Farm System

[PcB]

Nobody mentions that Bryant goes deep again tonight? Jeesh.

[rok]

Edwards apparently had another scoreless outing and looked nasty according to 3rd party observers.


Oh, and Baez and Almora are still 0-for the season.

[funkster]

Almora was 5-6 last night.

[rok]

Almora is now hitting .333, so it's good to put these early struggles by the core 4 (Bryant aside) in perspective. Small sample sizes, etc. Hopefully Baez starts to make some adjustments as well. Can't afford for him to take a step back this year.

[Auz]

Baez first hit as an Iowan Cub is a home run

[Auz]

Also Vitters is off to a great start

[funkster]

Baez seems to start off slow every new level.  Hopefully he starts getting into the groove after this.

[Coldneck]

I think it's great that he's struggling in AAA. He needs to be humbled. 

[1060Ivy]

Don't know if Baez can or should be humbled.   He's still a kid with a great talent and a lot to learn.  No clue if he can "learn it" in the minors. 

 

Hoping that he shows again that any early struggles with promotion are short lived.

[funkster]

I think it's great that he's struggling in AAA. He needs to be humbled. 

Its good in that it forces him to make adjustments when he needs to.

[funkster]

Sounds like Baez just missed hitting HRs in his first two at bats.

[Clapp]

Baez is getting a taste of quality offspeed pitches and veteran pitchers with a plan (as well as a scouting report on him continuing to grow; everyone knows he can hit anyone's fastball). He's going to keep seeing it (especially when he comes up to the bigs) until he can make the proper adjustments. In most cases it's just laying off some of these pitches.


I've watched a lot of his Iowa at-bats and he's chasing pitches lots of breaking balls out of the zone. Just flailing away and nowhere close in some of the at-bats. Aside from Tuesday (which I didn't see) he'd been starting to have better at-bats though. The homer as a pinch-hitter on Sunday after being ejected the night before (brutal check swing strike 3 call by the way), and later in that game he just missed a grand slam on a fly out he drilled to the track in CF. Then the at-bats Monday that Funkster alluded to. So, yeah, I'm sure he'll come around and it's a valuable learning experience. He's shown to make adjustments after struggling at every level.

[Clapp]

Tseng was apparently pretty impressive in his Kane County debut. His perceived stock has been on the rise since his pitching on the Mesa backfields a few weeks ago. Jason Parks (BP) said back then that he'd have Tseng in his Cubs top 10 right now after watching him. That's pretty high praise when you consider this organization has 6-8 top 100 prospects.

[rok]

Tseng has been getting mentioned more and more lately. If he makes that leap into the top 10, this could be the first hit as a result of the organization's strategy of amassing pitching quantity whether by draft or internationally. That would be a huge turning point.

[Clapp]

Javy looked better today. Doubled off the wall in left-center and singled to right. 2-4 overall. 

 

And Almora may hit himself out of Single-A quickly, as Baez did (and Almora already has an A-glove to go with his bat). Not even an hour into game one for Daytona today and he already has two doubles.