The View from Right Field

36th Annual Cubs Convention – January 13-15, 2023

Here is my annual report on the Cubs Convention.  Well, sort of annual.  There was no Convention in 2021 or 2022 because of Covid.  I had been planning on going, at least on Saturday, but some things came up so I couldn’t go, but, fortunately, the Cubs broadcast pretty much the whole thing on the Marquee Network, so I got to see it even if I couldn’t be there in person.  (I did miss the autograph sessions with the old-timers and the chance to buy some baseball cards. But, there is always next year.)

The Opening Ceremonies may have been easier to watch on TV instead of in-person.  I didn’t same to stand or wait in line for a couple of hours.  Plus you could see a little better.  The same with “Off the Mound with Ryan Dempster”.  Plus, once it was over, you could just turn off the TV and you were home.  You didn’t have to drive or take an Uber.

Yes, You Can Buy a Championship in Baseball. The @Cubs Did It in 2016.

In writing about the Winter Meetings, Paul Sullivan reminds us that Tom Ricketts said, back in September, “The fact is you can’t buy a championship in baseball.”  Well, yes – and no.  You can’t buy a whole team, but you can buy missing parts, maybe even a lot of them.  Because that’s how the Cubs won the World Series in 2016.  They signed Jon Lester for $155 million (five years), Jason Heyward for $185 million (eight years), Ben Zobrist for $56 million (four years), and John Lackey for $32 million (two years). 

So, yes, you can buy a championship in baseball.  Once you have a good base, you can buy a championship by signing free agents to fill in the missing parts.  To the extent the Cubs are not doing this now, it means that Cubs management and ownership do not think the Cubs have a good enough base to do it. 

Willy’s Not Coming Back, Whether He’s Traded or Not

Yesterday I tweeted:

“The worst way for a company to handle a RIF [i.e., a reduction in force] is to announce it and then tell people that the list of who is being let go will be disclosed in two weeks. Welcome to the  @Cubs at the @MLB #TradeDeadline.”

Yesterday, Willson Contreras said, with respect to today’s off-day and tomorrow’s 5 pm trade deadline: "It's going to be a long day. It's been long, long, long, long week, long, long, month for me. But I'm ready for this to be over, to be honest."

Happy Birthday, Mr. Cub

From all your fans, past, present, and future.

Larry Biittner, RIP

April 14, 1978.  Cubs-Pirates.   Cubs home opener.  45,777 paid attendance.  Largest crowd in my lifetime.  I was there.

A see-saw game.  The Cubs scored one in the first and two in the second.  The Pirates tied it with three in the sixth and took a 4 to 3 lead in the top of the eighth.  But the Cubs tied it 4 to 4 in the bottom of the eighth.

If You Want to Win, You Have to Hit the Ball

A quick follow-up on yesterday’s post about the Cubs’ 2021 season.  With two games to go (I am posting this before Saturday night’s game), the Cubs have already set a team record for most strikeouts in a season (by batters, unfortunately, not pitchers), and they are only fourteen strikeouts away from setting a major league record.  Which they should be able to do since they are averaging 9.88 strikeouts a game.

While it may be obvious that you have to hit the ball to win,¹ it is actually more obvious than you think.  Consider the New Look Cubs’ seven-game winning streak from August 31 to September 6.  Two of those wins came on balls that were hit, but should have been outs.  On September 2, a whiffed pop up to the infield resulted in the winning run scoring in the bottom of the eleventh.  A strike out wouldn’t have done it, but when you hit the ball, you never know (see at 7:40):

@Cubs: 2021 Is Over. 2022 Is "Hopes and Ifs"

There were, I think, three high points of the season for the 2021 Cubs.  The first was their 19-8 record in May (the best in the NL).  The second was the Davies-Tepera-Chafin-Kimbrel combined no-hitter against the Dodgers on June 24.  Even with a not-so-stellar June, the Cubs were still tied for first place in the NL Central after that win.  But then, disaster hit, in the form of an 11-game losing streak, ultimately resulting in the July 29-30 trade-o-rama.  Which indirectly led to the third high point of the season: The seven-game winning streak by the “New Look” Cubs from August 31 to September 6: two against the Twins, a four-game sweep of the Pirates, and one against the Reds.  Only the Reds were above .500, but seven straight is seven straight, and it was fun to see the guys who have never had a chance in the majors, get a chance to play – and win – at least for a while.¹

But now that the season is over, it’s time to look to 2022.  President of Baseball Operations Jed Hoyer says the Cubs will be “really active” in the free agent market “in a thoughtful and intelligent way,” whatever that means.  And however much it will help. 

When You Go to a Baseball Game, There Is Always a Chance You’ll See Something You Have Never Seen Before

Which may have happened at the Cubs-Pirates game last night.  Let me set the scene: The Pirates took a 3 to 0 lead in the first inning.  The Cubs got five in the seventh to take a two-run lead, but the Bucos tied it in the top of the ninth.  Nobody scored in the tenth or top of the eleventh.¹  In the bottom of the eleventh, the Cubs had runners on first and third with one out.  Ian Happ was batting right-handed, his weaker side.²  Ian hit a really high pop up to the infield – and the second baseman totally missed it!  Sergio Alcantara scored, and the Cubs won.  Here’s the play (see at 7:40):

November 2, 2016 Seems Like Such a Long Time Ago

When we were in Portland, Oregon, in 2017, to see family, we did what people visiting Portland normally do.  We drove 100 miles south to Eugene to see the Eugene Emeralds, then a Cubs farm team.  While there, I bought this tee shirt:

Reality Check for @Cubs Fans: Trading Riz, KB, and Javy Was the Right Thing to Do

With trades of Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, and Javier Baez (for more on that, see here), the Cubs are getting, to paraphrase Harry Doyle, “JUST a bit” of criticism.  A few reality-check comments.

1. Lots of fans think the Cubs should have kept all three of them and, I guess, signed them as free agents in the off-season.  Which basically means paying each of them more than they would get from any other team.  In other words, the Cubs should have signed Rizzo for more than any other team would have paid him; the Cubs should have signed Bryant for more than any other team would have paid him; and the Cubs should have signed Baez for more than any other team would have paid him.  Nobody else would have signed all three of them for the top dollar they could have gotten individually, but that’s what the Cubs were supposed to do.