Absolutely not a defense of the Ricketts, but Stroman would be #2 if not for the desire to split him and Hendricks up in the order. Sure, but he shouldn’t even be sniffing the rotation on a large market team.
Why oof? That's right in the range I would expect them. Lower end of that range but still in there. Like the article points out the Cubs have built a high floor/low ceiling type of team IMO. It's hard to really project them so I'd expect most "experts" would go conservative on them. It wasn’t an “oof” of surprise, it was an “oof” of ESPN reinforcing the awfulness of the roster.
YES! They’re so hung up on sudden death that they’re missing the obvious solution. Just play another ten minutes and whoever is winning at the end wins (or there’s a tie)