For years, Kaleb Wing had been limited to playing the infield due to his undersized frame. <\/p>\n
On the 2024 summer showcase circuit, a late high school growth spurt was adding new life to Wing\u2019s tools. At tryouts for the Area Code Games, he threw harder from shortstop during infield drills than he ever had.<\/p>\n
His invitation to the second round of tryouts brought an unexpected surprise: He was asked to get on the mound.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pretty crazy to me, because I had never pitched before,\u201d Wing said. \u201cIt was a shock, but I love this game and I want to continue to play it at the highest possible level. And if these evaluators are telling me that my best avenue may be on the mound, then I\u2019m going to try and pick it up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those evaluators were clearly onto something.<\/p>\n
A year later, Wing was drafted by the Cubs in the fourth round as a righthander out of Scotts Valley High in California.<\/p>\n
This winter has been Wing\u2019s first solely focusing on pitching and just his second preparing to pitch at all. It surely helps that Wing\u2019s father Ryan was a professional pitcher who reached Triple-A in 2008.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough he just started pitching in the last year or so, you don\u2019t get the impression that he\u2019s behind in any way,\u201d Cubs scouting director Dan Kantrovitz said. \u201cWhile he\u2019s got plenty to still figure out, he\u2019s a really thoughtful, smart, curious kid who is mature beyond his years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since Wing signed, the Cubs have focused on adding calories and muscle to his 6-foot-2 frame during two offseason camps at their\u00a0Arizona complex. Compared with pre-draft testing, he has added about 20 pounds, weight that is designed to help him handle the rigors of pitching a full season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t spent a lot of time on the mound,\u201d he said, \u201cand I think finding a consistent delivery that allows me to command my stuff is going to be the biggest piece.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For years, Kaleb Wing had been limited to playing the infield due to his undersized frame. On the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2399],"tags":[5,138,24,4245,161,4,3935],"class_list":{"0":"post-519781","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-cubs","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-cubs","11":"tag-chicagocubs","12":"tag-cubs","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-organization-reports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115893377660959104","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}