The end of the 2022 season didn’t go as Justin Steele would’ve liked, but you can’t deny the impressive results. Without pitching the entire last month of the season due to a lower back strain, and even with a 4-7 record that doesn’t look good at first glance, Steele took a big step in his development. By the end of…
It’s not hyperbole to say Dexter Fowler may be the most important leadoff hitter in the long history of the Chicago Cubs. Other past leadoff hitters have arguments, too. But Fowler was the leadoff man when the Cubs won not just the biggest championship in franchise history, but the biggest championship in Major League Baseball history. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DzcTtAiv3Q In that 2016…
As various recruiting sites have rolled out their preseason lists of baseball’s top prospects, Pete Crow-Armstrong continues to see his stock rise. One of latest examples comes from MLB Pipeline’s top 100 prospect list that was released last Thursday. The 20-year-old outfielder was by far the highest ranked Cubs prospect, coming in at No. 28 in the top 100 (ahead…
With 62 days left before Opening Day, that means Major League Baseball players have just 62 days to work out the kinks and get used to the rule changes set to go into effect this season. Those changes, which were voted in by MLB’s competition committee in September, include the pitch clock (along with restrictions on the number of times…
Trey Mancini met with the media via Zoom on Monday for the first time since officially signing with the Cubs on a two-year deal Friday. Mancini discussed multiple topics during the roughly 17-minute call, including his free agency, his 2022 season, the lessons he learned from his battle with colon cancer and more. And throughout the call, he made it…
As Adbert Alzolay got to the end of a longer-than-anticipated rehab process last season, the obvious course of action for a return became him taking on a bullpen role. That allowed him to prove that, after months of recovering from a right lat strain suffered during a bullpen session prior to spring training, he was healthy enough to pitch against…
As the Cubs look to be a more competitive ball club in 2023, president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer identified adding power to the lineup as a priority early on. Over the weekend, Hoyer and Co. addressed that area of the roster by reportedly agreeing with Trey Mancini on a two-year deal. This is obviously a good move in the…
When Tucker Barnhart was a free agent looking for a new home, he turned to a friend and former Cubs pitcher who assured him Wrigley Field is a good place to try and rebound after a down year. “I leaned on Wade Miley a lot,” Barnhart said via a Zoom call on Wednesday about the veteran southpaw who spent an…
A little over two weeks ago, the Cubs reportedly came to an agreement on a seven-year deal with Dansby Swanson, a contract that became official a few days later on the day of his introductory press conference. And with that deal came a semblance of hope for a better 2023 on the North Side. Swanson isn’t going to do it…
On the first day of 2023, it only makes sense to look ahead to what the year has in store for the Cubs. That will surely include wins, losses, progression, regression and so many other things that describe every single baseball season. But what might happen this year, specifically? Well, leave those predictions that up to me. Some of these…