HOW CAN YOU FOCUS, More on the New Deal, Bellinger Optimism, Streaming App, Hoerner Official, and Other Cubs Bullets

I often say that the morning Bullets that take place during the Trade Deadline Blogathon are the hardest of the year to get through, and that’s true. The second hardest are the ones on Opening Day. My energy is JUST TOO HIGH TO FOCUSSSSSSSSS …

But I’ll try …

  • Big news last night in the baseball world, as the league and the players got together on a first-ever minor league Collective Bargaining Agreement, which will DRAMATICALLY raise salaries for minor league players. The one big drawback was revealed slightly after the initial news:
  • So, in exchange for increasing salaries, the owners are getting their wish of further cutting down the total number of players teams can have in their organizations. I hate it so much. We have already seen that an exceptionally deep organization like the Cubs can absolutely have guys at the very edges of their domestic reserve list who could plausibly make the big leagues one day. Why would you want to cut out more possible future players? Well, I mean, I know why ($), but I suppose I’m saying that I just hate the idea of fewer and fewer players getting a chance to live their dream.
  • On the flip side, this detail is really good news for a number of future minor leaguers (The Athletic): “Players who sign at age 19 or older are going to be under club reserve for six years, rather than seven, which is the blanket number that previously applied to all players. This policy is not retroactive to players who previously signed at age 19 or older.” That means a whole lot of players will hit minor league free agency (or compel their orgs to add them to the 40-man roster) a year earlier than they otherwise would have. That’s particularly good news for older draft picks, who might be locked into their draft organization until they’re almost 30, even without ever reaching the big leagues.
  • This is a good Cody Bellinger profile at the Sun-Times, with quotes from all over the baseball world. From his former teammate Max Muncy, who sees the bounceback coming: “Everybody knows about his shoulder, but I think when he broke his leg, it set him back a lot. He spent a lot of time just trying to get strong and healthy again, and eventually there was a little pressure there. He was Rookie of the Year and then MVP, right? There was so much expected of him, and of course he wanted to live up to it.” Maybe another year to get right, and to reset in a new city with a new team, will be all that is necessary to get Bellinger back to what he could be – not that MVP level, but that above-average bat, great outfield defense guy.
  • To that end, Sahadev Sharma’s bold player prediction for the Cubs this year was about Bellinger: “Cody Bellinger will return to form — probably not 2019 form, but he’ll put up his best numbers since that MVP season. If he can get close to 30 home runs and hover around a 120 wRC+, that’d be a massive output considering what he’s done the past two seasons and what the Cubs have gotten from center field in recent years.”
  • Dexter Fowler is there, too:
  • Luis Torrens always thought he could win a job on the Cubs’ roster:
  • The Cubs made the Nico Hoerner extension officially official:
  • The Yankees have their direct-to-consumer streaming app in place (still waiting on Marquee’s version), and it’s quite pricey, BUT you have to remember that this also includes the Nets and the Liberty:
  • The Braves clearly like Orlando Arcia as a depth piece for many more years:
  • More from Cubs owner Tom Ricketts on the last few years:
  • This is just so beautiful:
  • Heads up! Our bosses at Betsperts are giving away two $100 Fanatics gift cards and eight free passes to our BN Live event next week! Sign up here for free for a chance to win.
  • Oh I want several of these so bad for some Cubs prospects who are on the way:
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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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