Another wonky morning for me, as I woke up early to The Little Boy coming into the room to ask me to read him ‘Star Wars’ books. That’s a fine request, in general, but I wasn’t expecting it at 6 am. Turns out The Little Girl was up puking, The Wife was helping, and The Little Boy needed to be distracted.
There was also huge breaking Bears news to help attend to in between bag-holding sessions, then I was assisting with The Little Girl, and … well, it’s been a thing. So here are your Bullets now.
Rather than taking the full-page ad out in the hometown paper, Jake Arrieta elected to write from the heart, by hand, to the Cubs, the city, and the fans:
And now my favorite farewell to Arrieta. This is just incredible, both the art and the video:
Sam Miller, as he does, came up with a really interesting and creative question to tackle statistically: if every player on every team was in his prime right now at the same time, how would the teams rank? In other words, it’s easy to see why a team like the Cubs is really good on paper right now in large part because so many of their best players *ARE* in their primes right now. But get this: when stacked up against all other MLB teams if their whole roster were in *THEIR primes? The Cubs rank just 10th! It’s shocking at first, but then you consider how many teams have older vets just hanging on who were once superstars, and it makes more sense.
You should read Miller’s piece for the whole analysis, but I did not see some of the top teams coming, mostly because I was dumb and didn’t think things through. Example? The Angels are in the top 4 because prime Mike Trout *AND* Albert Pujols just blows away every other possible two-some out there. I would have thought the Giants – with their recent veteran additions – would be at the top, but they are 6th. Turns out, the top team is actually one of the top teams currently in baseball: the Nationals. They are assisted by a 6.3 WAR Miguel Montero, incidentally (he was silly good in 2012).
A fun clip MLB put together of the Cubs’ lineup, using past highlights:
You’ve been confronted by Eloy Jimenez raking for the White Sox this spring, including against the Cubs, but brace yourself for some Dylan Cease nastiness:
HEADS up. Sports Memorabilia's biggest sale of the year is going on right now, and – as near as I can tell – that means *everything* is on sale. Check out the collection of awesome stuff here: https://t.co/tbth8f2u0Dpic.twitter.com/mmPEU4D31n
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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