The Travels of the Week and Other Bullets

Dec 22, 2014

roadmap and compass A change to those holiday travel plans I mentioned yesterday. The Wife, it turns out, is quite sick, so I’m doing to travel stuff solo. That’ll make it tough to be around here much today and tomorrow, in particular, though there should still be a fair bit to read today. I just might be a little slow on any breaking-type-stuff for chunks of the day today and tomorrow. I’ll be back around more on Wednesday, though that’s Christmas Eve, and tends to be slow regardless.

We talked on Friday about the accuracy of projection systems, but only at a very superficial level. The Hardball Times has a much deeper dive, which suggests that all of the systems are pretty good in the aggregate, with maybe a very small edge to ZiPS in recent years. No, ZiPS is not yet out on the Cubs, nor is BP’s PECOTA.

Cubs VP of Scouting and Player Development Jason McLeod was on the radio this weekend and you can see the high points over at the CCO. Among the topics, the Cubs want C.J. Edwards to remain a starter, but it’s not yet determined whether he’ll begin the year at AA or AAA.

New Cubs reliever Jason Motte sounds like a genuinely cool dude, who is excited to be a part of what the Cubs are building (Cubs.com).

Among David Laurila’s many Sunday Notes at FanGraphs, it doesn’t look like the Reds are contenders right now, given where they were last year, and how little they’ve improved this offseason (they’ve actually done the opposite).

This should put a smile on your face:

Trying to line up #Cubs top 30, I knew system was heavy with potential star power, but also impressed by depth. Actually 30 legit prospects

— John Manuel (@johnmanuelba) December 21, 2014

Ken Rosenthal expresses his beef with the current Hall of Fame voting limitations.

Tom Ricketts’ Incapital is getting involved in social impact investing (Tribune), the goal of which is to do some social good incidental to growing assets. To my eye, the Cubs have become quite a bit more charitably-inclined during the Ricketts years. That’ll undoubtedly be aided by bringing in guys like Jon Lester and Jason Motte, each of whom is heavily involved in their own foundation projects. I just think it’s nice to see these things.

The Cubs, among other sports teams in Chicago, use police escorts to help them get to and from the airport for road trips. That’s presented as a potentially sketchy thing in this piece, but the Cubs pay for it (and the officers involved are doing so on overtime, according to the article), so … I’m not sure I see the big issue.

written by

Brett Taylor

Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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