It did not take long for the injury bug to hit this season as Manny Rodriguez and Jose Albertos both went on the IL. In their stead, Jordan Nwogu made his way to South Bend from Mesa and Kevin McCarthy did the same to Iowa. As well, Kevin Alcântara also came up to Myrtle Beach and then in his first game had the game-winning hit, a walk off single. And, on Friday night, Andy Weber made his way to Tennessee to debut this year.
Yesterday, it was cool to see Kevin Made get the call to Myrtle Beach. That is going to be one crowded infield with Made, Preciado, and Triantos along with Spence and Santana.
We also got to see (sort of) Pete Crow-Armstrong make his 2022 debut with Myrtle Beach. After missing the first three games, the youngster debuted Tuesday and started filling up the box scores with hits and stolen bases.
While those were fun stories to follow, the biggest story of the week was the lack of television in Class A. It was rough only being able to see just Tennessee and Iowa for three days. Thankfully, the Tin Caps of Fort Wayne fixed their issue in time for us to see DJ Herz pitch Friday. Pelicans broadcaster Sam Weiderhaft did a yeoman’s job using Instagram to bring us opening night via his phone. Thanks, Sam! Hopefully, over the next week, the problem will be resolved in Myrtle Beach. My fingers are crossed. I want to see more of Porter Hodge, Tyler Schlaffer, Pete Crow-Armstrong, James, Triantos, Reggie Preciado, and others.
Poll of the Week
Yesterday, I did an informative post about some players rising up draft boards` and draft rankings. To go along with that, we issued a poll about who Cub fans might want to see them taken at number seven.
Around the Internet
Sahadev Sharma and Patrick Mooney continued their excellent dive into Cubs prospects. This week they had another good article but what fascinated me most was the evolution of Caleb Kilian. I was intrigued by the amount of changes Kilian has made since he was drafted. My favorite section was how Kilian was influenced by former major league pitcher Bobby Witt (whose son could be rookie of the year this year). Witt said the following of Kilian’s willingness to adapt and change.
“When you look at Caleb, he was a guy that could throw strikes. When you look at today’s game, the philosophy of drafting a guy like that is the route to take. You take a strike-thrower and maybe it’s not 95 and 98 right now, but there’s the possibility of getting there because of the body. Once he puts on the weight, maybe there’s a mechanical tweak, but he has everything (else). He has the intangibles. And then all of a sudden, he develops into this guy. What he’s become is unbelievable in the last two years. That’s just due to the fact that he’s embraced what they’ve told him. He’s taken it. He’s ran with it. He’s gotten bigger. He’s gotten stronger. His arsenal is nasty. I think everybody saw that in the Arizona Fall League championship game.”
Over at Marquee Sports Network, Andy Martinez wrote a very interesting article that detailed the influences upon Reggie Preciado while growing up in Panama. I found it fascinating to hear Preciado talk about the influence of former Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz upon a whole generation of young Panamanian players just for playing in the World Series.
Originally, when a few people asked Lance Brozdowski if he was going to do a prospect list, the answer was noncommittal and didn’t look too promising. But things changed, thankfully. Lance delivered a great list this week that really shows off the depths of talent the Cubs have in their system and it had some surprising selections along the way.
Baseball Card of the Week
I really love how the South Bend home uniform fits in a 1985 card. This week Rikk Carlson delivered a gem of a photograph of Owen Caissie and I just love the results in the template.
I finally got in the mood to make cards and have over 27 cards for this month (week) already. Click on the link to check them out on my old Cubs Central Facebook page.
IFA News
Ben Badler at Baseball America is an expert on international free agency. This week he dropped three tweets of players the Cubs signed to contracts just before this upcoming Dominican Summer League season. The Cubs signed pitchers Wilmer Mora and Melvin Almador along with infielder Elizaul Chalas. The Cubs are closing in on 30 players. I suspect they will sign about 10 more prospects, mostly of the pitching variety. I was also able to find a couple of videos on Almador and Chalas.
Check out our international free agent database to see the entire list of signings for this year.
Players of the Day
We started posting our minor league players of the day on April 8. To begin the year, I have just been making pictures/postcards of the winners. Yesterday, I mixed it up by adding some video and information. You can always check out who all has won this year by clicking on the cumulative page. Or, you can just hover over the home tab and select Players of the Day from the drop down menu.
Coming Up
I will be back tomorrow with the Affiliate Breakdown and Jimmy Nelligan will cover his “Game of the Week.” Tuesday Transactions will be back and Greg Zumach has some more draft content coming at you at some point. Greg Huss is working on some stats stuff and I am sure we will have some surprise posts as well, depending on what happens on the field.
While North Side Bound is not on Instagram, I do have a newer account as does Greg Zumach while Jimmy and Greg have one for their Growing Cubs podcast. Make sure to check all of them out and to follow. You better get it done before the 26th, because I’ll be dropping pictures and video of players with South Bend that whole week while I’m in Davenport.
Our YouTube Account
We’re also playing with and testing out our YouTube channel. We’ve got some roundtables and some draft discussion up already. This week, Greg Zumach came out with a new type of content called “The Prospect Pulse.” Check that out and make sure and click the subscribe button to get a notification when we post a new video.
Jam of the Week
I am going back to my senior year of high school this week…sort of. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Rush’s “Moving Pictures.” They’ve been releasing new animated videos of several tracks and I am digging that. This week’s video is “Red Barchetta.”
