We’re exactly one month away from Opening Day in Tokyo so I figured it’s perfect timing for a News & Notes blog. Especially on a Tuesday afternoon in the weakest time of the sports calendar. So let’s chop it up without being sensitive douchebags.
Here’s these are the biggest things going on for the Cubs right now:
1. One Month from Opening Day
It sucks the first two games of the year are at 5am, and it sucks we’re giving up 10 spring training games to play them on the opposite side of the globe against the defending world champs. All of that sucks and I’ll probably be complaining deep into May that it impacted the start of season. So don’t be surprised if/when that happens.
But all that might be worth the trade off of the environment. I love the fact our club gets to open the season on Shohei’s turf. I love that Shota and Seiya get to bring their friends and teammates back home. I love the international exposure this brings the Cubs and what that can mean in future free agency periods. There’s really so much cool sentimental stuff to embrace about opening day in Japan.
It just sucks that I’ll drown all that out the second I see sluggish play or poorly-developed pitching staff to open the season.
2. Justin Turner Signs With The Cubs
I blogged this earlier but the general point is that I love Justin Turner and even think Jed Hoyer could have sandbagged the Bregman negotiations to guarantee Turner would take a 1-year deal with the Cubs. That’s kinda preposterous but I’m going to stand by it until proven otherwise.
One thing I didn’t talk about in the blog is the time I interviewed Justin Turner with Jake Arrieta. You can find the full thing by googling but the worthy callout right here and now is his swing adjustments in LA. If you recall he started with the NYM but then went to LA after a couple years of being a utility punch and judy. Then one year (2014) his slugging percentage went up over 100 points en route to a 155 OPS+ and 4.1 bWAR in just 322 plate appearances.
It’s one of the craziest career trajectories I can recall, and as Justin Turner explained it, it’s all because Zack Greinke told him to crowd the plate. The simplicity behind this will stay with me forever.
The story is something to the effect of – Justin Turner asks Greinke for advice without knowing you don’t ask Greinke for advice. Zack comes back the next day with all these detailed observations. He had apparently spent a lot of time watching tape on Justin. And in that study, he learned that Justin Turner doesn’t pull baseballs: Middle fastballs go the other way. Inside fastballs go the other way. Everything goes to right field. Is this on purpose?
Turner says not really. It’s just his style of hitting.
So Greinke tells him to crowd the plate and start pulling the ball. Forget that you can hit the ball the other way and just start yanking because he can already naturally hit with 2-strikes. If he focused on the inner part of the plate and pulling balls hard to left field, the rest of his offensive approach would be there to support him when he gets beat. So stop worrying about getting beat and start worrying about tagging inside fastballs.
Justin Turner before that conversation: .684 OPS
Justin Turner after that conversation: .845 OPS
So tying this back to the Cubs, I really like having that experience in the clubhouse. Even as a small story, it’s indicative of the way he approaches the game. From engaging with Greinke for advice, to applying it and then benefiting and building an absurd career around it. That’s the exact kinda guy I want walking around giving adjustment tips to the youngsters.
So while it would be nice to have Alex Bregman for 3 more years, I think we’ll be okay with Justin Turner and Matt Shaw provided Shaw is as good as we say he is.
3. Buster Olney Can Pound Sand
You read if you want. He basically just calls out Tom Ricketts for being a cheapskate pussy that won’t spend the money he makes. And he says this because Alex Bregman signed with the Red Sox.
I agree with most of what he says.
Here’s the problem though.
Buster is a national guy, and I just don’t like national guys crying about baseball owner’s budgets. He also doesn’t follow the Cubs or care enough to understand the pain and frustration we have. His pain is more from the health of baseball, which is secondary to the health of the Cubs.
Not that anything he said was necessarily wrong, but I don’t want to hear it from him. Especially not AFTER the free agency window closes. This would have all been welcome banter in early December when Tom has the opportunity to be influenced by your opinion. I would have welcomed the criticism with open arms.
Afterwards?
Too easy for Tom to ignore.
So next time you want to call him out, please do it while we still have enough time to sign more free agents. (see #4 below)
4. BARF
I like Michael Cerami a lot and would recommend any Cubs or baseball fan to follow him on social media because he does a great job.
As an example would be this tweet calling out the Cubs for whiffing on an unbelievable crop of starting pitchers, only to give us Matt Boyd, Colin Rea and (not mentioned) Chris Flexen. Considering the underlying dynamics of our starting pitching staff, you could make the argument that this is negligent roster construction and Tom Ricketts should be tarred and feathered for allowing this to happen.
Just leave Buster Olney’s opinion out of it.
5. Cubs Sign Chris Flexen To Minor League Deal
He was good in 2021, okay in 2022, garbage in 2023 and somewhat serviceable in 2024 for the White Sox. So under the law of averages I actually think he could be a decent depth piece.
My only problem is we don’t need depth right now. We need guys at the top of the rotation and Chris Flexen is not one of those guys.
Maybe there’s a double-header in late July where this impacts the season but otherwise I see no reason to change any kind of projections or pitching forecasts. The guys slated 1-10 now will be the same guys 1-10 when camp breaks barring some kind of miracle.
All that to say, if the pitching staff regresses significantly then we need to blame Tom Ricketts first then Jed Hoyer second. That’s the appropriate sequence and I don’t want to argue about it.
Miscellaneous
- This was the hardest blog day in the history of CarlsBlogs.com. I don’t want to complain as much as just point out that blogging the dog days of February doesn’t have the same punch as a March Madness Saturday into MLB opening day.
- I want to go to 5 Cubs games this year:
- 2 with Mrs. Carl
- 2 with mom
- 1 with brothers/friends
- In configuring my list of Cubs games, I realize I’ve officially graduated into the next category of being an adult fan where trips and games are planned months in advance. That was never the case when I lived down the street and worked for Barstool. Instead you were going to as many games as possible, whenever available, without much consideration for plans. Now? Now we’re on group texts and booking hotels and circling dates on the calendar.
- Given a choice between the two lifestyles, I take the latter without bias. The days in Roscoe Village were fun but I think dilution is a real risk hanging around Wrigley and there’s no doubt that started to settle in
- Have a great evening
- I’m about to drink a beer and make dinner with my wife
