since Theo initially took over. It sounds like things are improving but I'm not exactly at the point where I trust that the Cubs can take raw talent and translate it into MLB success. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise though

I still trust them to develop bats decently. They have also traded away Eloy, Gleyber, Jeimer, and Jorge (maybe forgetting someone) but they largely developed those guys outside of the main core. Plus developed Vic, Nico and Bote in the last 2-4 years. And there’s enough bats the prospect guys seem to like it seems like they’re doing a decent job (you don’t hear prospect guys say they like Brennan Davis as an example but don’t like he’s in the Cubs hands). Strumpf and Amaya seem close to being something at the ML level too.

All those guys you mentioned were either IFAs, drafted by another team (Vic), a 1st round pick (Nico) or in Bote's case, virtually the only player drafted after the 1st round under Theo that has produced any positive WAR. But in that case maybe the issue is identifying talent in the draft rather than developing that talent. Or its just a weird anomaly that the Cubs have had above average success developing IFAs, 1st round picks and other team's draft picks while having extremely below average success developing draft picks taken after the 1st round.

List of (I think) every player to accumulate major league WAR with the Cubs that was taken after round 1:

2011:
14 - Maples (-0.6)
16 - Raul Lopez (0.2)

2012:
2 - Underwood (0.0)
18 - Bote (3.3)

2013:
2 - Zastryzny (0.2)

2014:
3 - Zagunis (-0.1)
7 - Norwood (-0.2)

2015:
None

2016:
4 - Tyson Miller (0.0)

2017-2020:
None

Excluding Bote, the rest of the Cubs non-1st round draft picks since 2011 have yielded a combined -0.5 WAR for the Cubs.

Anyways, I'm getting off topic. This is "look at this mildly interesting stat I uncovered all by myself" more than anything.

Yeah, the point was more they were still developing bats, even recently, and I can’t imagine there are a ton of teams that are constantly turning out positive WAR from 2nd+ round picks. No doubt we’ve probably been at the bottom but I doubt there’s teams consistently doing it. I’m sure there’s an article out there somewhere studying this.

[TomtheBombadil]

http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/20 ... ks_and.php

The writer of that 11 YO article is an assistant GM with the Indians today IIRC

I'd say in the possibly already here future, given the 2020 5 round MLB draft and flooded NCAA, that knocking teams for not piling up WAR outside the first round will have a little more merit. As it was, it's picking nits on a team that still has a largely drafted or signed and developed lineup of ASs and MVP candidates in their 20s. Like does Willson Contreras get to count in analysis of success outside of the first round? Isaac Paredes was ID'd as a likely MLer as early as 17 in this system, with Longenhagen documenting trade interest at that level. Brennen Davis skipped the NWL and beat up the MWL became a consensus top 100 despite an injury shortened AZL pro debut, Amaya continues to improve his profile despite the massive demographics odds....This organization is full of development success it's just they haven't won a WS since 2016, got older, got more expensive, and those three things in combo really ground alot of gears and made alot of noise

Sucks it took trading Darvish to get here, sucks more that the players they got back are the ones taking the hit being rhetoricted down as lottery tickets and big mysteries yada yada when really there's way less uncertainty relative to the portrayal. Darvish is going to be fine. When the MLB moves on, he'll finish up in the NPB and cruise into their HOF. It's 2020 almost 2021, all the money has been spent on ID'ing these prospects earlier while making sure they don't make as much money as recent generations...This really isn't different from soccer, every hipster owner or exec's favorite sport, and how those teams are/were (I don't keep up) scouting, ID'ing, and signing players *extremely* young. Both sports have huge, detailed, documented histories and models to work form...more and more people started studying them in the past say 30+ years, and we're basically seeing an evolution sped up by the pandemic conditions offering some proof of newer concepts and streamlining methods that were perpetually in development before it

IMO anyway...which btw is insane

[Cubswin11]

[UMFan83]

Wow we gave them money too

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Preciado and Mena were part of the same international class as Quintero and Made, but were ranked a bit behind them both. Preciado's signing bonus was about the same as Made's and significantly less than Quintero's. Now, after playing very little baseball, the Padres duo seem to be ranked ahead of the Cubs. Can someone explain this to me? Is it possible for scouting opinions to change so much without games being played?

It's a few things:

- Signing bonuses aren't always linear. They're agreed to when kids are 14/15, and finalized at 16. Sometimes the $1M 14 year old develops a little better than the $3M one. So while the huge money kids are almost always still the top kids in the class, the order can get fudged a bit in that intervening period
- When going from amateur to professional ball, you change to an almost entirely new ecosystem of scouts. That's how you get like Nico Hoerner going from being a 40th-ish ranked draft prospect to a top 100 overall guy after 6 weeks in short season ball
- In this case specifically, the only place they've been seen since March was the instructional league in October. Longenhagen lives near there, so luckily he has actually seen 3/4 of these guys in the last few months. So while I typically value Keith Law's or Jim Callis' opinion more, I think Eric's opinion holds much more weight currently

In a chat a week ago, Longenhagen suggested Preciado had passed up Robert Puason.

Guest #2: Did you hear anything from the A’s alternate site about Robert Puason? Seems like he could burst out of the gate next year after getting reps with a bunch of AAA guys.
12:09
Eric A Longenhagen: Oakland is one of those teams I didn’t see in the Fall and I haven’t done targeted sourcing on their intsructs yet, but casual conversations I’ve had in which he’s come up have not been great. Like I think Reggie Preciado has passed him, for example. I don’t think I’ll move Puason down or anything, but he was a pick to click that didn’t click, sounds like. But ask me again come A’s list time.

Puason was thought of as the top IFA prospect in the 7/2/19 class until around the time he turned 15 and even after Jasson Dominguez passed him, he was considered the 2nd best prospect and tied for the highest bonus paid in that class.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Don’t think these have been updated overall since the draft but here are where the teenagers slot in:

10. Reginald Preciado
11. Owen Cassie
16. Ismael Mena
17. Yeison Santana

[Post Count Padder]

MLB.com updated its Cubs prospect list.

10. Preciado
11. Caissie
16. Mena
17. Santana

[CaliforniaRaisin]

The other horsefeathers thing about getting such raw prospects is that it means the Cubs have to develop them. Now I know the FO has tried to revamp their development system over the last 1-2 years, but this is still an org that has had virtually no success in developing big leaguers from their draft picks (outside of the 1st round of course). They may be the worst in baseball in WAR from draft picks picked after the 1st round since Theo initially took over. It sounds like things are improving but I'm not exactly at the point where I trust that the Cubs can take raw talent and translate it into MLB success. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise though

I still trust them to develop bats decently. They have also traded away Eloy, Gleyber, Jeimer, and Jorge (maybe forgetting someone) but they largely developed those guys outside of the main core. Plus developed Vic, Nico and Bote in the last 2-4 years. And there’s enough bats the prospect guys seem to like it seems like they’re doing a decent job (you don’t hear prospect guys say they like Brennan Davis as an example but don’t like he’s in the Cubs hands). Strumpf and Amaya seem close to being something at the ML level too.

All those guys you mentioned were either IFAs, drafted by another team (Vic), a 1st round pick (Nico) or in Bote's case, virtually the only player drafted after the 1st round under Theo that has produced any positive WAR. But in that case maybe the issue is identifying talent in the draft rather than developing that talent. Or its just a weird anomaly that the Cubs have had above average success developing IFAs, 1st round picks and other team's draft picks while having extremely below average success developing draft picks taken after the 1st round.

List of (I think) every player to accumulate major league WAR with the Cubs that was taken after round 1:

2011:
14 - Maples (-0.6)
16 - Raul Lopez (0.2)

2012:
2 - Underwood (0.0)
18 - Bote (3.3)

2013:
2 - Zastryzny (0.2)

2014:
3 - Zagunis (-0.1)
7 - Norwood (-0.2)

2015:
None

2016:
4 - Tyson Miller (0.0)

2017-2020:
None

Excluding Bote, the rest of the Cubs non-1st round draft picks since 2011 have yielded a combined -0.5 WAR for the Cubs.

Anyways, I'm getting off topic. This is "look at this mildly interesting stat I uncovered all by myself" more than anything.

Well, we shouldn't have to worry then since 3 of the 4 Teenagers are IFAs.

At least anecdotally, in the capped draft era, not many teams do too well after the first few rounds. (Also, the 2011 draft was Jim Hendry's last so take that -0.4 WAR off Theo's ledger.)

[toonsterwu]

Wow we gave them money too

eh, 3 million. That isn't much, considering how much was left.

It does make me wonder if the Padres are nearly tapped out, hence why they needed that 3 million. Maybe Preller isn't leaving any room for mid-season moves, and is banking on everything going well, or reaching into the farm to supplement. I had mildly wondered if they would try another big move, as they have the assets to try and make it happen still, but that 3 million does make me wonder.

[WrigleyField 22]

Wow we gave them money too

eh, 3 million. That isn't much, considering how much was left.

It does make me wonder if the Padres are nearly tapped out, hence why they needed that 3 million. Maybe Preller isn't leaving any room for mid-season moves, and is banking on everything going well, or reaching into the farm to supplement. I had mildly wondered if they would try another big move, as they have the assets to try and make it happen still, but that 3 million does make me wonder.

I mean you probably aren't doing your job if you negotiate with a big market team and don't ask for cash when absorbing a big deal. They may not need it, but it would be stupid not to demand something back.

[UMFan83]

Wow we gave them money too

eh, 3 million. That isn't much, considering how much was left.

It does make me wonder if the Padres are nearly tapped out, hence why they needed that 3 million. Maybe Preller isn't leaving any room for mid-season moves, and is banking on everything going well, or reaching into the farm to supplement. I had mildly wondered if they would try another big move, as they have the assets to try and make it happen still, but that 3 million does make me wonder.

Not really the amount just the fact that the return was very underwhelming, we took back a decent sized contract (though one that pales in comparison to Yu's in years and dollars) and only 1 player that can help us in the short or medium term, PLUS we gave them cash. Just shows how desperate we were to cut his salary and how crappy the market out there was for an elite pitcher on a reasonable contract.

[UMFan83]

[Andy]

https://twitter.com/PWSullivan/status/1344315428575846407

I wonder what percentage of Jed's paycheck is for blatantly lying about ownership mandating a slash to the payroll

[CyHawk_Cub]

Jed for lame duck WH Press Sec the next 3 weeks.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Maybe wait the few months to sell off all your big league team before firing your scouts, you cheap bastards.

[UMFan83]

What a weird ass organization we support

[Cubswin11]

I’ve held out some hope they’d run the team like a baseball team and care about the product after this year with money available. But it seems like they’ve completely turned to running things like a business and revenues and margins are now more important than whatever happens on the field. If enough things break right with development maybe we have a competent team by 2025!

[Backtobanks]

Part of Jed's quote - "Have to be more efficient with fewer employees" actually means fewer ML players.

[gflore34]

When you sit back and think of all that has to go correct over the next 5-6 years for any Preciado, Santana, Cassie or Mena to make it to the big leagues. It's not even realistic to consider they'll amount to anything, sure Jed said it's a fools errand. The fact that he couldn't acquire someone closer with a more realistic chance is why he deserves wholesale criticism. Today he mentioned something along the lines of often times trades which initially appear to be bad, turn out, in time, to be good. horsefeathers you Jed Hoyer, bad trades end up being bad trades 99.99% of time, who are you trying fool? The initially bad one but, turn out good trades aren't filled with teenagers you have to wait 5-6 years with everything going right to see any return.