As spring training arrives next week, there will be a few star (and honestly a bunch of non-star) players reporting a bit earlier than usual (including the Cubs’ Seiya Suzuki, who is already in Arizona) because they’re participating in the World Baseball Classic. Marcus Stroman will also play again, this time representing Team Puerto Rico after having pitched the USA …
Early-ish Preview of the 2023 Cubs Schedule
The 2023 Cubs schedule was released last August in the time before RC on OV, but the reveal was pretty cool in the time before Musk Melon destroyed Twitter (with a little help from its citizens, of course): I don’t think we can resurrect the Hope Monster just yet because the division is probably not a realistic goal this season, …
The Shifting Narrative
I’m bored because nothing major is really happening in terms of baseball transactions, Cubs or otherwise, and spring training is still a few weeks away, so I thought I’d explore the coming rules changes again. Last time, we discussed mostly the pitch clock and how either side could try to game the system to gain whatever advantages they can within …
The Calm Before the Storm
I haven’t written anything since last year (technically true), but there hasn’t been much going on regarding the Cubs anyway aside from a few anticipated DFAs to allow the reported signings to become official. In the meanwhile, like many of us who are bored out of their minds, I’ve been reading the slow drips of news that have come out …
The Cubs Night Before Christmas 2022
‘Twas the night before Christmas, including Chicago Barely anyone stirring because it’s so cold The Cubs had signed Dansby and young Bellinger With hopes for a new ring for the baby bears The plan was to load up on pitchers and D To ensure the opponents scored fewer than three As many batters put on other teams’ caps What’s to …
About Spending…
I know AC (and others) are very antsy for the Cubs, and anyone in MLB for that matter, to stop their faux collusion and start spending already, but the calendar is the calendar and both the agents/players and the owners/front offices are in a staring contest at the moment before the Winter Meetings in a couple weeks. I was going …
Bending the Rules
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 …
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 …
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 …
A Wish List For Fun Baseball
So anyway, while waiting for the World Series to resume and then for the offseason rumor mill to start churning at maximum speed, I was thinking about what new stuff to throw up on this website and decided to take another crack and stuff that I really like about baseball that need to be emphasized. Part of this is to …