Towards the end of the previous post, in between waiting for the Cubs (and really all of MLB) to show signs of life on the transactional front, AC and I started pondering how batters might mess with pitchers with the new pitch clock rule coming in 2023. As a reminder, in addition to the defensive shift restrictions and the larger …
The Roster Check Before the Storm
The Cubs did make their transactions prior to the nontender deadline, and the 40-man roster is at 37 for the moment: As we said in prior posts and in the latest Dreamcast, there were some very obvious nontender candidates, and it wasn’t too surprising to see the three names on the announcement. As stated in Bastian’s rundown, Vizcaíno was on …
Dreamcast 53: Ode to an Overhaul
Berselius joined me tonight to talk some Cubs free agency (or at least we fantasized about spending all the Ricketts’ money) and we also built a relatively realistic dream team should Jed Hoyer remember how to be aggressive in building a good team we actually want to watch. Hopefully some signings happen soon after the Friday nontender deadline, lest the …
Roster Check in Advance of Rule 5 and Free Agent Additions (If Any)
Most of the stuff I was tracking was in the previous post, but the official list is out with no DFAs (yet) since the Cubs had room: The Cubs will therefore roll the dice on the other Rule 5 eligible guys, but since most rosters are still stuffed to the gills, they’ll probably be okay for the most part. Now …
Quick Cubs Roster Check
By the time this publishes the Cubs might decide to finally designate Jason Heyward for assignment, but for now he’s safe on the 40-man roster, which will likely also be updated soon: Per the prior status check, the roster should be at 36, but for some reason I’m counting 37, and if we remove Esteban Quiroz and Jared Young as …
Sports and Sustainability
I’ve been on a sustainability kick, what with driving my gasoline-powered car way less (we’ll probably sell it at some point) and switching over to my electric car. It’s been disappointing to realize that maybe only 10% of the stuff I throw in the blue bin actually gets recycled, and if only a few billionaires pooled their resources to set …
Redefining Expectations Vs. The Flow of Stupid Money
We are at the lull between Major League Baseball contests, where winter leagues are not always accessible to the lay person, where we sit just under 100 days until spring training and 140ish days from Opening Day. While the GM meetings go forward in Vegas, we’ve already gotten a few snippets of what the Cubs are likely to do (at …
The Catch(er) of the Day
Now that Dusty Baker has won the World Series since most of the world outside of Houston, Texas, refuses to acknowledge the team he managed, trades can be made with impunity and we’re less than a week from full blown free agency (though teams can sign their own outgoing free agents, like the Mets just did with Edwin Diaz). Before …
Random Crap For the Off Day
We have to wait for the World Series to end before anything will happen that necessitates any level of “analysis,” so I figured it was fine to just pull a Seinfeld and write a post about mostly nothing. I thought about some of the silly baseball terms that people still argue about online (at least until Twitter dies, but I’m …
The Cubs Should Probably Keep Ian Happ Around
The Gold Glove Awards were doled out today, and one Cubs All-Star (the only one to get a finalist spot if I’m not mistaken, sorry Nico Hoerner) got himself the prize: Never mind the irony that a gold plated glove wouldn’t be able to very effectively catch a baseball, but apparently this was well-deserved for Ian Happ, both by the …