Hall of Fame Results, Debates Coming and Other Bullets

baseball hall of fameYeah, so I watched ‘The Bachelor’ last night. What are you gonna do about it?

Since the guy’s Twitter avi is a picture of him at Wrigley Field, I’m considering my viewership of ‘The Bachelor’ this season to be entirely work-related.

  • The 2016 Hall of Fame class will be announced tomorrow at 5pm CT on MLB Network, and the lead up to the announcement, as usual, has generated a great deal of interesting discussion. Most of that stems from the debates on who belongs in and who doesn’t (my only contribution to that discussion to date: Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens should be in), but there are also always random ancillary fun stuff. Like, um, this:
  • Interesting that the message was deemed necessary for at least two reasons: (1) it was really a concern that some folks would wear flip flops and spandex to a Hall of Fame press conference?; and (2) the Hall really has to take itself this seriously? Getting an unintentional window into some things, I think.
  • Far more interesting are reads like this from Ben Lindbergh on Mike Piazza’s underrated value behind the plate during his career, and this from Jesse Spector on the nature of Hall voting and the evolution of reason. And then there’s the ballot-tracking from Ryan Thibodaux, and a write-up on it here in the Wall Street Journal.
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  • It’s looking like Ken Griffey, Jr. is a lock – obviously – and Mike Piazza is gonna get in this time around, too, based on the released ballots. Jeff Bagwell remains right there on the cusp, and could go either way. Ditto for Tim Raines, whose ascendence in the voting has been far too slow, but totally justified. Newcomer Trevor Hoffman won’t quite get enough, nor will Curt Schilling or Mike Mussina. Bonds and Clemens should wind up right around 50%.
  • Former Cub Rafael Lopez is a free agent after the Angels let him go. I wonder if the Cubs will look to bring him back in as catching depth in the upper minors. Setting that aside, the Cubs need to make sure an add at least one veteran, defensively-inclined catcher at AAA as insurance. The Cubs have added David Freitas, but another seems like a must.
  • Interesting read from Wired on whether ESPN will decide this year to sell a standalone streaming product, which would have a dramatic ripple-effect on the cable-bundling ecosystem (which, you’ll recall, is a critical component in how RSNs make money from those huge TV deals that they pay to baseball teams – once again, I say: whatever happens in the next TV deal for the Cubs, they must *somehow* find a way to retain at least a portion of their own, individual streaming rights (presently controlled by MLB), because this game is changing in the next five years).
  • It shouldn’t be possible to make Bryce Harper – a huge man – look like a little kid, but Randy Johnson makes it happen.
  • Cubs backpack is 28% off at Amazon right now.
  • 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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