Kris Bryant ——> LF (today)
Bryant heads to LF for the first time this spring. I think the Cubs would have liked to have this happen earlier, but he had some shoulder fatigue, probably from hitting so many HRs. Bryant played some OF in college and it’s not like LF is that tough a position to learn, I’m guessing it would take, say, 9-10 games in AAA to get it down. I still think the odds are better than 50% that he stays at 3b in MLB despite the Cubs wealth of infielders, but always good to check in on that positional flexibility.
Jon Lester ———> B games
Lester has two spring training starts remaining before opening day, and it sounds like both of them are going to be B/intrasquad games. He’s been dealing with dead arm over the past few days.
Impact prospects preview
Headlined by who else but Kris Bryant. Marc Normandin wrote up this piece on top prospects likely to impact the bigs this year. Jorge Soler is on the list, along with a guy I wouldn’t mind seeing in a Cubs uniform in 2016 (Noah Snydergaard). If Mets fans can make lopsided trade wishcasts for every shortstop in the Cubs org, it’s only fair that we do the same for their pitchers.
In case you missed it
Myles took a stab at the opening day roster. There was talk earlier this week that Baez had made the team, which surprised me, but Maddon has since walked that back.
Sitrick, Myles, and I recorded a podcast, and hope to do the same this weekend. There’s also info about the OV fantasy league in that post.
Theo fires back at Boras for the 324th time
This time with the Orange Guy at CSN. Money quote:
“I can say this: This is my 13th time putting a team together at the end of spring training and I have never once put a young prospect on an Opening Day roster when he had to make his major league debut (with the exception of a Rule 5 player).
“We’ve broken in some pretty good young players over the years from Kevin Youkilis to Hanley Ramirez to Dustin Pedroia to Jacoby Ellsbury to Jon Lester to Jonathan Papelbon and we have always given them the benefit of getting into the season in the minor leagues and getting into a good rhythm whether that is on the mound or offensively or defensively and playing in games that count rather than just spring training. We want to let them get into the flow of the season and then we try to pick just the right moment, in our opinion, to have them come up and make their major league debut.