Tomorrow, the calendar turns to August. There are only three weeks left in the rookie leagues which end on the 22nd. Myrtle Beach and South Bend have just six weeks left. Tennessee has seven and Iowa has eight.

The big news of the week was that several position players that were taken in the 2023 draft started playing down in Mesa for three games. I would expect a lot of those players to be promoted to a full season affiliate tomorrow. As a result, that’s going to be an extremely hectic day between the trade deadline and Tuesday transactions. I am going to have my work cut out for me. So don’t be surprised to see him me get some help from Greg Zumach and Greg Huss throughout the day and evening as we try to keep up with all the news.

It looks like the Cubs are going to be buyers just based upon their last 10 days of pummeling the White Sox and Cardinals. They put themselves over .500 and are now within just a few games of the wildcard. With that in mind, the Cubs are going to be going out and using their prospect corps to acquire some talent. Who that talent is, that would be tough to speculate. But I can speculate on some talent that is not going to be available.

Untouchables

I thought at first about writing down some names of guys that other teams might want. Then I thought better. Instead, here are some guys that are probably not going to be moved in the next 36 hours.

1. Pete Crow Armstrong – I feel pretty confident that Pete is going to be staying a Cub. The Cubs top prospect is too close to the majors, and too much of a talent. The Cubs probably already have him in their future plans as early as next year.

2. Cade Horton – He has flashed pretty hard at times this summer, especially this past week when he had four no-hit innings in Peoria. The only news you might hear about Cade Horton this week is about a promotion to Tennessee.

3. Ben Brown – The tall lanky pitching prospect the Cubs acquired from the Phillies last year is probably not going anywhere either. His last couple outings have been pretty good and it looks like the Cubs have righted the ship with him after a rough late June and early July.

I’d like to say that Owen Caissie and Kevin Alcantara are on the untouchables list and they might be. The Cubs might just use a lot of their depth that they have at Triple-A to make deals. Players like Luis Vazquez and Nelson Velasquez might be at the top of their list to trade along with Yonathan Perlaza. But if teams want pitching, the Cubs have a lot of it in class A at both Myrtle Beach and South Bend. It would be scary to think of any of those pitchers getting moved as they’ve had such a good seasons.

However, there’s that old axiom – If you want to get something, you have to give up something.

And it’s always exciting to get something, sometimes it’s tough to give up something. And the Cubs have over paid in the past at the trade deadline, I just hope this isn’t one of those years. Maybe going out and getting just a couple of players limits what the Cubs give up. A blockbuster is probably not in the works the next two days, but the Cubs will be making at least two moves to bolster their roster. And that’s going to come at a cost whether we like it or not.

The Week That Was

Since I spent most of this post talking about the trade deadline, and the untouchables, let’s go to some one sentence summaries this week before we get to the players of the week.

Iowa – The offense is starting to return as they continue to be in a battle for first place with Saint Paul, which is probably going to go down to the last week of the season. Currently tied for first in the second half.

Tennessee – Everything is clicking now for this team is they have a 6.5 game lead over Rocket City for a playoff spot and look to expand that next week.

South Bend – This was one of the Cubs’ best weeks of the season and it was against Peoria as they went from last place into contention for a playoff spot as they used pitching and a parade of hitting to put themselves back in the playoff hunt to defend their championship. Currently 3 back from a spot.

Myrtle Beach – It’s not that every night was a blowout this week against Fredericksburg, but it sure seemed like it and it was exciting to see all the pictures from Stephanie Lynn of the Birds in the road grays.

Players of the Week

Hitter of the Week

Andy Garriola went out and had a six RBI night and he followed that up with a three RBI night and Garriola wound up hitting .464 with 13 RBI on the week. His OPS for the pasts 7 days was an amazing 1.376.

Starting Pitcher of the Week

Cade Horton gets this week‘s nod as he had four no-hit innings with 5 Ks. It’s a little hard to top that. Although DJ Herz was pretty, pretty, pretty close.

Reliever of the Week

Chris Clarke of Iowa was solid going 4.1 innings in relief this week with 6 Ks. He allowed 4 hits, but did not give up a run.