BCB After Dark: Youth will be served

Welcome back to BCB After Dark: the late-night jam session for night owls, early-risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. We’re so happy that you decided to stop by tonight. I hope the day treated you well. Let us take your hat and coat for you. I’m afraid we just ran out of the Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon, so you’ll have to bring your own beverage. Please let us seat you at a table near the fire.

BCB After Dark is the place for you to talk baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to get off your chest, as long as it is within the rules of the site. The late-nighters are encouraged to get the party started, but everyone else is invited to join in as you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon.

Last night I asked you who your favorite current Cubs player was, and much to my surprise, it truly is the Schwindy City as Frank Schwindel topped the list with 32 percent. (This is in contrast to the poll at The Athletic, where Schwindel only got about four percent.) In second place was Willson Contreras with 24 percent, getting just one more vote than Kyle Hendricks, who also got 24 percent.

Every candidate got at least two votes, and two players who haven’t even played for the Cubs yet, Nick Madrigal and Marcus Stroman, received two and four percent of the vote respectively. Here’s hoping those two get a lot more votes if we do this poll again next winter.

On Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, I do an abbreviated edition without a movie essay. But there’s always time for jazz, so if you want to skip that, now is the time.

As you know if you’ve been reading the music sections here, bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding is one of the biggest superstars of the contemporary jazz world. She burst on the scene when she won the 2011 Grammy for Best New Artist, beating Justin Bieber and causing a bunch of tweeners and young teenagers to call her ugly names and insult her on social media. Of course, none of them had ever heard of her or her music before the Grammys that night. (Social media sucks, by the way.) Spalding seems to have recovered from that and she keeps going on to bigger and better things.

Anyway, here’s an incredibly good Spalding concert from earlier this month for the NPR Tiny Desk (Home) series. She shoves a bunch of musicians in a tiny room and uses some green screen techniques to let the room soar along with the music.

Anyway, I loved this and I hope you do too.

For today’s question, I’m going to let you make your Cubs dreams come true. I’m going to let you pick one young superstar off of any other team and make him a Cub. The Cubs don’t have to trade anything for him, he’s just joining the Cubs because they’re the cooler team with the better fanbase. But the Cubs do have to take on his current contract and years of control. I’m including two minor leaguers, so the Cubs would get the full six years on them. Juan Soto would only come with three years of control.

If you’re wondering why some player wasn’t included in the poll, it’s because I didn’t include them. Probably because I thought they had too much service time. Or I just forgot about them. But you can’t go off the board. These are your choices.

And I do want to make it clear that none of these players will be playing for the Cubs in 2022. We’re just making up a wish list here.

So which one of these young superstars are you stealing for the Cubs?

Thank you again for stopping by tonight. I hope we could brighten your evening. Please tip the waitstaff generously. Drive home safely. And join us again tomorrow night for another edition of BCB After Dark.