Via a Chicago Cubs press release, the team today promoted catcher Willson Contreras from Triple-A Iowa. Catcher Tim Federowicz has been designated for assignment. Contreras, who will wear uniform number 40, will be available for the Cubs this afternoon as they begin their three-game series against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Wrigley Field.
Thus we give you the dossier/prospect profile on Willson Contreras.
From about 2011 to winter of 2015, writing about the Chicago Cubs, the parent club, elicited this in your page views chart:
While at the same time, articles on prospects, on the Cubs minor leaguers did this:
With the team projected to win as many as 103 games this season, no one’s really thinking about prospects right now. It’s win now mode, with a frame of mind focused on the present. That’s how it should be, but that doesn’t mean the future needs to be overlooked. We kick off the 2016 Cubs Prospect Profile series with Willson Contreras and Oscar de la Cruz.
ESPN.com MLB senior writer Keith Law appeared on a media call to discuss the top prospects of 2016. He was asked about and surprised everybody by exceeding expectations.
Law was asked if the Cubs’ scouting department found something that other people missed, or if it’s development? Furthermore, can great development personnel turn marginal prospects into great players?
Law’s response:
“I would be inclined to give credit more to development on those guys, because I think most organizations will have players roughly that physical talent, because the general approach to scouting players, both the players you identified are Latin American, signed as free agents in Latin America, and most organizations will find athletes down there or they’ll kind kids who have good fastballs and don’t have a heck of a lot else.”
“In the case of Contreras, he was in the system for a long time actually, so I knew his name, and I even went back to my notes from the last couple of years from the Cubs’ system, which includes conversations with people in the Cubs’ front office.”
“No one was talking about him or de la Cruz for that matter, but Contreras in particular, you think a guy who’s this good, his name would have come up at some point, even in the context of, hey, we have this really athletic catcher Willson Contreras, keep an eye on him, maybe someday he’ll turn into something, and this was the year where if you ask the Cubs’ people, too, they’ll say the same thing, that he really ?? everything kind of clicked for him at once.
“It wasn’t so much that he wasn’t working before this year, but this was the year where all the work started to turn into real results.”
“And the one thing that I think he still needs to work on but something that can also improve with player development, is just the mechanics of receiving, framing, calling a game. He can throw. He can throw fine, and certainly he’s got a lot of energy behind the plate. But he is not a very polished receiving catcher yet.”
“But with everything else that he provides, even if he just becomes sort of a frenzied receiver but can do everything else, you’re still going to be really happy with him as your everyday catcher.”
“And the one thing I’ll say about both these players, too, is that the Cubs’ people across the board rave about both of these guys in terms of makeup, not just work ethic but intelligence in terms of the game of baseball, and I think that’s a huge separator and probably the hardest thing in the world to scout.”
“How can you possibly know a kid that you haven’t signed yet well enough to say, this guy has got great acumen for the game.”
“This guy has got a deeper understanding as a 16 year old than all these other 16 year olds we’re trying to talk to. I can’t possibly imagine how any international scout could make those decisions.”
“I think that’s probably why you see most teams really just scouting down there for athleticism and physical tools and projection, and you’re just rolling the dice on what kind of kids you’ve got.”
By the way, it’s really hard to say “Oscar de la” and then not say Hoya, and then say Cruz instead. Very very difficult.
Here’s more from the Cubs press release on Willson Contreras:
The 24-year-old Contreras joins the first major league roster of his career after batting .350 (71-for-203) with 16 doubles, three triples, nine home runs and 43 RBI in 54 games with Iowa. He has turned in a .439 on-base percentage and .591 slugging percentage, good for a 1.030 OPS. Among Pacific Coast League leaders, Contreras ranks third in on-base percentage and OPS and fifth in batting average and slugging. The right-handed hitter joins the Cubs riding a 20-game hitting streak, during which he posted a .383 (31-for-81) batting average.
Contreras was named Chicago’s 2015 Minor League Player of the Year after winning the Southern League batting title with Double-A Tennessee. Contreras batted .333 (151-for-454) with 34 doubles, four triples, eight homers and 75 RBI in 126 games during his first-ever stop at Double-A. He was named to both the mid-season and post-season Southern League All Star teams as he ranked second in the league in doubles, RBI and on-base percentage (.413) and third with a .478 slugging percentage. Later in the year, he was named an Arizona Fall League All Star.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication.
He also consistently appears on numerous talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram