Episode 1343: Season Preview Series: Cubs and Rangers

Summary[]

Ben Lindbergh and guest co-host Steven Goldman of The Infinite Inning banter about Luis Severino's injury and the perils of spring training, Sonny Gray's slider problem and the perils of player development, and Ben's series at The Ringer about scouting past and present, then preview the 2019 Cubs (34:19) with The Athletic's Cubs beat writer Sahadev Sharma, and the 2019 Texas Rangers (1:13:15) with The Athletic's Rangers beat writer, Levi Weaver.

Topics[]

Cubs with Sahadev Sharma[]

Getting out from under all this bad PR
Jason Heyward contract
Where did the offense go last year and why
Anthony Rizzo and choking up
Willson Contreras
Drafting Philosophy
Rotation reinforcements
Yu Darvish
Is the depth as good as it is bad for the players
Getting guys playing time
Javier Báez
Ben Zobrist
Ian Happ
Cubs bullpen

Rangers with Levi Weaver[]

Managerial change
Feel of spring training around the clubhouse
Joey Gallo
The rebuild
Jurikson Profar
Nomar Mazara
Why not the full on tank
Texas heat
Loss of Adrián Beltré
David Clyde story

Banter[]

Introducing final guest co-host Steven Goldman before new co-host arrangement takes effect
Teasing upcoming new co-host announcement
Luis Severino
Sonny Gray
Scouting then and now

Notes[]

“You could have done Effectively Wild Idol” - Stephen
“We're all just one slip and fall from having no future value” - Stephen
The Cubs have three 20+ million dollar starters.
Sahadev predicted the Cubs will win 92 games this year.
“Good luck getting grandma to sit down the first base line, shell probably die” - Levi
Levi predicts the Rangers will win 84 games this year.