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

Taking a look at the Chicago Cubs prospects that have stood out over the past week of games for the team's minor-league affiliates.

AAA Hitter of the week

OF Yonathan Perlaza (24 Years Old)

.357/.400/.571 1 BB, 3 2B, 3 R, 1-1 SB

This could easily have gone to Nelson Velazquez this week. Velazquez had more games played, more plate appearances, more hits and more runs scored. However, Perlaza hit the ball harder, and when you can say that when comparing someone with Velazquez (whose calling card is his power) that’s saying something. 

Perlaza strikes out too much. He has a career K% around 25% which isn’t going to hack it at the major league level. That being said, he’s had a WRC+ over 100 every year since 2019, and outside of the COVID season, he’s moved up a level every year since then as well, never letting his K rates nor BB rates change much. The problem this year (compared to the previous two seasons) is that Perlaza’s ISO which had been as high as .236 last year for AA Tennessee, is down closer to his career expectations at .183. 

This week that wasn’t the case though. Perlaza had a .234 ISO as he hit three doubles and stole a base on his only attempt. He’s a switch hitter with a fair amount of pop (23 homers in AA last season) and enough speed to be dangerous (on pace for more than 30 SBs this year). If he continues to have weeks like this one, he could be a name we hear at Wrigley sooner rather than later.

AAA Pitcher of the week

RHP Hayden Wesneski (25 Years Old)

1 G, 5 IP, 0.00 ERA, 0 H, 4 BB, 5 K

It’s hard to pick a pitcher of the week when so many guys only go one time, but this week it was easy. Could it have gone to Kyle Hendricks and his stellar outing just a few hours earlier that our own Maddie Hartley wrote about recently? Sure. But at this point in his career Cubs fans know who Kyle Hendricks is. That hasn’t been the case with Wesneski.

I won’t lie, when the Cubs traded five years of team control of Scott Effross and his funky delivery for a mid-tier prospect (even one in the Yankees system), I was a little frustrated. In my opinion at the time, the best-case scenario for such a prospect was for him to be what Effross already was. 

Then came Spring Training and Wesneski had all of us wondering if he could instantly become a part of the rotation. 

Then came the up-and-down start to the regular season in which he looked like a legitimate major league starter against the lowly Oakland A’s, but looked completely overmatched by the likes of Seattle (couldn’t get out of the second inning) and most recently Minnesota (served up four home runs). 

Hopefully, this week is a sign of the next chapter beginning because he was literally unhittable on Saturday night. The walks are concerning, sure, but the Cubs have a 25-year-old mid-rotation starter sitting in Iowa, hungry for his next chance at the Bigs and I can’t remember that being the case in the last decade (if not longer).

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.

More Chicago Cubs News