Spring Training Miscellany: Players Are Hungry, Suzuki is Jacked, Madrigal at Third, Contreras in Red, More
The official first reporting date for Spring Training was today (pitchers and catchers who are playing in the World Baseball Classic), though the traditional “PITCHERS AND CATCHERS REPORT!” day is on Wednesday.
In any case, there is a lot going on at Sloan Park right now in Mesa, Arizona, as loads of Cubs players, prospects, and coaches gear up for Spring Training proper. I thought you might enjoy seeing some of what there is to see …
- David Ross says his guys are hungry and getting after it already:
- Seiya Suzuki showed up in Arizona this weekend to get his Spring Training underway, and he clearly put in the physical work to strengthen up (not that he wasn’t already strong):
- Starting to think the over-under on combined Belli-Seiya bombs was set too low at 135:
- No, but in all seriousness, if Bellinger and Suzuki combine to hit a mere 120 homers or so, the Cubs will probably be in pretty good shape.
- It would be helpful to Nick Madrigal’s path to playing time if this were a real option, but it’s hard to imagine the arm playing:
- He’s still young enough that you can’t rule it out entirely, but I guess we’ll see if he gets any game action there in the spring (and how he looks).
- Nico Hoerner, Beard Guy:
- Brennen Davis is presumably over the stress reaction in his back for now (recall, that was the setback in the fall), because he’s taking big hacks in batting practice and getting some nice oohs and ahhs:
- I tend to think we can’t really know where Davis is physically – much less where he is from a performance standpoint – until the regular season starts and he’s playing multiple days in a row without any flareups. Good to see that it confirmed, visually, that he’s got no limitations right now, though.
- It’s gonna sound meatbally as heck, but the “people stopped to watch” factor is a thing. It’s always a good sign:
- We are enemies now:
- I still very much wish the best for Willson Contreras at a personal/human level, and I’m glad he got paid. But I hope the Cardinals suck horribly, and I hope the pitching staff’s performance falls off a cliff. It’s a rivalry.
- Somewhere over the rainbow:
