All of the Stuff

The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts. This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined [...]

The Cubs sent relievers Christian Roa and Eduarniel Nuñez through outright waivers on Wednesday, according to the MLB.com transaction tracker. Both pitchers were designated for assignment a week ago. Roa, who has been outrighted multiple times in his career, declined the minor league assignment in favor of free agency. This is the first [...]

A baseball season has natural ebbs and flows, and the 2026 Cubs can be defined in some ways by how extreme the swings between good and bad have been. As they close out June and enter the month of July, the Cubs are riding a stretch of wins. The primary driver [...]

Diehard Exclusive [...]

So I think MLB/owners have made a few proposals since MLBPA made their initial offer, with the last one being super ludicrous. MLBPA to their credit have been like “whatever, bro” and I think they’ll wait a few to make their counteroffer as there haven’t been actual negotiations yet as [...]

Veteran righty Vince Velasquez elected free agency after being outrighted by the Cubs, according to the MLB.com transaction tracker. Chicago designated him for assignment on Sunday and quickly ran him through waivers. Velasquez has had a couple brief stints on the big league roster. He has made one long relief appearance in [...]

The Cubs quietly brought Drew Pomeranz back to the organization on a minor league deal late last week. The team never formally announced the signing, but Pomeranz suited up for the Cubs’ Triple-A affiliate in Iowa last night and tossed a scoreless inning with a walk and two strikeouts. Pomeranz had [...]

I don’t actually think the players have set up a counteroffer since the last time, feel free to correct me as it’s been a while and I don’t pay attention, but MLB has released their next proposal: Increase in minimum salary but it’s tiered by service time, at least it’s a [...]

The Cubs simply couldn’t afford to wait any longer. After adding both Edward Cabrera (hamstring/adductor) and Ben Brown (neck) to the 15-day injured list on Wednesday, the Cubs struck a late-night deal, bringing in left-handed pitcher David Peterson from the New York Mets. In return, Chicago sent infield prospect Cole [...]

Needed a new thread at some point anyway, but winning the first game of the doubleheader with a minimum of bullpen used helped a lot, and so did Dansby Swanson going nuts with the bat. Enjoy. [...]

Since May 23, Pete Crow-Armstrong has been the leadoff hitter in Craig Counsell’s lineup all but four times. In that same timeframe, Crow-Armstrong’s OPS has gone up by over 200 points, from .682 to .884. Through the first five games of this week’s homestand, Crow-Armstrong has homered four times. There’s [...]

When the Cubs were rolling in the first month of the season, they got plenty of runners on base and drove most of them in. When things hit the skids in May, they were still getting runners on, but the Cubs were stranding them in scoring position at a league-leading [...]

OK so we have seen MLBPA throw out a proposal and MLB submitting a counteroffer (that I would say is not ideal by any means if I’m being nice), now we have a new wrinkle that doesn’t actually have to do with the salary cap: No more eligibility for high school [...]

Diehard Exclusive [...]

Craig Counsell’s Cubs entered the season as favorites to win the National League Central, and after a month and a half, they had only confirmed those preseason expectations. A pair of ten-game winning streaks before the first week of May will do that. Blame what you will for what’s happened [...]

So Facebook can be useful every now and then in alerting me to some fun stuff, and in this case, it seems Baseball-Reference now has a page for curating all the ABS challenge results so far. It’s actually very comprehensive, including the display of zone maps where overturns are more [...]

So you know by now that the Cubs had a bad May, though their multiple long win streaks have allowed them to maintain a 32-28 record through 60 games on this much needed off day. The Brewers get to play the Giants (lame) while the Cardinals play the Rangers (meh) [...]

OK, so the other day we saw MLBPA’s initial proposal, and today whilst I was toiling in the dungeon, MLB put forth their counter offer: $171.2MM minimum payroll, though that includes the player benefits which seems kind of shady $245.3MM hard cap, which is barely over the current first tier luxury [...]

While pondering whether we are even allowed to pod anymore given the current Cubs freefall (please stop) and also realizing the silly pun I inadvertently put in the parenthetical, there’s multiple reports out there (summarized by MLBTR among others) that the players side have made the first formal proposal in [...]

It’s just the Cubs lot this year that they’ve had not one but two double digit winning streaks, and yet have just a 1.5 game lead on the division. At least the rotation lined up in a way that the three currently ‘best’ pitchers in the rotation are pitching this [...]