Hi Bud. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

Rich your shoveling technique is BRILLIANT! And WAY better than Bud, who apparently has not suggestion ;). The entire Cubs watching thing is less than ideal right now. The prices for everything are insane, including beer at Wrigley. And, Bud, including the players. I keep hearing that every signing like Tatis' is "good for baseball". I can draw a dollar, but my god trying to manage that CBA? I also can't tell you how not happy I am that the 2 best baseball teams for the immediate future are such a couple nemesis's (now and '80s).

Bud! Rich! Hi guys. I think the sort of bullshit excuse-me Arrieta description in the paper ("a steady presence in the rotation and a strong influence in the clubhouse") does have a little merit. And who knows, maybe this return is just what he needs. I'm choosing to be excited about it. But Bud I also think... yeah get a good look at those guys because more change will happen. I can't imagine being Bryant or Willson and... life is exponentially lacking in knowing what tomorrow will bring. Gotta be a billion times weirder for them.

Not that it won't change, but right now the only new name in the lineup is Pederson. Something like Happ/Bryant/Rizzo/Baez/Contreras/Pederson/Hoerner (Bote)/pitcher (until dh becomes official, but I doubt this year). But the starting five is minus 4. Hendricks/Davies/Mills/Alzolay/Tyson Miller. Also, Almlora is a Met.

I know, Bud. And there's still time before next year to make more trades. I don't think "spoiled" is the right word, but keeping a core group of players together for as long as the Cubs did is pretty rare, and I guess we got used to them. Which makes right now as unpleasant as we figured it would be. I saw a tweet that said basically, with the Dodgers amassing such an impossible team, why would anyone else even try to spend big now? Wait a couple years for Dodger contracts to run out and try for it then. And as sad as that sounds, it's probably true to a certain extent. Not saying that's what the Cubs are doing, just... a sign of the times. It's depressing.

Rich, It's really astounding the impact he made in the time he was here. Like, homer in the gloamin' kinda stuff as far as legends go. Think about 20 years from now, you'll be able to buy books about Cubs history, and he'll have a chapter. And now, yeah... waiting for the other shoe(s) to drop.

Hi Rich, I missed this, sorry. Your Chapman and Yu comp is both sad and funny. This process sure does grind me down. It's overall a slow winter and no real prospects of the Cubs doing anything exciting. I mean, I really liked what Theo tried to do, with keeping a core of players for us all to get to know. But it didn't work. The constant churning will probably be more the norm, I just overall am finding the pro game itself to be less exciting than it used to be. That's probably more about analytics and everybody figuring out the same stuff at the same time. Whatever. In a couple months we'll be getting excited again, so there's that.

Hey, comments are working!

Hi Rich! I'm jealous of people who can say there're not superstitious. I can't. But... I'm really looking forward to whatever's next, too.

RICH! So many people are so sad, but this is actually a great time for this to happen - rather than when we'd all be expecting it and each day would be a death watch. Also, I agree they need different. Now, can you send that message to Virginia McCaskey, please?