Ross’s Former Teammates, Harris a GM Candidate, Women Playing in MLB, and Other Cubs Bullets

The Little Boy did not sleep last night from midnight on. That means, by and large, The Wife and I also did not sleep. We are all in very rough shape. Cheers.

  • I’ve had a tab open on my computer for a few days, as Jon Greenberg wrote up former teammates’ perspectives on playing with new Cubs manager David Ross. It’s a great read full of anecdotes, and I’ll admit I’m just drinking this stuff up:
  • This line from former star teammate Shawn Green is great: “As a young player even, he had the authority that when he said something, it had weight to it. That’s hard to do as a young player. If he was mad, you knew there was a reason he was mad. He wasn’t the type who would get frustrated for no reason. If he was mad at a player for not doing something the right way or for a pitcher for shaking off a certain pitch in a situation that cost us, there was a reason behind it. That’s kind of held true throughout his career, to where he had the experience to back him up and then he had even more gravitas.”
  • This would be more front office drain for the Cubs, who’ve already lost Shiraz Rehman, Jared Porter, and Jason Parks in recent years:
  • Certainly you do want to see new minds and voices circulating into the upper reaches of the Cubs’ organization, but you don’t want to see the best and brightest simultaneously being plucked away. But, as always, if a guy has a shot at a promotion, you want to support and encourage it on a human level.
  • The Cardinals are content to keep the leadership band together, with their President (John Mozeliak), GM (Mike Girsch), and manager (Mike Shildt) all being extended through the 2022 season.
  • Anthony Rizzo’s Foundation is giving big:
  • This is a fascinating read about the pure math, statistics, populations, and technology behind the question of whether a woman could play in the big leagues:
  • Turns out, if the incentive were there – i.e., girls grew up believing en masse that they could reach the big leagues – we WOULD see some extreme outlier athletes who were plenty good enough to be average big leaguers. I kinda always thought that was true, just based on the sheer volume of humans out there, but it’s nice to see the numbers confirm it. Now the question is whether it would ever ACTUALLY happen, because of the various cultural and developmental structures in place working against a large pool of girls growing up playing high-level baseball.
  • Modems, tools, books, and a car jumper are among the Deals of the Day at Amazon today. #ad
  • Clark’s development has been uneven, though that’s kind of what you expect for a higher-risk, higher-upside pick like he was:
  • Clark was the Cubs’ 5th rounder in 2016, which was actually the Cubs’ third pick in that draft (behind Thomas Hatch and Tyson Miller), as a hard-throwing, physically-talented type. He was not the typical high-floor, good-control type the Cubs had been taking in the four drafts before that year, so in some ways it isn’t a surprise to see him still flashing the big stuff now. Like Bryan says, though, the strikeouts need to shoot way up if he’s going to pitch in relief with that kind of walk rate.
  • 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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