https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/page/103/?d=7enhttps://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/do-umpires-call-an-unfair-strike-zone-on-cubs-slugger-seiya-suzuki-r1050/To many Cubs fans' eyes, it's not a question of if umpires are unfair to Seiya Suzuki, but one of why. Watching him pile up 38 called strikeouts (12th-most in MLB, trailing mostly players with 100 or so more plate appearances) and seeing a lot of 1-0 counts go to 1-1 when it looked like they cou...1050Mon, 19 Aug 2024 11:20:01 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/cubs-week-in-review-breakthrough-stretch-followed-by-a-belly-flop-r1049/Depending on when you decided to check your phone, the Cubs drew as close as 2.5 games back of the third and final Wild Card spot a week ago. With a chance to claw their way back to the .500 mark for the first time since mid-June, the Cubs took off for Cleveland, and it did not rock. A Shota Ima...1049Mon, 19 Aug 2024 00:10:00 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/the-cubs-should-call-up-mois%C3%A9s-ballesteros-r1048/From behind the plate have emanated some of the Cubs' worst problems this season. Yan Gomes produced -1.2 fWAR in under 100 plate appearances, and was released in late June. Miguel Amaya has come on of late, but overall, his season is marked by regression from last season, rather than the leap t...1048Sun, 18 Aug 2024 16:45:30 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/why-we-should-be-bullish-on-pete-crow-armstrongs-underlying-peripherals-r1047/To my mostly untrained eye, Pete Crow-Armstrong's plate appearances seemed different for the former top prospect. More importantly, they seemed different in a good way. He was driving the ball to the outfield much more often. The contact quality from those three games would back up that thought....1047Sun, 18 Aug 2024 11:52:01 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/jed-hoyer-isnt-risk-averse-hes-just-taking-the-wrong-risks-r1045/The question to answer is whether his two high-profile misses will affect his ability to make the big swing needed to bring elite talent to Chicago. The Michael Busch trade was a risk that has paid off; even though it cost newly minted top 100 prospect Jackson Ferris, it was worth it to sol...1045Sat, 17 Aug 2024 13:10:00 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/cubs-surpassing-2024-luxury-tax-threshold-doesnt-matter-except-for-what-it-says-about-jed-hoyer-r1044/One of the many frustrations of Cubs fans this winter was the team's apparent unwillingness to spend beyond the $237 million first threshold for the competitive-balance tax. By stopping shy of that threshold, it seemed, the team was foreclosing options for itself, and missing out on chances to a...1044Fri, 16 Aug 2024 11:18:02 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/likely-a-fixture-for-2025-cubs-bullpen-tyson-miller-succeeded-where-jos%C3%A9-cuas-failed-r1043/When the Cubs traded a minor-league power hitter with only a dubious future in the organization for a righty with an extreme release point and a flat VAA on their fastball, you could be forgiven for thinking they were just trying to turn off the José Cuas trade and turn it back on again. Chicago...1043Thu, 15 Aug 2024 22:09:34 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/for-cubs-weak-schedule-stretch-leaves-open-one-last-door-back-to-wild-card-fight-r1042/As things stand in the National League, the Philadelphia Phillies are barreling toward an NL East crown; the Milwaukee Brewers are mortal locks for the NL Central title; and the Los Angeles Dodgers are probably going to run away with the NL West. Beyond them, the San Diego Padres and Arizona Dia...1042Thu, 15 Aug 2024 11:30:01 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/nate-pearson-is-in-a-new-place-and-hes-also-in-a-new-place-r1041/Since acquiring Nate Pearson in their first move of July, the Cubs have used him relatively sparingly. He pitched in each of the first two games of this week's series against the Guardians, but that was after a full week off. In his first fortnight in the organization, he only pitched three time...1041Wed, 14 Aug 2024 11:56:41 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/the-cubs-have-a-catching-problem-but-spending-their-way-out-of-it-might-be-a-mistake-r1040/Cubs brass should not be hyper-focused on this one position. There aren’t elite catchers available, for one. The second and more pertinent reason is the volatility of the catchers who would be available. Injury, performance attrition due to understandable fatigue, or just random variance are ris...1040Tue, 13 Aug 2024 14:16:02 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/shota-imanagas-evolving-arsenal-r1039/When the Chicago Cubs signed Shota Imanaga to a four-year, $53-million dollar contract in January, they certainly had high expectations. In fact, this contract may have been an underpay at the time–many thought Imanaga would get a much richer deal. In 2023, with the Yokohoma DeNA BayStars, he pi...1039Tue, 13 Aug 2024 11:48:00 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/kyle-hendricks-and-the-cubs-are-in-an-awkward-position-right-now-r1038/  There was enough of a Kyle Hendricks rebound, last month, to justify keeping him around as the team floundered and trudged toward what had a chance to be a deadline sell-off. Hendricks was clearly the worst of the team's healthy starters at the time, but he deserves the organization's res...1038Mon, 12 Aug 2024 22:12:01 +0000