Ryan Theriot is a “World Series Hero” and Other Bullets

Indeed, the offseason is here …

  • The Giants are your 2012 World Series champions, which was an inevitability before the first pitch last night. Winning run scored by … yup, Ryan Theriot. The Tribune describes him as a “World Series Hero,” and happily points out that he left the Cubs in 2010 only to win two consecutive World Series, first with the Cardinals, and now with the Giants.
  • Baseball America has reported that the Cubs have tapped Vanderbilt pitching coach Derek Johnson to be their minor league pitching coordinator. The Cubs haven’t yet made an announcement of the hire, but it would mean the current coordinator, Dennis Lewallyn, has been bounced from that role. Lewallyn came to the Cubs’ organization back in 2006 as the Tennessee Smokies’ pitching coach, and he was promoted to minor league pitching coordinator in 2011. I’ll have more on Johnson when the move becomes official, but he’s obviously an extremely highly regarded coach at an extremely productive college program.
  • The Cubs’ AFL prospects get a look from MLB.com, and a review of their seasons thus far. It’s a decent overview, though someone should probably tell the author that the Cubs’ High-A club is in DaytonA, and that, if Matt Szczur had hit .360 in 2012, he’d probably be quite a bit higher on prospect lists.
  • Carrie Muskat also takes a look at some AFL prospects, as well as guys playing winter ball. She also points out that a number of prospects will be coming back to Mesa this week for the annual strength and conditioning camp, now called Camp Bussy/Camp Jarrow. It used to be called Camp Colvin, after it was started by former Cub Tyler Colvin. Why not just keep calling it that? It’s not like William Wrigley, Jr. is still hanging around the North Side.
  • Vijay Tekchandani has been promoted from community affairs and projects coordinator to traveling secretary, replacing Jimmy Bank, who was dismissed last week.
  • A look at Michael Bowden’s story from a Red Sox fan’s perspective – this is the kind of background that you’re really going to find only on a fan blog these days (which is not intended as a pat on my own back, mind you; I just wanted to emphasize that these type of stories are worth a look when you can find them).
  • The MLBullets at BCB focus on the Giants’ second World Series win in three years. How swell for them.
  • 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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