What’s Good for Baseball, Cubs Pitching Changes, Wrigley Concert Slate, and Other Cubs Bullets

Feb 05, 2020

A heads up: the MLB Shop is clearing out more of their winter gear, Majestic jerseys, player shirseys, etc., and they also have free shipping today. So if you’re wanting to peruse Cubs gear, it’s a good day to do it here.

The Mookie Betts/David Price trade naturally took up a lot of oxygen around baseball last night and this morning, and for good reason. Although it had been expected for a while now, it’s still a shock to see a big-market, competitive team trading away one of the three or four best players in baseball. More than that, by attaching Price’s contract to the deal – paying down a big chunk of it, too – the Red Sox signaled to the world that money was a huge reason for the deal. When you reduce your return for a guy like Betts by including Price, you make it a lot harder to explain to your fanbase that the deal was actually about Betts leaving in free agency in a year for nothing, and about you just wanting to get some young talent now before that happens. The more I’ve thought about the deal, I really think the Red Sox did not get nearly enough in return for Betts, even at just one year, and even at $27 million in salary.

As a side point, though, I’ve seen a lot of hostility tied to this trade being “bad for baseball,” and I’m not quite as sure I see that one. I think you can beef with the Red Sox – and their fans have got to be apoplectic – but it’s not like Betts (and Price) have disappeared from baseball. There is another team that is all too happy to have them now, and Dodgers fans have to be over the moon. Player movement is a zero sum game, and not ever star is going to extend through retirement with the team that drafted him (or even if they do, like Nolan Arenado, they suddenly find themselves on the block anyway). So, for as bad as this is for the Red Sox and their fans, isn’t almost equally as good for the Dodgers and their fans? And thus, not really all that bad for baseball?

Sahadev Sharma is right here – the changes in the organization have been very, very significant:

Looking for details on how the Cubs are revamping their pitching development in the minors? That and more details on the behind-the-scenes makeover the Cubs underwent this winter. It may not satiate fans, but the changes were rather significant https://t.co/oGc3ScRC2M
— Sahadev Sharma (@sahadevsharma) February 5, 2020

Obviously the questions are about how effective those changes will be, and how quickly they will bear fruit. Ideally, we’ll see some more breakout relievers this year at the big league level, and then some surprisingly large steps forward for a handful of pitching prospects down on the farm. That’d be your clue that things are on the right track, even if the full impact might not be realized for several years.

Note that among the changes: former minor league pitching coordinator Brendan Sagara has left to join the Rangers (of course it’s the Rangers). The Cubs changed Sagara’s role before he departed, though, so it’s hard to know if they were intent on keeping him in some other capacity and he decided to leave, or if they were already kind of replacing him. He was very well-regarded coming into the organization a couple years ago, and there were clearly some steps forward on the pitching prospect side. But the reality is, we have only so much visibility to how a guy in a role like that is performing. I won’t pretend to know if that one was a poach, a one-sided separation, or a mutual thing.

Of course, as Sharma points out, Sagara is just one of several departures for the Cubs over the past year and a half, including former AGM Scott Harris (now Giants GM), high-level scouts Shane Farrell (now Blue Jays amateur scouting director) and Sam Hughes (now Yankees national crosschecker), and many more.

Bruce Miles interviews long-time Cubs broadcaster Len Kasper, who obviously is going to be in a very slightly new role this year with Marquee Sports Network – still calling Cubs games most of the time, but also sometimes getting days off, sometimes having a third man in the booth, sometimes having someone stand in for Jim Deshaies.

A year after having a surprisingly light concert lineup, the Cubs are back to loading ’em up at Wrigley Field:

Which of this year’s Wrigley concerts do you want to attend most?

6/13 – Maroon 5 w/ Meghan Trainor & Leon Bridgets
7/26 – Guns N’ Roses
8/13 – Green Day, Fall Out Boy & Weezer
8/28 – Def Leppard & Motley Crue
8/29 – Chris Stapleton w/ Jason Isbel
9/12 – Zac Brown Band pic.twitter.com/sbS6tVW0M2

— Cubs Talk (@NBCSCubs) February 4, 2020

You have to read the full take here for the necessary guesswork and extrapolation, but the increased concert slate could translate to upwards of $5+ million in additional revenue for the Cubs in 2020 over 2019. And since those revenues go into baseball operations after expenses, it does matter.

If you missed the just-released Spring Training caps for teams this year, they are a mixed bag:

The 2020 Spring Training Hats Are Out and They Are … Boldhttps://t.co/6sEJ0y905J

— Baseball is Fun (@flippingbats) February 4, 2020

The NBA Trade Deadline looms tomorrow:

76ers and Grizzlies Could Be Interested in Denzel Valentine Tradehttps://t.co/nBpYf7KbP4

— Bleacher Nation Bulls (@BN_Bulls) February 4, 2020

Trading Zach LaVine may not be the right approach for the Bulls, but if teams are calling, don't you at least have to listen to what they have to say? https://t.co/jVF4y6untG
— Bleacher Nation Bulls (@BN_Bulls) February 4, 2020

written by

Brett Taylor

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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What’s Good for Baseball, Cubs Pitching Changes, Wrigley Concert Slate, and Other Cubs Bullets

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