Craig Counsell is not a guy who likes change. Despite the Cubs being mired in a 5-16 stretch, he, for the most part, keeps rolling out the same lineup over and over again. In fact, only Moises Ballesteros and Carson Kelly have gotten days off in the past week, with Miguel Amaya drawing two starts at catcher and Michael Conforto and Kevin Alcantara each getting one as the DH. Here’s my problem…They called up top prospect Pedro Ramirez to replace Matt Shaw almost two weeks ago, and they’ve gotten him 8 at-bats. Truthfully, there isn’t a spot for him to play regularly on the IF and he’s just providing depth, but hey Craig how about maybe we try providing a spark?
With Pedro Ramirez, they have a guy who seemingly had everything click this year in the minors, hitting 9 Home runs and stealing 19 bases in under 200 plate appearances. His OPS is at .942 at Iowa. So now you’ve got him riding the bench while Michael Busch and Moises Ballesteros block him. Why not let the kid play Craig and see what you have? In only 7 batted balls so far, he has a 57.1% hard-hit rate. I get it, small sample size, but there’s something there. He won a minor league gold glove at third base, so I could see him being able to handle short if they want to get Swanson a break.
For the purposes of this article, could Ramirez steal some bases? Well, he’s currently at 4th in the minors, and he hasn’t been there in two weeks. He is 19 for 21 on stolen bases in under 200 plate appearances! Sprint speed metrics don’t look high on Baseball Savant thus far, but I would guess at his age and size, he’s going to be above 28. Ft/sec once he gets established on Statcast.
Craig Counsell is gonna Prospblock most likely for now until Shaw comes back, but if there’s an injury to Swanson or Bregman, Ramirez could be back and stealing bags in no time. Keep your eyes peeled on this guy.
Here’s this week’s Stolen Bases Leaderboard
The Speed Dials
We’re 1 for 8 on the year as we nailed Ha-Seong Kim’s first stolen base of the year last time out.
Wednesday, June 3rd – Rangers vs Cardinals
Evan Carter – One of my earlier article features is my go-to guy today to swipe a base as he faces the Cardinals and Dustin May. His batting average isn’t moving much (It’s still awful at .171), but when he is getting on, he is taking off. He’s a perfect 9 for 9 stealing bases this year. Pedro Pages has been really good cutting down runners for the Cards, but Ivan Herrera has been awful, which is what I thought Jimmy Crooks was getting called up for, but Herrera caught Monday night, so who knows? Thursday, he’ll face off against prime target Andre Pallante, who allows .155 SB/IP and has an 83% success rate against.
Thursday, June 4th – Orioles vs Red Sox
Leody Taveras – The man keeps popping up and being useful and is playing almost every day right now in CF for the Orioles. He is 6 for 7 on the year stealing bases and still features a 29.1 Ft/Sec sprint speed. He’ll face Brayan Bello and the Red Sox, who allow just .085 SB/IP the last few years, but have had trouble in the past holding runners. Carlos Narvaez may have something to do with that, as he is in the top 1/4th of catchers on the throwing leaderboard.
