Member-only story
The Cubs Just Picked up 4–5 Games on the Brewers
The Cubs would have won the division if Craig Counsel had been their manager last season.
As a longtime Cubs fan, I tend to be a fatalist. But I’m loving this Cubs offseason. First, there was Marcus Stroman not exercising his player option, saving the Cubs $21 million. Then the Cubs picked up their $16 million option on Kyle Hendricks. While not great, Hendricks is does give the Cubs depth in their starting rotation. But that was nothing like the Cubs move today. Hiring Craig Counsell was an absolutely huge move on the part of the Cubs.
The Cubs are now better, and the Brewers are worse
David Ross, by all accounts, was a good leader and handled many aspects of being a manger league manager well, but he wasn’t great at in-game managing. He was also seemingly terrified of using young players.
About the Cubs’ bullpen…
Yes, the bullpen was hamstrung by key injuries, and they never really got a solid lefty to help out. But Ross had options he chose not to use. Would Luke Little have solved their lefty dilemma? Who knows. Ross was afraid to use Little. Instead, he kept trotting out an obviously gassed/ineffective Mark Leiter Jr. out to get shelled.
