Minor League Contributing Writer: Luke Blaize

I am happy to be joining CubbiesCrib.com as the writer in charge of covering the entire Cubs minor league system and everyone in it.

Not just a Cubs fan, I am a fan of baseball in general. Any baseball game is a good baseball game, unless the Yankees, Mets, or Cardinals are winning. I’ll even listen to the White Sox on occasion. I do catch most of my Cubs games via radio. I am a huge fan of Pat and Ron, both of whom belong in the Hall Fame, and credit Pat Hughes for making even the worst Cubs game enjoyable.

You will notice pretty quickly that, when talking about baseball, I am a numbers guy. I lead with statistics and try to keep emotion out of the equation. I do not believe that numbers can tell the whole story, but statistics are a great place to start. As a result, my coverage of the minors will probably be more stat intensive than what you are used to on CubbiesCrib, but I think I can keep things enjoyable anyway.

Covering the minor leagues will be a huge task. My plan, once the season starts, is to provide you with a weekly look at the minor leagues as a whole. I’ll try to highlight notable performances from the previous week, tip you off on games to watch for the upcoming week, and provide some coverage for individuals in the Cubs’ system who are just having great years. Any trades that involve minor league players will be in my department, and when someone from the minors gets called up to Wrigley I’ll try to give you some insight into that player. While waiting for the new season to start, I’ll be taking a look at Cubs players in the various winter league, providing some information on the players drafted this past summer, and writing on some of the prospects in the Cubs system that could reach Wrigley in 2011.

That said, I will miss stories. There is a lot of ground to cover in the minor league system and there is no way I can handle it all. I will be counting on you, the readers of CubbiesCrib, to tip me off to stories I’ve overlooked. For example, if Daytona goes on a twelve game winning streak and I haven’t writen on it, drop me a line. I can’t promise I’ll respond to all tips, but I will certainly appreciate them.

The 2011 season looks to be a pretty good one for the Cub’s minor league system, and I hope you enjoy exploring it with me, three times a week, right here at CubbiesCrib.com.