When the Cubs took pitcher Koen Moreno out of Panther Creek High School in North Carolina in the fifth round of the 2020 MLB draft, Baseball America’s Carlos Collazo could not contain his excitement for the pick. In fact, Collazo seemed to be grinning from ear to ear explaining why he liked the young right-handed starter.
Basic Info
Height – 6-foot-2
Weight – 170
Throws – Right
Age – 18 (turns 19 on August 1)
For most of the players selected in the draft, there’s usually a large base of statistics and information to track a player’s development. With the pandemic, that really cuts into the amount of information that one can find on a high school player. Still, there was plenty of information about the potential of Koen Moreno.
The Cubs told MLB.com the following about Moreno:
“We liked him last summer and saw him progress to touching 94. The scouts and pitch data are in agreement that there’s promise to his breaking ball as well, especially as his body adds strength and his repertoire gains more power.”
Koen did not pitch the spring, He was able to get a lot of work in his first three years of high school. Even last summer he had to play quite a bit on the showcase circuit even playing in Fenway park.
This much is clear, in just one year, Moreno improved 6 miles an hour on his fastball in 2019 going from 87 during the season in high school to 93 in showcases in the fall. In addition, a simple video search on Twitter shows Moreno pumping a lot of weights in addition to showing some serious hops as well as knocking down some treys and lifting weights.
It’s hard not to like this pick. He’s young, he’s very athletic, he is hard-working, and he’s actually got a pretty low mileage arm for a high school kid. At only 175 pounds, he’s got a lot of room to fill out over the next few years.
Had there been baseball this summer, Moreno probably would’ve been relegated to pitch 20 to 25 innings in Mesa.
It’s going to be interesting to see how his development is handled. Will the Cubs take it slow with him and have him pitch in Mesa next summer or will he just stay in extended spring training for a few months and then head to South Bend in late June/early July?
While the Cubs have been known to advance hitting prospects to low class A fairly quickly, they have not really done so with too many pitching prospects. Then again, with no short season class A affiliate next summer, the Cubs might not have another option. If that’s the case, the camera and I will take one for the team and go cover him for you and will act happy about it, too, because we will be.
Cubs Central 