NEWSLETTER
After years of cajoling and insisting that I would love it, I finally gave in to many suggestions and watched ‘Dark’ on Netflix. And yuuuppppp, I could instantly see why people kept recommending it to a nerd like me. It is unbelievably good. To be very clear to anyone who wants to check it out, you should know in advance that it’s an extremely heavy lift to figure out who is who and what’s going on and what you’re supposed to know and what you’re supposed to figure out and what you’re just supposed to accept is unknowable. It takes several episodes to really get your feet under you, but the payoff … it’s one of the best, most clever, most compelling stories I’ve ever seen.
- The Cubs have a lot of more important needs – a starter or two for the rotation, a truly impactful bat, quality veterans in the bullpen – but one that lingers in the background is the back-up-back-up catcher spot. Mentioned it at the start of the offseason and it remains true (thankfully, no one except P.J. Higgins has come off the board yet) – Bryan nails this:
- That third catcher spot is not the most important or sexiest role the Cubs need to fill, but it *is* important. Because we can’t be sure Pablo Aliendo would be ready to fill in as a back-up if either of Yan Gomes or Miguel Amaya get hurt, and because we can’t be sure Bryce Windham is a potential big leaguer, you just want to see the Cubs have a quality veteran catcher option at Iowa. It can be a glove-first guy, who is simply capable of handing a big league staff. Odds are just about 100% that Gomes and Amaya won’t both be completely healthy for 162 games, so you have to have someone experienced at the ready in case Aliendo and/or Windham aren’t.
- (Fun fact: since the Cubs are already paying Tucker Barnhart for 2024, they could just sign him to a minor league deal, and it’d be like they have him still on his contract, but not on the 40-man roster. That’d actually be a really handy third catcher! Not sure he’d want to do that, though, since he’s being paid either way.)
- As to Bryan’s final point about finding an MLB-roster-spot guy to be that third catcher, it’s not impossible given that you have to have five position players on your bench these days. But we saw the Cubs do it last year with Luis Torrens, and he simply never played. If your third catcher were going to be on the 26-man roster, he pretty much HAS TO be a guy you would also really PLAN on using at another spot – i.e., a Mitch Garver type whose bat is potentially good enough that you’d often want him DH’ing, or a guy who can play well at the corners or in the outfield if needed (I’m not seeing a guy like that on the free agent list, so it’d have to be a trade no one sees coming).
- I think a minor league deal type is much more likely, especially since a guy like Garver is not actually going to sign on to be solely a third catching option anywhere, and thus you’d have to dedicate very-regular DH starts to him … Cubs probably want to keep those starts open for now. That is to say, Garver probably winds up signing a very healthy multi-year contract as a primary DH somewhere. Of course, if the Cubs miss out on preferred DH targets like Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto, and if the Cubs add a quality bat at another position, and if Christopher Morel were dealt for pitching, then you start to see the contours of an offseason where Garver makes more sense.
- Speaking of catchers, Willson Contreras reflects on his first year in St. Louis:
- In sum, Contreras is going to try to get better at literally everything this offseason: “I already have a plan for the offseason, that includes everything, mindset, mental coach, whatever I need to do to get ready for 2024, I’m going to do it. I already have my plans. That includes defensively, offensively. Whatever works with baseball, I’m going to try to get better at it.”
- Contreras, 31, had a rough first year with the Cardinals overall, struggling to get on the same page with his pitchers, temporarily being removed from catching duties, and seeing his team be completely non-competitive. On the bright side, he definitely hit well, and the Cardinals let Andrew Knizer go after the season, so clearly they believe Contreras can keep on being the primary catcher. (And if it hurts their pitching staff in the process, so be it.)
- The staff Contreras will have to work with is a very, very, very veteran one at least:
- Brewers fans are still quite chapped about Craig Counsell leaving, and were ticked that he had the audacity to show up to a Bucks game in Milwaukee … you know, where he lives.
- Chicago hasn’t seen back-to-back wins in over two months:
- The big Obvious Shirts sale ends TODAY so if you want the biggest discount of the year, jump on it here.
- No baseball connection here, I just thought it was really crazy:
