It’s a pretty big day for the Chicago Bears, eh? For the second year in a row, they own the No. 1 overall pick in the draft. Only this time, they actually plan to use it (and on a quarterback, no less!). It is not hyperbole to say that the success of the next 4-5 years of Bears football is basically starting in a few hours. That’s how important the quarterback position is. It’s such a different sport than baseball.
The Cubs won again last night, which brings them to a season-high six games over .500. They didn’t reach six games over .500 last season until AUGUST 21. That team eventually peaked at 12 games over .500 on September 6, at which point their odds of making the playoffs ballooned up to 92.4%. Of course, they finished the season 7-15 … and missed the postseason entirely. Oops!
Nico Hoerner continues to succeed out of the leadoff spot. With another two hits yesterday, he’s slashing .350/.395/.525 (157 wRC+) as the Cubs leadoff man this year. And overall, he’s slashing a less-impressive, but still very respectable .282/.374/.376 (117 wRC+), even more valuable with his defense and base running. As for the other leadoff man, Ian Happ … after a short, but tough stretch in San Diego and Seattle, Happ has worked a 122 wRC+ and is up 109 wRC+ for the season.
When Seiya Suzuki and Cody Bellinger come back, I wouldn’t be surprised if Happ moved back into the role, especially because his patience and walk rate still plays better there. But for now (and that’s probably a 6-week “for now”), I wouldn’t change anything. Hoerner is hitting, Happ is fine, and the Cubs options for the middle of the order are limited and imperfect.
This is interesting … and moderately mind-boggling. The Athletic polled 40 executives across baseball to rank the top five front offices in baseball, assigning a point value for each ranking (10 points for first, 7 for second, etc.). And guess what? The Cubs got ZERO votes. I’m not saying they are the best front office in baseball – by any means – but they’ve got the top farm system *and* are winning at the big league level. Surely that should set them above the Reds (1 point), Tigers (4), and Mariners (6) … all of whom did receive top-5 votes. Like … what? The Reds are promising, but have fumbled/whiffed a few times lately. Ditto the Tigers. And I’d argue that the Mariners have been a huge disappointment.
As expected, the two financial extremes — Dodgers (284) and Rays (258) — led the way in a tier of their own. After that, the Braves (130), Guardians (101), and Orioles (91) came next. I have some qualms with the Orioles, whose strategy was just “suck for a long time and then only modestly improve the club in free agency,” but whatever. It worked, I guess. And they’re definitely not bad. The Brewers (52) and Diamondbacks (43) follow, which also seems fair. But the rest is a jumbled mess. And again, the Cubs got NO votes.
On the bright side, the Cubs have recently pulled some of the brightest minds from teams high on the list like the Guardians (Cubs GM Carter Hawkins), Astros (Cubs Farm Diretor Jason Kanzler), and Brewers (Cubs Manager Craig Counsell). And it’s just a silly ranking, but it is a little striking for the Cubs to be in the “did not receive votes” category alongside the likes of the Red Sox, Blue Jays, Royals, White Sox, Athletics, Angels, Nationals, Marlins, Cardinals, Padres, Rockies, Giants, and Pirates.
A bunch of Apple laptops are on sale today at Amazon. So if you’ve been putting off buying a new computer (like I have), now’s a good time. I think I actually am going to grab one of those today while they’re slightly less expensive. #ad
Earlier today, I looked into the Cubs scoring runs and generating plenty of offense early, before fading later in games. It was generally unpopular. Lol.
In case you missed it, Christopher Morel’s defense at third continues to impress: