Chicago Cubs 2026
Attendance is not down, so do they really care?
Illiniaaron
- Geneseo, IL
I think Ricketts wants to win. He wouldn’t have given the OK to sign Bregman or Maton for his $$ if he didn’t. You could put together a cheaper team to go .500.
Maybe he shouldn't have. .250 5 HRs 19 RBI's - 7.08 ERA 1.72 WHIP
They won't feel the attendance punch until the end of August when the kids go back to school, the season is pretty much in the toilet and people have moved on to football season.
Right now, these tickets were purchased months ago and a bad day at Wrigley in the summer is better than a good day doing most anything else.
That's what's depressing.
However, Marquee viewership dips dramatically when they stink and they care about that.
Glad Brown is getting his due. He's taken a lot of heat as he figured things out.
in general , the Ricketts have been decent owners . Wrigley is awesome as is the neighborhood because of it .
2016 was a dream
but, it’s clear that winning 94 games every year just isn’t a priority for them .I don’t expect that to change anytime soon . So we will probably only get a division winner once every 5-6 years and a wildcard twice every 5-6 years . I don’t see a NLCS or WS appearance ever .
Wow, season is already over in the first week in June? Certainly Cubs hit a rough spot and division title is looking like a reach, but still firmly in wild card race. And if I’m not mistaken, three years ago both teams in WS didn’t win their division and the year before that the WS loser didn’t win division. Uphill battle? Sure. But it’s a long season. Cubs are 5-5 over last 10, have won 2 of last 3, and play 17 straight games against teams under .500.
Illiniaaron
- Geneseo, IL
They’ve also lost 19 out of the last 26.
Justin Steele
Cade Horton
Matthew Boyd
Jamison Taillon
Cade Horton
Matthew Boyd
Jamison Taillon
Yes, I never did like them signing him. Should have kept Shaw at 3rd base and saved the money for pitching. Now we are stuck with another bad contract. I swear we go from bad contracts after bad contracts on players that are past their prime.
Illiniaaron
- Geneseo, IL
I guess Counsell might as well start Swanson again. The offense still sucked when he was benched. At least he plays gold glove caliber D.
Illiniaaron
- Geneseo, IL
I didn’t watch the game last night and didn’t hear about Alcantara getting doubled off as a pinch runner until watching postgame coverage. He’s never looked impressive at all to me. In this call up he’s really only being used as a pinch runner. If he’s one of your top two prospects, you don’t have anything. Martinez has done fairly well since being added to the big club but looks slow and unathletic.
Caleb Killian retired the Cubs in order in the 7th inning on 6 pitches. 'Nuff said.
I was going to do a long angry rant on the state of this baseball club but then apathy set in.
I was going to do a long angry rant on the state of this baseball club but then apathy set in.
I still like the Hayward signing. He was good ball player. His defense was stellar.
Illiniaaron
- Geneseo, IL
His offense was less than stellar.
Yes, good defense but in 6 seasons with the Cubs had a .700 OPS and made $20-25MIL in 2016 valued money.
Would fit right in with the 2026 Cubs.
Not sure I'd say "I like the Hayward signing," but it was definitely less bad, thus the comment ("worse than the Hayward signing by a mile").
The Bregman signing (and to a lesser degree Hayward) are proof of the folly of demanding aggressive actions and free agent signings by the owners for the sake of showing that they "want to win." Bregman is and has always been a fraud. He was probably the 6th best player on those Astros teams, and all of them benefited immensely from and padded their stats using that trash bin spy camera system. I would have rather the Cubs spent that money on a contact hitter (they already had tons of streaky "power hitters" who tended to fade and slump for extended periods of times) and/or a couple of arms.
He just signed a contract extension less than 11 months ago.
Still, if they miss the playoffs, 1 appearance in 6 years is less than impressive.
Alcantara has always been over ranked in my opinion, but for the most part he hasn’t been considered the Cubs #2 prospect for several years. Part of that is an influx of talent, but some of it is him being downgraded a bit. The good news is he’s tapped more into his power this year, but he’s also seen his BA drop .025 to just over .240. He’s still too young to say he’s a finished product, but his overall development has stalled some. Reminds me of Triantos in that regard, who has also been slipping down the rankings. Just saw Alcantara was sent down with Shaw’s recall.
I assume you meant Ramirez rather than Martinez. With living in Ohio, I haven’t seen as much of him as you likely have, but haven’t noticed him looking slow. He isn’t uber athletic though. Defensively he probably projects better at 3B than 2B. But he has made a nice jump offensively this year. He’s already surpassed his HR total from last year and improved his slash line across the board. And he’s two years younger than Alcantara.
I haven’t turned the page on this season yet: we’re still in early June. Unfortunately, I don’t see much help coming from AAA, and I don’t see them rushing anyone from AA. So improvement is going to have to come from some of the current Cubs turning things around.