Today is National Girls and Women in Sports Day, so find a way to celebrate women in sports, either in your life directly or just by being impressed by pretty much everything Caitlin Clark does.
- I don’t think you should go too far with the point since we can’t know for sure what the Cubs would do if they had a Bobby Witt Jr.-caliber player right now, but I do think it’s at least a LITTLE humorous to point out that the Kansas City Royals have now signed a contract worth $100 MILLION MORE than the largest deal ever given out by the Chicago Cubs (Jason Heyward, $184 million over eight years, signed nearly a decade ago).
- Also: I’m really not sure the Cubs would’ve done this particular deal with Witt, even assuming Dansby Swanson didn’t exist. This front office/ownership combination simply has not shown an interest in these kinds of deals – this length in particular, but also this level of guarantee, and this kind of deal for a pre-arbitration player. And there are certainly arguments for why this deal is EXTREMELY good for Witt, and much less so for the Royals (getting only three free agent years – four years in advance – while having to guarantee nearly $300 million doesn’t seem like a great value proposition).
- But I have no interest in criticizing the small-market Royals for stepping up to ensure they keep a potential superstar around for a long time, and I also have no interest in suggesting that it is good in the abstract that the Cubs have literally never signed a player for over $200 million. You don’t just pay guys to pay guys, and $200 million is a wholly arbitrary cut-off, but it’s still jarring when it’s held up against something the ROYALS are doing. The Cubs will cross that $200 million mark eventually, and I guess I just hope that some of the upcoming young prospects are going to be sufficiently good to justify, and sufficiently interested in signing, that kind of deal.
- A MAJOR sports media announcement from ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery (the Turner channels for our purposes here), which are creating a new streaming venture that will bundle the sports programming from each of those entities:
- The jokes write themselves, of course: these cable companies have figured out a way to … invent cable again! But in all seriousness, yes, that’s actually more or less what they’re trying to do. As linear cable TV dies its long, slow death, these companies have to figure out a way to keep customers happy and locked in, and sports programming is one of the best ways to do it. So bundle up sports streaming products into one thing, and then sell it to folks for a monthly fee – it’s, you know, cable but for the streaming era.
- The particulars on this will come out over the next several months, but you can imagine that this product will cost $40+ per month, which starts to get you pretty close to other cable-like products that carry all these same services anyway. In other words, I’m not sure how many folks this will actually entice to come back from their cord-cutting existence, but it’ll be a very interesting test case. Also, note that it’s not like this has ALL sports, since it’s missing any rights held by – for example – CBS/Paramount and NBC/Comcast/Universal.
- Wrinkle in the Clayton Kershaw re-signing with the Dodgers: he gets a player option for 2025, so he can stick around one more year if he wants, entirely of his own decision. Of course, by giving that option, the Dodgers are setting themselves up for the possibility that Kershaw comes back from shoulder surgery cooked this year, exercises the player option, and then the Dodgers have to dump one of their best players ever.
- Jon Lester doesn’t plan to go into any kind of official coaching role in his immediate post-playing days, but it does sound like he’ll be visiting with his former clubs:
- From the USA Today piece, a little bit of sadness from Lester:
“Lester still feels closer to the Chicago Cubs than the Boston Red Sox with friends still working in the organization, but concedes his passion towards the Cubs has slightly waned with the firing of manager David Ross, his former teammate and close friend.
‘Talking to some people I understood,’ Lester says. ‘I saw Rossy over New Year’s and kind of understood their decision. But you don’t want buddies to lose their job. It sucks. It kind of stung.'”
- Michael Rucker with some kind words on his way out the door (he was traded to the Phillies yesterday following a DFA to make room for Hector Neris):
- Here’s hoping Rucker has some good years with the Phillies, who’ve grabbed a lot of these types of relievers from the Cubs in recent years. Erich Uelmen (didn’t work out in 2023), James Norwood (didn’t work out in 2022, after a sojourn in San Diego in 2021), and Dillon Maples (didn’t work out in 2022) among them.
- I don’t think this would be THE infield acquisition for the Marlins, since Bride is not established in the big leagues (and this is a cash move), but it’s probably a buffer against them having to really stretch in a trade:
- I mention that because it’s not too hard to see a superficial trade fit between the Marlins (could give up a controllable starting pitcher and/or a high-quality relief arm) and the Cubs (quite a bit of infield depth in the big leagues and on the prospect side).
- The only pitch more delightful than the knuckleball: