Welcome to our 4th of July First Half Affiliate Update Spectacular! Over the next four hours, we will be releasing a review of each affiliate’s first half with a short preview of what to expect in the second half. Let’s start off with the Iowa Cubs!

As some of you may know, I have a page for each affiliate and those pages contained depth charts and links to prospect profiles and updates. For the Iowa Cubs, I gave up trying to keep up a month ago. The reason for that is the Chicago Cubs have turned Iowa’s roster into an ever-changing cascade of characters and you never know who’s going to be there from day today.

Somehow, manager Marty Pevey was able to put out a lineup every day and still work at developing players for the major league roster. It was almost a transaction or two each day as the big league club tried to cobble together a starting rotation aFirst Half nd a bullpen. That’s really what Iowa is for, it’s just this year has been pretty extreme.

So far, Iowa has already had 60+ players on the roster that have played in an actual game. That’s just insane!

Yet, Pevey still is going about his job and working hard to develop guys to get them ready for the majors or to help the major league club like Narciso Crook. Jared Young, Levi Jordan, and Darius Hill are close. Greg Deichmann and Jackson Frazier seem to be a little bit more motivated after making some adjustments. John Hicks hit the crap out of the baseball in June and put himself in the conversation to be a back up catcher if needed. Nelson Maldonado has been hitting the baseball very well for the last three weeks and he might even get a sneak peek.

However, there’s not really a great need for position guys right now. Let’s just give it another month until after the trade deadline.

Ask for pitchers, I am pretty sure the Des Moines to Chicago shuttle is a series of black rubber stripes going to and from the two cities because there have been so many moves. I am still waiting on Ben Leeper to get a shot as well as Erich Uelmen, who actually might be more deserving based on his performance the past six weeks.

Second Half Preview

I would expect more of the same type of roster turnover in July. After the trade deadline, things should (but that doesn’t mean they will) settle down some as several Iowa players will be in Chicago along with some new blood coming up from Tennessee. Chase Strumpf is more than likely one and Matt Mervis might be the other.  

I would not be surprised to see a few position players like Jared Young and Darius Hill get a look in Chicago along with Cam Sanders, who if left unprotected this year in the Rule Five Draft, will probably get taken by someone.

As for pitchers coming up, Javier Assad is there now. Danis Correa looks to be close and, believe it or not, Samuel Reyes might get a second chance at Iowa.

It’s going to be fun to see how Pevey continues to manage under those conditions and how much the actual roster does turn over.

Tennessee’s update will be at 1 PM followed by South Bend at 2 Central and Myrtle Beach at 3!