I started thinking about this even before the Cubs laid a goose egg against the Cleveland Baseball Club the other night. I don’t actually recall the last time a club with a losing record, including the Cubs, had multiple All-Stars, but even though I’m not sharing tweets in case Elon Musk forgot to pay his server bill again, we heard …
Division or Bust
Given the lull between games as the Cubs traveled to London and have to do their whole tour and marketing thing before the weekend games, there isn’t much in the way of Cubs news especially since they aren’t getting any players in the next round of All-Star voting anyway. We talked a wee bit about London and All-Star stuff on …
The Plan, Revisited
I recall, nearly six months ago when the Cubs basically passed over every impact free agent save for Dansby Swanson (who was a consensus Plan B), we tried to figure out what the plan was even as the sound bytes were flying: The fear then was that this team would be hard pressed to go .500, but I guess most …
Arbitrary 24-Games-In Cubs Assessment
Once upon a time in the ancient days of January 2023, I made some quasi-predictions of how the Cubs would fare throughout this season since they’d be playing against all 29 other MLB clubs. Suffice it to say that these Cubs have banked a few extra wins than I anticipated en route to their (as of this writing) 14-10 record …
Maybe It’s Time For Some New Blood
Perhaps this is premature, and with the caveat that this is why the Cubs pay Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins and David Ross to think about this stuff while I’m just another keyboard warrior, but I think the Cubs have some, shall we say, roster inefficiencies that need to be taken care of. For the most part, the bullpen is …
The Off Day After Opening Day React Post
Because the Cubs play at Wrigley Field, which historically does not have a roof despite being in the Midwest where it can get a) cold and b) wet, this necessitates a scheduled off day right after the official Opening Day, in case they have to make up the home opener later. I guess if Friday had gotten weathered out, they …
One Last Roster Prediction Attempt Before the Official Announcement (UPDATES)
The Cubs have completed the official Cactus League slate, with two more random exhibitions against the White Sox (allegedly still at Sloan Park per the ticket buying thingy on the Cubs dot com website) as the final tuneup before Opening Day on Thursday. I think most of the decisions have been made by now, and while rosters aren’t due in …
More Off Day Thoughts
This represents the final scheduled off day for the Cubs in the Cactus League until the one right before Opening day, and by this time we’re expecting the starting rotation guys to be able to comfortably go five innings, and hoping that the hitters have better performances for the most part, small sample size be damned. There’s also the World …
The Ever-Changing Rulebook
I think the new rules are probably the biggest topic of the spring other than the inevitable injuries to players that shake up the plans for the entire season, and most of this has to do with the pitch clock. Of course there is also the World Baseball Classic, but as one game famously took like three hours to play …
Taking Stock of the Roster (So Far)
The Cubs have been riding a win streak since we last blogged that would be impressive if these games actually mattered. They don’t get an official off day until next week, but so far it seems everyone is just taking it easy, and a few have already left camp to participate in WBC play so that will give a few …