Cub Tracks exercises caution

Brandon Palmer has agreed to do up a glass of Malört if and when the simCubs finally lose, if it please Carl Jeppson and/or the new ownership group. In fact he has proposed that the entire team down a shot if they lose.

“Fellas,” said simAnthony Rizzo, “I’ve had that stuff. We need never to lose again.”

Agreed. It would be a crime, and everyone and their shadow know that the weed of crime bears bitter fruit. You can’t get much more bitter than Malört, so let’s just go ahead and pencil in an eight, as the 46-19 simCubs haven’t lost in a week. Friday they turned a 2-0 deficit into a laugher, with nine men coming to the plate in the top of the eighth, and five of them scoring. They got right back into the swing of things in the ninth and quelled a possible uprising in the bottom of the inning to prevail 9-3.

Jesus Luzardo got the win after Tyler Chatwood turned in a creditable outing. Willson Contreras was the player of the game, driving in five runs with two doubles, and pinch-hitter extraordinaire Nico Hoerner struck again with a run-scoring two-base drive in the pivotal 8th, which Jason Kipnis got started with a laser blast to right-center. Plenty of Cubs highlights and also Joey Votto’s homer to center.

Tyler Mahle will battle Yu Darvish today. Al will have more in the game post (at 2:30 p.m. CT, for our 3 p.m. start). I’ll drop the specific URL to the contest in the game thread, but you can lurk at the BCB Media Center and catch it there as well. All past games and highlights reels are available there too, if you want the full #simCubs experience.

And now, here’s Cub Tracks News and Notes, the only links column that really matters. As always, * means autoplay on, or annoying ads, or both (directions to remove for Firefox and Chrome). {$} means paywall. {$} means limited views. Italics are often used here as sarcasm font.

“All of this — this gridlock and inability to get anywhere close to a return-to-play deal — is a fight over a few hundred million dollars.

If that seems like a paltry amount in the grand scheme of baseball economics, that’s because it is. In a typical year, Major League Baseball generates around $10 billion in revenue. While hundreds of millions of dollars isn’t exactly a rounding error, it is also not the sort of money worth piloting an industry into a full-on labor war.” — Jeff Passan.

• Vinnie Duber (NBC Sports Chicago*): Report: 2020 MLB season will happen, how many baseball games is unclear. “If the players refuse further pay cuts, as they’ve said they will, then perhaps a roughly 50-game season would be in the cards.”
• Evan Altman (Cubs Insider*): Doom porn or death knell: Klapisch says it’ll take ‘miracle’ to save season. “Perhaps most indicative of baseball’s need to start its season, nearly every other league home and abroad has figured things out.”
• Jayson Stark (The Athletic {$}): Baseball’s ‘high-risk’ managers and coaches weigh the strange road ahead. “... do they know exactly what lies ahead – or exactly what they’ll be allowed to do? They don’t.”
• AP via Chicago Tribune* {$}: MLB players reaffirm their stance for full prorated pay for a shortened season: ‘The league’s demand for additional concessions was resoundingly rejected’. “More than 100 players, including the union’s executive board, held a two-hour digital meeting with officials of the Major League Baseball Players Association on Thursday, a day after Major League Baseball rejected their offer.”
• Brett Taylor (Bleacher Nation): The difference between 48 and 82 games this year might come down to just $11 million per team. Elaboration of Jeff Passan story. Evan Altman mulls the figures.
• Paul Sullivan (Chicago Tribune* {$}): Let’s just fast forward through the tedious MLB negotiations to the end for the eventual — and obvious — solution. “Aug. 20 — The owners reject the union’s final, final, final proposal by a 29-1 vote, with the Marlins abstaining. Manfred declares the 2020 season canceled.”
• Jeff Agrest (Chicago Sun-Times* {$}): Len Kasper, Jim Deshaies will call Cubs home games from booth. “I think the best way to do the best telecast is to be there,” Kasper said. Also, Len is catching up to Harry Caray.
• Jordan Bastian (MLB.com*): Jason Heyward, Jason Kipnis meet with Chicago teens, police. “The event — which followed proper CDC, state and local safe practice and distancing guidelines — was held Thursday at the By The Hand club in Austin on Chicago’s West Side.” Cam Ellis reports on this also.
• Vinnie Duber (NBC Sports Chicago*): Top 20 MLB Draft prospects: Who will Cubs take with No. 16 pick? “Stick with what works or keep trying to fix what’s broken?”
• Marc Carig and Jake Kaplan (The Athletic {$}): How baseball’s players hatched a plan for a wild barnstorming tour in 1995. “It was fantasy baseball brought to life.”
• ESPN*: ‘Long Gone Summer’: How to watch and stream ESPN’s Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa documentary. “Sunday, June 14, at 9 p.m. ET...”
• Cubs birthdays: Jim St. Vrain, Bill Lange, Ray Pierce, Bob Talbot, Brooks Kieschnick. Also notable: Bill Dickey HOF.

Food for thought:

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