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Tom Ricketts Talks Shop

In News And Rumors by Rice Cube72 Comments

Looks like Tom Ricketts has seen fit to talk to the media today. My vantage point is that the Cubs have drawn their line in the sand, and Scott Boras has drawn his, now they just have to compromise because Ricketts won’t undermine Jed Hoyer by directly negotiating with Boras. It also does sound like he would very much prefer …

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The Price is Right?

In Commentary And Analysis by Rice Cube22 Comments

We are in like month three of the great Jed Hoyer game of chicken with regard to the big name free agents, though I am still quite confident that this isn’t *it* for the Cubs, they’re just waiting out Scott Boras and other assorted agents in bidding for the remaining free agents, if they’re even interested. Chances are they’re for …

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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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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 …

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Welcome to March

In Major League Baseball, News And Rumors by Rice Cube67 Comments

The Cubs are winless since their spring training opener, but since this is all practice, the scores don’t so much matter as the part where most everyone we care about stay healthy…ah nuts, but we’ll cover that later. Anyway, we are heading into March with less than a month to go until Opening Day when the games actually do matter, …

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Ate at Arby’s, On to the Next

In Major League Baseball, News And Rumors by Rice Cube18 Comments

Previously, we talked about the remaining arbitration-eligible Cubs and the impending deadline: That deadline has since passed, and you can see every arbitration case has been settled before they have to bring in the agents and front office bad-mouthers: Checking the Cots Contracts tracker, it would appear the Cubs are about $22MM below the first luxury tax threshold, and as …