Let me say up top that the most important thing from Moises Ballesteros’s debut was the debut, itself. I am very excited for the future of his bat, and I am doubly excited that the Cubs did not mess around with the opportunity to call him up.
It was absolutely fun to see Moises Ballesteros make his debut, and I hope he’s at DH every single day that Ian Happ is out.
I also think it would be unreasonable not to mention how it went. Not every debut has a storybook moment, and that’s completely fine. But it’s also true that not every debut has such a clear through line. In Ballesteros’s case, it was how the Marlins’ pitchers immediately took such clear advantage of a young player.
EVERY SINGLE at bat followed the same script: Ballesteros took the first pitch, and then grounded out weakly on the second pitch. More than that, every single second pitch was off-speed and down or outside the zone. Literally all four at bats went exactly the same. It was kinda wild watching the carbon copy happen each time.
Hopefully someone is having a conversation with Ballesteros today about how pitchers in this league are instantly going to take advantage of his approach. Particularly with off-speed/breaking pitches down, where his contact ability is going to put the ball in play, but the combination of his swing plane and the pitch type are going to guarantee ground balls.
The good news is that Moises Ballesteros has not always been a SUPER high groundball guy, but the bad news is that he was sporting a groundball rate near 50% at Triple-A this year, despite all his success overall. In the big leagues, farrrr more of those grounders will find a glove, and he certainly doesn’t have the speed to register many infield hits.
I want to reiterate that this is just a small note based on one game. It’s not a criticism or anything like that – more a compliment to how the advanced scouting in this league is going to be immediately on point. And the job of a young player, and the team supporting him, is to make the necessary adjustments and otherwise let the natural talent shine. Ballesteros is a wildly talented hitter, and I don’t think it’ll take more than one game for him to understand what’s happening. A reminder, perhaps, that although this call up isn’t explicitly about Ballesteros’s long-term development, that doesn’t mean development can’t or shouldn’t happen incidentally.
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