weis21

tom ricketts

Also never noticed the bat flip. freaking awesome Too young to remember that one, personally, but Hawk was my childhood hero

i actually have an appointment with Bryant Packard on Monday. Trying to set up his summer/fall schedule so that he can finish out online after he gets drafted later this year. I'd have to check my notes but pretty sure he's my baseball player that is a big cubs fan. just like with dwanya williams-sutton, i'll be crossing my fingers the cubs grab him. i'm banking on one of my ECU players getting me cubs tickets one day and if i stay at this job that just keeps spinning it's wheels i'm looking for any possible perk i can. really, really nice kid, though. i'll be rooting for him wherever he goes.

personally i wouldn't mind. i mean they're Canadian so i figured they'd be more likely to show up at a hockey game. I was always a big fan of Tom Sawyer, personally.

Edwards' new Jansen/Kershaw delivery fixes his control issues and he and Morrow (when healthy) become the best 1-2 bullpen punch in the NL. Chatwood miraculously gets fixed enough that he's one of the better middle relievers and is a standard 7th inning option. The Cubs shaky bullpen suddenly is their strongest point when you also factor in Strop, Brach, Cishek, Cedeno (LOOGY). Mekkes and Haggerty are called up and provide great value around mid-season. Heyward slightly improves at the plate enough that he is a not really all that irritating to me (this is more personal because I want so bad to just like the guy a lot). He still provides stellar defense and baserunning and begins to get more starts in CF when Almora et al continue to be meh options out there. Despite being the punchline as the only hitter signed in the offseason-from-the-devil-himself, Descalso provides the Cubs with a really great and flexible option. Contreras takes a big step forward and is once again an all-star mid-season. Joe decides he doesn't want to kill him so he gives him some days off with a catcher that hasn't yet been acquired. Cubs have 5 top 100 prospects by the end of the season (hoerner, amaya, azolay, marquez, roederer). nico and marquez are top 50. Giambrone is Bote 2.0 and provides a spark and value sometime after the ASB.

Well, to be fair the cat hasn’t been TOLD the cubs are out of it so he’s technically correct

AAF and XFL have both said they won’t take players directly out of high school. If either league lasts whatsoever I can definitely see players choosing this route rather than wait a year to play via transfer rules. Or if they flunk out of school, arrested, etc. That is, if it’s an “only out of high school” rule

Opener? Like starting the game with a reliever instead? yeah i was confused, too (nothing new there)

iirc there was a quote from someone with the Cubs that it wasn’t health related. I guess Hickey could have just asked that to be said anyway but it’s more likely it’s some other personal life issue.

I was considering getting his autograph at the cubs convention last month. really glad I thought better of that (or any autograph other than Dawson and Jenkins for my son)

I’m going to be honest. I had the day off and I wanted to see how little it took from me questioning anything you said for you to flip out. I hope Hagerty does well. Go Cubs and stuff.

what exactly (or, i guess, with who) are you arguing? we both think he's going to be a reliever. you gave reasons out loud, but this player: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hillri01.shtml and this player: https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=hagert001luk are clearly different. hagerty hasn't thrown a professional pitch in a decade. he's a reliever (more than likely one that won't ever pitch for the chicago cubs) and we both agree with that. quit arguing with nobody in particular. ETA: here's hill's independent league innings. this isn't apples to apples. https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=hill--002ric

Well yes they’re not going to build up his arm for three years when’s he’s 40 years old to be a starter

Pretty sure even he gave up hope, too. Sad times.

That’s one way to put it. As an NC State fan this game just about broke me emotionally. It was like flipping a coin 100 times and incorrectly calling heads when it fell as tails 98 times. I’ve looked at this box score 4 or 5 times now and it’s gets more and more unbelievable each time. I mean, scoring 24 points in a half is bad, even if you’re playing Virginia or Wisconsin. And then you’ve got Virginia Tech who only allowed 24 points and couldn’t even double the other team up. If you told Virginia Tech’s coach that they would only score 47, he would assume they’d lose by 15. Plus this wasn’t the worst team in the conference; NC State was ranked. None of it makes sense. I watched 90 percent of the game. I mean the defense was good on both ends (obligatory) but ffs both teams just literally couldn’t make wide open shots. VT started pressing the issue and got some FT points and had a few 3’s fall. That was enough. Just horribly bad luck for both teams. I felt bad for just about all the players on the court. It was surreal and it sucked and I’m worse person for having to witness it.

My buddy preached the over 151.5 in this one Both teams were top 3 in overall FG percentage and 3 point percentage in ACC. Thankfully I’m not a gambler because I would have bet on the over, too.

That’s one way to put it. As an NC State fan this game just about broke me emotionally. It was like flipping a coin 100 times and incorrectly calling heads when it fell as tails 98 times.

The current CBA is up after 2020. If the owners don’t make some concessions in the bargaining of the next CBA, there will be a strike. CBA runs through 2021. The rest of that is accurate.

So I follow Chris Singleton on Twitter and saw where he was open to speaking with schools and universities fall-spring 2019/2020. I messaged him and asked if he would be interested in speaking at ECU and he said absolutely. Anyway, this past week I’ve emailed probably a dozen or so people and think we may have a fit with one department for next academic year. Really pumped about this and it’s such an imperative message for college students (well, America in general) in this day in age. As an aside, one of the girls I’m working with on bringing him in to speak is originally from charleston and they have mutual friends. Small world. http://www.thechrissingleton.com

Team player. Was necessary for that last minor league deal for a reliever.

To be fair can’t you basically say that about any starting rotation. They’re all going to be hurt sooner or later

Yeah, same for me. It’s a weird feeling of knowing they could really dominate without making anymore moves and still disappointed they haven’t/won’t. They can also fall flat on their faces I guess. I think they make some solid and shrewd moves to help the pen in the next few weeks. Also, I found it awesome that Javy (in sunglasses of course) was like 5 feet from the big screen to watch the highlight video. He was surely pissed anytime he wasn’t the one featured in the video and he wanted that motivation for 2019 (he was featured a ton, of course). The video honestly did get me a bit hype.

Best part of Cubs Convention so far: i bought a voucher for a beer and the bartender didn’t take it so I have a “free” beer ticket in my pocket. I’ll probably go into pick up my Dawson piece and get my free beer and just enjoy Chicago with my girlfriend the rest of the day.

This convention is shockingly unorganized. It’s filled with a bunch of mouth-breathers. I love lots of theses Cubs as much as anybody (I thought) but get the horsefeathers out of here if I’m going to wait around for HOURS for a chance to get an autograph from Randy freaking Rosario. Actually, he is one of the “season ticket only” autographs (not kidding). idontknowwhatiexpected.gif BUT, Chicago is awesome, our hotel with the lake view is awesome, the girlfriend and I love it here, and I dropped off a small plaque for the hawk to sign for my son (cost 40 but it goes to his charity I guess). Dawson just had another knee operation so he’s limping around on a crutch. Oh and the girlfriend bought a print signed by Happ so we got a pic with him and I lived to see another day. That money also went to charity. So, in short, having an awesome time but Ricketts can horsefeathers off and the general public sucks. Both of these things I knew going into this. Go Cubs