Season Preview: The Cubs have pitchers
Just probably not enough of them.



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It’s baseball preview week here at Pointless Exercise (even though the Dodgers and Padres already technically opened the season last week). Today we’re going to look at the Cubs pitchers, tomorrow we’ll look at the position players, Thursday you’ll get my fearless predictions and sometime before that you’ll be able to check out a six man podkakke preview episode featuring all of your Pointless Exercise favorites and a surprise new addition to cast of morans. Consider yourself warned.
With just a couple days left, the pitching staff seems mostly sorted out. Jimmy Taillon has been fitted for his corset and he’ll start the year on the IL with the weak back he suffered a couple weeks back. Carl Edwards Jr. was released back into the wild, and so it looks like the last spot is down to two of three guys—Mark Leiter Jr., Jose Cuas and/or Luke Little. Both Cuas and Little have options so it figures that one of them will start the season in Iowa, but as we know, Leiter the Lesser is incredibly well experienced at clearing waivers. It’s almost like nobody but the Cubs wants him. I suppose they all could make it if the Cubs want Hayden Wesneski to get regular starts in Iowa.
The Cubs had to let Carl’s Jr. know by Saturday if he had made the team or he could demand his release. Because they would have had to clear a 40 man spot for him to keep him, they effectively chose to keep Keegan Thompson (the most vulnerable—aka: shitty—pitcher on the roster, instead. Keegan should probably not feel that secure, though. If a pitcher who gets waived by another team tickles Jed’s fancy (a disturbing image), Keegan’s probably going to get the boot.


Craig Counsell has announced that the rotation will be Justin Steele, Kyle Hendricks, Shōta, Jordan Wicks and Javier Assad, but not in that order, because they’re flipping the lefthanders so that Shōta can start the home opener next Monday.
The Cubs came into the season knowing they had to improve both their rotation and bullpen and they, did, kind of. But probably not enough. Ahh, I’m sure it will all work out. Somehow. Probably.
Let’s take a look.