Jason Ross

Alzolay is breaking Will's wrist.

That was...less than optimal, Christopher.

Great catch, Seiya.

On one hand, I cannot stand the Cardinals, on the other hand...I have a hard time blaming Burleson for being so mad. The first was iffy-bad, the second was really bad. Woof. Glad we got out of that one.

Two very kind strikes for Mr. Leiter, he's walked Burlson twice.

I would guess Tauchman is probably tradeable, as well and the hope will be to find some ability to get Perlaza in the lineup. Mervis will get 1b. Wesneski and Brown likely will see starts. Maybe even a Jordan Wicks start come September or two.

Fulmer, the ultimate teammate and standup guy, walks the hitter after Amaya's oopsie lets him move over to 2nd. Thanks, Mike!

Mastrobuoni....can hit the ball over the wall. I figured, maybe it was some kind of rule that he wasn't allowed to do that.

Yeah, frustrating PA all around. On one hand, happy to see him swing at a 3-0 pitch, then disappointing to see him take the 3-1 (though heatmap wise suggests he's not so hot on mid-away), then gets rung up on a correct take on a 3-2.

Yeah there were a few good sliders. He floated a bad one with 2 strikes, that sticks out. I think a lot of it was rust. He was working behind in the count a lot, so I think some of the sliders were less lacking and more "get me over for a strike" sliders (it felt like he had more confidence in the slider as a strike pitch than the fastball). I probably wasn't watching as intently as I have other Horton starts, but the whole thing felt just very "knocking the rust off".

Steele getting nickel and dimed here.

I think there's a 0% chance we ever get the kind of revenue sharing we'd need for it to be good; as it would require books to be open, the anti-trust gone, and clarity on actual revenue. Instead we will continue this half-assed revenue sharing where the A's and the Pirates and the Orioles can sit there, play poor, pocket local broadcast money and then adding in self-created barriers like the luxury tax for teams like the Cubs to use as a shield from spending money.

The MLB is the clear poster child of a league of owners right now who's primary, main concern is "how can I make money today". Every move feels like it's more designed for "cash now" than "long term viewership" and has been for a while. They blackout games constantly (I can't watch Cubs v Reds games. I don't have cable, but here in Lexington,KY, a 90 minute drive to Cincinnati, I'm "in their market" so horsefeathers me, right?). They're fracturing viewership across the board. You can see it at almost every move.

We're at a stage with the Cubs pitching development that they can basically take whomever they want and I'll shrug my shoulders and accept that the Cubs can take who they want. They've proven pretty reliable here over the last ~3 seasons in identifying useful arms, tweaking and working with guys, and building up the pipeline both in draft and in trade. If the Cubs like Jaxon Wiggins...I like Jaxon Wiggins.

Yeah, my "old man yells at a cloud" moment is that I'm a little over the fracturing of the MLB streaming. It's all over the place right now.

I hate these Apple+ games. And I have Apple+.

I'd assume he gets the remainder. I'm a little surprised he's getting over-slotted (I initially believed he was an under-slot candidate on draft night), but my guess is that there was more interest in Wiggins than many in the industry believed. He had 1st round hype pre-season, was a former pre-season all-America with BA, and you just can't teach 100mph. He's a bit risky, maybe riskier than many, but in a draft that was super thin at the top of college arms, there may have been a handful of teams looking at Wiggins as a fun guy to grab around this range and to make sure he didn't return to college forcing the Cubs to go overslot.

Yeah he wasn't as sharp tonight. He got in a few bad counts. Honestly thought it was the fastball that let him down, the slider had bite (he hung one or two) but he has a bad habit with the fastball to lay it in down the middle and it felt like tonight he was forcing it, so he was missing with the fastball more. Hadn't pitched in a game since the 5th, so chalk it up to rust. Fastball still (using SB's scoreboard, but remember as always MiLB velo guns are notorious for being inaccurate) he sat 96-98 all game so health was there. And that will remain most important.

His baseball savant page has become mine.

This is entirely too kind and more than just appreciated, JD.

Using Jason Heyward as a barometer, a player signed 8 years ago, an established MLB hitter, is specious reasoning. First, Curtis Mead is a 22 year old, non-established prospect, and Jason Heyward was 27 years old and had been in the MLB for half a decade. Instead, we should probably look at current Cub prospect development and I think it's pretty clear to see the Cubs prospect development team is generally doing a good job advancing hitters and working with them. They've been able to rebuild PCA's swing entirely; he has added considerable loft and LA to his swing since coming over to the Mets, the Cubs have managed to work with lower level prospects and turn them into quality hitters; Perlaza is adding more impact to his swing (though more from the left side than the right), the Cubs have done great with McGeary and Murray, they've consistently tweaked Caissie's swing (changing his hit box) and they've made huge strides with Amaya (and added considerable LA there since returning from his TJS)...I think it's pretty unfair to blame the current dev team for the failures of established MLB players a decade ago. At this stage, I'm very confident with the Chicago Cubs developmental team when it comes to identifying MiLB players of almost any position, and their ability to work with them. They don't, and can't, bat 1.000, but I'm pretty high on their MiLB system today and their dev team as a whole. Yeah, Matt Shaw has some Bregman-style to his offensive approach. I never once said "Curtis Mead is the most Alex Bregman kind of guy ever!". I can find similarities in their offensive games while also finding similarities in others. Remember, it's not a 1:1 comparison, and why I hesitate to use them. Clearly this is a sticking point for you; I'll do my best to refrain from them in the future. I also like Matt Shaw! Though I think you get a big hung up on this GB/FB thing; Shaw's far more aggressive at the plate than either Bregman, or Mead, at least using his collegiate career if we want to be comprehensive here and play this out. The K% isn't high, but the reports on him is hyper aggressive. We'll see how that plays out with the Cubs; was it an as aspect of coming from a relatively weaker NCAA conference and just being so good? Is it an issue? Can it be worked on if it is? Time will tell there, it's really hard to nail down. Bregman is among the most discerning hitters in baseball, with well below swing%, first pitch swing% and chase %, so if we want to nit pick comparisons, we can do it at almost every stage. It's why, again, I think comps are not particularly great in general. There's always going to be something different and no two players are identical. We'll probably just have to leave this here. You clearly have your opinions on Curtis Mead. I think I've made mine clear. You're welcome to your opinion on Mead; the prospect game is rife with opinions and why there's plenty of space for as many evaluators out there on the industry; disagreements are bound to occur. In the end, we'll probably both be wrong on plenty here.

Honestly, maybe, yeah. Let me think on it a bit, but I'll probably take you up on that; payment isn't really all that important. I just like to write.

I'm a teacher by trade, but writing has always been a passion. I can bang out a few pages in like 30 minutes. The real work is trying to fight through these damn MiLB streams to watch these guys. I swear my Galaxy phone has better resolution.

One of the first things I saw! I'm big on the MiLB side of things; I threw together a quick, 1600 word prospect list for PSD pre-season ranking my top, like, 50 or so guys. Glad to see a good MiLB side of things here! Like the fan voting.

I think the list was made, sometime, in late-May to very early June. I'm just guessing, but that's right around when Triantos came back healthy, before Horton really took off at SB, PCA wasn't walking, and right when Mervis was really showing his struggles at the MLB level. I then think the article sat for a month, ran threw editing, and then they post these things every few days too really stretch out the content. It felt incredibly outdated right off the bat. Personally, it was a pretty bad list. I wouldn't have had my list in anyway reflective of that. I'll throw a personal list together for ya'll post TDL. Everyone can feel free to ignore the horsefeathers out of it. I mostly do it for me, but ya'll get to read it.