A few stray Cubs prospect notes for you while you await tonight’s Cubs-Brewers tilt …

• Things got underway last night in the Cubs’ farm system, which meant, among many other debuts, Nico Hoerner got his chance to start taking on his challenging assignment at AA Tennessee, and he walked twice in his five plate appearances. He got a lot of love this week on the prospecting front:

The #Cubs prospects to watch in 2019 – Nico Hoerner, Brailyn Marquez, Miguel Amaya – plus more updates on the farm system @TheAthleticCHI: https://t.co/EkTWb6KUFF

— Patrick Mooney (@PJ_Mooney) April 3, 2019

After spending time in Arizona this spring, @EmilyCWaldon highlights two Cubs and White Sox prospects to watch: https://t.co/LWA3kyzGgR

— The Athletic (@TheAthleticCHI) April 2, 2019

• The Cubs’ other top positional prospect caught Bryan’s eye:

How about this?

Miguel Amaya hit the third farthest fly ball to right field of his career yesterday, a RBI double.

Here you’ll find, via Statcast and @MinorGraphs, Amaya’s 2016-2018 spray chart, and his 2019 spray chart.

The power is blossoming. pic.twitter.com/9MZGvPitWv

— Cubs Prospects – Bryan Smith (@cubprospects) April 5, 2019

• How about Thomas Hatch’s awesome debut start, eh?

Watching Thomas Hatch’s start from last night again today. Will tweet some thoughts within this thread.

While I do, here’s Mike’s grabs to get acquainted with the outing.

5 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 7 K, 68 pitches (48 strikes), 18 batters faced, 3 GO – 4 FO.https://t.co/pa5qG05ns7

— Cubs Prospects – Bryan Smith (@cubprospects) April 5, 2019

• And one more from Tennessee, where Jared Young already started showing off that still-developing power:

#Cubs Minor League Opening Day Highlights Thread

1/ Jared Young kicked off the scoring in the Cubs system with a mammoth blast in his first AA plate appearance. pic.twitter.com/Natea5l3iZ

— Michael Ernst (@mj_ernst) April 5, 2019

• Utility prospect (aka, the next David Bote?) Trent Giambrone secured Iowa’s first homer of the year:

.@Trentgiambrone3 claims the first I-Cub homer of the season 💪 pic.twitter.com/mZF1SuNd0M

— Iowa Cubs (@IowaCubs) April 5, 2019

• This is something you already know, but it’s laid out very starkly:

If my count is correct, and it may not be, the Cubs front office has drafted 150 pitchers between 2012-2018 and have a grand total of zero of them on the current big league roster. How do they not run into at least a long reliever? It's baffling.

— Brad Robinson (@bradrobinson8) April 5, 2019