Line of the Week: Another First Baseman

This week’s Minor League Line of the Week will be a little shorter than usual because of the draft. The honoree in this edition deserves plenty of recognition, though. This time last year this guy was drafted by the Cubs out of the University of Delaware. Now playing with Peoria, this lefty first baseman hasn’t played every game for the Chiefs, but he has hit well in the games in which he has played.

Six months ago it looked like the Cubs were thin on first baseman. Now we have Rebel Ridling hitting well in Tennessee, Justin Bour hitting extremely well in Daytona, Richard Jones hitting well for Peoria, and today we introduce the fourth first baseman to raise his stock in the Cubs’ system this year. For the week ending June 5th, the Line of the Week goes to…

Ryan Cuneo.

Cuneo splits time at first with Midwest League All-Star Richard Jones, and in 18 games he’s hitting .329 with an OPS of .885.

He started every game last week, and in those seven games he piled up 14 hits, 8 runs, and 8 RBIs. In 39 ABs he struck out just twice against five walks.

On the season, Cuneo has raised his average with runners in scoring position to .400, and that’s a good sign. He is striking out less than 10% of the time, another good sign, and is still slugging a solid .500.

Cuneo could probably use a promotion to Daytona, but he is blocked by Bour, who in turn is blocked by Ridling. I would not be surprised to see the Cubs clear some room for Ridling on the Iowa roster and start bumping some first basemen up the ladder a bit.

That will be a story to keep an eye on in the future. For the present, Ryan Cuneo picks up his first Cubbies Crib Minor League Line of the Week.