LATEST NEWS! STEELE & IMAI | #11 Payroll | Cubs Baseball News & Rumors

LATEST NEWS! STEELE & IMAI | #11 Payroll | Cubs Baseball News & Rumors

Justin Steel feeling good and that is a great sign for the Cubs. We’re going to talk about the Ace who’s rehabbing right now in Arizona. Where do the Cubs stand on Tatsua Imi? Where are they? And there’s another team that all of a sudden we got to keep an eye on and that’s the Boston Red Sox. We’ll get into that. And the Cubs came in number 11 on the spending report last season. What do you think about that? We’re going to get into all those topics right here on the Cubs baseball channel. So, like, subscribe, thumbs up, hit the bell, do those things, and let’s get this party started. [music] They say everybody, Mick Gillespie, Cubs baseball channel. Great to talk to you today and make sure that you do us a solid, man, and hit that QR code right there. Right there. And uh be part of MC Nation. That’s our web 3 home, Avenue D. That’s a way to stay connected and uh eventually we’ll have our store there. We’re going to do all of our stuff through there. So, one of the biggest things going on in the internet world is web 3 and we’re ahead of that with our partners. All right. Uh, let’s talk about the Cubs and let’s get into this. I I thought fantastic. There’s Justin Steel and you guys know Justin Steel and um here make sure I’ve muted this is him throwing. Look. And he’s playing the song Feeling Good. He’s in Arizona right now throwing. And this is a great sign for the Cubs because they’re going to need Steel to be part of this team next year. And we know that. I think all of us know that. You know that. I know that. Uh Steel underwent successful UCL surgery basically on his left shoulder. I’m excuse me, his left elbow in April. you remember he was like trying to come back and uh we weren’t sure like what the deal was going to be and that’s you know pretty much what happened. So he had Tommy John when he was in the minor leagues 2017 and then now this elbow surgery. Uh Craig Councel said at a press conference recently that he didn’t expect Steel to be ready at the end of spring training. So, that’s something that the Cubs really have to factor in because you can’t sit around and wait on steel to be ready, right? Uh so, because you could lose a chance to make the playoffs in April. You can’t win in the playoffs in April, but you can certainly lose. Uh and and the thing I love about Steel is that he’s such a good competitor, man. Really tough guy. Throws the fast ball. his cutter sits like uh 90 95 sometimes kind of has that that good sink and that sidearm rub. Um I love that John Lester kind of saw him pitching one day and just like hey dude think about this and kind of got him dialed in uh you know what was that like three years ago and he became one of baseball’s best pitchers. He’s got that sharp slider and it’s a plus potential pitch because it tunnels well off of his fast ball. Right. I love that about him, too. And it’s effective against righties and lefties, but he’s got that curveball, the old 127 bender. Uh, enjoy that. I always felt like it was a little bit like Bert Blly 11. Maybe his was a 126, but still just really good arc on the the curveball, which to me always kind of looked like a change up, too, because of the fact that it’s slower. And then he’s got a, you know, a change up that isn’t really that good of a pitch form. and a sinker, which you know helps him get ground balls. And we we saw him a couple of years ago with the deception and the the the contact management, which was I thought really good. Um he was getting a lot of of soft contact, not a lot of hard contact, and the fly balls were easy outs, right, with with below average exit velocities off of his pitches, right? Uh the other thing that he does well is he repeats his delivery. And I thought this was something that I noticed that he did in the minor leagues, right? Very athletic, good arm speed, and he continues it. And him repeating his delivery is one of the things that makes him so effective, right? So, um I I just look at him and I’m like if he ever got back into the groove where he was controlling his command, you know, cuz I felt like when he he would lose command of his pitches, that’s kind of when that it hit him around a little bit. He could be uh once again uh one of the best pitchers in baseball, right? you know, and then some people were like, “Well, it’d be nice if he had a better change up.” I I I’ve always felt like the curveball kind of was a change up for me with him, right? Um but and and it felt like, you know, he could he fastball kind of kind of slider type guy, right? Or or curveball or whatever. Um, he’s a guy when I look at the Cubs, I’m going, we got to have him to be the team that potentially could win the World Series because I think you have to have a very good top of the rotation. And even though the Cubs pitched really well last year, we got into the postseason and we realized, hey, guess what? You know what? we don’t have the the the top of the rotation to match up against the Dodgers to to match up against Milwaukee, although we almost beat him. So, having him back would be a major thing. Now, the second story we’ve been following a lot on the channel is is Tatsu Yay, who is posted right now and has to find a home before what is it January 4th. So it at the first week in January, the second or the fourth, but anyway, off the top of my head, the the bottom line is that the Cubs are considered a favorite or one of the favorites to get the 27y old. Um, now with Michael King off the board, with the Padres’s signing King, which is so crazy because the reports were that King wanted to pitch where he was from, right? He said from the Northeast, it was going to be Baltimore, Austin, or the Yankees. And I think a lot of people thought he was going to it was going to be Boston, but instead he ends up resigning with the Padres’s. So, he goes back to San Diego. So, now the the Red Sox are one of those teams that’s starting to be connected with EMI. And I feel like that part of that could be the fact that they didn’t win the uh the King deal. So, you know, we’ll see. Um, they’re in a division, the Red Sox, where Dylan CE went to Toronto. Toronto really ran away with things last year. And so, you know, we’ll see. Uh, you know, maybe the Yankees, even though we’ve heard that the Yankees haven’t met with Emi yet, uh, you’re starting to hear that don’t count them out. Mark Feinstein of U MLB.com said that the Red Sox are amongst teams connected to EMI and you know there some of the big names out there Valdez, Ranger Suarez, Zack Allen. Um Cubs need a starter and so does Boston. I mean a lot of teams do but Boston’s going to spend some money. Cubs are going to spend some money. You got to have pitching to win. And so I just I don’t know. The more that the my thing kind of hangs in there, the more I think that the Cubs are serious about signing him and and maybe it’s him and Alex Bregman. Maybe it’s not. Maybe they don’t get any. I mean, maybe they they come back and, you know, and it’s kind of like midlevel type of players. And that kind of leads me to the last thing I wanted to talk about on today’s show, and that’s that the Cubs ended up 11th in spending. And here’s Bob Nightingale’s Twitter page, and it’s got the the a list of all the teams that spent more than the Cubs. Now, Dodgers were at the top. Guess what? They won the World Series, you know, and they they paid an enormous tax to Major League Baseball for spending. And then that’s on top of the show Otani contract, which is a sham, right? Cuz it’s all backloaded. So, he’s getting paid like 2 million of that. But guess what? They won the World Series. The Yankees made the playoffs. Uh or excuse me, the Mets didn’t make the playoffs. They’re second. So you talk about a front office that’s under a lot of pressure. You spend that much money including the second most in tax that you just got to give away. Like $91 million. That’s a lot of money. Uh there’s the Yankees third. They made the postseason. The Phillies made the postseason. They’re fourth. Toronto got to the World Series. They’re fifth. All those teams went over. San Diego made the playoffs. Cubs knocked them out seventh. Boston made the playoffs eighth. Houston got close but didn’t make it. And then uh Texas was over and they didn’t make it. So the Braves and the Cubs were the top two teams that were under the the the the salary cap or really tax assessment deal. And the Cubs were $10 million under, you know. So, I don’t know. I mean, I I know a lot of you guys are not happy about the fact that the Cubs are not spending like you think they should, right? I mean, they’re the you know, you you talk about like the the you know, the teams that are the most popular teams in baseball, Dodgers, Yankees, Cubs, and Red Sox. They’re the the the four most most I guess I would say uh assessed at the most lucrative franchises at least what they’re worth and the Cubs are under that. There’s some theories to maybe the Cubs feel like you can win without being there. We saw that a few years ago, but this I mean basically the most of the playoff teams are paying way over the salary cap or I keep saying salary cap but the you know basically the tax level and for the Cubs to be 11th, you know, what what could they have spent to give them the things that they needed to get to the World Series last year? you know, how how close were they to getting there with the roster that they had? Well, they went out and they traded a bunch of players to get Kyle Tucker, but they’re not, I don’t think, a contender to bring him back on a, you know, long-term deal and spend a ton of money. I think that if something happened in the market and they could get him on like a Cody Bellinger type deal they got a couple years ago, maybe you pay more per season, but you’re not you’re not locked in for the long haul. I could see them doing that. Those long-term contracts, I mean, I I know the Dodgers are on top of the world right now, but eventually they’re going to have to pay show hey Otani. You know, I wonder how bad things are going to be for them. Or do they just keep on spending? I mean, it’s like the government, right? [laughter] You’re like, “How do they keep spending all this money? They don’t even have it.” I don’t know. Um, but I think that most of you wi wish that the Cubs were, you know, one of the top spending teams in baseball, right? I think you guys would love to see the Cubs like, I don’t know, in the top five maybe. And and if they were in the top five, who are the players they’re they’re paying? And I think that’s the other part of it because you know I I look at Dansby Swanson what he’s getting paid and Ian Hap what he’s getting paid and I’m like there’s a lot of money in those two guys but I don’t think that you know I don’t know I mean and I think they’re good players gold glovers and stuff but I mean do you want those guys coming up in the World Series game seven needing a you know, I mean, and and so I think you get to that point where it’s like, hey, we’re spending this, it’s like when you go out and buy buy something, it’s like you’re going to go cheap and then you’re going to replace it or do you just go ahead and spend the money to get the best thing? And I feel like that’s what Theo Epstein was doing when he was with the Cubs. You know, they spent they spent they had they really elite players all over the field. When he went out and got players, he tried to find the super elite guys. And I feel like now we’re more of a we’re trying to basically uh you know ball on a dime, you know, on a budget and and and part of that could be that the Cubs are doing this because of the potential of a strike next year. And I’ve heard that theory, too. And and that wouldn’t surprise me, you know, just from the business aspect of it. Forget about the fan part and winning. But what the Dodgers are saying is that they’ll pay the extra money to win World Series. I’m in Vegas and I see the Dodgers have a team store in the mall in Las Vegas and everybody’s walking around with their gear on. When the Cubs were World Series champs, you couldn’t go anywhere without seeing Cubs hats and shirts. So, just remember that, you know, there’s it costs more to win, but it’s nice to win because you don’t get these unless you’re at the top. So, anyway, uh, thank you guys for being on here. I want show ideas. You know, some of these days I’m like, hey, what are we going to talk about? Some some there’s a lot. Yesterday had a ton to talk about. you know, today getting a chance to um you know, get into this. But glad that Justin Steel’s feeling better and uh we will get it at it again tomorrow. Don’t forget to hit our QR code right there and be part of Mick Nation Avenue D. We got some hats to give away. We do uh pick them contest, the Alabama Oklahoma game, the college football playoff game, the only one that was really good. Uh, we gave away 1,500 bucks, one, you know, just money per quarter. So, we’ll keep doing that. Appreciate you guys and we’ll talk to you again tomorrow unless something big unless we sign somebody. Maybe we get Breman today and I’ll jump back on. All right. Thanks. Let’s go cub. [music]

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This Episode:
– Justin Steele “Feelin Good 🙏🏻”
– Lastest on: Tatsuya Imai (Boston in the Mix?)
– Chicago Cubs were 11th in Spending

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Mick Gillispie has covered the Chicago Cubs since 2007 and has been a fan of the team since the 1984 season. He has broadcasted spring training games or been heard on Cubs.com, MLB.com, 670 The Score, WGN, CSN-Chicago and Marquee Sports Network. He is an award winning play-by-play voice for the Tennessee Smokies Cubs Double-A Affiliate. He has also hosted many forums over the years at Cubs Convention including Down on The Farm