Super Bowl Sunday and Other Bullets

superdome super bowl footballThe Super Bowl is here. I care about it in the sense that everyone will be watching, and I like the idea that I’m a part of that communal experience. I don’t so much care about it in the who’s-going-to-win sense. I also like the commercials. Yes, I’m one of those.

  • Bruce Miles dominated the coverage of Kane County’s recent event, which afforded fans the opportunity to meet with some of the development executives (Jason McLeod, Brandon Hyde, for example). He’s got a full write-up, which is well worth a read. There was also a local Kane County write-up, if you just can’t get enough.
  • Obviously one of the most popular subjects of discussion this time of year is who’s going to start the year where, but McLeod wasn’t too keen on giving anything away just yet: “I don’t think that would be fair to the players yet,” McLeod said, per Miles. “We’d like them to come in and challenge each other at Spring Training. It is easy to look at the Boise roster and assume that those guys will be here because they had such a good season last year. We want our guys to come in hungry. We don’t want them to come in and say, ‘OK, I’m penciled in to this certain affiliate.’ We want them to come in and really strive to go above and beyond. We want all our players to come in and think, ‘I’m going to make that [high-A] Daytona team.’ We want them to come in hungry and challenge the guys that’s in front of them.”
  • That said, Bruce reports that McLeod indicated, tentatively, that Albert Almora would start the year at Kane County (low-A), and Jorge Soler would start at Daytona (high-A).
  • McLeod described Javier Baez as “more advanced” at shortstop at 20 years old than Starlin Castro was at 20.
  • When asked for a sleeper in the organization, Farm Director Brandon Hyde identified relief prospect Austin Reed (yes, he’s the brother of Addison). He pitched very well at Peoria last year as a 20-year-old after the Cubs converted him to relieving full-time.
  • Matt Garza is back to throwing off the mound, and – per his usual Twitter update – it sounds like the first time went well.
  • Dan Szymborski wrote a bit about the Dodgers’ financial future, and, among his thoughts, he notes that the Dodgers have $116.5 million worth of players already under contract for the 2018 season (think about that!), when those players are projected to generate all of 16 WAR.
  • written by

    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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