By Todd Johnson
Somehow, the Cubs did it! You can insert any cliché you want but when the season was on the line, they came through winning 15 of their last 18 games. Every year is going to be difficult and the pressure the Cubs have been under might lessen in the playoffs as the Cubs have basically been in playoff mode most of the past two months.
One key to winning the division this year was the Cubs went 14-5 against the Cardinals in 2017. The Cubs literally knocked the Cardinals out of the division race, and then, for good measure, out of the wild-card race…in St. Louis.
Don’t think for a minute that either the Brewers or the Cardinals are going to be easy pickings next year. The Brewers have more high-end talent coming from the minors while the Cardinals have more MLB ready talent at AAA Memphis. It will make for an exciting few years as Pittsburgh is also close to developing some top of the rotation pitching talent. Add in the fact that Cincinnati has some quality hitters like Nick Senzel coming and you have a very competitive division. For the next four years, the Cubs will have their for hitting core together and will just need to find quality pitching before most of their young high profile arms are ready in 2019/20.
Rotation News
Mike Montgomery will start today giving Jake Arrieta more time off to get ready for the postseason. Arrieta is scheduled to pitch a sim game on Wednesday against Jose Quintana. No sooner than I posted my thoughts about the possible rotation on Friday did things change as Quintana gave up 4 runs and the news about Arrieta broke. Then, yesterday, Jon Lester looked “smoove” going 5 IP and striking out 7. So, now it is down to Hendricks and Lester in games 1 and 2.
MiLB News
Baseball America began releasing their top 20 prospects in each of the minor leagues over a week ago. This week, Adbert Alzolay made the Carolina League’s Top 20 prospects at #17. In the AA Southern League, the Cubs did not have a prospect make the top 20 list from the Tennessee Smokies. Hopefully, the Midwest League, Northwest League, and the Arizona Rookie League lists will be out next week and will contain some Cubs.
When it comes to fall instructs, I’m not getting a lot of information this year. Even the scouts and talent evaluator’s that I follow are pretty quiet on Twitter as the Cubs are not playing games against other teams. Yesterday, on The Cub Reporter, I did read that outfielder Luis Ayala is now switch hitting.
Draft Info
As I planned on what to do this off-season for the website, I didn’t really have a lot of ideas about content concerning the draft. Most of my ideas were about prospects moving up a level and ranking the position players. However, I began to think about the draft this week when Baseball America published two articles about the 2018 draft.
BA Top 50 for High School
BA Top 50 for College
Even after reading those two articles and clicking on a few names, I still don’t have a lot of plans. When January gets closer and baseball season gets geared up, I might do some digging on some names.
Meanwhile…. at Cubs Central
On Tuesday, I will publish my September Cards of the Month post. This will be the first time that I’ve done a post for that month. There are a lot of very good cards coming. On Thursday, I will have part one of my Top MiLB Storylines of 2018” coming out.
My Other Writing on the Web
Cubs Insider
Fall Instructs Prospects to Watch
Card of the Week
Cubs Central 