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Oh yeah, you got it, CC. There’s Wander Franco, and no one else is close.
How anybody above the high school level, much less a 17-year-old, can register an isolated slugging of .250+ while fanning less than 6% of the time is beyond me. It just does not happen. Well, maybe it happens. I didn’t even check! But I doubt if it’s happened 5 times in the last 20 years at any level of pro baseball.
Among Appy League guys with 180 plate appearances this year, Franco is *easily* the hardest to strike out, and also has the 4th-best isolated slugging. Crazy. (And like Nunez, he didn’t even turn 17 until March. So they’re both young-ish 17-year-olds, on top of everything else.)
As for 2019, C-27, I would think Johnson City, yes. But I’m sure the club will wait until Spring Training to see how Nunez looks. Maybe he gets the Daric Barton Treatment. You may recall that Barton –as an 18-year-old, like Nunez will be next year — was kept in Extended Spring until mid-late May or so, then sent straight to Peoria rather than a short season team. Man, I wish there were such a thing as full-season rookieball, so guys like Nunez (and Ivan Herrera and Joerlin De Los Santos and Jhon Torres and Ramon Mendoza and Adanson Cruz, et. al.,) could get at-bats in April and May against their age-peers. But then, smarter folks than I have probably considered such a scheme, and thought better of it. Maybe too much of a physical grind for the kids?
At any rate, assuming Gorman starts next year in the Midwest League, I could see Nolan getting promoted after 30 or 40 games, and Nunez inheriting the Peoria hot corner. But even if Nunez spends all of 2019 in the Appy League, he’ll still be plenty young for that level of competition.
With his homer today, Nunez has more or less clinched the DSL Triple Crown, despite missing nearly 40% of the season due to his not signing until July. He is the first DSL batter in at least 13 years to hit .400, and also the first to slug at least .650. (But he isn’t going to slug .650, or .670, or .700, or .730. In fact he’s going to comfortably slug over .750.)
Today’s was the 5th homer for Nunez in his last 6 games, and 9th in 17 games, versus just 10 strikeouts. Over those 17 games he hit ~.400/.500/.900.
Finally, at Malcom Nunez’ MILB.com web page there are 27 different batting splits. Malcom’s worst split is his first inning line of .385/.442/.641 with 2 walks and 8 strikeouts.
Thanks for starting this thread, CC. Nunez is the second most impressive 17-year-old on the planet, and deserves much attention (and scrutiny).
Yeah, about that 5′ 11″ frame of his.
On the day the Cards signed him, Nunez was advertised at 6′ 1″ and somewhere between 190 and 200 pounds. This from Derrick Goold’s article:
“A strapping righthanded hitter, Nunez stood out above others in his age group because of a 6-foot-1 frame and a weight between 190 pounds and 200 pounds. In Cuba’s 15-and-under league, Nunez had an absurd 46 walks and only 9 strikeouts in 152 plate appearances.”
Entire article here: https://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/birdland/cardinals-headline-international-signings-with-lauded-cuban-slugger/article_23ccaaaa-7ebd-5905-8d17-7082b0e0aa1c.html
And this, from Jen Langosch/Jesse Sanchez at MLB.com:
“Standing at 6-foot-1 and 195 pounds, Nunez, 17, has a strong body and is physically mature. He has exhibited strength in his swing and displays projectable hitting ability and power. Overall, he’s known for his plate discipline and offensive instincts.”
Complete article: https://www.mlb.com/cardinals/news/cardinals-to-sign-malcom-nunez-of-cuba/c-283509766
Best that I can figure is someone told Nunez that people tend to shrink in their seventies. He misunderstood, and thought he was supposed to shrink at age seventeen.
Great question, Pugs. Which Cubs would I trade the kid for?
Not Almora, in large part because the Cards don’t need a defense-minded 2-3 WAR centerfielder. Bader looks like a better version of Almora right now. Maybe much better. And even though I’d rank Cub catching prospect Miguel Amaya well ahead of Nunez on an overall prospect list, I’m not sure I’d trade the latter for the former, because the Birds have numerous backstop prospects, including two I like better than Amaya — who happens to be the best Cub overall farmhand, and a top 60 or 70 guy.
One thing about Nunez, there’s of course a low, low floor, as in he never becomes a major leaguer, period. It could be that injuries get him, or his plate discipline collapses at the higher levels, or he can’t handle the plus-plus velocity he’ll face routinely in MLB these days. It could even be that his tremendous current strength is a Delvin Perez-style fraud. (Not that I have any reason AT ALL to believe this. But it is naïve to think these things aren’t going on. Obviously.)
But the other thing: for Malcom the offensive upside is star level. And stars are so very hard to grow from scratch, and even harder to trade for in the double wildcard era, when every year 22-25 teams think they have a shot at the playoffs. (Try to name a 4+-win player on a team that has no playoff shot this year, or next year.) So even if he’s got just a 5-10% chance to remain a distinctly better batter than Miguel Sano has been, I think you have to stick with him.
I think I evaded that question pretty well.
Malcom Nunez went 2-4 today, homering for the third game in a row. Like yesterday, the game log described it as a line drive to right field. That’s an opposite field liner for a homer, by a 17-year-old, in back-to-back tilts. Strong kid.
Season line now .422/.511/.782
Since his 4 strikeout game of July 20th: .470/.545/.840 in 123 trips to the plate
Over his last 14 games: .412/.516/.922 with 7 homers and 7 strikeouts
So, for any skeptics who think the sample size is too small to be truly 100% meaningful, it certainly appears that the longer Nunez is in the league, the better his numbers will get. In other words, if anything his overall OPS of nearly 1.300 may well underestimate his current talent level.
All of this in a league where no one of any age has slugged .650 or better since at least 2005. A league where the 17-year-old Miguel Sano hit .344/.463/.547, after which he was ranked the #60 overall prospect by Baseball America and #31 by Baseball Prospectus.
Sano had an elite scouting pedigree. Nunez has a very good scouting pedigree, and a lengthy record of clobbering the baseball in the Cuban Junior Leagues. And now Nunez’ performance has far exceeded Sano’s at the same age and level of competition.
I have Malcom Nunez 10th in the StL organization as of today, and in the top 120-140 among all prospects. He’ll move up on the Cardinal list once Tyler O’Neill’s eligibility is exhausted.
Per Ben Badler’s chat of two weeks ago: “Strong, physical player with plus raw power, huge arm at third base, and he always dominated in the Cuban junior leagues.”
So Badler tells us it’s a rocket arm, and the lack of errors would at least seem to imply an accurate one as well, in addition to sure hands. And then there’s the bat.
On the season he’s trying to be the first DSL guy to bat .400 since at least 2005 (records don’t go back further) and also the first to slug .650. But recently he’s been even better. Exactly one month ago today he fanned 4 times. Yup, Golden Sombrero. Since then he’s made 118 trips to the plate and batted .468/.543/.823. I’m not kidding.
Thanks a million, Brian!
So, give or take a day, the cast won’t be removed until sometime between Sept. 14 and Sept. 21. Sounds like diplomacy is the only thing stopping the club from formally declaring him out for the season.Wouldn’t putting him on the 60-day DL give the team more flexibility with the 40-man roster?
Pads,
Could you please provide a link to the source who says Fowler won’t even get the boot off until two weeks before the season ends? This is the first concrete information I’ve heard about his timetable. I admit I don’t watch the games much anymore, but I do read the P-D pretty diligently, and I haven’t seen any Fowler info at all.If he’s literally going to be in a boot for the next month, that is INCRDIBLE NEWS, the best I’ve heard since the day Fowler signed. (I didn’t pray for his bad health. I prayed and pray for his release or trade.)
Thanks a lot, Pads!
Thanks for the kind words, Pugs!
Booyah: I actually do think they’ll get rid of Fowler by this time next year, via trade or outright release. He’s blocking waaay too many other viable outfield options, and it’s only going to get more so.
Agreed, Nyquis. To me the distraction factor — and it’s rather similar with Holland — is nearly as counterproductive as the godawful performances. Solely due to their contracts, Fowler and Holland have become priorities in an odd sense. The club must keep them, therefore the manager MUST use them, and so must mentally contort himself into a position where using them isn’t completely insane.
But look at the secondary price that’s paid, when you keep bad players/pitchers around. You wind up under-using better pinch-hitters for instance, and OVERusing better relief arms. The terribleness and forced 25-man rostering of Cecil, Holland, and Gregerson has indirectly contributed to the unacceptable 86-inning pace of Jordan Hicks. (But don’t worry, he’ll blow his 105-MPH arm out long before he gets to 86 innings.)
The Cards do have to be more prudent with their dough than the Red Sox, that’s true 100%. But at this point in time the grotesque choice is pretty straightforward: the Cards can pay Dexter Fowler to be awful in St. Louis, or pay him to be awful for someone else. (Same with the wretched relief trio of Holland, Gregerson, and Cecil.)
The most depressing thing of this whole discussion, the really serious underlying problem, is what I wrote at another website earlier this afternoon. I am definitely vain enough to plagiarize myself, so here goes:
Resolved: Previously borderline brilliant St. Louis front office broke their brains when the Cards lost to the Cubs in the 2015 playoffs.
Since then, one bad move after another. Some seemed to make good sense at the time, while others were questionable or plain stupid from the get-go.
Leake, Cecil, Fowler, Ozuna, Gregerson, Holland, the firing of Lilliquist, the refusal to reassign Mabry to less mentally taxing responsibilities, rushing an A-Ball pitcher to the majors and placing him in the most physically precarious spot possible — high leverage relief.
Yes, there’s also Mikolas and Bud Norris. Maybe one or two other very minor moves. But on balance, The Horror.What’s wrong is that he might be washed up. His defense has never been good, so if he can’t post an above-average batting line, he has no value to a playoff contender — particularly one with outfield depth in both the majors and Triple-A.
What should be done with 32-year-old Dexter Fowler, who has 3.5 years and roughly $60M left on his contract? Well, what did ace GM Dave Dombrowski do last year with 30-year-old Pablo Sandoval, with 2.5 years and $50M left on his contract, when he realized that Sandoval was now a replacement=level player?
Dombrowski wisely got rid of him, upgrading the team’s talent base and eliminating a major distraction.
All things considered (batting, baserunning, glovework) Harrison Bader is almost certainly a better current MLB outfielder than Dexter Fowler — and the same could also be true of Jose Martinez and Tyler O’Neill, and even Yairo Munoz and Oscar Mercado.
Granted, I say all this from a position of extreme bias, as I despised the Fowler signing from the start. In fact I hated it so much that I immediately gave up on both the 2017 and 2018 seasons, and said so, and haven’t posted at this site since. But how could I pass up this comment thread?
Get Fowler, Holland, and Mabry out of the organization, and only good things will follow.
