Given the clusterfuck that has been the 2026 Red Sox season, I wonder how long until they start being open to trade convos. I assume Tolle/Early are mostly untouchable, but they've almost certainly got to be open to hearing offers for Gray and Chapman, right?

How the hell do you see that replay and say call stands? He was pretty clearly out.

Freddy Peralta is super interesting in that he'd probably come a bit cheaper than expected due to him seeing less-than-his-usual-stellar results, and the fact he's a FA after this yr. On the other hand...he's seeing less than his usual stellar results. But Clay Holmes... Gimme. I want.

Like i said.

Sarah Langs posting positive things about the Cubs is my favorite genre of internet post.

That. Game. Was. Insane.

WOW PCA

They are.

Are...the Cubs about to willfully lose the DH and put Bregman at third? I don't hate it.

What Murakami has been doing for the Sox is truly insane. Not just that he's leading MLB in HR - that's impressive to be sure - but what's truly mind blowing is that he's putting up the numbers he is (158 wRC+, 1.4 WAR) in spite of the fact he's still quite bad at making contact.

Moises Ballesteros got robbed. .338 avg, 1.012 OPS, 10 XBH, 16 RBI, 180 wRC+

Current state of the Cubs bullpen

Ian's always had enough pop to hit his fair share of HRs, but what is going on this year? That's at least the second MONSTER bomb he's hit this season (not counting the wind-killed shot on opening day)

9th inning, up by 4...I think I just lose the DH and move Bregman to third.

Conforto leading the league in distance yesterday on a double is kind of hilarious.

Random thought on the ABS system. I (begrudgingly) accept it's going to take time to get to a full robo-ump situation. In the interim, I'd like to see them take an idea from the NFL. They instituted automatic replays in the final 2 mins of the game. I'd like to see that in the 8th/9th inning.

The Eric Byrnes CarShield ad that plays every damn commercial break on Marquee is brutal. Is he trying to look like Kid Rock? Is he on meth? What ad department/agency looked at that finished product and thought, "yeah, let's air this?"

So, either Amaya is hurt (which would be bad), or Counsell decided to pinch hit for him with Conforto in the 5th inning for no discernable reason (also not good). WTF?

Petition to move the walls at Tropicana in ~5 ft for just this half of the inning...

Yikes, what the hell was the defense to end that inning. Eww.

Nico Hoerner is carrying this offense right now.

The immediate motion to the dugout, the very short convo on the mound, the tears in his eyes as he headed to the tunnel... Very, very not good. Everything about this feels like a Tommy John surgery announcement is incoming.

Horton leaves in the second with an undisclosed injury. Great

Through 1 week of the season: - Actually feel quite good about Shota. Velocity was up & his day looks entirely different w/out that HR, & that HR only happened after 2 weakly hit balls found grass. The HR itself was on a pitch way below the zone that Wiemer managed to golf out. That's not on Shota.

Taillon's fastball velocity...still not ideal. Yikes.

Every year some guy who's going to end up with a 80 wRC+ starts off the season by hitting 4 or 5 HR in the first week, and every year some team that's going to lose 90 games gets off to a hot start and wins a bunch of games in the first week or two. And every year, way too many people fall for it.

AND NOW HOERNER! I am so happy to be wrong about this one.

I made it to the ninth inning of game 1 of 162 before deciding I'd had enough and turning the game off early. Glad to see my frustration is already in midseason form. Blah. What a turd of an opening day game.

Not a very impressive defensive showing at 3B for bregman in his first game as a cub.

The guy in the circa sports ads looks like he's broken a few kneecaps in his lifetime.

The nats are kind of smoking Boyd today. If the wind wasn't blowing in this game might look ugly.

Yikes. That was a bit of an adventure for Shaw in RF.

wow.

I'm hoping that Happ batting third is purely the result of Suzuki being out. I like Happ, but if he's not going to be leading off (which I'm fine with), he needs to be lower in the lineup. Also, if you believe in that sort of thing, his best results have come when batting 5-9:

Holy shit - the Cubs got right on that second one. PCA extension is coming!!

Opening Day is this week. So here are some Cubs predictions for 2026: - PCA breaks out in a big way; looks way more like first half 2025 than second half. - Cabrera takes a big step forward, but still spends ~1.5 months on the IL - Palencia cements himself as THAT DUDE. Cubs have their elite closer.

The call that ended the US/DR WBC game last night was brutal. Also brutal: everyone reminding us "But even with ABS it's entirely possible the DR wouldn't have had any challenges left anyway so..." Right. We know. But to me, that's just evidence that this half-assed ABS system is dumb.

Top 5 most important/impactful storylines for the Cubs heading into 2026, IMO: 1A. Can the Cubs pitching infrastructure help E.Cabrera translate his elite stuff to ace-level results? 1B. Can Cabrera stay even mostly healthy? 2. Which PCA do we get? 1st or 2nd half 2025 PCA?

Because no one asked, my submission for the Cubs lineup to start the year (vs RHP): Happ Suzuki Busch Bregman Nico MoBaller Swanson PCA Kelly/Amaya I like the L/R balance of this; also gives time to see what version of PCA we get to start the yr. Can also swap Swanson/Cs pending performance.

This is an absolute must-read. I'm so glad PCA is a Cub.

South Korea convicted a corrupt leader. The UK charged a rich, well-connected man, tied to Epstein, for his alleged pedophilia. I saw these headlines as back to back news alerts on my phone when I woke up this morning. And I just...

he had a what now!?

The White Sox are having a massively weird offseason. First, they misspell their new Japanese star's name on his locker. Now it seems like their GM just learned today that Acuna isn't a switch-hitter. Just...weird.

The remaining SP seem to be coming off the board quickly today. I'm eagerly awaiting a Gallen decision.

Well, that Red Sox/Brewers deal pretty much closes the book on any Hoerner/Shaw trade talks. Only significant thing left outstanding for the Cubs as they head into spring training is the fate of Zac Gallen.

So, like, is the entire 2nd round of the NBA draft the next couple years just going to be the Bulls picking over and over again?

I'm glad to see the Bulls finally decided to blow it up and start over but... is there actually some semblance of a plan this time around? I'd love to have a reason to care about them again, but I'm not subjecting myself to another directionless mess of half-measures.

If it was a binary choice... 1) Extend Nico, trade Shaw 2) Let Nico walk, keep Shaw ...I'm team 1 all day. Unfortunately there's just no reason to think the Cubs will be able to extend Nico. Given that, as much as I'd like to see Shaw gone for off-field reasons, it's a massive risk for 2027+

I'm very tired of the "ACTUALLY, the Dodgers aren't the problem. Sure, maybe they have a financial advantage, BUT...." takes. First of all, just tossing aside the massive financial advantage they have as a result of their insanely lucrative TV deal is absurd. You can't just "sure, but..." that.