Cub Tracks abridged too far?

Welcome to today’s edition of Cub Tracks news and notes™, a greatest-hits collection of Chicago-style beat writers and bloggers, ground from #Cubs, #MiLB, and #MLB baseball, overheated, and then cold-brewed overnight for maximum flavor.

Cubs news is gonna be thin on the ground during the playoffs. Hopefully we have an interesting offseason. The Athletic had a quintet of useful articles — I’ve shared three of them, with commentary by the blogging set. Ian Happ and the playoffs are the subjects of the others, should you care to look.

What we have left is probably worth discussing.

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• Jon Greenberg (The Athletic {$}): Cubs lowering season-ticket prices by 5.1 percent: Dollars and sense. “... the most significant one-year price decrease for tickets in 30 years.” Evan Altman confirms. Maddie Lee talks about it.
• Thomas Erbe (Cubbies Crib*): How much money will the Cubs spend this offseason? “Will they really be big spenders this winter? They’d better be.”
• Sahadev Sharma and Patrick Mooney (The Athletic {$}): How the Cubs can evaluate manager David Ross after his third season. “... Ross still hasn’t overseen a “normal” spring training as Cubs manager.” Brett Taylor interprets.
• Brett Taylor (Bleacher Nation*): Random Chicago Cubs catching target? How about Jonah Heim? “Heim, a 27-year-old switch-hitter, posted a .227/.298/.399/99 wRC+ slash line last year...”
• Keith Law (The Athletic {$}): Law’s Arizona Fall League takeaways: From Jackson Merrill to Matt Mervis, everything I saw in 12 games. “I could see a role for him as a platoon 1B/DH, like Daniel Vogelbach, but not beyond that.” Evan Altman has counterpoint.
• Tony Andracki (Marquee Sports Network*): State of the Cubs: Where roster stands at third base entering crucial offseason. Second. First.
• Gordon Wittenmyer (NBC Sports Chicago*): Why Cubs might live to regret Kyle Schwarber departure most. “Damn right,” Schwarber said.
• Tim Stebbins (NBC Sports Chicago*): Why Cubs’ Brennen Davis sidelined in Arizona Fall League. “The Cubs say Davis is dealing with general soreness and they are just playing it cautious because it’s the offseason.”
• Laurence Holmes (Chicago Sun-Times* {$}): Joe Maddon runs the numbers on analytics. “Former Cubs skipper fears that overreliance on analytics is watering down a manager’s influence.”
• George Castle (Chicago Baseball Museum): Sutter, Ellsworth were stingiest of Cubs, but their pitching feats don’t get enough credit. “Bruce Sutter and Dick Ellsworth were united in death recently with not else much in common other than a couple of salient facts.”

Food for Thought:

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