For a fan base supporting a rebuild, and without a playoff series to watch, October would be death without the Arizona Fall League. No, we can’t quite watch the games like we would the regular season, but even following on paper the exploits of some of the most interesting prospects in the organization – as they face some of the best prospects in baseball – can be a lot of fun.
And today, the Arizona Fall League kicks off, featuring a host of Cubs prospects on the Mesa Solar Sox: Addison Russell, C.J. Edwards, Dan Vogelbach, Jacob Hannemann, Bijan Rademacher (taxi squad – eligible two days per week), Zach Cates, Gerardo Concepcion, and Ivan Pineyro. You can read much more from me, if you missed it, on each player in the league here and here.
Each of Baseball Prospectus and Baseball America have a write-up on the league, with thoughts on some of the most interesting players to watch. There are also some detailed write-ups on each of the positional and pitching prospects over at The CCO.
You can see the AFL schedule here, as the league runs from today through mid-November. The Solar Sox start playing this afternoon at 2:35pm CT, and, for those looking ahead, C.J. Edwards is currently scheduled to make his AFL debut on Thursday.
I’ll be sure to keep you abreast of what’s going on in the AFL as the season goes on. I’ve even been known to bust out an Enhanced Box Score or two, if the right opportunity arises.
Also remember: the AFL will be home to several pace-of-play rule change experiments this year, and it’ll be fascinating to hear how those are going.