Oh, it was another busy week for me. I spent the last two days down in Springfield taking my little history club to participate in the Illinois History Day competition. That’s always a cool trip to see New Salem, Lincoln’s Tomb, and a few other sites. That officially ends my extracurricular activity for the year and now it’s all about baseball.
Let’s get to the news of the week.
I am still waiting on FanGraphs to end the prospect list season, but I’m not holding my breath about it. I did a check on Friday to see how many teams they have done. It has now gone from 9 to 12. So the odds are getting a little better.
Baseball America put out their hot sheet this week and two Cubs made a list. They are both power hitting left handers and it’s pretty cool that both Owen Caissie and Matt Mervis were cited.
Over at MLB Pipeline, Mr. Caissie got more pub as they did a nice little profile on him after his two – day four homer extravaganza.
EXST News
Arizona Phil and our own Rich Biesterfeld were quite the pair this week when it came to giving us information about what’s happening in extended spring training. Rich reported that Brailyn Marquez threw off the mound for the first time this week. As well, Luis Devers looks to be getting closer.
When it came to actual gameplay in EXST, they were definitely three stars this week. One is first baseman Anderson Suriel, who played really well in the Dominican in 2021, but struggled with some last summer in Mesa. He hit three home runs this week as of Friday. Phil also seems to really like third base men Geury Lubo who seems to be growing into his body and developin some power. Alexis Hernandez has also been getting his name in Phil’s write ups along with Jefferson Rojas and Jackson Ferris, who might be close to heading to Myrtle Beach. If that happens this Tuesday, that would be pretty cool.
As well, Burl Carraway has had two straight scoreless outings in a row.
Injury News
We still haven’t heard anything concerning Daniel Palencia, and we probably won’t when it comes to specifics about why he was pulled. If he misses his start on Tuesday, that could just be a precaution. If his name shows up on Tuesday Transactions, then we will know even less. It’s just the nature of the beast in the minors as they don’t divulge what is wrong with players. It’s usually up to the players to do so. Lately that’s been on Instagram as they post pictures of themselves in the hospital. Let’s just hope this is not the case of him. If he’s not put on the seven day IL and he just skips his start this time, then that might be the best case scenario, other than him actually making his next start.
Draft News
I got pretty excited on Wednesday when in Texas baseball announced that Tanner Witt was going to be again throwing in actual games. He is my favorite pitching prospect in this year‘s draft and is someone I wanted the Cubs to take three years ago but he pulled his name from consideration to attend Texas. What I like most about Witt is that he’s a big kid who has a variety of pitches as well as the potential to improve his arsenal as he finishes filling out. He can already throw in the mid-90s and has the Texas swagger that we’ve seen and Nolan Ryan, Kerry Wood, and Josh Beckett.
Witt’s first outing is scheduled to be against TCU where he’s only going to throw 20 pitches. His second outing, a week later will see him get bumped up to 35 pitches.
Cards of the Week
Friday night I had some quality me time as my students were in the hotel pool with their parents while I just lounged around and watched baseball and made some cards.
Pictures of the Week
Luis Devers sighting!!!!!!!!!
Web Gem of the Week
Coming up at North Side Bound
Tomorrow will see the Breakdown that sums up affilate action for the week and on Tuesday, Transactions will be updated throughout the day and there will also be a new Cubs on Deck podcast dropping at some point in the morning. I will be doing the daily recaps on Tuesday through Sunday. On May 1, I’ll have the April All-Star team here while over at Cubs Central I’ll have my cards of the month.
Jam of the Week
I went back a little bit for this jam, but not too far back. It is by Polyphia and it is their song “40 oz.” The first few times I played the song on YouTube, I did not watch the video. It’s a little bit out there, but it’s fun and the instrumental music is scorching!
