2024 Cubs

[Butcher]

Fun fact; Jed is my neighbor a few blocks over. LOL - I’ve left him solid advice and friendly messages as comments on mutual friends’ Instagram posts; but he never replies or acknowledges.

Everything said so far this offseason reads to me that the brass think the Cubs are a playoff caliber team; (maybe not true WS contender yet, but playoffs) especially now with Counsell, who should hypothetically sabermetricly be able to get more juice out of the same fruits.

This is based off of the team they had last year that over-achieved. So everything is already contingent on Bellinger coming back and staying healthy and being good Cody, not the abysmal one from LA, plus a signing like snell or trade for someone like Bieber to replace Stroman.

If they can do that again and bring back “good Cody”, a Stroman replacement, and also get a true closer like Hader (unless him and Craig aren’t cool explaining why he was traded to Padres during a playoff hunt cpl years ago), plus maybe a recovery-went-well Rhys Hoskins, some more bullpen additions, and some dumpster dive finds, I’d guess they will frame it all as a major win and that they have a chance to have some kind of a chance. But that’s just not inspiring to me.

They are also reallyyy counting on the farm system; which imho, they shouldn’t, yet. I know the Cubs system (and a lot of teams’ for that matter) embarrassingly well. The Cubs farm (and arguably the entire Cubs organization without Bellinger) just still don’t have a everyone-must-have-this-jersey hitter. That’s why I really hoped for Soto (and still hoping for ‘25), or some kind of zany trade-for-Trout while he’s down and hope he’s not Pujols scenario.

Hopefully I am wrong on this and other things here: PCA in my opinion is at best a Kevin Keirmaier in the field and at the plate. Kevin’s a local (NW Indiana) guy and his brother tends to the grass at Wrigley, so Ive always been a fan. That’s fun and will make some highlight reels for sure, but he just will not strap-the-organization-on-his-back-and-carry-Chicago-to-the-promised-land. Neither PCA nor Kevin. And respectfully, maybe nobody does in baseball, but Betts and Acuna and JRod and Judge and Harper sure make it seem like they do sometimes when I DONT watch every one of their teams’ games.

Someone like Matt Shaw could really surprise and break camp or come up soon thereafter to play 3b, and he is potentially a great all around hitter. But he’s not projected to be here until 2025 and has to first learn to play 3b to crack this team. For perspective though, he’s offensively ranked as one of our best prospects and pretty similar to Matt Mervis, who is still one of our top 15 prospects. Incase anyone missed it - he didn’t translate to the bigs very well at all last year. Probably because pro baseball is the hardest sport, even insanely hard for the best projected prospects.

Hopefully Wicks keeps going like he started last year and he can pitch for the Cubs. Ben Brown seems like a soon-to-be reliever and we need those. Caissie and Alcantara and Ballesteros probably all strike out too much but may provide a spark stretch or two during a grueling long season. Horton can possibly be an awesome pitcher one day. Brennon Davis has gotten hurt and unfortunately seems to have become a different player. 2020 1st rounder Ed Howard was / would have been an awesome local story /jersey to have, and is still only 21, but unfortunately he is no longer in our top 30 and was getting at bats in Australia very recently, which is pretty low on the desperation pole.

The rest of the farm system has major holes as they stand. Some will develop and it will take time. Most won’t, and won’t over perform an already limited ceiling.

So that all leaves the Cubs in a weird meandering place.

Idk, I have all these thoughts and more, I needed to unload them; too much family home for the holidays and too little Cubs activity, and if you’ve read this far, thank you! Hopefully the Cubs do something surprising soon. 43 days until spring training, 87ish days ‘til opening day.


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Nice introductory post -- glad to have you aboard.

Also, get Jed to join the board...we have lots of valuable suggestions and feedback.