2013 Cubs Prospects in Review: Jae-Hoon Ha

In Commentary And Analysis, Minor Leagues by Sitrick50 Comments

jae-hoon-haJae-Hoon Ha was signed as an undrafted free agent in 2008 out of Jin Ju City, South Korea. He signed for a bonus of $225,000. He began his US professional career at Boise in 2009 at the age of 18. He was signed as a catcher and, reportedly, was moved to the outfield because he couldn't handle the throws behind the plate. He never actually played an official game at the position.

Ha was born October 29, 1990 in Jin Ju City. Ha bats and throws right-handed, has primarily played CF, but has played all the outfield positions. He's played 285 in CF, 162 in RF and 30 in LF. He's 6-1, 185 pounds.

Performance

Off to a great start in AA this year, Jae-Hoon Ha suffered a lower back strain on May 1st and would be out until the third week of June. He played only three more games at AA before being promoted to AAA Iowa. At Tennesse over 28 games and 114 plate appearances, he hit .284/.384/.368 with a .352 wOBA and 124 wRC+.

Ha played the entire season at AA last year and over 121 games increased his walk rate significantly. Prior to 2013 it had been really bad, but it jumped to higher than 9% last year. At AA this year (small sample) it was over 11%.

In 62 games and 244 plate appearances at AAA, Ha hit just .241/.288/.364. His wOBA was .293 and he had just a 69 wRC+. His walk rate 6.1% and he struckout in 17.2% of his plate appearances.

Overall in 2013, the 22 year old Ha hit .254/.318/.354. It was a disappointing season for him, but he still has age on his side to some extent.

Scouting

There's not a lot of recent scouting information about Jae-Hoon Ha. Prior to 2012 Baseball America called him the best defensive outfielder in the Cubs system. He's probably the best that will make his way onto the MLB team in the next year for sure, but I'm fairly sure the scouts have raved about Almora's potential out there.

Ha isn't going to hit for much power, but he has a strong arm and can play defense. It's also not likely that Ha will be reaching base an awful lot either.

Outlook

Ha doesn't have much power or much speed, but reportedly plays a good enough CF that he can stick there. The problem for Ha is that the Cubs aren't really lacking in young CF talent. They've got Junior Lake at the MLB level and while I expect a great deal of regression from Lake, he's probably as good or better than Ha would be. Zeke DeVoss will be at AA next year and even though he may end up a backup, he'll probably move ahead of Ha on the depth chart. The Cubs long-term hope here is Albert Almora, but he's at least a couple years away.

There's a good chance that Jae-Hoon Ha could stick around MLB for a few years as a 4th or 5th outfielder.

2013 Cubs Prospect Reviews

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Comments

  5. dmick89

    @ GW:
    I’m glad the Cubs are keeping him at SS. There was some talk about him moving when he got to AA because it may not be his long-term position. That doesn’t make sense to me. Keep him at SS as long as you can and make the decision at that point. It’s not like Castro is a great fielder or anything so move the worst fielder to a different position.

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  6. SVB

    In 2010 and 2011 Ha’s SLG was >.400. In 2012 he missed a fair amount of time after he dove for a fly ball in right and painted the brick wall with his face. Then the back injury this year. Perhaps with a healthy off season, some of the power will come back.

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  7. SVB

    I’ve been reading up on the SI investigation of Okla State football. In the old days, we’d have a forum about this.

    I’m not really surprised about the allegations, either in the scope or content. But I was a little surprised about how little support for players there seems to be within a program

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  15. Aisle424

    @ dmick89:

    I tagged him in the tweet that was sent to me and I’ll send him an email. People suck. I hope he did file the paperwork. It looked like he was in the process in an old email string I found awhile ago.

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  18. dmick89

    Aisle424 wrote:

    @ dmick89:
    I tagged him in the tweet that was sent to me and I’ll send him an email. People suck. I hope he did file the paperwork. It looked like he was in the process in an old email string I found awhile ago.

    He said just recently he did copyright it.

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  22. Myles

    Updated Ivan’s page to include past links, and updated this one to include Ivan’s link. Sorry for screwing it up earlier. I’ll take one thousand lashes as punishment, which is equivalent to watching 3.5 innings of Cubs baseball this year.

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  24. WaLi

    So I was listening to sports radio this morning since my truck stereo sucks. Did Samardzija lash out against Thoyer and Jackson get pissed at the coaches for pulling him early the other day? (I was only half listening)

    I’m glad the players still have some fire. I imagine it’s tough being on a team where your friends have a good chance of getting traded and you are left behind to try to not win. It would suck for me as a player and I’m although I’m competitive, I imagine I’m not nearly as competitive as professional players.

    This has to be the last “Race to the Top (draft pick)” Season, right? Please?

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  29. WaLi

    dmick89 wrote:

    Aisle424 wrote:
    @ dmick89:
    I tagged him in the tweet that was sent to me and I’ll send him an email. People suck. I hope he did file the paperwork. It looked like he was in the process in an old email string I found awhile ago.
    He said just recently he did copyright it.

    [img]http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrlpdp94fh1qhov66o1_400.jpg[/img]

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  31. SVB

    @ dmick89:
    The T-shirt guy said he copyrighted the Cub Facepalm that you guys made? That doesn’t make sense, aside from outright theft and deciding to copyright before you did. Is that what happened? Isn’t there a lawyer around here? Like one with 4 initials that start with G and end with BTS.

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  32. SVB

    Thought I might post an image that combined this idea:
    WaLi wrote:

    Same with boobies, amiright?

    with this one
    dmick89 wrote:

    It was just too fake in my opinion.

    But I’m at work, so Mish will have to do it.

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  34. dmick89

    @ WaLi:
    It probably wouldn’t be worth trying to get it. How much would it cost to even do so? We could threaten him, but I don’t even know the guy is and he’d not be under any obligation to give Adam money.

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  40. GBTS

    Just say the word and I’ll unleash the wrath of the United States government: a sternly written letter composed in WordPerfect and printed on a paper towel. I can get it out in three weeks when our mail room staff gets back from furlough. Free postage. The envelope costs $650 though.

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  42. tem99

    I don’t have a ton of experience in copyright law but I can claim to be a lawyer. A few things…

    * A copyright is created the moment an original work is created. So the fact that you might not have registered this work with the Copyright office won’t immediately defeat any claim you might make.

    * That said, in order to file a claim (a lawsuit) for copyright infringement I believe you need to register the work. (see copyright.gov)

    * Registering a copyright is pretty cheap. I think it’s under $50.

    * Registering a copyright also provides certain remedies including statutory damages and attorneys fees. Being able to recover attorneys fees is important because in 98%* of cases, the attorneys are the only ones who “win” because of the amount of effort involved in prosecuting/defending these types of claims. (* There’s a 98% chance I made this stat up but the point remains). Statutory damages are pre-set damages set by statute.

    * You can search and dispute copyright attempts:
    http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First

    * If I read above correctly it sounds like you have the infringing party’s name. That’s probably the easiest way to search. You can also call the copyright office directly. I’ve had to do it before and I was surprised that they were actually fairly helpful.

    * What I’ve said above is pretty general and there are a lot of ins and outs (and whathaveyous) involved in these types of matters that will ultimately dictate how this will be resolved.

    * Darwin Barney stinks.

    Hope this helps a little bit.

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  43. WaLi

    All that guy did is cut a quarter of the circle around the facepalm Cub so it resembles the Cubs logo. He has sold 10 shirts since I saw it last night.

    Also, SWMBO misread the Keep Calm thing and thought it saidKEEP CALM AND FACEPALM. I thought it was funny. Where did the whole KEEP CALM meme come from?

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