baseball

The top 5 hitters in tonight’s Triple-A Iowa lineup and their OPS:

BJ Murray Jr - 1.057
Jonathon Long - .832
Pedro Ramirez - .995
Kevin Alcántara - .962
Chas McCormick - .950

It’s one thing for Nico Hoerner to be a Gold Glover and speed demon and bat-to-ball genius and also very dreamy.

But now he’s also a power hitter? Have mercy.

Thanks Pat, this one felt like a classic — down to the Jace Beck notes at the end

New episode with @cubsmith.bsky.social!

• Is Josiah Hartshorn the next Cubs Top 100 prospect?
• Promotions for Owen Ayers and Cole Mathis happening any minute
• Other hot starts: Grant Kipp, BJ Murray, Pedro Ramirez, Jace Beck

📺: youtu.be/GFd1TMOAFtY?...
🍎: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

Owen Ayers has been promoted to Double-A

New episode with @cubsmith.bsky.social!

• Is Josiah Hartshorn the next Cubs Top 100 prospect?
• Promotions for Owen Ayers and Cole Mathis happening any minute
• Other hot starts: Grant Kipp, BJ Murray, Pedro Ramirez, Jace Beck

📺: youtu.be/GFd1TMOAFtY?...
🍎: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

Do you think Nico Hoerner ever stops and thinks to himself “damn, I’m really good at baseball”

How could you not love Nico Hoerner?

BASH Primer: A Fresh Look at My Cubs Prospect Offensive Metric BASH is an metric created by Greg Huss to evaluate the offensive performance by Cubs prospects. It accounts for league adjustments, ballpark factors, and age compared to peers.

outofthevines.com/2026/02/10/b...

BASH leaderboard for the Cubs system. Primer in the replies ⬇️

Thankfully we won the World Series instead of losing on a walk-off sac fly

There’s legitimately like 4 very apparent reasons why you don’t pitch to Nico there and none of them drew a red flag for Carlos Mendoza

Pitching to Nico Hoerner with the game winning run on 3rd and 1st base open in the bottom of the 10th is quite possibly the worst managerial decision anyone could ever make.

Michael Conforto knocking in Scott Kingery to tie the game in the bottom of the 9th.

It’s a shame, you know, the Mets.

While there’s still plenty of reasons to believe Owen Ayers will be in Double-A next week, him being out of the lineup today isn’t one of those reasons.

Today is a scheduled off day for one of the system’s hottest prospects.

They don’t have any reason to do this though. And I could be wrong but this seems to be consistent throughout the sport — it’s not a Cubs-specific thing.

Kane Kepley is having a terrific season and has a .885 OPS.

Owen Ayers has a .860 *slugging percentage*

Lots of spin on his secondaries

A reminder that the biggest reason why we don’t get reports on injuries for minor league players below Triple-A is because there aren’t local reporters covering those teams consistently.

Grant Kipp (who I had ranked as the Cubs’ 11th best prospect entering the season) has been lights out so far this year.

13.1 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 14 K

Started the year down in Double-A thanks to a bunch of veteran signings in Iowa but it won’t be long before he’s up there.

Really had to twist your arm, eh?

Good at baseball.

The South Bend bats are HOT. They have 4 starters with an OPS better than .880:

Owen Ayers 1.341
Cameron Sisneros .945
Matt Halbach .890
Kane Kepley .885

They also have 3 other starters with an OPS better than league-average:

Drew Bowser .771
Leo Espinoza .745
Kade Snell .737

Marino Santy faced 10 batters tonight for Double-A Knoxville.

Every plate appearances ended in either a strikeout or a walk. 8 Ks, 2 BBs.

After 2 weeks of minor league baseball games I can confirm 3 things:

1. Owen Ayers is good at baseball
2. Cole Mathis is good at baseball
3. Josiah Hartshorn is good at baseball

I asked South Bend Cubs hitting coach Nate Spears how, in a system filled with coaches working with players on a daily basis, the development team stays consistent with their message to hitters.

His answer:

Don’t know what I would have done without a sponsorship placed there

Pat & Ron deserve better than all these ad reads

This especially becomes rough late in the game when a sponsor hasn’t gotten their ad read yet.

I think that if you pay for ad reads associated with plays that are less common, you run the risk of not getting your name shouted out on that broadcast.