NEWSLETTER
The offensive performance this year from Chicago Cubs prospect Moises Ballesteros shouldn’t have caught anyone by surprise. He was, after all, the Cubs’ player of the year on the positional side last year. He’d already broken out in a big way.
… it’s just that, you know, the DEGREE to which he has performed this year is just so over the top that I think you would’ve been love-drunk to try to project it in advance. This is a 20-year-old catching prospect who destroyed Double-A with tremendous results and peripherals (.299/.372/.495/153 wRC+, 9.9% BB, 14.8% K, .196 ISO), and who is well on his way to doing the same dang thing at Triple-A (.366/.409/.561/150 wRC+, 6.8% BB, 20.5% K, .195 ISO). Ballesteros isn’t just one of the younger players to reach Triple-A, he’s one of the youngest to have this degree of success in the last decade.
Typically, the only prospects who put up THESE kinds of numbers at Double-A and Triple-A at age 20 are super-prospects. You know the type, the guys who wind up reaching the big leagues at just 20 or 21, and are already well-known nationally because the hype has gotten deafening.
So why hasn’t that happened with Ballesteros? Like I said, he was already very much on the radar last year, so why hasn’t his supernova season exploded his name onto the national scene?
Well, those aren’t open questions. Not really. Because we know the answer: it’s not entirely certain that he can stay at catcher in the years ahead at the highest level.
Unlike the other super prospects whom everyone knew could at least play a corner outfield or corner infield spot, there have long been questions about whether Ballesteros can play any position long-term at the highest level. And if he becomes a true bat-only guy, then even with his incredible numbers – and scouting projections on that bat, too – his future value drops dramatically, making him feel a lot less like a super prospect. As excited as I am for his future, I do understand why his presence has not been picked up by the national folks in a way that is consistent with his numbers. Defensive ability and position matter.
As we recently discussed, though, I was pretty excited to hear that the Cubs were planning to increase Moises Ballesteros’s work behind the plate upon his arrival at Triple-A. To me, that’s an indicator that the Cubs are committed to giving Ballesteros a real shot to become a big-league-passable catcher sooner rather than later.
His Triple-A manager is already convinced:
‘“If you just look at him, you think, ‘Oh God,’ you know, because he is not your prototypical athletic body, but he is super, super athletic, believe it or not,” Pevey said. “And he can run.”
But Ballesteros is far from a finished product. Pevey said he still has to improve his footwork and his ability to receive pitches at the bottom of the zone. To make sure he gets that work in, he’ll catch three or four days per week in Triple-A.’
To be sure, I don’t know that Ballesteros’s manager was going to say much that wasn’t positive. But I do appreciate that he touched directly on the reality of what holds Ballesteros back in the minds of prospect evaluators: he’s 5’7″ and 215 lbs, according to the article, and when you’re at those marks at age-20, it’s hard to confidently project out what the athleticism is going to be in a few years. Frankly, it’s a body type that historically has not aged well on the positional side (at any position). In other worse, Ballesteros may be athletic enough right now to compensate, but will that still be true when he’s a little older?
So, ideally, you’d give him PLENTY of time to work behind the plate at Triple-A to really hone his craft, and become the best catcher he can possibly be. That’ll create some margin for error, so to speak, if the athleticism takes a hit in the years ahead.
What’s difficult is that Ballesteros’s bat has been SO GOOD and so advanced that the Cubs have had to push him aggressively up the ladder to keep it developing. That means he has precious little experience catching professional pitchers as compared to peers who are on the cusp of the big leagues. That makes for a challenging development experience, and it’s really hard to imagine him coming to the big leagues and succeeding as a catcher without more time.
To that point, then, I have a little trouble seeing Ballesteros called up in the second half at any point. The Cubs would have to weigh the expected value of his bat (plus development there) against the potential that his catching development could take a bit of a hit at the worst possible time. If the Cubs were actually trying to win upon his arrival, they probably couldn’t have him behind the plate too often. Sure, there’s side work and communication with the coaching staff and all that, but in-game experience? He might not get a ton of it while the Cubs have him focus on adjusting offensively to the best pitching he’s ever faced.
It isn’t impossible, though. The bat may simply demand it, especially if the Cubs want to know whether he can be a half-time catcher from day one in 2025. Moreover, maybe he’s already more passable behind the plate than we even realize (even receiving big league pitchers and facing big league runners). Maybe he’s just an incredibly gifted baseball player whose talents allow him to advance rapidly on BOTH sides of the ball. I can’t rule it out, given what he’s done.
On the whole, my gut says the Cubs would prefer to keep Moises Ballesteros at Triple-A the rest of the way, doing a whole lot of catching. Then, in the offseason, they probably try to add a relatively cheap one-year veteran to pair with Miguel Amaya in case Ballesteros isn’t quite yet ready in Spring Training. But if he is – that is to say, if he shows he can even be at least a little below average behind the plate – then you take the training wheels off and say, OK, Mo, you’re opening the season as our catcher three days a week, and you’re DH’ing two or three other days each week. Go rake, please and thanks.
