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Kris Bryant, Baez, Russell Reassigned To Minors

As teams continue to trim their rosters before Opening Day the Cubs have went ahead assigned top prospects Kris Bryant and Addison Russell to minor league camp and have assigned second baseman Javier Baez to Triple-A Iowa.

The moves may come to no surprise, particularly for Kris Bryant. Bryant has been the talk of the spring with a lot of debate as to whether or not the highlight touted third baseman should start the season on the Cubs major league roster. By keeping Bryant in the minors for 13 days into the regular season the Cubs can have an additional year of contract control, per Major League Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement. While many fans and players around baseball would have loved to see Bryant start the season in the majors, many have expected him to start the season in Triple-A Iowa awaiting his call to the majors later in April.

Javier Baez will join Kris Bryant at Triple-A Iowa to start the season and this may come as a bit of a surprise considering how Maddon has highly regarded Baez’s defense at second base. Despite his stellar defense, Baez has struck out 20 times in 52 at-bats this spring with a very low .173 batting average. There is no telling when Baez will find himself back at Wrigley as he will most certainly need to find control of his spring, cut down on strikeouts and hit for average in his time at Triple-A. In the meantime, expect Arismendy Alcantara and Tommy LaStella to get most of the playing time at second base as the Cubs start the 2015 season.

As for Russell, the top prospect acquired from the Oakland Athletics last season, will also be assigned to minor league camp and open the season at Triple-A Iowa. Russell had hit well this spring, sporting a .324 batting average in 12 games played. Russell and the Cubs organization had full expected to start Russell at Triple-A this season giving the prospect more at-bats and development time as Starlin Castro covers the shortstop position at the major league level.

While Russell develops into a high-caliber player in Triple-A, Baez will look to improve upon his violent swing and high strikeout rate as he sees more pitches in the minors. Bryant, on the other hand, will receive a lot of attention in the next few weeks. His agent, Scott Boras, as well as Tony Clark, the President of the Major League Baseball Players Association, have already expressed great interest in Bryant’s situation and will be sure to have a response to his assignment to Triple-A. Regardless, Bryant is presumed to be in the Cubs lineup sometime in the middle of April.

The Cubs spring roster now stands at 35 as Spring Training for the Cubs wraps up in the next week.

Author: Anthony Schullo

Chicago Cubs Writer/Analyst for The Runner Sports. Following the Cubs as one of their biggest fans and perhaps their harshest critic.

Follow Anthony on Twitter: @AMSchullo
Reach out via email: [email protected]

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