Outside the Cubs boxcar plays chicken, part two

Boxcar. Box Car. B. C. Before ‘Chicken’. Thank you, Louisville, Nashville, Milo, Tock, Johnny Hart, Rich Koz.

Today we’ve come to have a light lunch beat the doldrums by considering which free agents whose surnames start with B or C would be beneficial toot toot to be on the Cubs, as if they were our team in real life and not just on MLB: The Show 2018, which isn’t even out yet, but that matters not when you’ve already suspended disbelief this far.

Because BCB is good for more, you know.

You’re in good hands, people. Shall we carry on?

Here’s the Free Agent Tracker. Previously, we added Arismendy Alcantara and Alexi Amarista to our group, to compete for two spots on the 40-man roster with Tommy La Stella, or to man a Triple-A spot if such can be arranged.

We’ve also negotiated a temporary settlement with Jake Arrieta for our purposes, leaving the roster at 36.

This would then be the current roster:

1. Arismendy Alcantara
2. Albert Almora Jr.
3. Alexi Amarista
4. Jake Arrieta
5. Javier Baez
6. Kris Bryant
7. Eddie Butler
8. Matt Carasiti
9. Victor Caratini
10. Willson Contreras
11. Taylor Davis
12. Carl Edwards Jr.
13. Luke Farrell
14. Justin Grimm
15. Jacob Hanneman
16. Ian Happ
17. Kyle Hendricks
18. Jason Heyward
19. Tommy La Stella
20. Jon Lester
21. Dillon Maples
22. Cory Mazzoni
23. Alec Mills
24. Mike Montgomery
25. Jose Quintana
26. Anthony Rizzo
27. Randy Rosario
28. Hector Rondon
29. Addison Russell
30. Kyle Schwarber
31. Pedro Strop
32. Jen-Ho Tseng
33. Duane Underwood Jr.
34. Mark Zagunis
35. Rob Zastryzny
36. Ben Zobrist

Who do I like from the B-List?

I might take a flier on Darwin Barney, who would be in for a camp fight with the two AA infielders and 3 a.m. Gonna pass for right now, but we’ll see down the road a piece. Tony Barnette, Matt Belisle, Blaine Boyer, don’t interest me, much. Nor Clay Buchholz. Trevor Cahill I like. He’d be a reasonably cheap right-handed Montgomery to me. Let’s definitely give him a spot. That’s #37. Better him than Jesse Chavez, Tyler Clippard, Steve Cishek (slightly), Josh Collmenter.

Andrew Cashner, Jhoulys Chacin, Tyler Chatwood. They’re all serviceable, about the same age, but they walk too many people, for me. I don’t like walks. I’m looking for guys who don’t walk people and don’t give up too many long balls. Alex Cobb is the guy here. He’s #38. Hell, if you believe the news reports, it’s possible he could even be signed by the time this posts.

I might, just might, invite Tyler Collins to camp, if he remains unsigned. But that’s about it. Comps are to Junior Lake and Matt Szczur. That’s actually a range, if you think about it, but if your ceiling is Matt Szczur, then let’s just get Matt back.

Our starting rotation is plugged for now. We’ll consider others, though, since reality is so fungible at the moment. Can never have too many arms, anyway.

1. Jon Lester (L)
2. Kyle Hendricks
3. Jose Quintana (L)
4. Jake Arrieta
5. Alex Cobb

We haven’t traded anyone, we spent money on Arrieta, and have depth in the middle infield. Alcantara can be Happ-lite. I still want to trade Ben Zobrist but I don’t see why anyone would want him. I’d trade him for camp arms if I had to. I think Ben is a swell person but I don’t think he’s gonna see much upswing. Maybe we’ll look at that down the road, too.

The relief corps look like this:

1. Trevor Cahill
2. Matt Carasiti
3. Carl Edwards Jr.
4. Dillon Maples
5. Mike Montgomery (L)
6. Pedro Strop
7. Duane Underwood Jr.
8. Rob Zastryzny (L)

By default, Edwards is the closer right now... though if I were left with this group, I’d use Pedro Strop as my closer.

Other arms:

1. Eddie Butler
2. Alec Mills
3. Cory Mazzoni
4. Jen-Ho Tseng
5. Randy Rosario (L)

Would love to see Rosario step up to be an MLB arm. He did walk a few people in Chattanooga though. That does me a concern. Butler and Mills and Tseng are likely to open the year as 3/5 of the AAA rotation, I think. Mazzoni and Rosario for the pen.

Not very comfortable yet, but we’re only through ‘C’. Next time we’ll pretend not to hear you as we go DEF and look around the infield a little.

As always, thanks for reading.