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Cubs do the thing, sign Shota Imanaga

In Commentary And Analysis by berselius96 Comments

The Cubs finally broke the seal and made a major league transaction, signing Japanese lefty starting pitcher Shota Imanaga. The news broke earlier this week, but the details of the Rube Goldberg machine of a contract didn’t take shape until late this evening. Here’s the rundown, with all the conditionals Nominal contract: If no one does anything, Shota Imanaga is …

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New Year Boredom

In Facepalm by Rice Cube22 Comments

So here we are, the first post on this here website in the year of our lord 2024. As has been indicated by many media outlets and online personalities, the Cubs have still not made a major league transaction, whether trade or signing, and we are probably a week or so away from torches and pitchforks at the Cubs Convention. …

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Merry Christmas

In aside by Rice Cube41 Comments

This is usually around the time I’d make some kind of parody of a classic Christmas poem or that Mariah Carey song, but the Dodgers have sucked all the fun out of this offseason and stalled everything so there isn’t much non-Dodgers/non-Juan Soto news to report, especially not from the Cubs, who barely did some random minor league signings (which …

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Delayed Gratification, Or Why Haven’t the Cubs Spent Money Yet?

In Commentary And Analysis by Rice Cube53 Comments

There are a million things we can probably rehash about the whole thing where Shohei Ohtani basically wasted everyone’s time, but aside from acknowledging that the most consequential free agent in MLB history was the rate-limiting reagent for the offseason reaction here, let’s not do that rehash and instead figure out what the Cubs are doing (or not doing). Of …

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Dreamcast 79: Yellow Journalism

In by Rice Cube24 Comments

Nothing much happened during the Winter Meetings, and then Shohei Ohtani did his thing and the journalistic shit hit the fan, so we got together to talk about the aftermath of the Ohtani decision, the timeline of free agent excitement (or lack thereof), the various media failures that led to Bob Nightengale of all people calling them out on their …

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The “Deferred Spending” Plan

In Commentary And Analysis by Rice Cube68 Comments

We’ve gotten to the part of the Winter Meetings where some news (like, actual maybe sort of legitimate news) might be finally leaking out and making the various beat folks confident enough to say that the Cubs are likely out on Shohei Ohtani (who’s probably going to be a Dodger but let’s wait and see) and Juan Soto (who looks …

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Whither TV Money?

In Other Topics by Rice Cube72 Comments

There’s been a growing discontent over the fact that about half the teams in MLB may be affected by their regional sports networks crapping out financially. Even the Sonny Gray deal by the Cardinals, who should be a financially well-off historic franchise, is heavily backloaded, while the Padres are not-so-discretely signaling that they’re going to dump salary, among the other …