Cubbies Gazette

 As we enter 2022, it's time for goals to be set, predictions to be made, and chance to make things happen. I hope all of you have a fantastic New Years and looking forward to the year ahead! It's also time to make my own predictions for the Cubs in 2022.  The Cubs Will Sign Carlos Correa Wow! I really surprised you there...but I have a gut feeling they will. Think ahead to 2024 when the Cubs have Correa, Davis, Kilian, Marquez...anyway, yeah. I can tell you one thing though, if the Cubs sign Correa the whole baseball world (and the Cubs fanbase) will be going insane. I'll borrow from myself what I mentioned about him before: He can hit well. To say the least. He batted .279/.366/.485 with a 134 wRC+ in 2021, so if you think Correa isn't worth it, let me tell you that his bat is worth it in itself. He boasted a low 18.1% K rate and a high 11.7% BB rate along with an overall 5.8 WAR. Along with that, he also had a Max EV of 116.4 MPH, which is in the top 3% of the league

Because we have a break in all the baseball activity and signings that would usually be happening right now, I thought it would be a good time to consider some possible trade scenarios starting with Ian Happ. Why Happ? Happ has been playing with the Cubs since 2017, and since then it's been a bit of a roller coaster. Although having a 100+ wRC+ in each of his MLB seasons, he's been a remarkably streaky player. In 2021, he started his year very cold, and then in the latter half of the season, he picked up the pace and did extremely well. In September/October alone, he batted .317/.405/.615 with a 167 wRC+, which is more than enough to cement your place in a team's outfield. But overall, in 2021, he batted .226/.323/.434 with a 103 wRC+, which makes him a barely average player.  In 2020, everyone thought he was finally breaking out for real, batting .258/.361/.505 with a 130 wRC+, but that didn't translate over into the 2021 season. So, based on his history of "break

 This is the dude that caught the final out of the 2016 World Series and lived out many iconic moments with the Cubs. I came across this compiliation of Rizzo, and thought I'd share. All the best to his future, wherever he ends up!

I was thinking about the lack of strikeouts in the Cubs' rotation, and after doing some digging, I found some interesting things that I'll share with you.  Strikeouts are not the best way to evaluate a pitcher and how effective they are, because some pitchers have great success in not allowing many runs with being a groundball-reliant pitcher. However, for the purpose of this article, I'm going to give you a look at the K% of the Cubs' rotation and why or why not that is good. Kyle Hendricks. Hendricks had a 16.4% K rate in 2021, which Statcast puts in the bottom 8% of MLB.  Wade Miley. Miley had a 18.1% K rate in 2021, which Statcast puts in the bottom 15% of MLB. Marcus Stroman. Stroman had a 21.7% K rate in 2021, which Statcast puts in the bottom 35% of MLB. Adbert Alzolay. Alzolay had a 24.7% K rate in 2021, which Statcast puts in the bottom 58% of MLB. Alec Mills. Mills had a 16.8% K rate in 2021, which Statcast puts in the bottom 9% of MLB. Justin Steele. Steele h

 I hope you all had a great Christmas, as I did, and now I'm back to writing you some articles on America's favorite team...the Chicago Cubs.  I must admit that my article title is pretty subjective and open to lots of unexpected things, but nevertheless, I'm still going to try to figure out how many games the Cubs can win in 2022. One big factor is Carlos Correa. If the Cubs do end up getting Correa, then they might be winning a few more games than I originally thought. If they do not and settle for a high-defense shortstop (like trading for Ha-Seong Kim), then they might not win as many games as if they had Correa. So, I'm just going to go based off of the Cubs current roster and add a few things at the end. Infield Infield contributes a lot to winning games, as the Cubs illustrated in 2021. If you don't have good infield defense, then you allow runners to reach base. Then they end up scoring, and you end up losing the game. Not fun. Right now (without Correa), th