The Arizona Fall League Comes to a Close and Other Bullets

The Arizona Fall League wrapped up this week, which means the season is over for the Cubs’ prospects playing there. The final stats:

Matt Szczur – .264/.368/.363 with 9 SB

Javier Baez – .211/.250/.456 with 4 homers and the second most RBI on the team (despite playing only half a season)

Rubi Silva – .206/.260/.265 with a couple triples

Logan Watkins – .219/.375/.344 with 8 BB in just 9 games

Dae-Eun Rhee – 6.27 ERA in 18.2 innings with 12 K and 8 BB

Nick Struck – 5.51 ERA in 16.1 innings with 11 K and 12 BB

Tony Zych – 3.86 ERA in 14 innings with 4 K and 2 BB

Kevin Rhoderick – 4.82 ERA in 9.1 innings with 14 K and 2 BB

  • Among the reactions, acknowledging that it’s a super small sample size and the numbers are less important than the instruction: You’d like to see more K’s from Zych. That IsoD from Watkins is insane. Rubi Silva might be on the way to bust town after signing for $1 million a couple years ago. Matt Szczur is going to need just a hair more power to be more than a 4th outfielder in the bigs. Kevin Rhoderick’s slider really must be that good.
  • Keeping the lights on: I’m not going to recommend picking the Cubs in 2013, for example, if you’re into online betting.
  • Though the AFL season is over the Winter Leagues are going strong, and Carrie Muskat has an update on some of the notable recent performances. Junior Lake is still killing it in the Dominican Republic, Luis Valbuena is playing well in Venezuela, and Christian Villanueva is doing just so-so in Mexico.
  • TCR’s Arizona Phil has a more detailed/anecdotal look at the Cubs in the AFL, as well as a couple updates on Winter Leaguers.
  • A profile on Dan Vogelbach, who is apparently a chatty Cathy around the diamond, and who plans to keep working on his conditioning in the offseason. He sounds like a hard-working kid. (A fun anecdote from the article? Apparently after the instruction league this Fall, the players had a little home run derby, and when Vogelbach faced Jorge Soler, the latter won.)
  • One of the Dodgers’ new owners, Peter Gruber, explains why the Cubs need to renovate Wrigley Fieldas soon as possible: “You can continue to win on the field, but everything is a part of the process now. [The venue is] an important factor. Clubs that don’t have good training facilities, good medical facilities, good clubhouses, as well as good bathrooms for women – a very important issue – different kinds of food, they compete less favorably …. There’s different models that have worked different ways. You have to look at your marketplace and decide what you can do. The Cubs are a tradition. Going to that park has become part of the culture, it’s been venerated. And that’s what the Red Sox also did. Is Dodger Stadium that way? Maybe. Maybe not. It’s a different kind of fanbase. I think the truth is, at the end of the day, we compete against home entertainment. And as a location-based entertainment venue, you better be up to snuff, cause over time, it’ll eat your lunch if you’re not.”
  • 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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