Never in my life have I seen such a moment in history where the entire world seemingly shuts down. The closest thing I can equate this to is the immediate hours and days following 9/11. Growing up in a country where planes flew overhead every day, it took some getting used to silent skies.
It was brief, but it was unforgettable. The world hadn’t existed without commercial planes flying overhead since early in the 1920s, maybe the ‘30s. It was like living in a different time.
1918 – not just the last time the Red Sox won a World Series for 86 years, but more importantly, the last time the world faced such a contagious and deadly virus. The Spanish Flu nearly killed all who were fortunate enough to survive the Great War, eradicating even more generations out of existence.
If we’re lucky (and let’s face it as a country we’re comparatively quite lucky), the virus runs its course and goes away in about a month. Of course, because the world’s most unqualified toxic gastropod with an anus for a mouth obliterated our country’s dedicated portion of infrastructure built specifically to combat a deadly viral outbreak, we’ll experience exactly what China and Italy are going/previously gone through. I’m praying that we don’t get a nationwide quarantine, but I’m not too optimistic.
The strange thing is knowing that we won’t have our usual entertainment to distract us. Movie premieres are being delayed across the world. Festivals, conferences, and concerts are getting bagged left and right.
I never thought I’d see the day where I wanted absolutely NOTHING to happen, just nothing whatsoever. Good, bad, cataclysmic, anything. Just one fucking iota of a break from the constant push and pull of calamity waiting to murder the Christ out of the world.
Anybody got any good shows to binge for an apocalyptic viral plague?
HOLY SHIT, it’s NOT POLITICS! AND, a Marquee that WORKS!
Are the Cubs going to be good this year?
Honestly, I’m asking all six of you, dear readers. I’m perplexed as to where the floor and ceiling sits for this 2020 iteration.
If you’d told me that the Ricketts were gonna cry living-on-the-street poor exactly one year after doing literally the same goddamn thing the previous winter, I’d have naively told you “Nuh-uh, these guys?! They’re a bit cheap lately, but they’re not Tribune cheap AND stupid!”
That statement would have aged so well – like a fine wine in a rotten cask surrounded by cow shit in the middle of an Indiana landfill.
Where was I? Ah, right, does this team suck or not?
Welp, let’s look at the “moves” they made this offseason.
Gone are Pedro Strop, Brandon Kintzler, Steve Cishek, Cole Hamels, five weeks of Derek Holland, two minutes of David Phelps, a literal cup of tea with Tony Barnette, Ben Zobrist’s reanimated corpse, and a wife-beating bag of stale toenail clippings in Addison Russell, whom the Cubs inexplicably paid $3.4 million for a grand total of 82 games, a whopping .237/.308/.391 line, 9 home runs, and 23 RBI. Oh, but at least he had a .995 fielding percentage in 63 games at second base. Useful!
Did I mention that they also let Nick Castellanos, their best trade-deadline pickup since arguably Aramis Ramirez, sign with a division rival despite said pickup dragging out his free agency in the hopes that the team would magically clear enough payroll to re-sign him? Because that happened, too.
How did the Cubs combat these significant losses in the lineup and bullpen, you ask?
Their most noteworthy additions of the offseason were a cadre of camp invitations for mostly minor league fodder. Included in this group are an over-the-hill and so far uninspiring Jason Kipnis, and Brandon Morrow – the team’s former closer who has battled seemingly every ailment but the coronavirus.
Their official acquisitions this year include free agent signees the likes of formerly-reliable-Brewers-reliever-turned-walking-fucksplosion Jeremy Jeffress, a formerly well-established light-hitting backup outfielder who sat out all of 2019 recovering from a catastrophic knee injury in Steven Souza Jr., a career meh guy consigned to the Canadian dustbin of forgotten baseball in Ryan Tepera, and the 2019 Braves’ worst reliever with a minimum of 25 appearances, Dan Winkler.
While the Yankees snagged Gerrit Cole, the Angels landed Anthony Rendon, and the Dodgers acquired Mookie Betts, the Cubs traded for a guy who hasn’t pitched in the Majors for three years.
The main storyline for the Cubs this offseason concerned their apparently fractured relationship with former MVP Kris Bryant, inspiring numerous think pieces about the Cubs’ wish to shed his contract before attempting to negotiate with his agent, part-time player rep and full-time hijacker of free agency Scott Boras. Also, the team was allegedly looking to ship out Willson Contreras for reasons probably involving some analytical bullshit about pitch framing or G-d knows what.
Add first-time manager, 2016 folk hero, and former Dancing With The Stars’ contestant David Ross to the mix, paired with the team’s shiny brandy-dandy new specially-dedicated and unviewable TV network, and voila! *chef kisses*
If I had to summarize my thoughts in one GIF, it’d be this;
After a season in which the team failed to make the playoffs for the first time in 5 years due to injuries and inconsistency from veterans and rookies alike, culminating in an insultingly atrocious, fate-sealing 9-game losing streak in the final week of play, you’d like to see a little bit more effort out of the front office than just some failed trade negotiations, confused shrugs, and a bunch of show-me deals to guys with next to no proven track record of being anything useful for a playoff-caliber team.
For all the confidence the Cubs are exuding with their “core” of guys from 2016 (some of whom haven’t performed at acceptable standards since that magical season), the physical makeup of this group elicits more panicked reservation than joyful spring-time optimism.
Call me fairweather, but this team ceased being enjoyable when Joe Maddon began mailing in each season starting in the first half of 2017. In the meantime, we’ve watched the Dodgers own/waste the NL Pennant two years in a row, and our former bench coach outfox the trashcan-banging scoundrels from Houston for DC’s first world title in 95 years and whatever the fuck this was:
“A WHOLE NEW WORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRLD”(Sorry, politics, I know but seriously, da fuq Kurt Suzuki?)
And yet, the team is in great spirits and on a “Yes We Can” kick that admittedly has me feeling somewhat…confident? Maybe confident isn’t the word. Upbeat-ish, fanciful, eager even…?
I can’t at all explain why on Earth I have anything but a semblance of utterly ball-breaking pessimism. Perhaps it’s Rossy’s confidence in his guys. Maybe it’s Yu Darvish looking like the dude we shelled out $126 million for two years ago. I haven’t the faintest idea why I want to see this team after the past three clusterfucks of lost seasons.
If I’m being honest, maybe it’s my love of this stupid old game. Brushing aside the insufferable legion of REAL AMURICANS tersely enforcing their unwritten rules and purist proclivities upon young, mostly non-white players for allegedly “disrespecting the game”, baseball remains my sun, moon, and stars.
I’ve been hooked since the home run derby of 1998. The Steroid Era was a blast (ba-dum tssssss), and I frankly believe McGwire, Clemens, and my all-time favorite Cub Sammy Sosa deserve enshrinement in Cooperstown. But thanks to the standard-bearers of the BBWAA, only the most deserving men of conviction can be graced with a plaque at the museum in a town no-one would otherwise remember.
And though the current out-of-touch corporate attorney running MLB continues treating the sport, its fans, and players like simpletons oblivious to the grander scheme of Making Baseball Great Again or whatever the hell, I remain firmly invested, ready to drudge through the full marathon of the regular season.
Plus, I’m ultra-competitive, obnoxiously clutching to the chip on my shoulder forged through years of futility and pure suckage. I’m watching this team no matter how frustrating and detestable the season.
If the 2020 Cubs have anything going for them, they sit in a division without a clear-cut frontrunner. Sure, the defending-champion Cardinals feature a mostly-returning group of talented young pitching and Paul Goldschmidt at first, but Yadier Molina is another year older, Paul DeJong remains somewhat of an unknown in terms of what to expect from him production-wise, and if not for an utter collapse from the Cubs, they may not have won the division at all. Meanwhile, the Brewers have virtually no starting rotation, not much of a bullpen to write home about, and a team that will heavily rely on the success and/or failure of Christian Yelich and Lorenzo Cain, the latter of whom played most of 2019 on a bum knee and ankle. And the Pirates are…well, really bad.
The power vacuum atop the NL Central culls the field down to a team of upstarts in the Cincinnati Reds boasting a stacked lineup and interesting group of starters and relievers, and the 2016 World Champion Chicago Cubs.
Looking at both rosters, the Cubs look like the clear favorite. 9 players from that 2016 group remain key contributors, not to mention a Craig Kimbrel who will have a full spring training under his belt, a possibly improved Yu Darvish, and some young arms, like Rowan Wick and Kyle Ryan, whom made a decent impression on former skipper Joe Maddon last year to earn late-game appearances in set-up roles.
However, this is also the same Cubs team that self-destructed down the stretch. Plus, their dud of an offseason leaves them with little to no depth behind key positions in the event of injuries or subpar play.
Long story short, the Cubs could foreseeably win the division. Given recent history though, this team doesn’t look like it has what it takes to survive for 162 games and then push through the potential likes of Washington, Atlanta, or L.A. not to mention the wide-open American League.
As always, the future isn’t written. No evidence suggests that the Cubs face a cataclysmic season, but you won’t see me planning ticker-tape parades down Michigan Avenue anytime soon.
Diary of a Mad Millennial 