Wroad to Wrigley Wednesday - 2015 Iowa Cubs Part 3

In this weekly series, I break down some of the minor league team sets I've picked up along the way.

In that first write up for the 2015 Iowa Cubs team set, I showed off the coaches, trainers (cards 1-5) and the mascot (card #36). Last week, I had cards 6-15. Today we're going with cards 16-25.

#16 Junior Lake

Junior Lake signed with the Cubs as a free agent in 2007 before turning 17. Working his way up the system, Lake made his MLB debut in July 2013 and got off to a fast start with 15 hits in his first 7 games. When Alfonso Soriano was traded at the end of the month, Lake finished out the season as the starting left fielder. He didn't fair as well in 2014, despite being the Opening Day starter, batting just .211, with 9 home runs and 25 RBIs in 108 games.


Lake bounced back and forth between Iowa and Chicago in 2015 before being traded to the Baltimore Orioles at the end of July. He finished the season split between Baltimore and their AAA affiliate, the Norfolk Tides. He was designated for assignment in December and claimed off waivers by the Toronto Blue Jays. He opened the 2016 season in AAA with the Buffalo Bisons.


#17 Matt Szczur

Matt Szczur was selected by the Cubs in the 5th round of the 2010 draft. He made his Cubs debut in August 2014 and finished the season with the big league club. He split time between Iowa and Chicago in 2014 and made the team out of Spring Training to start 2016. Mostly coming off the bench, Szczur is batting .367 with 2 home runs and 10 RBIs this year, including a pinch hit grand slam on April 29th. Unfortunately, he just went on the 15 day DL.

#18 Christian Villanueva

Speaking of the DL, Christian Villanueva just got moved to the 60-Day DL to make room for Ryan Kalish on the 40 man roster, who replaced Matt Szczur on the 25 man roster. Villanueva broke his fibula in Spring Training.


HE came to the Cubs organization with Kyle Hendricks in a 2012 trade with the Texas Rangers where the Cubs gave up Ryan Dempster. A corner infielder, unfortunately when he's healthy again, he'll be blocked in Chicago by Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo.



#19 Eric Jokisch

Eric Jokisch is best known to me as throwing a no-hitter for the AA Tennessee Smokies a few years back. He had a cup of coffee back with the Cubs in 2014, appearing in 4 games for no record and 1.88 ERA.


He was claimed off waivers by the Marlins a couple of weeks back and is currently assigned the AAA New Orleans Zephyrs.



#20 Donn Roach

Earning an even smalled cup of coffee with the Cubs was Donn Roach. He was pulled up from Iowa to make a spot start last season and then promptly returned to AAA.

He didn't clear waivers and was selected by the Reds. Just a few weeks later, he was selected off waivers by the Blue Jays. He was granted free agency in the off season and signed with the Seattle Mariners for 2016. He is currently with their AAA affiliate, the Tacoma Rainiers.



#21 Brian Schlitter

The Cubs acquired Brian Schlitter from the Phillies way back in 2008 for Scott Eyre. He pitched 8 innings of relief in 7 appearance during his MLB debut season in 2010. He toiled away in the minors for a few seasons before reemerging in 2014 with the Cubs, pitching in 61 games, trailing only Justin Grimm in appearances. He spent most of 2015 in Iowa, mixing in 10 appearances with the major league club. Schlitter signed with the Rockies in the offseason and is currently playing for the Albuquerque Iostopes.



#22 Carl Edwards, Jr.

Carl Edwards, Jr. (formerly CJ, currently AKA The String Bean Slinger) joined the Cubs in 2013 when the Cubs traded Matt Garza for Edwards, Mike Olt and Justin Grimm. He has consistently been ranked among the top 25-50 prospects in baseball the past few years. Edwards made 5 appearances last season as a September call up and is currently back with Iowa.

#23 Gonzalez Germen

The Cubs selected Gonzalez Germen off waivers prior to the start of the 2015 season. He pitched 6 innings of relief before being claimed off waivers by the Colorado Rockies, where he currently plays.



#24 Dallas Beeler

Dallas Beeler was drafted by the Cubs in 2010. He made his Cubs debut in June 2014 against the Washington Nationals. Despite breaking up a no hitter in his first at bat (in the 3rd inning, haha) there was no run support from the offense and Beeler took the loss, giving up just 1 unearned run in 6 IP. Beeler started the 2016 season on the DL.


#25 Rafael Lopez

Rafael Lopez was drafted in 2011. He made his MLB debut as a September call up in 2014, appearing in six games off the bench and one start. He was traded to the Angels in July 2015 and finished his season with the Salt Lake Bees. Lopez signed with the Tigers in January 2016 and was released in early April. He is currently playing for the Bridgeport Bluefish in the independent Atlantic League.


Next week, I'll have the final 10 cards from the set.

Wroad to Wrigley Wednesday - 2015 Iowa Cubs Part 2

After my Cubs trip last August, I was all gung-ho to show off all my minor league team set pickups in a new alliteratively named series I called Wroad to Wrigley Wednesday. That lasted all of one post before the blog fell silent. But luckily, I had started the next one so I'm clearing it out of the draft folder.

In that first write up, I showed off the coaches, trainers (cards 1-5) and the mascot (card #36). Today, I have cards 6-15. If you know anything about the big league Cubs, you'll recognize quite a few of these names today.

#6 Yoanner Negrin

Yoanner Negrin has been in the Cubs system since 2011 but has yet to make his MLB debut. He is currently playing in the Mexican League.

#7 Drake Britton

Drake Britton is actually a familiar name to me but from outside the Cubs. He was formerly within the Red Sox organization and came through the Carolina League (my local minor league team's league) a few years back. I believe I have a Topps Pro Debut card signed by him. Britton made his MLB debut with the Red Sox in 2013 and has 27 2/3 innings under his belt between 2013 and 2014. The Cubs claimed him off waivers in February 2015 and he spent the entire last season with Iowa. He was a free agent after the season and signed with Tigers. He is currently with their AAA team, the Toledo Mud Hens.

#8 Rubi Silva

Rubi Silva is a career minor league Cub, joining the system in 2011, like fellow Cuban, Yoanner Negrin. He is currently playing in the Mexican League.

#9 Adron Chambers

Adron Chambers has a World Series ring after being on the St. Louis Cardinals roster in 2011. He was a free agent following the 2013 season and played in the Houston Astros and Toronto Blue Jays systems before finding his way to Iowa for the 2015 season. On November 3, Chambers was suspended 50 games for a "drug of abuse", whatever that means. I guess as opposed to PEDs? On November 6, he was granted free agency.

#10 Felipe Paulino

Feliipe Paulino has Major League experience with the Houston Astros, Colorado Rockies, Kansas City Royals and Chicago White Sox. He signed a minor league deal with the Cubs in May 2015 and as of Decmeber is with the Cleveland Indians organization.

#11 Kris Bryant

Finally, a player with some actual Chicago Cubs experience. You may have heard of this undercover Lyft driver, Frozen lip syncher, oh and 2015 National League Rookie of the Year. He hit two home runs in a game, including his third career grand slam but was over shadowed by Jake Arrieta's no-hitter. There was some controversy about him making the big league club out of spring training last year and due to his contract status, the big wigs from the front office kept him in Iowa for a few extra days. He split 2014 between the Tennessee Smokies and Iowa Cubs but played just 7 games for the I-Cubs in 2015.

#12 Addison Russell

Addison Russell was the big coup in the deal the sent Jeff Samardzija to the Oakland A's in 2014. He finished that season in Tennessee, played 11 games in Iowa in 2015 and has been in Chicago ever since. He debuted at second base, swapped positions with 3x All-Star Starlin Castro and is now firmly cemented as the Cubs shortstop of the future.

#13 Javier Baez

Javier Baez was the Cubs 1st Round draft pick (11th overall) in 2011 and made his Cubs debut in 2014. Primarily a middle infielder, Baez has played 1st, 2nd, 3rd and shortstop already in just 8-9 games. He also has some outfield experience in the minors. His flexibility will be key down the stretch.

#14 Arismendy Alcantara

Arismendy Alcantara signed with the Cubs as an international free agent way back in 2008. He played in 70 games in 2014, mostly after the Cubs traded away second baseman Darwin Barney. Unfortunately for Alcantara, he got off to a slow start in 2015 and didn't get called back up after Russell's moderate success. And with the Russell/Baez/Tommy La Stella and Ben Zobrist middle infield platoon, there may not be room for him this year either.

#15 Kyle Schwarber

Last but not least for today's post, we have Kyle Schwarber. It would be hard to believe that Kyle Schwarber was the 3rd best rookie on the Cubs last year but on a stacked young team, he was. Unfortunately, an outfield collision has sidelined him for the rest of 2016, but I'm looking forward to many more Schwar-bombs off the Schwar-board.

That wraps up this week's Wroad to Wrigley post. Next week will have cards 20-30 from this set.

Wroad to Wrigley Wednesday - 2015 Iowa Cubs Part 1

In this new series, I’m going to be showing off some of my minor league team set pickups. I was going to present the team set with minimal comments but thought it would be fun to talk about whether any of these players from the set had “made it” yet.

There was a checklist card but to build a little suspense, I'll save the back for the last post in this series. The coaching staff makes up the first couple of cards and I think I’ve got a full post just on these guys. So I’ll spread this out a bit.

Manager Marty Pevey played 13 career games for the Montreal Expos in 1990. One of those games was against the Cubs, but alas, not at Wrigley.

Pitching Coach Mike Cather pitched part of three seasons with the Atlanta Braves from 1997-99. He made 6 career appearances against the Cubs, the first of which was his only appearance at Wrigley Field. The result? Cather’s first Major League loss. After getting the final out of the 7^th inning, check out the sequence of events.

Groundball to second, out, Groundball to second, out. Single to the left side. Error to the left side. Error to the left side. Ground ball to second, out. Get it together, left side! Tough way to take a loss!

Hitting Coach Brian Harper played from 1979-1995. His Wrigley debut came on September 20, 1982 as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates. I’m a little confused by the boxscore on Baseball-reference…

Does that mean he was announced as a pinch hitter, the Cubs brought in a new pitcher and then the Pirates pulled Harper back for Dave Parker? Anyone?

Anyway, the next night, Harper struck out in a pinch hit appearance at Wrigley for an actual debut.

Assistant Hitting Coach Leo Perez is the first coach to have actually been a Cub at some point in his playing days. Well, a minor league Cub, making it as high as Advanced Single A Daytona. It looks like he may have been a catcher, but also tried his hand at pitching in a couple of game in the Arizona Fall League.

Finishing up the field staff is a dual card of Athletic Trainer Scott Baringer and Strength & Conditioning Coach Ryan Clausen. While its probably cool for these guys to have a baseball card, I’m not sure I see the point? Both had also previously worked together with the Cubs Double A organization, the Tennessee Smokies. Which means if the Smokies did the same thing, I might have multiple cards of these guys. I can't remember from when I scanned them.

The last card in the set is #36, Cubbie Bear, the mascot of the Iowa Cubs.

With 36 cards in the set, and 6 out of the way, that leaves 30 players that I’ll feature over the course of 2-3 more posts.

Digging into the Past to Look into the Future

When I rather abruptly stopped posting here last August, I had 29 post ideas in my Draft folder here on Blogger. A year later, some of them aren’t real pertinent anymore, while others I would like to revisit.

One example is a feature I called “Where Are They Now?” which focused on Cubs’ minor leaguers that made appearances in the Topps Pro Debut set. Back in 2013 I followed up on the 2010 Cubs team set and last summer I started with the 2011 set before shutting it down.

My recent road trip has me on a big minor league kick and with the Cubs system ranked among the top (even with all the guys that have already been called up and aren't “prospects” anymore), it seems like as good a time as ever. In fact, I may do a quickie post that catches up with everybody from 2010 again too as there have been some MLB promotions within that group. And if you’ve read my trip recap, you’ll know that I have tons of minor leagues team sets I can delve into! 

I thought of starting a new blog to explore such a wide topic, but then I realized I was jumping back in with both feet too quickly. So I’ll take the weekly approach for now and see how it goes. I will probably continue to do the Where Are They Now posts on Sundays like I was before and work on these team sets posts on Wednesdays. I love alliteration so I’m thinking of calling this the Wroad to Wrigley Weekly Wednesday Wrapup. That's a little wordy. Maybe 5Dub for short? Decuple-U?

Here are the stacks of cards I picked up on my road trip that have now all been scanned, front and back. I’ll be working on the cropping and renaming in spurts. That's quit e a few Wednesday posts in my future.

Well over 600 cards!

On this trip I picked up the following team sets:

2015 South Bend Cubs
2015 Midwest League Tops Prospects
2015 Iowa Cubs
2015 Pacific Coast League Top Prospects
2015 Tennessee Smokies
2015 Southern League Top Prospects
2015 Myrtle Beach Pelicans
2015 Carolina League Top Prospects
2014 Daytona Cubs
2014 Kane County Cougars
2014 Tennessee Smokies
2013 Tennessee Smokies
2012 Tennessee Smokies
2011 Tennessee Smokies
2010 Tennessee Smokies
2009 Tennessee Smokies
2009 Pacific Coast League Top Prospects
2008 Tennessee Smokies
1997 Iowa Cubs
1996 Iowa Cubs
1995 Iowa Cubs
1992 Iowa Cubs
1991 Iowa Cubs
1989 Iowa Cubs

With South Bend and Myrtle Beach being first year affiliates, I now have a complete "run" on those team sets. I am only missing 2007 for the Smokies. And I am missing a ton of Iowa Cubs. I may try to fill in some gaps but I am pretty happy with the current runs I have going. I doubt I'll try to go for too many Daytona Cubs as they were the affiliate for a while, but the Kane County Cougars might be easier to track down as a short term team.

If I could just get into my collection to scan my Pro Debut, Heritage Minors, and Bowman Prospects team sets, I’ll have a lot of baseball card source material to work with. Not to mention a great pipeline of Cubs prospects to discuss!