Cubs Streaming Plans, Front Office, Morel and DWL, and Other Cubs Bullets

Happy Halloween, my friends. Hopefully you’ve got some happy or spooky plans. I watched that new movie, ‘Barbarian’ – it’s the kinda buzziest new horror movie of the current period – and it was solid. Freaky. So if you’re looking to do something like that this evening, there you go.

  • Chicago Cubs Business President Crane Kenney was interviewed by Dave Kaplan as part of the Chicago Sports Summit, and something he shared tracks with what we heard last week about Cubs ratings and Marquee. Kenney knows that you have to offer fans in-market the chance to watch games even if they don’t have cable or satellite. So a streaming option direct to consumer – i.e., you pay a monthly fee for the app and you can watch the games straight in the app – is “definitely” coming for Marquee, according to Kenney, as soon as next year.
  • A reminder: this is for fans who are “in-market.” That, for Cubs fans, means roughly Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, and a little bit of southern Wisconsin.
  • A reminder, part two: for *out-of-market* folks, your avenue to Cubs games will still be MLB dot TV. Marquee and the Cubs do not have the rights to stream their games out-of-market (i.e., outside the Cubs’ assigned geographic footprint). That still belongs to MLB as a whole.
  • It is amazing to me that Astros GM James Click is not “safe” in his job, regardless of the outcome of the World Series. But that’s the story from Ken Rosenthal, because apparently Astros owner Jim Crane clashes with Click a bit, and also the hiring (in the wake of the Jeff Luhnow firing) was a hasty process. But, I mean, it clearly went well! If Crane does let Click go, you can safely assume he will be an ultra-hot commodity in the front office job market. And before you assume that a club like the Cubs – who already have a president and a GM and multiple assistant GMs – couldn’t snag him, I’m reminded of the era when the Dodgers had like six “GM-caliber” front office members because they were willing to pay for it. All I’m saying is if the Astros let Click go, I’d love to have someone in the Cubs front office who oversaw the Astros transition through these last several years (they changed so much and yet kept winning and winning). The knowledge and processes he might bring with him …
  • Christopher Morel has not yet appeared in the DWL for Aguilas Cibaeñas, which they indicated on Twitter is because he needs permission from the Cubs:
  • Note that this was before the Alexander Canario injury, and no, I don’t think there would be a relationship there – sometimes freak injuries happen. Canario was playing because he wanted to and because it served some development goals. Nothing wrong with it. Injuries can happen in the minor leagues or Major Leagues or wherever, just as easily. So if it’s worth playing at all, then it’s fine to play in the DWL.
  • As for Morel, the question is that “worth playing at all” part. It was a very long rookie season for Morel, and unless he was REALLY eager to play in the DR and also was going to get some serious defensive work in, then I don’t know if it’s in his or the Cubs’ best interest to be playing.
  • Something random I’d been wondering about this postseason, and then I found a Baseball America article from last month that touches on it: do pitch clocks impact velocity? You would THINK the answer is pretty obviously yes for at least some pitchers, since guys who rely on huge recovery time between pitches to max out velocity would no longer be able to do that. The data from the minor leagues in the pitch clock era, however, don’t necessarily prove it out. Average fastball velocities in the minors did stay flat from 2021 to 2022, while they climbed two tenths of a MPH in the big leagues. Maybe that’s signal right there, or maybe it’s just a fluke. Either way, it’s certainly not enough of a difference to claim that the pitch clock is responsible, and will therefore impact the ever-progressing explosion of velocity in the big leagues.
  • I suppose that reminds me that, while the pitch clock is almost entirely about improving the pace of action on the field – keep the game moving – we will still be watching closely to see if it impacts pitcher performance in the ways the league may be hoping (most specifically, I would bet, a reduction in strikeout rates). Restricting velocity would be part of that, but not the only part.
  • It’s “last night” at this point, but you still might enjoy the memory:
  • The Bears got beat badly yesterday … and yet it was a huge win:
  • This was pretty awesome:
  • 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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