Nice for the Angels and Maddon, Extended Netting Coming, Fun with Darvish, and Other Cubs Bullets

The Winter Meetings come to a close today, but it’s unlikely the Cubs do anything hard and fast today besides perhaps taking someone (and/or losing someone) in the Rule 5 Draft later this morning. Shrug.

  • The market and Kris Bryant-related implications of these deals will always get our initial focus, but can I just say that it’s pretty awesome to think about Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, and Anthony Rendon hitting together in the Angels’ lineup next year? I mean, they’re gonna be so loaded they might not even have regular at bats available for Tommy La Stella! (I kid, but with David Fletcher presumably moving to second base now, La Stella very well might become a little-used bench bat on an AL team in his final year before free agency.)
  • Joe Maddon must be so very happy about his good timing right now. Does need some pitching, though, and maybe an upgrade at catcher.
  • The battle between MLB and Minor League Baseball rages on:
  • One bit of great news from Commissioner Manfred’s press conference at the Winter Meetings: all 30 MLB teams will have netting that goes beyond the far end of the dugout by next year. The Cubs had previously committed to a further extension of netting, though the particulars haven’t yet been released to the public. In an era of harder and harder foul balls – and the scary, sad, serious injuries that have accompanied them, including a little girl in Houston this year – there’s absolutely no excuse for MLB’s team not to take these measures.
  • The latest on the Astros sign-stealing investigation has the league poring over tens of thousands of electronic messages and conducting dozens of interviews – so don’t expect a decision until next year:
  • Loads of deals at Amazon today for its ongoing 12 Days of Deals. #ad
  • The MLB Draft is changing locations, and it’s pretty cool:
  • More on the Cubs’ new manager:
  • Yu Darvish taking shots at Victor Caratini is awesome:
  • https://www.instagram.com/p/B587HCog1nI/

  • But Vic is ready to clap back!
  • 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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