The 10 most-read BCB articles from 2018

It’s almost the end of 2018 so I thought I’d take a look back here at what you, the BCB reader, paid the most attention to here on the site during the calendar year.

Some of these might be articles you’d expect to see in a list like this. Others, perhaps not so much. There are still four days left in 2018, but nothing you read in the next four days is likely to bump any of these off the list.

I’ll list them in ascending order, from the least to most page views. Page view totals are as of Wednesday afternoon, December 26.

Honorable mention April 11: A tour of the 1914 Club, 15,169 page views

Given the fact that most of you will likely never get inside this club, a lot of you wanted to see what it looked like. I was fortunate enough to be included on a media tour. It’s very tastefully done, and on some cold April days when club holders put their tickets on StubHub for as little as $100, it could actually be a pretty good value.

10) March 1: Some Jake Arrieta signing rumors, 15,389 page views

Jake Arrieta didn’t sign until 11 days after this article was posted, so the “Jake Arrieta is still unsigned and he could be making a big mistake” headline wasn’t entirely wrong at that date. Jake got a decent-money contract, which could wind up being a six-year deal by the time it’s over. He had almost exactly the year in 2018 that he had for the Cubs in 2017, which certainly would have been much more valuable to the Cubs than what either Yu Darvish or Tyler Chatwood provided.

9) March 24: Wrigley Field construction update, 16,120 page views

As we got closer to the season and the opening of Hotel Zachary, many of you were interested in seeing how the renovation/restoration project was shaping up.

8) January 2: Five bold Cubs predictions for 2018, 16,479 page views

I started out the New Year by making five bold predictions, exactly none of which came true. Kyle Schwarber did have a pretty good year and was in the Home Run Derby, and Jason Heyward’s offense did improve, but neither did quite what I predicted.

That won’t stop me from doing this again next week. For 2019, smartypants.

7) February 25: Recap of an early Cubs spring training game, 16,970 page views

This one’s a bit of a mystery as to why so many people read it. I gave it to the Giants’ radio crew pretty good for a number of mispronunciations, but otherwise this was just an ordinary spring-training game.

6) March 20: A look at the Cubs’ roster and how it would likely look the same in 2019, 17,446 page views

I’ll point you to this as further evidence that the Cubs are likely not going to do much more this offseason. Of the 25 players listed on that roster last March 20, 20 of them are likely going to be on the Opening Day roster in 2019.

5) January 28: Yu Darvish rumors, 21,608 page views

This one got more page views than any other in the popular “Daily Darvish” series I ran (mostly for fun) last winter. Darvish was still almost two weeks away from signing with the Cubs on this date.

4) February 18: More Jake Arrieta rumors, 24,721 page views

Jake was still a popular not-yet-former Cub at the time this one was written, and many thought the Cubs should have signed him. He’ll always be a fan favorite around Wrigley Field.

3) August 22: The 2019 Cubs regular-season schedule is announced, 30,118 page views

MLB, which had been announcing the next year’s schedule in September since 2010, moved the announcement up several weeks last summer and lots of people checked in to see where the team will be playing in 2019.

2) July 8: Seven potential Cubs trade deadline targets, 32,834 page views

The Cubs didn’t trade for any of the seven players on this list, and credit is due to BCB reader Bradsbeard, who posted this comment to that article:

Cole Hamels may be a decent SP target

1) February 6: Cubs regular-season TV schedule, 166,040 page views

No, that’s not a misprint or typo. The TV schedule here did get five times the number of page views of the next-closest article. That’ll likely be the case again in 2019. That page probably won’t do as well in 2020 and beyond, though, as the Cubs presumably move all their games to their own TV network. I’ll still post such a page after that, since a dozen or so games a year will be on Fox or ESPN, and a handful could also be farmed out to an OTA broadcast channel.

Thanks for reading all year — here’s to a bigger and better 2019 for the Cubs!