Keith Law of The Athletic reveals his Top 20 Cubs prospects bleedcubbieblue.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bleedcubbieblue.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Originally posted on MLB Trade Rumors | By Tim Dierkes | Last updated 2/16/21
Less than three months after their first-round playoff defeat to the Marlins, the Cubs traded second place NL Cy Young finisher Yu Darvish to the Padres. This occurred after the Cubs won their division with a .567 winning percentage, which would have extrapolated to about 92 wins in a full season. I looked back through the last 20 years, and this has never been done: winning teams simply do not trade top-two Cy Young finishers.
As you might expect, teams prefer not to trade top-two Cy Young finishers at all. In the past 20 years, it’s only been done twice in the offseason: the Mets traded 38-year-old R.A. Dickey to the Blue Jays after the 2012 season, and the Diamondbacks dealt 41-year-old Randy Johnson to the Yankees after Arizona’s abysmal 2004 campaign. Let’s see if the more recent Dickey trade bears any similarities to what the Cubs did.
Assessing the gloves of Cubs outfield prospects
Share this story
Clinton Cole
Much of affiliated baseball has numbers attached. From the spectrum of batting percentages, predictive pitching numbers (like xFIP), and stabs at running efficiency, projecting who will do what is important.
Among the tougher assessments is defense. Was that a 50/50 play, or a 30/70? Toss in minor-league venues, and no games in minor league ball for 18 months, it gets tougher regarding youngsters. With across-the-board designated hitter very likely in the 2022 season (fingers crossed on a season, at all), defense might not be as essential in National League organizations, but assessing what’s available seems useful walking into the 2021 season.
“Cielito Lindo” isn’t exactly about social unrest. The lyrics vary from singer to singer, but the song is ostensibly about a pretty girl with dark eyes. When it’s performed for someone who hates Latinos, however, the song has power.
“It was so beautiful,” Garcia says. “And it was so profound, because ‘Cielito Lindo’ is one of the most benign songs there is, but when they all sang it in that context, it had power, and power to make a point in a very non-violent and very profound way.”
With that spirit in mind, the United States’ third-longest running Chicano theater company is putting on a virtual Resistance Jam on Inauguration Day, January 20. Musicians of all stripes are invited to perform in a round robin-style show that will be broadcast over the Internet. Garcia says the Resistance Jam events started in 2017 and has taken place live in less plague-ridden years.
The Yu Darvish trade isn’t as bad for the Cubs as you think
Share this story
Well, that’s a provocative statement. Let’s let Gammons elaborate:
“The farm system,” says one Cubs observer, “is already being completely rebuilt. The Padres trade only makes that better and Cristian Hernandez, who is in this year’s international class out of the Dominican, has been comped to A-Rod.”
Well, that’s very interesting. Of course, Hernandez is another 17-year-old kid and even if he does wind up as good a player as Alex Rodriguez (without the PEDs, one would hope), he’s still two to three years away from the big leagues.