Spring Training Game Four Overreactions

The Cubs are finally on the board with a victory over the Royals. If you looked at the starting lineups, it appears the Royals were taking the game a bit more seriously, as they started 6 players who are projected to be in their opening day lineup. Meanwhile, the Cubs started a grand total of one: Pete Crow-Armstrong.

I only managed to follow the first 5 innings live, as I needed to head to the gym. OK, I went to play pickleball — but that’s still exercise, dammit! So I missed the debut of former Iowa Sticks coach and Tread Athletics Academy alum Tyler Ras. He did also spend time in the minors with the Rockies organization and was with Houston’s Low-A team in 2025, so it’s not as if the Cubs pulled him off the streets to pitch.

Here are some of my thoughts:

• Jefferson Rojas had another great game, and I thought he was so good, he may have been a Top Performer for both teams. Alas, the other J. Rojas was Josh Rojas, who played third for the Royals. Rojas (the Cub version) definitely is showing why he’s such a highly regarded prospect — possibly the heir apparent to Dansby Swanson.
  

• The Cubs continue to work hard to make outs on the bases in Spring, although in this case it was just failure and not madness. An inning with 2 singles and a strikeouts went 1-2-3, due to BJ Murray being thrown out trying to go from first to third, and Pedro Ramirez getting caught stealing when Justin Dean struck out. I’m not sure if this is being stat is being gathered somewhere, but the Cubs must have twice as many players thrown out on the bases than any other team this Spring.
• In another season, Ben Brown and Javier Assad might be competing for a 5th starting spot. But with the starting pitching depth the Cubs has gathered, the best they might hope for is being the 7th starter/long-man in the bullpen, which might drop to 8th when Justin Steele comes back. But as we know, pitcher injuries will happen, and I would be shocked if one or both don’t make starts for the Cubs this season. The good news is that they both looked solid today against major league hitters. Brown allowed two hits, but had three strikeouts while hitting 96-98 with his fastball, and 98 with a new sinker. Assad allowed a couple of baserunners in his first inning, but stranded both of them, which sees to be his superpower. The two seem to be opposites: Brown has the peripherals but bad results and Assad has good results but bad peripherals. I’ll be putting together a post in the future to take a closer look at the two.
• After a literally wild first outing (and that is the correct use of the work literally), Porter Hodge had a much better outing — and no dropped balls in centerfield. I was very critical of his last outing, but was enlightened that there was good news among all the walks: his slider was moving much better than it had in 2025

Yesterday, Porter Hodge threw his sweeper nine times, averaging 16 inches of horizontal break—worth noting after it dipped to around 10 inches last September.

In his first outing, the pitch already looks much closer to its 2024 form. https://t.co/uiBLTC4ZJ6

— Brendan Miller (@brendan_cubs) February 21, 2026

It’s spring training, and the method is often much more important that the result. Today, Hodge put both together get a weak line out to center, a strikeout on a 96 mph fastball on the outside corner (confirmed by ABS), a walk, and then a strikeout on a slider that caught the upper part of the strike zone. Daniel Palencia has been named the closer, but Hodge still has a small chance to be the primary setup man and secondary closer – competing against Hunter Harvey and Phil Maton, both of who have not yet pitched this Spring.

• The fact that there are baseball games that are not on streaming is stupid.
• Some position players we still have not seen: Ian Happ, Nico Hoerner, Michael Busch, Dansby Swanson, and strangely, Kevin Alcantara. One would think Alcantara would be getting some at bats to see if he should make the team, but I fee like he will start the season in Iowa.
• Michael Conforto, who was just signed to a minor league contract, obviously did not play. He is a guy I would have loved the Cubs to have signed 3 or 4 years ago, but I’m not too excited about it now. He did have a decent season on 2023 and was an above average hitter in 2024, but was not good with the Dodgers last season. He’s been primarily used against right-handed pitching, and is better against righties in his career, but he has been a reverse splits guy the last couple of years.