What I’m Reading
We debuted three new features here at North Side Bound this week, with Jimmy beginning his journey into the things we missed in 2021, Todd creating one hell of a database for international free agent signings, while I brought my Friday Five weekly piece over to these web pages.
In addition to those new features, the four of us finally put together the conglomerate of each of prospect lists into one place – the inaugural North Side Bound Top 20 List. If you wanted something of an explanation, we had you covered with our roundtable as well.
Trevor Hooth over at Prospects Live put together a terrific film study on our guy Nelly Velazquez. Plenty of good stuff on his plate approach in addition to the fact that he is just mashing at the plate this year. Speaking of mashing, Bryan Smith at Bleacher Nation wrote about Nelly and the rare company he finds himself in thanks to his AFL performance.
What I’m Watching
- I went on the Dingers Cubs podcast and had the chance to talk about Cubs in the AFL and even some Major League Cubs and how the team impacts the development of Brennen Davis. But of course, here I am talking about Nelly.
- Some rare footage of Yeison Santana. He came over from the Yu Darvish deal and had a huge swing with a bit of a wild stance. The stance feels much more normal here but the big swing is still very present.
- Anyone ever heard of this PCA fella? Great to see the return for Javy Baez (and Trevor Williams) back to swinging in the cage after a long rehab process from shoulder surgery.
- Nelly and Vladito? Sheesh.
- I could listen to Lance Brozdowski talk to prospects about their pitches all day long.
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What We’re Tweeting
- People forget the Cubs have acquired some freaks recently.
- Zumach had his eye on Caleb Kilian during the Fall Stars game down in Arizona.
- I penned a goodbye article to my old, little blog over at Out Of The Vines. If you’ve ever wondered where my Twitter handle came from, it actually originated as a Blogspot blog nearly a decade ago. I couldn’t be happier to put a close to that project as this wonderful experience here at North Side Bound really takes off.
What’s Catching My Eye
- I’ve never been a huge fan of the Iowa Cubs’ branding. Between the narrow “I” logo and the script Iowa next to the normal Chicago Cubs logo, their whole brand seemed to lack some creativity. Well, that’s the case no longer as the team has adopted a bear logo that is in-line with the efforts of the South Bend Cubs and Tennessee Smokies over the years.
- Great to see Teddy Payne coming back to be a part of the organization on a MiLB deal. His teammates, especially pitchers, speak so highly of him as an incredible clubhouse guy.
Feature photo of Pete Crow-Armstrong by Rich Biesterfeld