https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/page/135/?d=7enhttps://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/cubs-add-hector-neris-to-bullpen-r574/Hector Neris made his big-league debut way back in 2014 with one game and one inning for the Phillies. He remained with Philadelphia through the 2021 season, pitching in a variety of roles, but he spent a lot of time as the team's closer. He became a free agent after the 2021 season and si...574Sat, 27 Jan 2024 16:07:00 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/cade-horton-jackson-ferris-michael-busch-cam-collier-brooks-lee-ok-i-was-wrong/In July 2022, the Cubs held the seventh overall pick in the MLB Draft. They were on the apron, as it were--the fringe of the area where the elite talents in that particular class ran out. By most people's estimation, there were a fistful of truly worthy top-of-the-first-round choices on the boar...573Sat, 27 Jan 2024 12:16:01 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/cubs-trade-target-ryan-noda-r572/It's impossible to sugarcoat this: Ryan Noda swings and misses at a catastrophic rate. He whiffed on nearly 37 percent of his swings last season, in his first exposure to the big leagues. Of the 362 batters who came to the plate at least 200 times last year, only eight had a lower contact rate....572Fri, 26 Jan 2024 15:17:01 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/michael-busch-get-your-first-basemans-mitt-matt-mervis-pack-your-bags-r571/When the Chicago Cubs first acquired Michael Busch from the Los Angeles Dodgers, my instinct was to immediately evaluate him as part of the picture at third base. The Cubs lacked certainty at both infield corners, sure. But given Busch’s prior role in Los Angeles and an easier road to clarity at...571Fri, 26 Jan 2024 12:32:01 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/dansby-swanson-and-crushing-the-ball-in-the-middle-of-the-plate-r570/In his final two seasons with Atlanta, Dansby Swanson crushed the ball in the middle third of the plate. In what seems to be the best-maintained environment for hitters in all of baseball, Swanson stayed locked in on doing damage when pitchers were in the middle of the plate, and he rarely misse...570Thu, 25 Jan 2024 12:18:52 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/cubs-player-assets-seiya-suzuki-michael-busch-javier-assad-adbert-alzolay-jordan-wicks/For a more thorough explanation of these rankings and how they are developed, check out Part 1’s introduction post. The shortened version: Which players in the Cubs organization are most crucial to developing a championship-caliber team? To rank the Cubs players and prospects, we consider age, c...568Wed, 24 Jan 2024 17:17:02 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/what-jumps-out-from-the-2024-cubs-zips-projections-r566/A couple of weeks ago, ZiPS projections officially went live for your 2024 Chicago Cubs. For the uninitiated, ZiPS projections are a way of projecting a player’s future performance by utilizing recent adjusted stats, to compare them to a past player of a similar age and position, created by Dan...566Tue, 23 Jan 2024 13:40:32 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/will-the-cubs-platoon-michael-busch-should-they-r565/We live in the age of optimization. It's not always ruthless, and it needn't be, but by and large, teams shield even some of their best players from matchups they view as difficult for them. That especially means that left-handed hitters see lefty pitchers less often. It's easy to miss that tren...565Mon, 22 Jan 2024 12:56:17 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/cubs-assets-ben-brown-kevin-alcantara-owen-caissie-alexander-canario-kyle-hendricks/One of my favorite baseball-writing series at Twins Daily that I have enjoyed the last half-dozen years is Nick Nelson’s annual Top 20 Minnesota Twins Player Assets of the Year. Recently, he completed the four-part 2024 series. I thought bringing that series to North Side Baseball would be fun....562Sun, 21 Jan 2024 12:11:01 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/jordan-wicks-2024-projections-scouting-report-minor-league-data-whiff-rates/As was recently brought up by a handful of our users here on North Side Baseball, Jordan Wicks is kind of a polarizing prospect. Recently named one of MLB Pipeline's top 10 left-handed pitching prospects headed into 2024, he nonetheless makes it hard to tell how excited you should be, and our ow...560Fri, 19 Jan 2024 12:09:01 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/away-away-away-how-kyle-hendricks-faded-the-league-in-resurgent-season-r559/The oldest orthodoxy in pitching is: away, away, away. Even Bob Gibson (one of history's most famous pitch-inside, intimidate them, own the plate hurlers) revealed in his large oeuvre of post-career pitching wisdom dispensed across multiple books, disclosed that he only came inside to set up bat...559Thu, 18 Jan 2024 17:38:00 +0000https://northsidebaseball.com/news-rumors/chicago-cubs/the-cubs-are-betting-big-on-internal-improvements-r557/After the signing of Shota Imanaga, the Cubs made another surprising move, trading tantalizing pitching prospect Jackson Ferris and toolsy teenager Zyhir Hope to the Los Angeles Dodgers for third baseman Michael Busch and reliever Yency Almonte. Those were two savvy moves, as the Cubs...557Thu, 18 Jan 2024 12:15:02 +0000