The Weekend Escalated Quickly: Cubs Make a Trade, Martin Pursuit, Lester Rumors, More

bn baseball featureSunday afternoon, I wondered if it had been a sufficiently busy weekend here at BN to necessitate a Monday morning “you may have missed it” post. These things seem to be fairly popular with folks who do the majority of BN’ing during the work week (I wonder why … for shame!), so I’ve got a relatively low threshold for throwing it up.

And that threshold was blown away by last night. Actually, looking back, I’d forgotten how much happened late on Friday, too. So, let’s check in …

Friday, November 14, 2014

  • Around mid-day, I wrote about the Cubs’ near-term future TV home, which could be a familiar one: WGN. Then that turned in a streaming sports online conversation.
  • Almost immediately as that post went up, however, the Cubs announced that their Opening Day game had been moved up day, because now they’re the Opening Night Game on ESPN2 against the Cardinals.
  • The latest on Russell Martin (at least as of Friday afternoon) focused on the Dodgers as, perhaps, the Cubs’ primary competitor.
  • You may not have to hear much about David Robertson and Andrew Miller for a while (although the Cubs did just move Arodys Vizcaino … just kidding … mostly).
  • The Starlin Castro rumors involving the Mets probably won’t be going away any time soon (and that was before the Cubs picked up yet another middle infielder).
  • The Pirates brought back A.J. Burnett, who took less to go there than he could have gotten by staying with the Phillies.
  • The Marlins and Giancarlo Stanton drew ever-nearer to a crazy huge 13-year, $325 million extension.
  • The week started with a Jeremy Hellickson mystery, and it ended with a conclusion: he was traded to the Diamondbacks.
  • Saturday, November 15, 2014

  • MLB’s “star” team got slapped down in Japan, complete with a no-hitter.
  • Some of the rooftops around Wrigley are facing a foreclosure suit.
  • Cuban star Yoan Moncada is one step closer to being able to sign with a big league team, but the time line isn’t great for the Cubs.
  • Anthony Rizzo won the Branch Rickey Award.
  • Sunday, November 16, 2014

  • It was a contemplative day. Quiet even. The kind of day when you could peruse year-old BN posts to see how far the Cubs have come in a year.
  • But there was a Jon Lester rumor to discuss: the Red Sox reportedly did not meet with him last week, though it’s probably coming this week, as with the Cubs.
  • And then a shocker trade: the Cubs sent Arodys Vizcaino and some IFA money to the Braves for second baseman – yes, second baseman – Tommy La Stella.
  • There will be more deconstructing to come, but I took an early look at that trade, what it could mean (and what it doesn’t), and what bits you might want to know.
  • But that wasn’t all for Sunday evening: Ken Rosenthal reported that the Cubs are not only seen as the front-runner for Russell Martin, but there’s a dollar figure attached.
  • written by

    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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