https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/page/130/?d=7enhttps://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/free-agency-market-durability-vs-dominance-swanson-montgomery-glasnow-ohtani-garver/This MLB offseason has been marked by mixed signals. The owners want you to believe that the cliff they've reached with regard to traditional regional broadcasting is a crisis meriting major payroll reductions, but they have still spent lavishly--just not in traditional ways, or on traditional s...523Tue, 12 Mar 2024 16:11:01 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/patrick-wisdom-strikeout-problem-platoon-matchups-madrigal-morel/It might be hard to believe, but Patrick Wisdom is one of the longest-tenured Chicago Cubs. The only current players who had appeared in a game for the Cubs before Wisdom’s two-plate-appearance cup of coffee in the shortened 2020 season were Ian Happ, Nico Hoerner, Adbert Alzolay, and, of course...648Tue, 12 Mar 2024 11:18:00 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/monday-morning-north-sider-introductions-more-brennen-davis-injuries-early-returns-on-owen-caissie-r647/I hope this will be the genesis of a weekly column here at North Side Baseball. Peter King - he of Monday Morning Quarterback fame - just retired from doing his weekly column at NBC. He was a huge inspiration to me, and his tightrope act of informal tidbits and excessively niche insider informat...647Mon, 11 Mar 2024 14:44:00 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/keegan-thompson-40-man-roster-injury-splits-struggles/A third-round pick in the 2017 MLB Draft, Keegan Thompson initially moved quickly through the Cubs’ farm system, reaching Double-A Tennessee as a starter before the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the 2020 minor-league season. The Cubs still added the young righthander to the 40-man roster before th...645Mon, 11 Mar 2024 11:28:01 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/2024-cubs-camp-storylines-christopher-morels-position-r646/Christopher Morel is a known quantity with his bat. He proved his major league bona fides by posting an .826 OPS in 429 at-bats last year, a big improvement on his already-impressive .741 OPS from his rookie season. By OPS+, he was 16% better than the league average hitter, and his 26 home runs...646Sun, 10 Mar 2024 15:10:02 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/cubs-fifth-starter-preview-javier-assad-hayden-wesneski-jordan-wicks/As previously noted, we’ll see Justin Steele, Kyle Hendricks, Jameson Taillon, and Shōta Imanaga ride it out at the top. It’s not a group with a ton of flash or intrigue, but given the defense behind them, they should be more than adequate. If you’re looking for a bit extra of the latter, look n...644Fri, 08 Mar 2024 14:12:01 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/adbert-alzolays-three-breaking-ball-looks-make-him-a-versatile-relief-ace-r640/Making the full-time move to a relief role in 2022 unlocked a lot of things for Adbert Alzolay. With an extra mile per hour or two on his fastball (thanks to being able to cut loose so much more in short bursts), everything has played up, but Alzolay's breakout 2023 campaign seemed to be primari...640Thu, 07 Mar 2024 12:30:01 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/cody-bellinger-approach-outside-pitches-batted-ball-data/If Cody Bellinger can hold onto the gains he made in 2023 in terms of strikeout rate, it will certainly boost his production for 2024. On its own, though, putting the ball in play isn't enough. It's perfectly possible to hit the ball meekly and poorly and come up with results not far removed fro...639Wed, 06 Mar 2024 11:37:32 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/2024-chicago-cubs-positional-preview-starting-pitching-r638/As a starting group, they were 25th in strikeouts per nine (7.78) but posted the sixth-best BB/9 rate (2.55). Their collective groundball rate (44.7 percent) was the third-best mark in the league, while they surrendered hard contact at the lowest frequency (30.3 percent) among starting groups. U...638Tue, 05 Mar 2024 12:50:02 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/the-chicago-cubs-had-a-successful-offseason-though-not-a-glitzy-one-r637/Two winters ago, Jed Hoyer and his staff brought in Marcus Stroman and Seiya Suzuki on multiyear deals. Last winter, they signed Dansby Swanson and Jameson Taillon. In each offseason, they also made smaller, shorter-term, supplemental moves, like signing Mychal Givens and David Robertson before...637Mon, 04 Mar 2024 12:18:02 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/blake-snell-jordan-montgomery-creative-contract-offers-scott-boras-jed-hoyer/This was all just this side of cute, until about the beginning of February. It still hasn't definitively worked, because Scott Boras has convinced the first three of his high-profile clients to sign this winter to do so on deals that give them opt-outs after every season. Still, we're at the poi...636Sun, 03 Mar 2024 12:49:01 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/how-well-could-the-cubs-handle-mlbs-proposed-pitching-mandate-r635/Over the last few seasons, the MLB Competition Committee have instituted a number of rule changes designed to get the game feeling more akin to the sport of old again. Bigger bases were placed on the diamond to incentivize more stolen-base attempts. All pitchers are now forced to face a minimum...635Sat, 02 Mar 2024 12:25:01 +0000