When Tony Cougoule joined the Chicago Cubs in 2020, the group adopted a transparent objective.
Infuse the system with electrical pitchers who possess high quality stuff. Cougoule, High-A South Bend’s pitching coach, has seen firsthand this season the kind of high-caliber pitchers who’re making their journey by means of the Cubs farm system.
The group’s improvement of the pitching infrastructure over the previous couple of years has began to repay by means of dynamic homegrown arms reaching the majors, notably evident the final two seasons.
“It’s just that time we’re in in the organization,” Cougoule lately informed the Tribune. “It’s an exciting time for pitching development and for our department.”
Three of the Cubs’ minor-league associates reached the postseason this season — Low-A Myrtle Beach, South Bend and Double-A Tennessee — giving a number of the franchise’s prime prospects a possibility to proceed to learn to win earlier than they expertise that stage of stress within the huge leagues.
The South Bend crew is especially loaded, that includes 9 of the Cubs’ prime 30 prospects, together with 4 of their finest pitching prospects. Two others, left-handers Jordan Wicks and DJ Herz, additionally spent greater than half the season at South Bend.
RHP Porter Hodge
Consistency has been a staple of Hodge’s success since a mid-July promotion to South Bend.
Hodge has allowed two runs or much less in seven of his eight outings, and within the lone begin exterior of that qualifier, he surrendered three earned runs. Suppressing extra contact and enhancing his stroll fee from Low A to enhance his 32.1 Okay% have been a part of the 21-year-old’s system for fulfillment.
Hodge’s different issue for his consistency?
“I call it ‘the dog mentality,’ ” he informed the Tribune. “It’s helped me focus rather than taking a pitch here and there. Just always paying attention to every pitch and not letting off the gas.”
Hodge attributes this strategy to him changing into extra mentally conscious throughout spring coaching. He began meditating and studying extra books. Addressing the psychological facet has aided his nice stuff. Hodge’s slicing fastball and sweeping slider play effectively off one another. He additionally mixes in a changeup, which he referred to as a piece in progress, to forestall hitters from sitting on his slider. Hodge, a Thirteenth-round choose in 2019, is studying to pitch together with his complete repertoire, together with determining the very best conditions to include his curveball.
“Porter is a guy that is going to find the answer that he needs — he’s not shy about communicating,” Cougoule stated. “He needs to be nice. It begins with what he did within the offseason. He appears like a distinct individual simply together with his regiment and what he did within the weight room.
“His stuff has ticked up tremendously this year, so it’s like, how do I pitch with those new weapons? And the more he sees ‘I don’t have to pick around the zone, I can get in the strike zone,’ the sooner he’s going to know, ‘Hey, I can just go after guys.’ ”
RHP Luis Devers
Plenty of numbers illustrate how Devers has thrived since getting referred to as as much as South Bend in early July. An eye-popping 1.05 ERA in 11 video games (eight begins). A 6.1 BB% and 24 Okay%. A career-best 0.799 WHIP.
Devers has put all of it collectively at High A.
“He’s a pitcher in the highest sense,” Cougoule stated. “The velocity is not going to overpower anybody. The breaking ball is not going to get a ton of swing and miss, but he’ll throw the changeup in any count. He’ll mix tempos, whether he’ll quick pitch out of the wind. He just has an elite feel for the strike zone.”
Devers’ quick arm motion creates efficient deception, even with out elite fastball velocity. Cougoule believes Devers, 22, nonetheless may see added velocity as his physique continues to mature and get stronger.
“He’s already pretty special,” Cougoule stated. “He oozes confidence. And it’s funny because, again, when you see the starters that we send out there, if you just look at pure stuff, he may be on the bottom of that list. But I think from a confidence level and who he is and what he thinks himself, he’s probably at the top of the list. And that goes a long way to things you just can’t quantify in baseball.”
RHP Daniel Palencia
For Palencia, all the things he needs to do on the mound comes again to confidence.
“You have to feel confident in every pitch,” Palencia informed the Tribune.
Acquired from the Oakland Athletics in July 2021, Palencia is armed with a fastball that hits triple digits. He credit his fastball velocity to physique management stemming from his offseason weight-room work in Venezuela.
“Being a pitcher is hard because you have to be strong but you have to be flexible,” Palencia stated. “You have to find the right middle point between them.”
Cougoule described Palencia’s work ethic as “second to none,” and people behind-the-scenes efforts have helped him produce a stellar season. Cougoule pointed to a mechanical adjustment from Palencia that retains him extra affected person together with his decrease half so his energy can translate to the mound.
“You can see a little bit more of of concentration of getting into that back leg before he gets forward, that’s been a big move for him,” Cougoule stated.
Palencia, 22, is a giant arm with tantalizing potential. He completed the common season on a excessive word, not permitting a run in 5 of his final six begins.
RHP Kohl Franklin
It’s all about innings for Franklin.
Staying wholesome and gaining expertise was the group’s focus for the hard-throwing 23-year-old. Franklin entered the 12 months having not pitched in a minor-league recreation since August 2019 due to the canceled 2020 season and an indirect damage that value him all of final 12 months. While Franklin’s numbers aren’t nice (6.88 ERA and 1.630 WHIP in 23 begins), his 69⅓ innings for South Bend this 12 months exceed his whole from his first two minor-league seasons when he totaled 50⅔ innings between 2018-19.
“He set himself up for super-high expectations for what he did in spring training,” Cougoule famous. “He goes out there his first outing and he touches 100 mph and he dominates and you just think, ‘Oh, it’s going to be easy from here.’ But we all know this game is very, very difficult, especially when you take three years away from someone.”
Aside from the lengthy layoff, Cougoule attributes a few of Franklin’s numbers to unhealthy luck, citing batted-ball information. Heading into 2023 with a full season of expertise behind him, the Cubs anticipate extra refinement and improvement of Franklin’s stuff.
“It’s easy to say with that stuff that he should dominate, but I think how he’s handled the year, learning to be a professional for a full season, learning how to get through a full season healthy, that’s invaluable experience,” Cougoule stated. “Of course he wants to go out there and dominate, but he’s had some flashes.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com