Prospects of the Week for Chicago Cubs Affiliates of the Week 5/15-5/21

AA Hitter of the week

3B BJ Murray (23 Years Old)

.476/.522/.952 2 BB, 5 2B, 1 3B, 1 HR, 4 RBI, 6 R

Hopefully, there is a performance like this every week that makes the decision easy as to who gets player of the week honors. BJ Murray was simply spectacular. He had seven extra-base hits in five games. While he doesn’t appear on any top prospect lists (yet), he did get a shout-out in a recent article by Jim Bowden for the Athletic in which he looked at “27 Prospects You Don’t Know Yet, But Should.”

There’s a lot to like when you look at Murray, and whatever you don’t like can usually be offset by what you do. Does he strike out a lot? Yes. He has 38 strikeouts on the year at AA. Does he offset that by walking at a high rate as well? Yes. He’s walked 28 times this season. 

He’s competitive and plays a competent 3B, even on the biggest stage this summer as he played for Great Britain in the World Baseball Classic. 

His bat was always going to be what got him to the majors, and he’s never had a WRC+ under 113, but this year he’s blowing the doors off of all of his previous numbers. His BABIP may seem high at .341 but it’s actually below his career average, which implies that his early results aren’t lucky, they’re just good. He’s got a .433 wOBA and a 167 WRC+ and he doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. 

If this week is a sign of things to come, then expect to see BJ Murray not only climbing prospect lists, but also climbing the Cubs Minor League ladder to Iowa before the end of the year.

AA Pitcher of the week

LHP Jordan Wicks (23 Years Old)

1 G, 5 IP, 1.80 ERA, 2 H, 0 BB, 5 K

Jordan Wicks had a great start this week and that’s what landed him on the list. So far, he’s 3-0 across 35.1 IP with a 2.55 ERA, so this week’s start isn’t out of the norm for the way that he’s pitched this year, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth celebrating. 

Since they drafted him out of Kansas State, the Cubs knew what they were getting out of Wicks and the word high comes up often: high K, high BB, high ceiling, high floor as a high leverage reliever. 

He hasn’t disappointed this season, and I’d argue he didn’t disappoint last year either as much as he was just unlucky and the results weren’t as favorable as they should have been.

Wicks pitched 28 innings at AA to end last season with the following stat line

Wicks has pitched 35.1 innings at AA to start this season with the following stat line:

There is a lot there to suggest that Wicks was unlucky last year and that there’s even more room for improvement this season.

There are two obvious reasons that Wicks has seen an improvement in his ERA this season and that is that he’s limited the walks and he’s limited the home runs. Last season more than 21% of the balls hit in the air against him were home runs. That was completely insane. That being said, having a 77% strand rate to pair with a 47.8% ground ball rate and 28.9% strikeout rate made it pretty tough to score against him unless the opposition hit a home run, so it makes sense that this year it would regress to the mean a little bit.

If Wicks can continue to strikeout batters at this clip and limit the walks and homers against him then it’s within reason to think that he could get even better in his next couple of starts before a late-season call-up to Iowa where he’ll only be one call away from making his major league debut.

A+ Hitter of the week

3B James Triantos (20 Years Old)

.381/.409/.762 2 2B, 2 HR, 5 RBI, 5 R, 1-1 SB

James Triantos is one of the few players that made the list this week that is also on a majority of top prospect lists including ranking 11th on MLB Pipeline’s list. In 2021 Triantos was one of the prospects that had more helium than anyone which led to the Cubs giving him a $2.1 million signing bonus, nearly double the $1,276,400 slot value. 

He missed the beginning of the season, but since making his debut on May 9th all he’s done is hit. He may only have 37 plate appearances so far this season but in that time he’s struck out one time. ONCE.

The Cubs love Nico Hoerner and his ability to put the bat on the ball and create good at-bats in the leadoff spot. Triantos appears to be built in the same mold. Fangraphs grades his fielding at a 40, which to me implies he may be better suited to second base than he is to the hot corner. 

There’s nothing wrong with having a couple of high-caliber infielders that can hit for average and hit for power while not striking out very often and giving you a little something on the basepaths as well. 

A+ Pitcher of the week

RHP Manuel Espinoza (22 Years Old)

1 G, 4 IP, 0.00 ERA, 0 H, 0 BB, 9 K

You’ve got to love early-season baseball for stories like this one. Manuel Espinoza is a player the Cubs signed out of Mexico for a $400,000 signing bonus in 2018. Players such as Florencio Serrano (now with the Rangers system) and Luis Verdugo (batting .105/175/.140 in AA Tennessee) each signed for triple that signing bonus. 

Yet here is Espinoza. Pitching in his third game this season and having his longest outing yet while continuing to impress with his ability to limit baserunners and strike guys out. This year Espinoza has thrown exactly 9 IP and that leads to an interesting statistical perspective because if he were to have thrown that as one game rather than three we would be tripping over ourselves to get him to Wrigley.

In those 9 IP, he has only faced 30 total batters. He’s struck out 13 of them, walked one of them, hit one of them, and given up hits to two of them. His ERA is obviously sparkling at a nice, round 0.00, but even when you exclude fielding and look at his FIP he’d be one of the better pitchers in the system this year with a 1.24 FIP.

Obviously, his stats aren’t in one game. They’re in three, so he could be benefiting from hitters not getting to see him multiple times through the order, and all of this could go down the drain with his next start, but there’s also room for even better results. With the pre-tacked baseballs in AA, one could see a world where his K% gets even better when he can improve his spin rate at the next level, even if it is against better competition.

A Hitter of the week

2B Juan Mora (23 Years Old)

.467/.579/.667 2 BB, 3 2B, 3 RBI, 5 R, 2-3 SB

Mora started the season at High-A South Bend and appeared overmatched. He went on the Developmental List and was reinstated to Myrtle Beach a couple of weeks ago and hasn’t looked back since. 

In eight games at High-A Mora had a .115/.233/.154 slash line. In the nine games at Low-A Mora has had a .481/.548/.630 slash line. Whatever the Cubs are doing on the Developmental List it seems like it’s working.

Even compared to the player he was at Low-A last year Mora looks like a completely different player the last couple of weeks. Could this be due to his incredibly bloated .565 BABIP? Yeah, probably. But could it also be due to the fact that he’s figured something out and is striking out at a more manageable 12.9% rate? Sure, let’s hope so!

A Pitcher of the week

RHP Michael Arias (21 Years Old)

1 G, 4 IP, 2.25 ERA, 3 H, 2 BB, 8 K

I feel like I’ve said this a lot lately, but this may be one of my favorite stories in the Cubs minor league system. If you go to Arias’s milb.com page, you’ll find a SS. Not a RHP. The Cubs signed Arias after the Blue Jays gave up on him as a shortstop and have been developing him as a pitcher ever since.

The fastball is good, but it’s the secondary stuff that’s really impressive, specifically the movement on those secondary pitches. That being said, with the nastiness in movement like that his problem has been, and will likely continue to be, the walks. He didn’t escape them this week as he had two walks in four innings, but if he can limit them he can really be a difference-maker. 

According to fangraphs, he threw 192 pitches in 2021, 247 in 2022 and 387 so far in 2023. While he’s improved from a rate of 61% strike throwing in 2021 to 63% so far this year, that’s still nowhere near good enough to find himself climbing the minor league ladder, but if he can figure out how to get closer to 70% and can be effectively wild rather than just wild, he can become an extremely usable high-leverage bullpen piece given the stuff that he has.

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