Pete Crow-Armstrong and Owen Caissie – Picture by Todd Johnson

It’s been a busy week going back-and-forth to Beloit and it’s also been fun getting to see them every day and talking with several of the players. I uploaded lots of pictures over on our Facebook account. Check them out here!

The next few days are going to be a little bit weird here at North Side Bound. Normally, minor league baseball is off on Mondays but they will be playing tomorrow as it is the Fourth of July, which is a big moneymaker game for each affiliate. With fireworks and all kinds of other activities, those clubs cannot afford to miss that date. What that means for us here at North Side Bound is that MiLB is off on Tuesday instead. That means there will be no Tuesday Transactions this week. Instead, they’ll come out on Wednesday

NSB Prospect List and Affiliate Update Frenzy!!!

North Side Bound is also going to release new midseason Cub prospect lists from all four of us this week!!! We will publish one a day starting on Tuesday with Greg Huss, I will publish mine on Wednesday, Jimmy Nelligan goes on Thursday, and Greg Zumach will have his on Friday. Then on Monday the 11th, we will tally up which prospects are at which slots and come up with a top 25 or top 30 prospect list. We haven’t decided how deep the list will go because we’re going to see how many names we actually have combined between the four of us. Last fall, we had just 23 names. We should have more this time around.

In addition, starting at noon central tomorrow, we will have our “Affiliate Update Extravaganza” where we recap the first half and preview the second for each club. Iowa kicks it off at 12, Tennessee at 1, South Bend at 2 and Myrtle Beach wraps it up at 3.

Otherwise, it was pretty busy this week in baseball. Let’s get to it!

News of the Week

Matt Mervis made Baseball America’s latest prospect Hot List on Monday this week after his three home run 10 RBI performance of the week before. They said, “Mervis is ascending the minors quickly and asserting himself as one of the Cubs’ best pure offensive prospects.”

It was also cool to see Kevin Alcantara get some publicity this week as the Marquee Sports Network did a nice write up and profile of him over on their website.

Draft News

In exactly 2 weeks, North Side Bound is going to broadcast live the night of the draft on YouTube and we are excited to get going. This week, I made four baseball cards for the guys who are in contention to be picked by the Cubs. Knowing my luck, the Cubs are not going to pick any of them so I’m going to make a couple extra ones on the side, just in case.

My frame of mind right now is that the Cubs are going to get a very good pick as long as it’s one of Lee, Johnson, Cam Collier, and Kevin Parada. They are all very good players.

There were two mock drafts that came out this week. The first one came from Baseball America and the other came from MLB Pipeline. Baseball America had the Cubs picking Brooks Lee, the shortstop from Cal Poly. I would not be opposed to see that pick at all. I think he’s an excellent hitter and he’s versatile enough to play most any position in the infield.

MLB Pipeline had Termarr Johnson falling to the Cubs. I would also be just fine with that. Johnson might be the best pure hitter in this class but he profiles more as a second baseman. Then again, we could use a second baseman.

Over at Prospects Live, our own Greg Zumach took part in a recent mock draft. Greg selected the Cubs pick and took Cam Collier out of Chipola Junior College in Florida at the 47 minute mark. While Collier would be my ideal preference, I just don’t think he’s going to make it to the Cubs. If I was a betting man right now, I would agree with baseball America that Brooks Lee is going to fall right into the Cubs lap.

MLB Pipeline also did a fun article this week on each team’s best draft pick for the last 10 years and for the Cubs they picked none other than Kristopher Bryant. I don’t think there’s any other choice even to be considered. Some of you might’ve had a fleeting thought about Javy Baez, but Bryant was a rookie of the year and a MVP.

Coming up Soon at North Side Bound 

I will have the rookie league All-Star team for June at noon today and I’m pretty excited about that post. It has some names you might want to get to know for next year or maybe even next month. Remember to start checking out our new prospect lists starting on Tuesday. I also have the affiliate updates tomorrow afternoon that sum up the first half for each of the Cubs’ clubs.

Jam of the Week

One of my all-time favorite songs is the Beatles “I’ve Got a Feeling” off of the Let It Be album. Last week, Paul McCartney appeared at the Glastonbury Festival In the UK and did this cool performance of the song interspersed with John Lennon singing from The Beatles rooftop concert back in 1969, their last live performance. It pretty much gave me all the “feelings” in one video.