You’ve asked for weeks, and now you’ve finally got your answer.
Tomorrow, Cuban prospect Jorge Soler will finally make his Stateside professional debut, playing for the Cubs’ rookie ball team in the Arizona League. Theo Epstein made the announcement in a rap session with reporters before tonight’s game. Soler will DH, and will probably get a few at bats. And we’ll all put WAY too much stock in however he does.
While it’s going to be fun to finally see* Soler in action, let me remind you that he’s just 20-years-old, is adjusting to life in a new country, and will be adjusting to an entirely different style/caliber of baseball. Regard his results with appropriate caution.
Soler is likely to spend a week or two in Mesa before heading up to short season A-ball team Boise, or possibly up to full season A-ball team Peoria. He is, on paper, one of the top three prospects in the Cubs’ system (in a cluster with Javier Baez and Albert Almora, who is, himself, not quite yet ready to debut), so it will be exciting to watch his progress.
*OK, so, unless you’re in Mesa, you’re not actually going to “see” anything. But we’ll start getting some stats. And that’s fun.