Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up
All Scores
Odds by

Cubs prospect Tyler Colvin wins Opening Day job

In a surprise move, the Cubs have decided to keep 24-year-old outfield prospect Tyler Colvin on the Opening Day roster. Colvin is slated for a bench role, although manager Lou Piniella said that he hopes to find the former first-round pick 2-3 starts per week. Piniella cited Colvin’s outstanding spring training performance as the reason for making the team, but basing decisions on 20 exhibition games against inconsistent levels of competition is usually a mistake and I’m not sure what the big rush is with Colvin. He’s been excellent this spring and hit .300 with an .859 OPS in 89 games at Double-A last season, but he had an ugly 57/16 K/BB ratio in the process and before that Colvin struggled so much at Double-A the previous season that the Cubs demoted him back to Single-A. His plate discipline and strike-zone control have improved, but only from horrendous to merely bad, and Colvin has yet to log a single plate appearance at Triple-A. Why jump him from Double-A to the majors just so he can mostly sit on the bench behind Alfonso Soriano, Marlon Byrd, Kosuke Fukudome, and Xavier Nady? Why not send him to Triple-A, let him prove that his recent success is for real, and call him up when you actually need him?