Could I be writing about the current scores of today's games? No, why would I write about 1-0 or 2-4 scores? Could I be writing about something that happened overseas? Nope, although this does have something to do with someone who here from over some sort of sea. Okay, I'll quit with the stupidity, this is obviously about the Jorge Soler promotion. I can't wait until he makes a lot of the prospect rankers eat their words. However, since that happened, a couple of other things have come up that I will also mention.
I could start with the quick things, but I'll just go right for the heart of this piece, although I will mention a couple of other things further down that may be of some interest. Jorge Soler is being called up to the Cubs. The Cubs signed Soler on June 30, 2012. He turned 22 in February, so he's coming up fairly young as well. He stands 6'4" and weighs in at 215 lbs, according to baseball-reference.com.
As for his play, the scouting reports make him look like a surefire star, and a lot of his play has as well. He's got a very sweet swing, with bat speed that isn't far off from Javier Baez. He's got good defensive skills, including a canon for an arm. His speed is seen as anywhere from solid to very good, and he has a very good approach at the plate, which has seen him walk 33 times and strike out 48 times in 236 plate appearances this year. There are a ton of tools there and no overly horrifying weaknesses to his game.
The only weaknesses that are really brought up regularly are his durability and his attitude. His durability is reasonable to worry about. He has had issues with staying on the field over the last couple of years. A couple of years ago it was the stress fracture that ended his season early, and early this season it was a couple of minor hamstring tweaks that the Cubs were extra careful with. I can see the stress fracture being a worry, but it seems to not be an issue anymore. The hamstring tweaks are nothing, and that will pass with time. As for his attitude, some of that comes from him not running out ground balls during the AFL last fall. However, it later came out that the Cubs had told him not to. Another issue with his personality that people bring up was the bat incident from early last year. There is no doubt that he was heavily antagonized in the situation, and if it had been something that happened on the street, nobody would think twice about him giving the guy an absolute beatdown. However, on the field it's a different story, no matter what the guy said, you can't do that. He learned quickly and hasn't done anything even close to that since. In fact, players that he has played with have made special mention as to how good of a teammate he's been and just how good of a guy he's been.
So what does that mean for the Cubs? It means that they're getting a young player who is going to be good for them both in the field and at the plate. He could bat for average and power, be a solid threat on the basepaths, give us some highlight outfield throws like his fellow Cuban (and 2012 defector) Yoenis Cespedes, and be heavily reliable at the same time in right. Of course, he may struggle, as there's no sure way to tell how a prospect will turn out once they hit the majors. However, a lot of people who have seen a lot of Soler feel like he's much more of a sure thing that guys like Baez are. As for his ceiling, I see it around a .300+ hitter with an average of around 35 home runs per year, a good amount of walks, not a ton of strikeouts, and some great defense. His floor, other than completely flopping, but as for an educated guess based on what I've seen and read is around a .240 hitter with around 15-20 home runs per year and a decent, but not great walk to strikeout ratio. Again, both are just guesses, his ceiling may actually be higher, and his floor may wind up being even lower. I guess that's more of my range of what I expect out of him.
With Soler it's just very exciting to see a guy with his level of talent coming to the Cubs. They already have a lineup that is becoming stronger and stronger. I feel pretty confident that Soler will be a very good major league player. In fact, my confidence in him is as high as anyone in the Cubs system outside of Kris Bryant, I feel that good about him. While the prospect rankers were afraid to put him above the #30 prospect in baseball, I have a feeling that he'll have better than the 30th best career of the current top 50-100 prospects. In fact, if I were a betting man I'd be willing to be a body part on it (barring anything catastrophic, of course).
So what else could possibly be going on with the Cubs right now? Well, I'll start it with the short part. Anthony Rizzo just hit his 30th home run of the season. Big whoop, right? Well, 30 is a nice number, no doubt about it. At the same age, Frank Thomas had 24 home runs, so that's very good as well. However, the big news with it is that Rizzo is the first left handed batter on the Cubs to hit 30 home runs in a season since Fred McGriff in 2002, and the 7th Cub lefty in the long history of the team, according to Len Kasper. While left handed hitters have been among some of the best in the history of the game with guys like Ruth and Bonds (*), great left handed hitters can be tough to find at the same time. With the group of prospects the Cubs are bringing up, if they all work out, and Schwarber winds up being a catcher (more on that in a couple of paragraphs) then Rizzo and Schwarber will be the only left handed position players, with Alcantara (assuming he's still around) being a switch hitter. So, while it doesn't mean a World Series for the Cubs, it's still a pretty awesome thing to see happen. The game just became official a few minutes ago, so it's now 100% official.
The other news with the Cubs is that they have announced who will be playing in the Arizona Fall League this year. Those players will be CJ Edwards (as I predicted), Addison Russell, Dan Vogelbach, Jacob Hanneman (as I also predicted), Ivan Pineyro, Zach Cates, and Gerardo Conception. Hanneman is a Taxi Squad player, which means he's limited to 2 appearances per week.
The first thing I'll mention is that Kyle Schwarber is not on there. Usually the AFL is a league that teams send players to when they either want to get them up through the system and get them more experience, or it's a league that teams will send players who are going to be Rule 5 eligible (like Cates), to get a good look at them. The latter is obviously not anything that has to do with Schwarber, but the first tells a lot. There was an interesting article on Bleacher Nation yesterday (see it here) that mentions it. With his bat, he's someone the Cubs would clearly like to have up as soon as possible. However, in the instructional league they can get him more work on his catching instead of rushing him up, where he wouldn't get a chance to work on his catching. This tells us that the Cubs do indeed want to see if they can't keep him at catcher. This makes sense, given his bat, and the abundance of bats in the Cubs organization right now. There's already no way all of the bats they have that were either brought up in the last 2 months or are still in the minors would be able to all be on a single Cubs roster, and if you still have Castillo as the starting catcher, then that means there's another big bat that doesn't get a chance at the big leagues. Now, if enough guys don't pan out at all, that could very easily change, as remaining at catcher would not be great for the longevity of his career, but that's something to worry about further down the road.
As for the other players going, it's Russell's second appearance in the AFL, and it says that the FO may be looking to promote him from AAA to the bigs next season quicker than expected if he really puts up good numbers. CJ Edwards going there probably means that they want to give him some added experience so that they can start him in AAA next year, at least being able to justify it to themselves. With Dan Vogelbach, I think he's at a point where he could start making his way up soon, and if he goes there, even if he doesn't set the world on fire, he still gains value. He's often seen as the odd man out in the future due to positional concerns (1B/DH only type of guy), but he has a huge bat, and hopefully he can show that off. Jacob Hanneman started a bit older and with less experience than most his age. He's got a very nice combination of power and speed, and a good glove to go along with it. Hopefully he's able to make the most out of his games, as they are going to want to push him through the system as well, since even as is he could be 25 before he's ready to join the Cubs. Looking at Pineyro, not sure if he's going to be Rule 5 eligible, but he hasn't been great this year. He's also been hurt for a large portion of the year, so that could be playing a part, as he was very solid in A and A+ last year. He may just be going to get some added experience after missing so much time this year. Zach Cates, as I mentioned before, is not some phenomenal, or even really good looking prospect, based on his numbers, so I imagine they're taking a look to see if they want to let him be available in the Rule 5 draft. Lastly, with Conception, he was signed around the same time as Soler, I believe a few months earlier, but caught mono, which really slowed down the start of his career. He was actually made eligible last year and nobody had any interest. He's 22 years old and in Daytona, throwing great there right now. I feel like the Cubs may be looking to push him through the season, however, since his signing initially put him on the 40 man roster and he was taken off a year or so ago, I have a feeling that he's also being looked at for Rule 5 considerations as well. He is now looking like he can be an effective pitcher, although I don't know if he'll ever be the starter the Cubs were hoping for.
So there's been a lot going on in the Cubs universe lately, much of it very good, and a lot of it is very telling as well. It's going to be a lot of fun to watch Jorge Soler grow in the big leagues. He's got a ton of potential, and hopefully he's able to fulfill that potential and be the next great right fielder in Cubs history.
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