MESA, Arizona -- The Cubs are having a team golf tournament Tuesday afternoon, so the practice sessions Tuesday morning were truncated. There was no activity at all at the back fields (3 through 6), and though Jon Lester and John Lackey were throwing live BP at Sloan Park, that was closed to the public.
That left the only real activity open to the public on Field 1, where a simulated game was taking place.
If you are not familiar with how a sim game works, the players attempt to simulate real game situations. A coach will call out a game situation (for example: "Runner on first, one out") and the pitcher and hitter will attempt to conduct themselves as if they were in that situation. Once there are "three outs," the pitcher will go sit down for a few minutes to simulate an inning break.
In the sim game on Field 1 Tuesday morning, Adam Warren and Aaron Brooks were throwing, and Albert Almora, Jeimer Candelario, Javier Baez and Kyle Schwarber were hitting. Schwarber also did some catching. You'll see in the short videos below that Schwarber was using a couple of different catching styles, ranging from the traditional squat to a form where his right leg is extended. The latter is likely much easier on the knees.
By 10:30 a.m. it was all over and the players were headed off for an afternoon of golf.
Also, it appears I left this video off of my previous camp update from Saturday, so here it is -- a brief video of Schwarber taking live BP off Travis Wood.