Brownlie Down For Year; Al Yellon on Ken Hubbs; & a Kiley on Alfonseca Redux
The Cub Reporter picks up a Baseball America report stating that 2002 1st-round draft pick Bobby Brownlie has been shut down for the year. He’s having shoulder pain. But Cubs farm director Oneri Fleita says “[t]here’s nothing wrong with him,” this is just a precautionary measure.
Right.
Brownlie. Angel Guzman. Luke Hagerty. Justin Jones. Matt Clanton. I don’t know enough about injury analysis or how the Cubs handle their minor league pitchers to know whether this is random chance or points to some fault with the Cubs player development system, but that is something that needs to be evaluated.
In other news, Al Yellon has a nice tribute to former Cubs second baseman and Rookie-of-the-Year Ken Hubbs, who died early in life.
Dusty Baker is trying to determine who he should start on the mound in the All-Star game. It’s down to Jason Schmidt (the favorite), Kerry Wood, and Russ Ortiz. Russ Ortiz? Is he really an option?
Antonio Alfonseca is currently sporting a 6.27 ERA. Just think, two months ago, the Sun-Times‘ Mike Kiley was writing article after article on how the Cubs could use Alfonseca to trade for a good third baseman. Perhaps those prospective teams knew something Kiley didn’t.