Anybody seen Moises?

At Cubs camp on Sunday, Craig Counsell gave an update that two Venezuelan Cubs having visa problems that are preventing them from reporting to the United States, much less Sloan Park, might not arrive "the end of next week or next weekend at the earliest."

The missing Cubs are third string catcher Christian Bethancourt and presumptive DH Moises Ballesteros. If you assume, as I did, that because of the haphazard, but always punitive, policies of the current administration that a lot of foreign players were having problems getting to camp, well, you and I are wrong.

When Javier Assad and Robert Suarez (only Suarez is from Venezuela...Assad is from Mexico and I would never claim otherwise, except in the first edition of this post--sorry, Javy) arrived in their camps with the Cubs and Barves a day late, that left just Bethancourt and Ballesteros still delayed.

So the other 61 Venezuelans projected to be on opening day rosters all have safely arrived for spring training. It's just the two who play for the Cubs? Shows how much good ownership's ass kissing of the regime is paying off.

Then again, considering they haven't signed a non-US born MLB free agent since they signed Hector Neris on February 1, 2024, maybe they don't really mind?

I can imagine a frustrated Jed Hoyer calling Nebraska senator Pete Ricketts, one of the kids whose dad bought the Cubs for them 16 years ago.

Jed: "We need some help getting two of our players into the country."
Pete: "Oh, no. That's terrible. I can certainly help. Is it Matt Shaw or Michael Busch?"
Jed: "It's Moises Ballesteros and Javier Assad."
Pete: "Huh. Well, I'm sure it'll work itself out. Give Matt my best."

It's absurd that this stuff happens, and the players and their agents are likely much of the issue. Back in the day, there were some players who would purposely wait to request their visas so that they could skip the first couple weeks of spring training. George Bell used to do it, until his second season with the Cubs when he figured out that telling them he needed more time in the Dominican Republic to tend to the gas station he bought, was a suitable excuse. He was traded days later to the White Sox for Ken Patterson and some guy named Sammy Sosa.

But there's really no excuse for the Cubs to have had three guys delayed this spring. When all the shit went down in Venezuela back on January 3, more proactive organizations (like all of them other than the Cubs) started pressuring their Venezuelan born players to get to the US as soon as possible. The Brewers ordered Jackson Churio to leave his winter ball team to make sure got into the country as soon as possible.

But hey, if Moises is delayed a few more weeks, at least the Cubs have Tyler Austin to take all those at bats.

Ugh.

Hoyer claims that he's still looking to add players to the team. So who's out there to bring in?