Cubbies Gazette

  I'm honestly surprised at the amount of news and otherwise interesting tidbits that have come up during the lockout. But hey, I'll take it over nothing! We knew right off the bat (no pun intended) that Correa was going to expensive. And we were getting even more hints when the Tigers chose Baez over Correa, likely having a lot to do with the price tag. But it was confirmed in a tweet by Jon Heyman. Correa first hired Scott Boras as his agent, an agent noted for getting pricey deals for his clients. Carlos Correa’s position before the lockout (or agent switch) was that he wanted $330M to $350M. But $330M was the clear minimum ask. Will still be interesting to see if he can beat Corey Seager’s $325M deal. — Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) January 19, 2022 The Cubs CAN afford it, because they are pretty flexible with payroll even after signing Marcus Stroman, but the question is IF they want to put that much money towards Correa, even with him being an extremely valuable and MVP-calibe

  There's nothing like seeing your favorite team's pitchers showing off their latest pitching improvements during a lockout. That's what's been happening with Cubs' pitchers, so I'll share them with you. Split-cambio on this beautiful Tuesday morning in the Bu. pic.twitter.com/DorDTCc98v — Marcus Stroman (@STR0) January 18, 2022 ⚾️ 🎶 🔊 pic.twitter.com/8Iwz6RwlgC — Justin Steele (@J_Steele21) January 18, 2022 Bullpen day 🔥💙 see more in my tiktok⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️ https://t.co/120iVc90wB pic.twitter.com/o3qIf7UBas — manuel rodriguez (@manrod_77) January 20, 2022 Today’s spin class. pic.twitter.com/k0RVAoHYUC — Brad Wieck (@WieckBrad) January 22, 2022 ⏳ pic.twitter.com/A5eJSogbJU — Adbert Alzolay (@adbert29) January 21, 2022 Since we’re tweeting our experiences at “spin class” today 🌪👀 @adbert29 @WieckBrad pic.twitter.com/iGoQCXXIRC — Max Bain (@mbain_38) January 22, 2022 Stroman's pitch is of course beautiful- and will be even more so at Wrigley Fi

  Brennen Davis ranked No.16 on Baseball Americas' Top 100 prospects, and after his amazing season and bright outlook for his future, I thought I'd share this video on his highlights from 2021. There is some news lately that I'll share either today or tomorrow (depending on the time I have), so stay tuned!

 I've mentioned quite a bit in the past about the Cubs' farm system, including some in-depth research on top Cubs prospects like Brennen Davis, James Triantos, Caleb Kilian and others, but I just want to take a little time to write about some of my general thoughts on the Cubs' farm system. This includes all the MiLB levels from Low A (the Myrtle Beach Pelicans) to Triple A (the Iowa Cubs). As a opening thought, the Cubs' system is often over-looked in the amount of talent (especially unique talent) that is in it. After the 2016 prospects like Bryant and Baez, and those like Happ that came later, the Cubs' system kind of dwindled. And it was certainly one of the top goals of Hoyer this past season to help build it back up, which I think they've been pretty successful in. The prospects that the Cubs netted in with trades before the deadline included Kevin Alcantara, Caleb Kilian, and Pete Crow-Armstrong, among others. They drafted Jordan Wicks and James Triantos

 I was reading somewhere lately (it was a sports news website) how optimistic they are that Schwindel and Wisdom are going to do very well in 2022 and be those power hitters in the lineup. My first initial reaction is "well, *if* Wisdom figures out the strikeouts" or "well, Schwindel is getting older and...", and then I stopped. I thought to myself, why not be optimistic? Why not "assume" that they WILL do well? What Cubs fan wouldn't want to see those two players become Cubs icons in these following years? So, I put together a short list of great things that could happen to these two in the 2022 season. Frank Schwindel plays at a MVP-caliber level. In his short stint in 2021, he hit pretty close to that, and what if he does it again? All season long? Frank Schwindel becomes the new Rizzo. Not that he exactly can replace Rizzo but become the new Rizzo in position and fan favorite. With his charisma and personality, he can easily become a Cubs icon like

 I miss baseball. I'm not trying to be whiny, but it's a fact. Sure, the Cubs signed 12 IFA prospects on Saturday. But you know what, that's really not the same thing. I miss the activity of signings and trades and rumors, plus the upcoming Spring Training that will probably be postponed. Anyway, I'm also pretty bored after having gone over everything that's been repeated several hundred times.  So, I decided to do some Cubs' stat browsing and try to find some interesting things that you'll be interested in. I was not unsuccessful, and some of the things I found actually got my attention. The Cubs' Best Stat Game Now, from a fan's perspective the Cubs' best game of the year might be their no-hitter against the Dodgers, or ones that included some Schwindel walk-offs. But from a stat perspective, the Cubs' best game was April 23rd, 2021, against the Brewers at Wrigley. Of course, this was back when the Cubs had their core group, plus the additi