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Division or Bust

In Commentary And Analysis by Rice Cube99 Comments

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 …

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The Plan, Revisited

In Commentary And Analysis by Rice Cube35 Comments

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 …

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Pondering Pitching

In Facepalm by Rice Cube112 Comments

To preface this, and for those of you who listened to the latest Dreamcast, we sort of remarked on it too: Now it’s easy to blame David Ross for a lot, but I imagine a lot of the directives to use guys in certain spots of the lineup probably aren’t his decision, although he does use substitutions (pinch-hitting, pitching changes) …

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Dreamcast 59: Shrug Emoji

In by Rice Cube19 Comments

Why is it so hard these days for the Cubs to score runs, let alone win a baseball game? We did this yesterday on AC’s birthday where he got to tell us a little bit about his undying love for Nick Madrigal, and then we went ahead and discussed the rookies (well, Mervis is still here, Morel is back, and …

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Arbitrary 24-Games-In Cubs Assessment

In Commentary And Analysis by Rice Cube14 Comments

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 …

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Maybe It’s Time For Some New Blood

In Commentary And Analysis by Rice Cube20 Comments

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 …

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Cubs Opening Day 2023 Preview

In Major League Baseball by Rice Cube18 Comments

Well, folks, after a month of generally entertaining (and brisk) Cactus League games, we have mere hours until first pitch on Opening Day at Wrigley Field. The Cubs will face off against the Milwaukee Brewers for a brief home opening series before they head on the road because schedules are wack, and while it is probably true that the Brewers …

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More Off Day Thoughts

In Commentary And Analysis, News And Rumors by Rice Cube115 Comments

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 …

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Taking Stock of the Roster (So Far)

In Commentary And Analysis by Rice Cube32 Comments

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 …

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What Springs to Mind?

In News And Rumors by Rice Cube17 Comments

In an effort to put stuff on this website semi-regularly and not be complete white noise, I’ve been racking my brain over the past several days trying to figure out a good topic, but it’s like AC says, they need to just start playing games already. As it turns out, we are not that far from the start of the …