2016 hype!

[Banedon]

Pitchers and catchers report on February 20

 

Full squad reports on February 24

 

39 days folks!

[JennieGarthAlgar]

Right now its January of 2016 and we are legitimately looking at a lineup of

 

1B Rizzo

2B Zobrist

3B Bryant

SS Russell

LF Schwarber

CF Heyward

RF Soler

C Montero

SU Baez

 

I mean, its like, hard to believe its real life sometimes.

[fromthestretch]

Got my flight booked to Vegas to see the Cubs there March 30 and April 1.

[Sammy Sofa]

Just found out nobody else can use our Cubs home opener tickets.

 

 

First opener I've been to in a while.

[Derwood]

Spring training is going to feel like it's 17 years long this year. Wake me up for opening day

[StylesClash]

I'm very excited about a lineup with three 30 home run threats, as well as five 350+ OBP threats. Barring a whole lot of things going wrong the lineup should be the best in the NL Central.

 

The rotation makes me a bit nervous though. Kyle Henricks, last season, was very inconsistent. Lackey and Lester are getting long in the tooth and have a lot of innings under their belts. Arrieta will be interesting to watch to see how he reacts after throwing well over 200 innings last season for the first time in his career. And Hammell...well his consecutive poor second halves are well documented.

 

Anyways between now and July 31st I'm fairly confident that a fairly big name will be added to the rotation via trade. Hopefully Almora is able to increase his trade value by continuing his second half surge from 2015. I'd love to use him as a key secondary piece in a pitching trade.

 

I wanted Giolio badly during the 2012 Draft, and Theo passing on him for Almora is one of the few key mistakes he's made since coming to Chicago. So using Almora as a trade chip for a good pitcher would help lessen that blow.

[Sammy Sofa]

Great hype, pal!

[UMFan83]

Concerns about a rotation that I believe is projected to have one of the highest WARs in baseball.

 

As far as innings, Jake is the only one I'm slightly worried about given his significant increase last year. But even a 10% worse Jake is like a top 10 starter. Lester and Lackey have already made their adjustments to combat age related decline in stuff years ago. Lackey was the Cardinals best pitcher last year and is replacing Dan Haren in a rotation that won 97 games and went to the NLCS. And I don't think anyone should complain about having a #4 starter that had a 3.36 FIP in his first full season last year.

 

And our number 5 starter was in consideration for the all star game last year and whose numbers coincidentally dropped after suffering a leg injury that lingered.

 

Yeah I think our rotation will be fine and if parts falter the FO has already hinted that they will explore moves at the deadline.

[Guest]

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