https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/page/108/?d=7enhttps://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/5-controllable-stars-cubs-could-target-this-week-in-blockbuster-trades-r988/That Hoyer and company understand their situation better than to try to make short-term upgrades is encouraging. The next logical question they face, though, is an equally important one: how do you go about acquiring players who represent long-term upgrades, and who can help you avoid the grisly...988Thu, 25 Jul 2024 11:56:00 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/podcast-this-is-not-a-rebuild-jul-24-2024-closers-playing-screw-the-team-r987/It's been a few weeks since our last episode, but all the important facts of Cubdom remain unchanged. Jed Hoyer is ready to acknowledge that this team can't be a trade-deadline buyer, but it's not yet clear whether he understands that they need to be sellers. More importantly, it's hard to figur...987Wed, 24 Jul 2024 18:15:58 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/once-the-trade-deadline-comes-and-goes-what-will-make-the-cubs-interesting-r986/Admittedly, I’ve wavered on a number of occasions, as it relates to the 2024 Chicago Cubs. The team appeared to collapse in on itself after a strong April. An underperforming offense and a woeful bullpen had me starting to think about the other ways in which I could consume the sport, without it...986Wed, 24 Jul 2024 17:02:01 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/three-historical-mlb-trades-to-show-the-risks-rewards-of-the-cubs-trading-justin-steele-r984/What could the Cubs expect in return for such a deal? History has few examples of pitchers with years remaining around Justin Steele’s level at the deadline, but they exist. Twitter is chirping with rumors of Tarik Skubal and Garrett Crochet; the Cubs should explore the return for Justin Steele....984Wed, 24 Jul 2024 11:55:01 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/trade-candidates-neris-merryweather-leiter-smyly-miller/  For a while there, Craig Counsell was trying to hold together a bullpen on a team aimed at contention without the services of any of the four best pitchers in that bullpen, as of a year ago: Julian Merryweather, Adbert Alzolay, Mark Leiter Jr., and Drew Smyly. The team had to make do, for...985Tue, 23 Jul 2024 22:03:02 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/if-cubs-want-to-win-in-2nd-half-jameson-taillon-must-be-even-better-r982/Here’s a fun fact: the Cubs currently have five players on the roster playing on a contract worth more than $60 million. Three of them (Ian Happ, Seiya Suzuki, Cody Bellinger) make up the starting outfield triumvirate, and another is the seven-year, $177 million deal World Series champion Dansby...982Tue, 23 Jul 2024 15:14:02 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/cody-bellinger-isnt-going-anywhere-this-month-or-this-fall-r983/Jed Hoyer came right out on Monday and said it. Unless the Chicago Cubs defy what the first three-plus months of the season have shown us, they’ll be set to sell ahead of the Jul. 30 trade deadline. We’ve already heard rumblings about a handful of veteran players who could be dealt before that p...983Tue, 23 Jul 2024 11:24:02 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/javier-assads-new-slider-and-whether-it-will-make-him-a-better-pitcher-r981/It's profoundly unlikely that Javier Assad will be traded in the next week, because of all 30 MLB organizations, the one who is likely to value him most highly is the one for which he already toils. He's been shuttled to the bullpen more than once in his young career, and nearly got the same tre...981Mon, 22 Jul 2024 22:10:02 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/the-cubs-are-like-a-bad-rom-com-boyfriend-right-now-r980/Any clear-eyed decision-maker came to the conclusion that the Cubs need to be sellers at this trade deadline three weeks ago. Some of the world's most hopeless optimists (equal emphasis for each word in the phrase) root on the North Side Nine, though, so even entering the All-Star break, there w...980Mon, 22 Jul 2024 11:46:02 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/week-in-review-cubs-need-a-clean-slate-r979/We had a slim week, so strap in for a slim recap. I’m in. Let’s sell whatever we can and get back the cornerstone building blocks to secure the next great Cubs team. Cubs fans deserve it. The city of Chicago deserves it. And whatever current players remain with the club after the trade deadline...979Sun, 21 Jul 2024 22:36:17 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/sundays-performance-was-just-a-glimpse-into-who-pete-crow-armstrong-can-be-r969/Pete Crow-Armstrong hit two home runs off of Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas Sunday, traveling a total of 814 feet. They were both on breaking pitches low and below the zone. This is important because it’s his first multi-homer game in the big leagues, but also because the double-tap was a droug...969Sun, 21 Jul 2024 11:49:02 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/the-cubs-improved-bullpen-is-due-to-the-emergence-of-porter-hodge-r978/From the beginning of the season through the end of May, the Cubs’ bullpen ERA of 4.61 was 27th in baseball. Since then, however, their 2.92 ERA is fourth. It feels like this has gone mostly unrecognized, probably because it hasn’t resulted in more wins, save for that nice little stretch to end...978Sat, 20 Jul 2024 19:47:27 +0000