The ‘Captain Marvel’ trailer was fine (here if you missed it). I’ll see the movie, of course. But I was not blown away. Am I being a buzzkill? Am I reaching Marvel saturation? Then again, it’s similar to how I felt when I saw the ‘Doctor Strange’ trailers (i.e., a character I’m less familiar with from my childhood, don’t really have any kind of connection to, seems odd, etc.), and I wound up really liking that movie, so.
How about this anniversary:
On this date in 2002, #Cubs traded Chad Hermansen and Todd Hundley to the Dodgers for Eric Karros and Mark Grudzielanek
Sometimes bad contracts swaps work out well. Both Karros and Grudzielanek went on to post above-average seasons at the plate for the Cubs in 2003, and play key roles in that playoff season. Hundley, meanwhile, played 21 games for the Dodgers and then was out of baseball. Perhaps the Cubs will be able to pull off some kind of quality bad contract swap this offseason, eh? We chatted a little bit about that yesterday with respect to the unloading Mariners.
(Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
The Cubs lost AA hitting coach Jesus Feliciano to the Angels’ big league staff. That comes just a couple weeks after the Cubs lost their last AA hitting coach, Jacob Cruz, who’d moved up to be their minor league hitting coordinator, to the Pirates. The Cubs also had their assistant hitting coach, Andy Haines, who was the minor league hitting coordinator before Cruz, poached by the Brewers. At least their minor league hitting coordinator before that, who had been poached by the Rangers, is now back as their hitting coach (Anthony Iapoce). Apparently if you want to be a big league coach, you just need to become an important minor league hitting instructor/coach in the Cubs organization.
Speaking of coaches, the Braves are hiring Rick Kranitz to be their pitching coach, which reminds me … the Cubs still don’t have a pitching coach.
Something interesting I noticed when perusing the new DRC+ stat at BP, and looking only at qualified hitters – as you’d expect, there are far more players at 100 or better (i.e., average or better) getting regular playing time (enough to qualify) than guys below 100. In the aggregate, teams are playing the right players the most – 92 players at 100 or better, and just 49 below 100. The Cubs had just one qualifier – Willson Contreras, 91 – below 100. The Cubs obviously had more players than that below 100, but they weren’t everyday starters. It’s partly the nature of the roster, and also partly the nature of having so many of the Cubs’ rotational bats underperform last year.
Joe Maddon’s son is an interesting and outspoken dude on social media, and he didn’t hold back when the Dodgers announced a four-year extension for their manager, Dave Roberts, whose success with the team looks a lot like Maddon’s time with the Cubs:
Joe Maddon’s son with some strong words about the extension given to Dave Roberts. And a response to those who disagree, as well. pic.twitter.com/yiPd5dREik
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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