Chicago Cubs manager David Ross is inherently focused on the here and now with his team.

But one perk of the lockout meant Ross spent time on the back fields at the Cubs complex in Mesa, Ariz., and got a glimpse of the future. Some of those players got time in Cactus League games, too, and could help the Cubs soon. Outfielder and top prospect Brennen Davis most notably should arrive for his major-league debut sometime this year.

Toward the end of big-league camp, Ross remarked on the good impression Davis made in six spring training games, moving well in the outfield and hitting two home runs in eight at-bats.

“It’s hard to judge guys off such a short spring training, but you can tell he’s just starting to fill out that body and he looks the part,” Ross said. “He had a great season last year, continues to build on that and hopefully we see him really soon.

“He’s a guy that’s one of those future pieces you see and kind of watched him develop and put in a lot of hard work this offseason.”

Davis wasn’t alone in standing out. Outfielders Pete Crow-Armstrong and Owen Caissie, infielder James Triantos and shortstop Ed Howard had their moments too. Caissie notably went 5-for-9 with two doubles and an RBI in the Cactus League.

With the minor-league season getting underway last week, it’s time to empty the notebook from the complex’s back fields — including a look at two pitchers worth keeping an eye on at Triple A.

Yohendrick Piñango and his ‘God-given’ swing

Yohendrick Piñango always has loved baseball.

Growing up in Venezuela, he was constantly around the sport. Piñango realized he possessed a special talent while attending Future Stars Baseball Academy in Barquisimeto, Venezuela.

“When I was there, I started seeing how it was day to day,” Piñango told the Tribune through an interpreter. “I knew I had the skill, I had the talent, but doing that every day, that grind — that’s when I knew I was passionate about this and that I had the talent to continue to grow.”

Piñango, ranked the Cubs’ No. 10 prospect by Baseball America and No. 20 by MLB.com, is known for his pure hitting ability. Baseball America rated him the Cubs system’s best power hitter and he has elite contact-hitting ability, with the publication noting he’s a “consensus future plus hitter.” The left-handed-hitting outfielder said he always has had a knack for hitting since he was young and first getting into baseball.

“I’ve had that God-given ability to have a good swing, be a good hitter,” Piñango said, “but it’s also something that, even though I do have that ability, I do work on it every day and started since I was young when I was a little kid in the streets of Venezuela playing ball.”

Piñango, 19, didn’t have a typical offseason. He got hit by a baseball in late November and required surgery in December on his left pinky finger, which required three screws to be inserted. The freak injury was the first time Piñango had any health problems in his career, making it tough to deal with at first. But his doctor reassured him after the procedure that it wouldn’t affect his 2022 season.

By early March, he was 100% recovered and full go in camp. The Cubs are loaded with outfield talent in the minor-league system, and Piñango shouldn’t be overlooked. He’s opening the season at High-A South Bend, where he collected three hits in his first seven at-bats.

How pitching machines prepare minor-leaguers

The setup was impossible to ignore.

Two pitching machines had been placed on either side of the mound for minor-league batting practice. One was calibrated to throw left-handed sliders, the other right-handed fastballs. The differing speeds and angles challenged the young hitters’ timing.

And that’s exactly why the Cubs have implemented this BP approach for their minor-leaguers. They want to put them in an awkward situation and let them figure it out.

The message to the players: This is a challenge. Go figure it out and try to beat the challenge.

“A lot of the old-school baseball hasn’t challenged enough in some of our batting practice settings,” minor-league hitting coordinator Dustin Kelly told the Tribune during camp. “So we’re setting up a constraint of a machine doing two different things. And it’s like, you guys, go be athletes and figure it out and let the baseball and the flight of the baseball kind of tell us what we’re doing as opposed to focusing too much on mechanics.”

Kelly said that, as an industry, the emphasis on mechanics can be too much at times. He has noticed with the Cubs’ top hitting prospects that they need to be challenged more. While regular BP still is used, sometimes more constraints need to be introduced. The two-machine setup was incorporated throughout the minor-league minicamp. It challenges each hitter differently.

“That battle of going back and forth creates a little bit of internal competition,” Kelly said. “Some guys are really bad at it and some guys are really good. And then it just organically creates a really fun atmosphere.”

Caissie has a specific plan when he faces those machines. When the left-handed-hitting outfielder faces the left-throwing slider machine, he tries to take it up the middle, while he looks to stay back and drive the pitch off the fastball machine.

“Everything’s direction for me and I just try to keep everything to center field,” Caissie said. “The balls may not go to center field, but my body is moving toward center field. … Doing these drills in the field, it’s good for recognition because we always get looks, looks, looks — it’s just more repetitions.”

Cayne Ueckert is a reliever to watch

Big-league camp was a week from ending in Mesa, and Cayne Ueckert still had a locker in the clubhouse.

Ueckert, a 27th-round pick by the Cubs in 2019, was surprised to have received an invitation to major-league camp let alone still have an opportunity to show the staff what he could do days from the MLB season starting.

The 25-year-old right-hander impressed in four Cactus League appearances — aided by an effective two-seam fastball — striking out five and not walking a batter in 3⅓ innings. Coming off a stellar performance at Double-A Tennessee, where he had a 1.61 ERA in 24 appearances in 2022, Ueckert is opening the season at Triple-A Iowa.

It’s the first time he has pitched at that level and he’s closer than ever to the majors. Getting an opportunity to show what he could do in 3½ weeks in camp put him more on the radar. If the Cubs need relief help during the season, Ueckert could force his way onto the 40-man roster and into the big leagues sooner than later.

“It means a little something, like maybe they have plans (for me),” Ueckert said. “But at the end of the day, if I don’t perform, it’s not going to pan out. So just staying healthy and do what I need to do out there is the biggest thing.”

Caleb Kilian unlocks a key pitch

It’s hard to go into an offseason much better than Caleb Kilian’s ending to 2021.

The right-hander, one of two players the Cubs acquired from the San Francisco Giants for Kris Bryant, tossed six perfect innings in the Arizona Fall League championship game to win the title. It served as a springboard into an important offseason in which pitch development became a focal point.

Unlike his curveball, which he got to spin harder and sharper in five AFL outings, Kilian couldn’t quite get his new changeup grip. That work carried into the offseason, and it finally started to feel good two weeks before he reported to minor-league minicamp in February.

“For me, it’s just finishing the ball, finishing with the wrist at the very end and throwing it like a fastball instead of thinking changeup, which was a hard thing to get out of my head,” Kilian said. “Having a changeup is huge. A lot of hitters think that’s the best pitch in the game, so now that I actually have a decent one, I think it will make all my pitches better.”

Kilian used the Cubs’ pitch lab to determine what grip works best action-wise and then how to throw it well. He said pitch lab data is helpful because he didn’t realize he had a weird changeup grip all last season. It was a very average pitch for him, sometimes helping him induce grounders, but he didn’t incorporate it much. Now Kilian uses a circle change grip.

An improved changeup to pitch off his fastball will help Kilian at Triple A, his first time at that level.

“You’ve got to have fastball command. That goes a really long way,” Kilian said. “When you can command the fastball, you can have success and it makes the other pitches look that much better.”

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