I feel no compunction about sleeping 11 hours last night and missing some Chicago Cubs prospect fun. A Blogathon will do that to you.
But that’s why video clips exist! We can all catch up on the fun …
Well, some of the fun anyway. Javier Baez hit another homer yesterday for the Iowa Cubs, his 21st of the year:
Did you catch the color man’s immediate, quite reaction? “Oh my.”
That came as part of a 3-5 night, which pushed Baez’s season line up to .259/.317/.500 with a 7.4% walk rate and a (keeps on dropping) 30.0% strikeout rate. Remember, Baez started the year as the youngest player in all of AAA.
Kris Bryant and Mike Olt also homered in the I-Cubs game, but unfortunately there isn’t yet video available.
That was Olt’s first homer in 10 games at AAA this year since he was demoted, but he’s hitting a robust .351/.368/.541. Unfortunately, that’s coming despite a 2.6% walk rate and a 28.9% strikeout rate (.480 BABIP). It’s a super, super small sample, but obviously, when it comes to Olt, what you want to see is the strikeout rate coming way down at AAA as he works on whatever approach/mechanical issues that were leading to his strikeout problems (seems like they were tied primarily to missing/taking too many hittable strikes).
UPDATE: The Bryant video is now available, and, naturally, it’s opposite-field awesomeness:
