Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs: Cubs Cut Baez, Bryant, Russel from Camp

While most have seen this announcement coming for quite some time, the reality of its arrival is sure to stir some colorful reactions. My hope is that Scott Boras has a press release prepped, but I’m certain there will be quite a few declarations from the various deep, dark corners of the interwebs.

In the wake of this news, I must advise each of you to avoid feeding the animals as you head toward the exit in a calm and orderly manner. Proceed directly to the Iowa Cubs website and buy tickets to witness firsthand what is sure to be the most electric infield in all of MiLB. Heck, it’ll rival several big league clubs.

I think the big takeaways here are: 1) the Cubs are willing to stay the course when it comes to Kris Bryant and the issue of service time/MLB readiness, and 2) they are equally willing to give Javier Baez time to work through his issues at the plate. In short, they don’t feel they need to force the issue with these two in order to generate either money or results.

To me, this speaks volumes about the progress this team has made and about where they feel they are in the process. Certainly, the coming digital storm may yield meatball-sized hail across social media, but once it’s blown over we should be left with plenty of thunder developing in Des Moines and working its way quickly to Chicago as April progresses.