Cub Tracks’ unconventional wisdom

Welcome to today’s episode of Cub Tracks news and notes™. Here we have material from current beat writers, bloggers, and the occasional in-house habitué, moonlighting. These pieces center around #Cubs, #MiLB, and #MLB baseball.

So, no Cubs Convention this year. Color me unsurprised. They don’t want to answer questions honestly, and COVID is a handy excuse.

Carlos Correa’s floor looks to be around 160 million for five years. The ceiling might be twice that. I don’t think he’s going to be wearing Cubbie blue pinstripes next year. “Wanting to have players like Correa, Seager, Story, Semien or Baez in the middle of a lineup is a no-brainer for many other teams, too,” says Russell Dorsey. Yeah. I don’t think ‘intelligent spending” means getting into bidding wars.

The White Sox are reportedly planning to pick up Craig Kimbrel’s option. Trayce Thompson and Nick Martini have elected free agency, according to several sources. Jonathan Holder, too.

Still waiting for official word on the new hitting coach. Maybe they’re pre-firing him? Has Chris Valaika left yet?

Nelson Velasquez and Caleb Kilian continue to do things in the Arizona Fall League. Other Cubs minor-leaguers are there too, doing stuff like striking out five batters in four scoreless innings. 2023 and 2024 look good.

A lockout still looks likely from my armchair. It’s hard to get excited about MLB right now.

“A season that may not happen, if the owners follow through on their threat to lock out the players for refusing to hand over their first-born children to MLB in exchange for moving up the super-two cutoff by five days, or something like that. It could be a cold stove indeed, unless a few teams try to strike early because others will be sitting out the offseason until there’s a new CBA in place.” — Keith Law

Yikes. Anyway I cast the net far and wide as the industry seems to share my preoccupations, and found a few interesting things from the MiLB level to chew on.

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 on this page as sarcasm font. (In the comments section, use @ before and after your remarks @ to produce sarcasm font. In the text body. It doesn’t work in the headlines).

Rats!

• Brett Taylor (Bleacher Nation*): The players have made another CBA Offer: Changes to Luxury Tax, Arbitration, Service Time, Draft, more. Followup to yesterday’s Athletic article.
• Keith Law (The Athletic {$}): The 50 best MLB free agents of 2021-22, starting with Carlos Correa. “It’s a fun group to consider and should provide us with a blazing hot stove season.”
• Bill Felber (Call to the Pen*): Cubs should go after Sean Manaea? “There are several reasons why the Cubs ought to pursue Manaea...”
• Russell Dorsey (Chicago Sun-Times* {$}): Will Cubs’ rebuild timeline prevent splashy move for elite shortstop? “The Cubs have a decision to make...”
• Eno Sarris (The Athletic {$}): What can we learn from the world champion Atlanta Braves? “Something happening recently makes it so strong...”
• Erik Mauro (Cubbies Crib*): Jorge Soler is the first core player with two rings. “Soler helped the Atlanta Braves finish off the Houston Astros...”
• Gerard Gilberto (MiLB.com*): Brennen Davis turns heads, points sails toward Windy City. “No. 14 overall prospect provides steady hand as Cubs look to future.” An overall system report with Davis featured.
• MiLB.com*: South Bend Cubs join “Marvel’s Defenders of the Diamond”. “MiLB’s new partnership with Marvel Entertainment brings together two storied brands who create memories that are passed down from generation to generation,” said Kurt Hunzeker, Major League Baseball’s Vice President of Minor League Business Operations.
• MiLB.com*: Happy National Team Manager Day, Marty Pevey. “Pevey is Iowa’s most tenured manager, holding the most wins of any Iowa Cubs manager with 530.”

Food for Thought:

Thanks for reading.