I pulled into my driveway this morning after working out (GET PUMPED FOR THE DAY!), and I had a friend waiting for me in front of the garage door.
A cardinal. I know it’s a bit on the nose, but I swear to you that it was a single, solitary cardinal, sitting and waiting. To be sure, cardinals are not uncommon in Ohio – it’s the state bird, after all – but I haven’t seen one in months.
I think it’s a sign that the Cardinals are going to lose today. Or win today. Probably one of those two things.
Also: it is really hard to write “normal” Bullets today. I’m already so itchy and amped up …
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Something to watch this season: although MLB’s formal plans to move the bottom of the strike zone up a bit were met with objection from the players, the zone might be moving anyway. Jeff Sullivan notes that the little bit of Spring Training data we have suggests that strikes at the bottom of the zone – in Spring, anyway – were called just a little bit less often than in recent years past. It might be a fluke, but we’ll see if the change carries forward into the regular season.
Buster Olney writes about how the Cubs will “handle” Jon Lester now that David Ross is retired. We know that Willson Contreras will be Lester’s catcher, but will he develop the same knack for keeping Lester on track when calls aren’t going his way? Or will that responsibility fall to Anthony Rizzo? Just how important will that behind-the-scenes kind of skill be, anyway? We’ll see.
The Yadier Molina extension is a done deal, and he’s going to get three years at $20 million per year (Jon Heyman). Is a near-35-year-old Molina worth $20 million per year for the next three years? To the Cardinals? Yes, he is. I can’t say for sure that he’ll produce that much quantifiable on-field value (and, in that way, this is a clear overpay), but given his work with young players, his work with pitchers, his value behind the plate, and I just don’t see any way the Cardinals could *not* make this deal.
Old friend Neil Ramirez has made the Giants’ bullpen after a couple years trying to overcome the shoulder issues that ended his time with the Cubs. Good for him, and I hope he does well. Just not against the Cubs.
As long as you’re not a no-fun-havin’ scouting obsessive, this is really fun to watch:
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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NEWSLETTER
I pulled into my driveway this morning after working out (GET PUMPED FOR THE DAY!), and I had a friend waiting for me in front of the garage door.
