Although the Chicago Cubs don’t have any top-100 ranked prospects they certainly have several young players having pretty good seasons down in the minors this year. That includes one of the newest members of the Cubs organization, Nico Hoerner, who cranked his first career home run in pro ball Saturday night.

Hoerner was the 24th overall pick in the 2018 MLB Draft and the shortstop out of Stanford is off to a hot start with the Eugene Emeralds, the Class A short-season affiliate of the Cubs.

The right-handed hitter was 6-for-12 in his first four games with Eugene heading into Saturday’s game against the Hillsboro Hops and in the sixth inning Hoerner lined an opposite-field shot for his first home run in professional baseball.

Hoerner gets the Emeralds on the board in the 6th with his first career homerun! pic.twitter.com/74kgVmMhs9

— Eugene Emeralds (@EugeneEmeralds) July 8, 2018

After five games, Hoerner is 7-for-16 (.438 average) with a triple, four runs scored, two RBIs, four stolen bases and three walks to go along with his first home run.

Before he made the trip to the northwest, Hoerner played in three games in the Arizona League and he showed off his skills in a short period of time as well. In his pro debut, Hoerner reached base four times, scored three times, drove in a run and also tripled.

Although the Cubs are currently set in the middle infield with Javier Baez and Addison Russell, Hoerner has his sights on reaching the big leagues at shortstop.

Via MiLB.com.

One thing Hoerner can answer without hesitation is about his position going forward: shortstop.

“Yes,” he said quickly about staying at his natural position. “That’s an easy answer. You can be dead-set on a position but also realistic. But I want to play shortstop for as long as I can.”

So far so good for Hoerner, who signed his contract with the Cubs in June that included a $2.7 million bonus.

Sure, when I first saw this clip Saturday I immediately thought how in the hell do you not know who Joey Votto is? I mean, c’mon, he’s one of the best players in baseball. Then I thought about it for a second and realized I watch baseball almost every single day once the season starts and you know what, the two Cubs employees who had no clue who Votto was probably don’t, so why should anyone expect them to know who Joey Votto is?

Yes, this does go back MLB’s big problem of failing to market the game to a younger audience. Let’s be real here, if the best player, maybe in the history of the game, Mike Trout walked by you would you recognize him?

Stop lying, you most likely wouldn’t.

OK, does it look embarrassing that a Cubs employee doesn’t know who Votto is? I guess, but more likely than not most of the people working during game day on any team, especially the younger workers, probably don’t give a shit about baseball.

They’re just trying to get a pay check during the summer. They don’t care who Joey Votto is or any other player for that matter.

Cubs workers didn’t even know who Joey Votto was? @Reds pic.twitter.com/FqCo9Vd388

— Curtis Wetzel (@curtiswetzel) July 6, 2018

The Baltimore Orioles have been shopping Manny Machado since the offseason, but it appears as though they might finally pull the trigger on a trade in the upcoming weeks.

The Chicago Cubs have had interest in Machado since the winter and reports have continually linked them to the star infielder throughout the first half of this season. The latest report reveals the Cubs as one of seven teams that have made a trade offer to the Orioles for Machado. 

As you look at the playoff picture in the National League, it’s no surprise that six of the seven teams, including the Cubs, come from the NL.

Via Eduardo A. Encina of The Baltimore Sun.

The Orioles have received offers from the Los Angeles Dodgers, Arizona Diamondbacks, Milwaukee Brewers, Philadelphia Phillies, Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs, and the offers rank in that order of appeal, according to the source.

All the offers are said to be “very close” in appeal according to the source.

Well, at this point the Dodgers appear to have the best offer on the table, but as you see in the second sentence there, the offers all seem to be close in appeal.

Sooooooooo, there might still be a chance for the Cubs?

There’s no doubt Machado has put up some great numbers with just an awful team. So far in 2018, the shortstop has a slash line of .310/.380/.557, with 21 home runs and 60 RBIs, walking 40 times and striking out only 50 times.

Yet, he’s insisted that he will not move from the shortstop position, despite being the worst defensive shortstop in baseball.

No names have been revealed as of yet, but Encina did mention the following.

The players in the Dodgers’ offer to the Orioles are unknown, but their current offer did not include either top prospect outfielder Alex Verdugo or right-hander Yadier Álvarez.

The Orioles expressed interest in Verdugo and his name was discussed in talks between the teams, but Álvarez’s name was only bantered about briefly, the source said. Verdugo is ranked as the Dodgers’ second-best prospect, according to Baseball America, and Alvarez is ranked fifth.

Still, the Orioles’ desire is to acquire the top prospects or young controllable players available — with an emphasis on pitching and left-side infielders — in exchange for Machado.

The Cubs farm system isn’t deep in terms of highly-ranked prospects, so, I’m only speculating here, maybe Ian Happ has been dangled for Machado as the headliner from the Cubs?

There’s just no way that any team is going to give up top prospects for three months of Machado, so maybe that works in the Cubs favor if they can somehow get close to the other offers.

The thing is, though, Machado would obviously be a great addition, but there’s just no way he’s an upgrade defensively at shortstop. Not that I would be against him playing there, but if by any chance the Cubs do land him, he’d have to agree to move to third and maybe get a little playing time at shortstop. Move Bryant to the outfield and let Joe Maddon mix and match like he has for the past 3.5 years.

Again, the Cubs were named seventh in the list of eight teams making strong offers to the Orioles, so right now it is a long shot to see Machado on the North Side.

A deal might be getting done soon with someone, though.

The Orioles, who dropped to 40 games below .500 with Saturday’s 5-4 loss in Minnesota, are active in dialogue with several teams, and a deal could actually come together as soon as this weekend, said the source, although that seems unlikely.

On Friday, Theo Epstein said the following about the Cubs and what they intend on doing leading up to the trade deadline.

Theo sounded like nothing imminent on trade front. Duensing, Darvish etc probably forcing them to use up the whole month to assess. Oh, and he said no need for a bat so whoever wasted all that time on Machado IN MAY, shame on you. Ha.

— Jesse Rogers (@ESPNChiCubs) July 6, 2018

#Cubs Theo: "I don't think this is the year we're going to be out front beating the market but I do think industry wide there will be a lot of activity well before the deadline."

— Carrie Muskat (@CarrieMuskat) July 6, 2018

We’ll see what shakes up over the next couple weeks.

It was kind of a tough day for Jason Heyward, who started in center field and got a front-row seat of Tyler Chatwood being bad again. Heyward went 0-for-2, was taken out in the middle of the game and because of that wasn’t involved in the big 8-7 comeback win for the Chicago Cubs over the Cincinnati Reds.

Oh and Heyward also fouled a ball of his balls. Yeah, you know what, that might actually be the worst part.

So, when Heyward was taken out no one really knew why and fans were hopefull it was nothing serious. It was later revealed that he took a foul ball to the groin.

#Cubs Heyward left the game after enduring a foul ball to the groin.

— Carrie Muskat (@CarrieMuskat) July 7, 2018

It’s not the best video because the white ball on white pants doesn’t give you the greatest view of it, but nonetheless, you can see Heyward grimace in pain after fouling a ball right off his family jewels.

He did continue the at-bat, eventually grounding out to first before being replaced by Albert Almora Jr. to start the fourth inning.

But hey, a win after taking a shot to the groin is still a lot better than a loss and a ball off your balls.

Yeah, no, that still sucks.