Spring Training Miscellany: Cubs Top Giants, Happ Homers, Schwarber Shows Off Wheels

The Cubs took down the Giants today in Scottsdale 12-10 in just under four hours. “It’s Spring Training for pace-of-play, too.”

#Cubs win!

Final: Cubs 12, #SFGiants 10. #SpringTraining pic.twitter.com/UowG4vexBl

— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) February 26, 2018

• Today’s game was supposed to be on MLB.tv, but as near as any of my devices could tell, it was not. I’m bummed, because I wanted to see how Jen-Ho Tseng looked. This spring won’t change his presumed role for the season – continue to develop at AAA, serve as an up-and-down depth starter – but it would be nice to see him continuing his improvement from last year, when we saw his strikeout rate tick up.
• Ian Happ got things started nicely with an opposite field shot off of Madison Bumgarner. Happ’s power took a huge step forward last year, so it will be worth tracking closely in the early season just to make sure that it’s here to stay. His .261 ISO in the big leagues (and LOL .317 at AAA) was far higher than anything he put up in the low minors. If he had enough plate appearances to qualify, that would have been tied for the 16th highest ISO in all of baseball.
• Kyle Schwarber, who had two singles today, saw fit to show off his new physique on the base paths, stealing second and third base when he was afforded a healthy lead. In all seriousness, he probably will be a little bit quicker this year (as much because he’s another year removed from knee surgery as because of the weight loss), and can certainly be an opportunistic base-stealing threat, a la Anthony Rizzo in 2015 and 2017. In less seriousness, but awesomeness:

Updated list of 40/40 seasons:
Jose Canseco, 1988
Barry Bonds, 1996
Alex Rodriguez, 1998
Alfonso Soriano, 2006
Kyle Schwarber, 2018-2026 https://t.co/iFKVCrNxIU

— Andy Behrens (@andybehrens) February 25, 2018

• Shae Simmons got his first outing of the Spring with the Cubs, and he was sufficiently wild that he walked three and didn’t strike anyone out in his 1.2 innings of work.
• The Cubs rapped out 16 hits on the day, with a whole bunch of youngsters getting in on the action in the second half of the game. Charcer Burks, Bijan Rademacher, Yasiel Balaguert, and Stephen Bruno all had at least one late hit.
• A new Maddon shirt for the Cubs – it’s “Try Not to Suck” in Japanese:

Big day at @Cubs camp. Zoomadanke visited and performed Kendama — Japanese juggling, balance and agility routine — at the team’s morning gathering. Joe Maddon’s T-shirt says, “Don’t mess up,” the Japanese translation for a popular Maddon mantra. @MLB pic.twitter.com/xmAXPSY7f1

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) February 25, 2018