Re: [情報] THE ATHLETIC 搬運工

看板Cubs作者Zamned (QQ)時間5年前 (2019/02/06 10:10)推噓0(0推 0噓 0→)

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Is Nico Hoerner the next big bat to come through the Cubs’ system? When the Cubs selected Stanford shortstop Nico Hoerner with the 24th pick in the first round of the amateur draft last June, the general consensus was they had reached for an infielder with minimal power who might not stick at a premium position. “It looks like a reach,” one rival area scout texted me. “But I trust them on college position players, so let’s see.” That scout said his amateur department had Hoerner near the back end of the top 100 draft-eligible prospects that summer. Another high-ranking official outside the Cubs organization expressed a similar sentiment, suggesting they weren’t high on Hoerner, but adding that they were intrigued given the Cubs’ amateur evaluation skills when it comes to position players. Seven months later, Hoerner has the early makings of a scouting and talent-evaluation win for the Cubs. Hoerner first piqued the Cubs’ interest back in the summer of 2017. He was among the league leaders during a strong Cape Cod season, but there were still questions about his power. Hoerner was playing for the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox and five of Hoerner’s six home runs that summer came at home in one of the most offensive-friendly ballparks in the Cape. The Cubs scouts left that summer with Hoerner on their radar, but were unsure whether he was a first-round talent. It wouldn’t be long before he started answering those questions for the Cubs. Early in the spring, director of amateur scouting Matt Dorey saw Hoerner and immediately told national cross-checker Sam Hughes to keep an eye on him. When Hughes headed to Austin, Texas to see a matchup between Stanford and Texas that would feature numerous draft prospects, Dorey told Hughes that Hoerner was “growing on him.” Hughes was looking forward to seeing Hoerner in a different environment. “With Pac-12 baseball, a lot of the places you go the attendance is light,” Hughes said. “It’s not a tremendous college atmosphere like it is at University of Texas or some of the schools in the SEC. I was super pumped watching Nico on Friday, just his preparation. He was different. It was different with him. It wasn’t a whole bunch of college, rah-rah stuff. You could see how determined and focused he was in his preparation. He knew he was on a big stage playing in front of a ton of people and he was locked in the entire weekend.” Over the three games Hughes watched, Hoerner collected seven hits — including a double and a homer — and one walk over 15 plate appearances. And according to Hughes’ notes from the weekend, Hoerner reached base eight times, but he “dominated” 12 of those plate appearances. The fascination in the Cubs’ amateur department only grew from there. They’ d been watching so many players in the Cape Cod League that they weren’t sure exactly what Hoerner was. As they focused in on him during the spring, they saw more and more of what they liked. They had more opportunities to get multi-day looks at him and could see that he’d put the hard work in during the fall and winter to put himself in great physical shape to get ready for the spring season. It didn’t matter to them that the game power wasn’t showing up consistently. The scouts saw something. “The ball came off his bat in a way that made you say, ‘This guy has power, ’” Hughes said. “I got one of his two home runs last year, but he hit the ball extremely hard.” As June approached and the scouts were holed away preparing for the draft, they came together with the research and development department and finally had data to back up what their eyes were telling them. “Turns out, we get in the draft room and our R&D department was hyping his exit velocities and stuff,” Hughes said. “It ended up being the perfect marriage. Our scouting looks suggested he hadn’t tapped into his power yet, but we thought there were things to be done in the player development department because he’s a strong dude who centers the ball frequently. We felt he’d tap into power sooner than later. “Getting Nico up top, we were all elated in the draft room. The more time we spent talking about it, the more clear it became that if he fell to us, we’d be thrilled to get him.” Not long after the Cubs surprised some and snagged Hoerner with their pick late in the first round, general manager Jed Hoyer spoke with the media about what went into their decision. “His exit velocity has been really good,” Hoyer said last June. “He hits the ball low at this point and he’s been hitting a lot of line drives. His launch angle isn’t very high. We like the fact that he’s a strong kid. He’ s twitchy. He’s got bat speed. We talk about it all the time — guys growing into power. That’s not just kids out of high school. That’s also kids in college. And we feel like he is a guy that will probably grow into some power. ” It’s the type of positive talk one hears frequently from a front-office executive after a draft. But now the Cubs have some actual results to point to to back up not only their decision to take Hoerner, but also the plaudits they were throwing his way at the time. It takes more than just nice exit velocity for a player to reach his potential, though. The Cubs had to do their homework on his makeup. Dorey consulted with mental skills coordinator John Baker, who played for Stanford head coach David Esquer at Berkeley and the coach raved to Baker about Hoerner ’s work ethic. From the very top of the amateur department with Jason McLeod and Dorey to cross-checkers like Hughes and Shane Farrell all the way down to area scout Gabe Zappin, the Cubs did their usual detective work on Hoerner. Those results combined with what they learned from research and development reinforced their decision. “We used a lot of different sources of information to kind of triangulate to make sure we were not just falling in love with the Stanford background,” Dorey said soon after Hoerner was drafted. “We actually got to know who he was off the field. (But) this guy is a great baseball player with tools. It’ s just not wrapped in like the prototypical first-round frame.” The next step was working to develop Hoerner to try to maximize his skillset. The Cubs knew they could get more out of Hoerner, but they didn’t immediately start trying to change him. Instead, Hoerner said, they trusted him to better himself. “I give the Cubs a lot of credit for really not giving me too much information,” Hoerner said. “This summer they just let me play and the fall as well. I wasn’t really pushed. It wasn’t a lot of input. That freedom let me figure things out naturally. When you start to figure things out on your own, that’s when you really understand it.” Hoerner laughs when he hears all the talk about launch angle. “Never in my life have I wanted to hit ground balls,” he said. “I don’t see it as a revolution. You want to hit home runs from the day you’re born. But it’s about understanding my body.” What Hoerner has learned is that during college he spent a lot of time trying to adjust his swing rather than doing what naturally came to him. He ended up closing his stance a little bit in the fall in Arizona and he said the change has let his body move more freely. Hoerner’s development had the potential to be stunted a bit when his season ended prematurely in July with a left elbow injury. It required a PRP injection and Hoerner went home for three weeks and did very little work. He then went out to Arizona, where he immediately began lower-body workouts. When he was fully healthy, he was chosen to play in the Arizona Fall League. “I went into it with the mindset of development,” Hoerner said. “It’s a league I was really fortunate to be in in my first year of pro ball. It was an opportunity to perform at the highest level of baseball I’ve ever played and learn from things I already do well and also the things I wasn’t up to par yet. It gave me a lot of clarity throughout the rest of the offseason on what I need to work on.” Hoerner opened eyes around baseball with his performance with the Mesa Solar Sox. He slashed .337/.362/.506 in 94 plate appearances with four doubles, four triples and a home run. That helped propel him onto some top-100 prospect lists. He made very slight tweaks in his mechanics to show some more in-game power. Scouts saw a consistent and accurate defender at shortstop who made up for a slightly underwhelming arm with a really quick exchange and release. The more they watched him play, the more the buzz became that the Cubs had found a gem later in the first round. He’s put on a few pounds of “good weight” and Hoerner is learning how to use his hands better in his swing, getting slightly more separation from his body. That allows him to get more leverage and impact the ball more frequently in the air. At instructs, minor league hitting coordinator Chris Valaika worked with Hoerner to focus a little more on contact point. The idea isn’t about getting the ball in the air, but rather getting Hoerner comfortable pulling the ball. When he does pull the ball and puts it in the air, it’s about making sure he gets that proper spin and true carry, rather than pulling the ball with topspin. In the video above, you can see Hoerner stop his follow-through short, but that’s part of the process. “That kind of emphasizes contact point and being powerful behind the ball,” Hoerner said. “In that, my finish is especially high. I try to go through the ball, to the middle of the field. At game speed, I don’t know where my finish is. It’s an exaggerated feeling, more about being behind the ball, through the ball and the middle of the field rather than focusing on the finish.” Hoerner said he’s constantly talking to Valaika and appreciates how their interactions are more like conversations rather than a coach pushing ideas on him. “It feels like I’m learning it,” Hoerner said. “I’m taking it in in a way that I feel like I’m adding to my own process rather than someone just forcing stuff on me.” Hoerner is also using new data available to him that wasn’t accessible back in his college days, while not letting it overwhelm him. Hoerner isn’t quite as advanced as previous college draft picks the Cubs have made, but he’s moving quicker than many expected. Despite making just 17 plate appearances at Low-A South Bend before having his season cut short, there’s a good chance he’ll start the season in High-A Myrtle Beach, where fellow shortstop and highly thought of prospect Aramis Ademan is expected to be as well. But the Cubs won’t fret about hindering either player’s development; it’s just the start of the process of them learning some defensive versatility. Hoerner understands there’s a long line of quality position players — Kris Bryant, Kyle Schwarber, Ian Happ — who quickly shot through the Cubs’ system after being drafted, but he’s in no rush to get to the big leagues. “I have a lot of goals,” Hoerner said. “But it’s not based on what level I ’m at. That’s out of my control. I have a lot of trust in the Cubs, especially how they handle hitters that they’ve drafted out of college. They ’ve got a pretty track record with that.” -- やっ..........！！！！！！止めろペイモンこの野郎～～～～～～っ地獄でいきなり聖書なんえ読み上げやがってえ~~~~~~~~~っ！！殺すえおっ！！ -- ※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc), 來自: 59.115.133.141 ※ 文章網址: https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/Cubs/M.1549419023.A.138.html