What About Quintana and Chatwood, La Russa as Top Sox Option, and Other Cubs Bullets

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•   We have started talking a lot about the Cubs’ open rotation for 2021 already, talking about a possible reunion with Jon Lester, talking about Alec Mills’ need to improve against lefties, talking about Adbert Alzolay’s breakout, talking about free agents like Kevin Gausman and Marcus Stroman. There will be much more to discuss in the coming months, because we still don’t really know exactly what the market is going to look like. But one thing I find interesting is that none of us really have any sense of urgency to discuss the possibility of retaining either of the other internal, outgoing free agent options: Jose Quintana and Tyler Chatwood.

•   I would guess that a lot of us just kinda don’t think about them going forward, since each had a disappointing run with the Cubs in his own way, and each is coming off an injury-shortened 2020 season. It’s hard to imagine either guy commanding a significant free agent contract at this point, but it’s also not hard to imagine either guy signing a cheap one-year deal, and then proving his health/succeeding in 2021. Of course that could happen, probably especially for Quintana. And yet we don’t really feel like doing a whole dig in on, “Oh, well, if they could sign him for a super cheap, incentive-laden deal, why not bring him back,” etc. Maybe late in the offseason if the market has been so decimated that you could consider one of those guys as a 5/6 swing type? I don’t know. It just feels like a “moving on” situation, for whatever reason.

•   THAT SAID, I sure do remain intrigued by Quintana’s potential as a two-pitch reliever, and by Chatwood’s potential post-cutter addition (either in the rotation or in relief). So maybe, even if I’m not feeling this conversation today, I’ll come back to it if the duo are still unsigned in January? Neither is old (31 next year for Chatwood, 32 for Quintana), and each clearly has big league pitches. Why wouldn’t you at least consider them as swing types on a cheap contract if it comes to that? OK. I’ve turned myself around a little bit as I wrote. But I still feel like the actual conversation is a ways off, and the Cubs need more time to see how the rest of the market develops, and what trade opportunities may arise.

•   We earlier discussed Nightengale’s initial report on this (my gut says it is an effort to help the White Sox with their actual managerial search targets), but now Nightengale is saying Tony La Russa is the White Sox’s top choice for manager:

•   Again, although La Russa had a very long and successful managerial career, he hasn’t managed since 2011, so you’re talking about a decade out of the dugout by next year. Is that really what the White Sox are looking for? Just because the owner and La Russa are tight?

•   If you would like to know more about the Braves’ tremendous scouting wins over the past half-decade, and then try desperately hard not to think about how flailing the Cubs’ efforts have looked by comparison, I encourage you to read:

•   The Rays just grow these guys on a tree, man:

•   There’s a saying about umpires that more or less amounts to: if you’ve heard of them, it’s probably a bad sign. Never have I seen that expression more perfectly played out than when looking at this chart, where the best umps include a number of guys I’ve absolutely never heard of, and the umpire names you know best all show up at the bottom (in fact, the Twitter embed perfectly cuts off the chart so you’re like, “where are all the names I know?” – yeah, they’re cut off at the bottom):

•   LOL:

https://twitter.com/justinochoi/status/1316237567004532736

•   It was good:

•   Some fascinating historical reading:

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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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