Kimbrel’s Concerns, Hoerner’s Importance, Alzolay Innings, Phillies Coaches and other Bullets Cubs

Kimbrel’s Concerns, Hoerner’s Importance, Alzolay Innings, Phillies Coaches and other Bullets Cubs

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Ah, Spring Forward. You used to bother me so much – as if I had missed an hour of the day! – but now it just means I’m an hour closer to dessert as soon as I wake up.

• Craig Kimbrel looked frighteningly bad on Friday, and as he looked worse each time this spring, the initial optimism about him just increasing his speed faded into … is he really going to prepare for April, or what? I am much less certain than a few weeks ago, because I did not expect him to lose control any further.

• It looks like the alarm wasn’t just us watching at home, either. Here is David Ross (NBC): “[Friday was] On the first day, I thought it looked a bit like some of the older features that we identified last year. I think that’s what they’re looking at this morning and trying to reevaluate those keys…. [Friday] it was probably one of the tours that most resembled some of his fights. That second, third outing for many of these guys was not sharp for most of them. So, I think Craig falls into that category too. The ball just wasn’t coming out as it normally would. In general, there didn’t seem to be much behind it. Even if the radar gun said 94, 95 [mph] it just wasn’t as explosive as it normally is. ”Yeeeeep. This is a manager saying everything you will hear him say publicly when he is worried about a guy. It looks a lot like last year.

• The good news is that it is spring training, and if Kimbrel looked as messy as it was last July, well, that means it can be fixed! Because it has been fixed! So, I hope he and the Little Lions can get over it in the next few weeks to once again take him where he needs to be. In the meantime, however, I would say that we have reached the point of concern. Wherever Kimbrel got into mechanics last September, it looks like she lost him again in the meantime.

• As we have already discussed, if the Cubs go with a bank of just four men to open the season, things get especially difficult if Nico Hoerner is the second starting man. Hoerner undoubtedly understands this, and also sees the arrival of veteran Eric Sogard, a guy who may not be able to join the team if Hoerner does. But Hoerner cannot worry about that (The Athletic): “It is very simple. The team is doing everything to make the season a success, just like me. It doesn’t change anything on my side when it comes to the work I do. The team will always do everything to win games, so this is out of my control ”. The balance is to keep as many people in the organization as possible, while winning games in the short term and also doing whatever is necessary to achieve the greatest long-term development of Hoerner, which is very important for the Cubs’ nearby five years if they will not fall off a cliff after this season.

• Adbert Alzolay’s immediate future can be decided by a referee – specifically, one who decides whether the last season counts for players who would otherwise qualify for a fourth year of choice (Alzolay is one of them). The decision can come at any time, but Alzolay tells NBC that he’s trying not to think about it, because when he thinks about it, it becomes a distraction for his performance: “I don’t like to put [those] things in my mind, ”he said. “If I put this pressure on my mind that, ‘Oh, my God, I’m going to be sent down’, or this or that, it will just distract me from my main focus, which is just making the team and being in the great leagues. “

• In any case, based on how the rotation schedule is working out, it appears that Alzolay may not “do the rotation” on Opening Day, but would instead launch as a swing-man / multi-inning instead. Since his innings will have to be artificially limited this year anyway, it is not necessarily a big problem whether Alzolay does the rotation initially or not – he will receive the innings he will get if performance warrants it. Where it matters most is that he would take a place in the bullpen, and the Cubs would be even more crushed there in terms of keeping more players in the organization. If, on the other hand, Alzolay still has an option, he will probably have an exit option initially, will have his shift limited in that way, and will eventually enter the rotation.

• The Cubs’ current bullpen trainer, Chris Young, was an assistant pitching coach for the Phillies in 2018 and then a pitching coach in 2019. That time obviously coincided with Jake Arrieta’s two full years of being in Philadelphia and not having super success. This leads to some sarcasm: “We like to give CY a lot of shit about messing up Arrieta when he got there,” David Ross told The Athletic. “But it’s all a joke.” Ufa! (In all seriousness, there are backstage stories about the Phillies during that time – look at all the hires and firings and transitions that have taken place – that strongly suggest guys like Young (and catching trainer Craig Driver, whom the Cubs also hunted) were not the problem …

• I’m just saying, Francisco Lindor understands:

• Ball 4, Strike 3:

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