The Discontented Vibe at #CubsCon, Minor League Pay, Electronic Strike Zone, and Other Cubs Bullets

It is probably true in almost all scenarios that, with age, comes wisdom. An obvious exception is the Friday night of Cubs Convention, where the decisions you tell yourself you’re going to make never match the ones you do, leaving you – a fool – to write the Saturday morning Bullets through a fine haze of discomfort. That is all to say: I’m gonna need a minute.

  • Up front I’ll note that the vibe at the front office panel – where I’m writing this – is extremely subdued. It’s reminiscent of the 2013-14 era, where folks kinda knew the drill, knew better days were probably coming in the future, but they also just wanted to see results. It’s not outright hostility, it’s more like ennui.
  • A few newsy bits from the panel:
  • On that last one, it didn’t quite sound to me like a commitment on something that was *definitely* coming, but it definitely had an encouraging tone. I think maybe they are going to bump minor league pay at some point.
  • This was easily a top five most awkward moment I can recall at a Cubs Convention, where booing is actually really rare, and never so widespread that the speaker is like, wtf is going on:
  • I’ll admit that I, too, was caught off guard by the booing on that particular point. Maybe a lot of folks are still annoyed that the Cubs won’t be on WGN/ABC this year and therefore any mention of Marquee is a really sore spot? I guess I live so deeply in this world that I kinda figured everyone was already over it at this point (Ricketts clearly thought so, too). But this is definitely still a very rough area for the team with their most ardent fans. You’re, uh, gonna want to make sure to get those carriage deals done, Cubs.
  • For those who didn’t see, Ricketts was greeted with a smattering of boos even initially – Cubs fans are frustrated – but it was nothing like when Marquee came up.
  • Wait, more wrap-up stuff from the end of the front office panel:
  • 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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