Brock Beauchamp

Now that non-tender day has come and gone, the free agent list is as robust as it will be all winter. The Cubs have many, long-reaching choices in front of them. With the departure of Cody Bellinger and Marcus Stroman in free agency, the team is considerably worse now than it was on the final day of the season. Unfortunately, the positional player market is the thinnest we've seen in years. But the pitching free agent class it quite deep, if not particularly great at the ace level. View full rumor

Alright, that bar is awesome.

Welcome to NSBB!

Somehow I missed that Banks is holding... four bats? Why?

I know some people feel differently but I'm not all that keen on Bellinger for three years and especially not the 5+ he's likely to get from someone in this pathetically thin positional market. Go all-in on Ohtani, plz.

I just received a PM that a poster in southern Illinois has been seeing extremely long load times for the past few days, like 10+ seconds at times. I'm in the Twin Cities and haven't seen this at all. Anyone else suffering from this malady?

Angelos is gone! He sold to an investment group.

FOCO is a partner with North Side Baseball and support of their products helps support this site; 100% of the funds/materials received from these promotions go directly to our users in the form of prizes and gifts. Every diehard Chicago Cubs fan remember the famous phrase, “Let’s Play Two,” from Ernie Banks that he used jokingly on a 100-degree day at Wrigley field when they were set to play a game in 1969. The Cubs were so tired from the heat not even hours before the game they had to play had even begun and Ernie shouts out to his teammates: “Let’s Play Two.” The phrase just stuck with reporters and they used it and the phrase became one of Ernie’s iconic phrases. Earlier this morning, our friends at FOCO has released a super cool bobblehead that they call the Ernie Banks Chicago Cubs Let’s Play Two Bobblehead. The bobblehead features Ernie taking a knee in his home white Chicago Cubs uniform with a huge grin on his face with the four bats being held laying against his knee which is a famous pose of Ernie in the dugout next to his teammates. Ernie is sitting on a round green grass-looking base with his name across the front decal of the bobblehead. This bobblehead goes for $80 retail standing proudly at 8 inches tall with 123 units available for preorder now on the FOCO website. Like all FOCO bobbleheads, each one is hand-crafted and painted so that no two pieces look exactly the same creating a unique and diverse look to each bobblehead the company releases. Make sure to pre-order your Ernie Banks Chicago Cubs Let’s Play Two Bobblehead now before this memorable collectible is all gone! Go Cubby Blues!!

Me, a Twins fan, upon seeing Emilio Pagan's name in print (and yes, I realize he was good in 2023):

Patrick Mooney and Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic are reporting the Cubs might be interested in signing first baseman Rhys Hoskins. Hoskins, who will be entering his age 31 season in 2024, missed all of the 2023 season with a torn ACL he suffered in Spring Training. He has a career 125 OPS+ and should he return to form, is one of the more potent bats available in this weak free agents position player class. The Cubs have options at first base but if they're truly interested in trading Christopher Morel and do not re-sign Cody Bellinger, first base is wide open. It's unlikely the team will be keen to hand the job to Matt Mervis on Opening Day so it's likely they do some amount of roster shuffling to improve the team at first. Hoskins is probably the best bat and will likely be looking for a short-term contract to reestablish value so the deal makes sense from both sides. It should be noted Hoskins is a Boras client. View full rumor

As a Twins fan, I can give some opinions about Polanco. He's wildly underrated and a professional hitter. He's aging into some questionable defense at second but can still hold his own. He played some third this year and while it's not an ideal fit, he makes it work. He's absolutely the kind of guy you want hitting 1-2 or 5-6 in a lineup. He's gonna give you a stabilizing presence from both sides of the plate. But the injuries are a real problem and it's hard to predict what you're going to get from him. His ankle is a recurring problem and has hindered several years of both hitting and defense. Twins' ownership are being horsefeathers asshats and limiting payroll right in the middle of a run at contention. That means it's more likely Polanco could be traded and the price won't be astronomical.

With the abruptly-ended GM Meetings now over, reporters are putting together their notes and while the Cubs have remained mum on the subject, rival executives expect the North Siders to be in play for Ohtani this winter. When Ohtani posted to MLB, he almost exclusively negotiated with west coast teams before landing with the Angels (a decision he surely regrets at this point). While he didn't speak to any New York or east coast teams, he did take the Cubs' calls. We really have no idea what is in Ohtani's head, as he's been very quiet on his expectations. He'll also basically write his own contract. If he wants a 13-year deal, he'll get it. If he wants an 8-year deal with an enormous AAV, he'll get it. If he wants opt-outs every two years, he'll get it. Pure dollars are not going to get it done in this specific case and, unlike most free agent deals, teams will be selling themselves to Ohtani. Can the Cubs make a compelling pitch? Several rival General Managers seem to think so: View full rumor

Are they trying to increase his positional flexibility for the 2024 Cubs or another team? https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/11/cubs-trade-rumors-christopher-morel-first-base.html

FOCO is a partner with North Side Baseball and support of their products helps support this site; 100% of the funds/materials received from these promotions go directly to our users in the form of prizes and gifts. A disappointing finish to the 2023 season indeed, however, a bright future ahead for the Cubbie Blues. Finishing second in the National League Central and it was a positive season all in all as they posted their best 162-game regular season record since 2018, but not enough to surpass the NL Central champs, Milwaukee Brewers. Quite a few names on the trade block this offseason including trade deadline acquisition third baseman, Jaimer Candelario, who absolutely tore it up as soon as he touched down in the Windy City. Cody Bellinger, who has been linked potential trade talks to the New York Yankees or a potential return to the Cubs. Cubbies have great young talent and potential superstars who broke out in a big way last season and we are hoping to drive the momentum into building for the future in 2024. Let’s take a second to celebrate the accomplishments of Dansby Swanson and Ian Happ on capturing a gold glove award this past season with their very own bobbleheads from FOCO to pay tribute to the star players. These bobbleheads were released by FOCO earlier in the week and are labeled as blackout bobbleheads which means their warehouse is hard at work on creating the molds for these bobbleheads. Blackout bobbleheads are FOCO’s way of staying in the moment with current events in sports including breakout games, hot market, etc. This bobblehead stands proudly at 8 inches tall with 123 units available currently for preorder at a retail price of 75$. Like all FOCO bobbleheads, each one is handcrafted and painted so no two pieces look exactly the same creating a unique and diverse look to each bobble FOCO releases. Make sure to click on any one of the links in this article to purchase your Ian Happ & Dansby Swanson Chicago Cubs 2023 Gold Glove Award Bobblehead before they sell out. Go Cubbies and can’t wait to see these boys rock in 2024!

I ignore one-run games, I just don't see any way to parse that into anything meaningful. As I mentioned above, I think tying pythag too closely to the manager has its own problems, I was only trying to point out it's one of the few metrics we have that might have ANYTHING to do with the manager in a way we can measure.

I wasn't trying to say that at all, only pointing out that one of the few indicators we have that MIGHT be correlated to the manager is discarded by many. Personally, I'm skeptical of what pythag means over the long run and am not ready to wholly attribute it to the manager.

How? Honest question. There are so many variables in a team year over year that the data is noisy. What part of it is the manager? What part the front office? The players themselves? Craig Counsell has a long history of beating the team pythag, yet people question whether that's a skill he has or just the team around him. Seems like if it was that easy to measure, we'd see lengthy studies proving or disproving it. I certainly haven't ever seen a study that's conclusive in any way but if you have, please share it.

I think a manager's presence in the clubhouse has a ton of value over 162 games. I also acknowledge we have absolutely no horsefeathers way to measure whether that is true or not.

I think it's probably more likely that managers are worth a lot more than that, we just have no idea how to measure it, which makes analytical teams hesitate to throw money at hunches.

While it's probably sensationalistic, if you break down small differences, it's not impossible. Matt clearly believes Ross is a below-average manager. He also clearly believes Counsell is an above-average manager. So let's say Counsell is +2 wins over average and Ross is -2 wins below average. That's a pretty reasonable place to start, right? So if you swap the managers, as Matt suggested in this article, you'd have a four-win swing from each team. It's not that the difference between the two managers is eight games; it's that if you swapped them between two competing teams, you stack those four wins twice, all in favor of a single team. Would reality play out that way? Probably not. It'd likely be a much smaller difference but given how the Cubs collapsed, maybe it's even larger. It's just so damned hard to determine how much of a collapse/streak is due to a manager's steadying/unpredictable presence. In any case, I think most of us can agree that Counsell is a net positive over Ross.

Nola is perhaps the free agent I'm most interested in following this offseason. I think he's a far more realistic target than Ohtani.

An absolute coup. NOBODY saw this coming. I have to admit my respect for Hoyer just jumped upward quite a bit.