Today is the 20th anniversary of the premier of ‘LOST’ and I will hear NO ASPERSIONS CAST at anything that show did.
- It’s officially official at this point: no postseason for the 2024 Chicago Cubs. We’ve known that was coming for quite some time now, but yesterday’s loss gave it the stamp. The Cubs may wind up winning about as many games as they were projected to win before the season, but the path to getting there demonstrated, for me, that they COULD HAVE been – SHOULD HAVE been – a good bit better. Thus, particularly when buttressed by the ugly shape of the last seven seasons, I feel like the Cubs had one of the more disappointing seasons in baseball this year. There were others that were much worse, and probably some that were even more disappointing. But the Cubs were up there.
- Kyle Hendricks likely has one more start at Wrigley Field left (next weekend), but he was still drinking it in this time around (Cubs.com): “It’s so special to be here, to come and pitch at Wrigley Field as many times as I’ve gotten to. It’s been super special. Definitely take it in. It’s hard not to when you’re at a setting this cool, fans packing it out every single night. So it’s just the best place in the world to play, for sure.”
- Feels like there have been some real improvements on this front for Miguel Amaya this year (which would make sense, as he gets further removed from Tommy John):
- Brandon Birdsell dominated again:
- Tremendous bounce-back outing for Brandon Birdsell after a couple clunkers. They clearly did not derail him. Outstanding season for the 2022 5th rounder, who has put himself firmly in the running to be a fill-in starting pitcher next season as needs arise (and then, obviously, a chance to be something more if he were to break out, like Javier Assad once did). Maybe that doesn’t sound like a compliment, but having lots of guys like that available at Triple-A is critically important, and is something the Cubs just simply have not had in volume for a very long time. We saw this season how many of those AAA/MLB, starting/bullpen border guys you might need over the course of a season, and the most valuable ones are younger guys who have minor league options available.
- To me this says that the Blue Jays want to trade Vladito away to the Cubs for nothing:
- I kid, and I also think the Blue Jays are going to try SO HARD to extend Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to a monster deal this offseason, rather than trading him with a year of team control remaining. BUT IF they were open to conversations, his is the kind of bat that the Cubs MUST SPRINT to try to acquire, and then you deal with the positional fallout later. The 25-year-old is up to .324/.398/.552/167 wRC+ on the season.
- About the following, on the one hand, lol. On the other hand, I know what that one win was, so I am no longer lol’ing:
- I will say that the Nolan Arenado trade was, AT THE TIME, an absolute swindle for the Cardinals. And the fact that he didn’t opt out when he had the chance was also a coup for the Cardinals, because his deal at the moment was still well below what he would have gotten in free agency after 2022. Again: these are “at the time” considerations. But the last two years, he’s hit just .267/.319/.426/104 wRC+, and although his defense has still been solid, it hasn’t been elite enough to make him a 3-win player in either season. He turns 34 in April, and the Cardinals have three more years on his deal. Those seasons aren’t terribly pricey – $21M, $16M, $15M, but then they still owe him some deferred money from the original structure of the deal with the Rockies (remember how they paid him basically nothing the first two years?): $2M annually from 2022-31, and then $3M annually from 2023-41. That’s right, the Cardinals will be paying Nolan Arenado $3 million in 2041, when he’s 50.