How Amaya earned trust in his first Cubs stint
This story was excerpted from Jordan Bastian’s Cubs Beat e-newsletter. To learn the total e-newsletter, click on right here. And subscribe to get it repeatedly in your inbox.
CHICAGO — Hayden Wesneski admitted he overprepared for his outing towards the Marlins on Sunday. With rookie catcher Miguel Amaya behind the plate, Wesneski thought he may need to paved the way with in-game pitch choices.
In the primary inning, Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy observed Wesneski shake off one in every of Amaya’s indicators. After the pitcher agreed to the following name, he gave up successful. It prompted a fast dialog within the dugout between frames.
“I said, ‘Hey, what was the thought process there?’” Hottovy stated. “He goes, ‘Well, I thought I saw something, and I wanted to take some of the stress off Amaya to call a game.’”
From that second on, Wesneski determined to close his thoughts off and observe Amaya’s lead, handing the game-calling keys to the 24-year-old catcher. The righty allowed only one run over six innings in a powerful efficiency, and Amaya went on to deal with 10 of the 14 innings that night time.
“I’m telling you right now, that guy, he’s very prepared,” Wesneski stated. “He’s very mature. And I’m impressed with his game calling. That’s one thing that’s really tough moving up through the ranks. It’s not necessarily the framing and the blocking. It’s like, the playing with the game. He’s playing the game with it. And it actually blew my mind.”
Amaya — ranked No. 14 on Pipeline’s Top 30 prospects listing for the Cubs — emerged as a callup from Double-A Tennessee when Yan Gomes wanted to be positioned on MLB’s seven-day concussion injured listing. On Wednesday, Gomes was activated and Amaya was optioned to Triple-A Iowa.
“He did a tremendous job,” Gomes stated. “He got nothing but praise from everyone here. I talked to him [before he was optioned]. He impressed a lot of people.”
In his six-game stick with Chicago, Amaya earned excessive reward from Cubs’ pitchers, the teaching workers and supervisor David Ross. He absorbed info from veteran catchers Tucker Barnhart and Gomes in pregame conferences, utilized suggestions through the video games and made changes when mandatory. In Amaya’s 31 innings behind the plate, Cubs pitchers logged a 2.32 ERA.
“Catching all these guys,” Amaya stated, “and them trusting my calls, that gives me so much confidence.”
Amaya has been a highly-touted prospect for a number of seasons, however accidents restricted him to 63 video games throughout the 2021-22 campaigns. He was off to a powerful begin at Double-A this 12 months, hitting .273 with 4 homers and a 1.070 OPS in 13 video games earlier than the Cubs got here calling.
Ross, a longtime catcher within the Majors, stated he was impressed with how Amaya labored with the pitchers, stayed calm in key moments defensively and confirmed off stable plate self-discipline with loads of hard-hit balls in play.
“Miggy’s definitely put himself on the map,” Ross stated.
Hottovy stated one other good thing about Amaya’s stint within the Majors can be heading again to the farm system with first-hand information of how the large league staff prepares and operates. The info obtained in Chicago conferences can now be utilized higher in his game-planning with pitchers in Iowa.
And when the Cubs want a catcher once more, they’ve much more confidence in Amaya having the ability to deal with the job.
“Winning those guys over and having the veteran guys commenting on his calmness was really impressive,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer stated. “No doubt, it provides much more confidence [in Amaya] going ahead.
“I mean, he’s a guy that’s been a top prospect for a long time — he just had major injuries. Hopefully, now he can stay healthy. I think a healthy version of him can play catcher in the big leagues for a long time.”
