Jordan Wicks – Picture by Todd Johnson

I am pretty glad this day is over with. And it’s not because of who the Cubs got in a trade or who they didn’t trade. It’s just been a big event after big event for the past month. I’m ready to slow down. And now that the trade deadline is over, the draft picks are signed, we can get back to the business of playing baseball.

For this trade deadline, the Cubs system picked up four pitchers in Hayden Wesneski, Ben Brown, Raynel Espinal, and Saul Gonzalez. They will all be dispersed through the minor leagues with Wesneski already in Iowa. Espinal is there too. Brown will probably go to Tennessee and Gonzalez should be in Myrtle Beach.

The Cubs also claimed RHP Kervin (not a typo) Castro off of waivers from the Giants and assigned him to Iowa already. 

Sadly, with the new guys coming in, the Cubs had to cut guys and today they released RHP Eury Ramos in a pretty surprising move as Ramos had been lights out as a reliever at South Bend and Tennessee over the past year and a half. He struggled at Iowa the last two months, but it the Cubs are not giving him time to figure things out.

Combined with the draft, the Cubs definitely have reshaped their pitching corps the past month. Over the next few days, I would not be surprised to see them add some more through nondrafted free agency. But the guys that they’re getting (via the draft and trades) are all the big guys that throw very hard and most of them have sliders that they like a lot.

Here is what Hoyer said of the Cubs’ system after the deals:

Let’s get to tonight‘s awards

Debut of the Day

Moises Ballesteros hit a thunderous shot in his debut AB at Myrtle Beach. 

Murder of the Day

Alexander Canario destroyed this ball in his return from the birth of his daughter (Congrats, by the way!)

Clutch Hit of the Day

An 11 pitch AB by Josue Huma walked it off for the Pelicans. That gives them 29 come from behind wins this year!

Starting Pitcher of the Day

Tonight, Jordan Wicks looked as good as I have seen him all year, except that one outing in Peoria where he struck out 10. This was close. Wicks whiffed 8 Rocket City Trash Pandas tonight and threw five scoreless frames. He looked confident, he filled up the zone as he threw 79 pitches, 52 of them for strikes.

Hitter of the Day

John Hicks of Iowa hit 2 dingers on the night and drove in 2 in Iowa’s loss to Toledo. He went 3-for-4 with 3 runs scored.

Reliever of the Day

Chase Watkins wins for the second time in the last week as he went three scoreless innings for Myrtle Beach with 3 Ks.

I will be back in the morning with a draft pick profile of Nazir Mule that I think you’ll want to read and watch some video of a kid who is probably going to become the Cubs first modern two-way player