Originally, I was going to write about the Cubs last, but I feel more threatened by Milwaukee overall. So, I am saving them for last. There is some small chance I might move to Milwaukee, so it’s not the city. It’s the team that annoys me. I’ll probably stick here in St Louis, yeah. But maybe some day I will have to change my name to Cards Fan in Brewtown or whatever it’s called, since long ago on VEB I was known as Cards Fan In Chitown. Miltown just doesn’t sound right. But this is about Chicago!
A place I lived in for over 20 years, it was a love/hate thing.
Chicago is too cold, too little parking for residents without private parking, parking tickets are expensive, and they charge you like $100/yr for a sticker to put on your car so you don’t get tickets from the police for simply not having a Chicago sticker. That said, I never understand why people say Chicago is violent and scary unless they’re looking for heroin in the wrong neighborhoods, and even then, it’s survivable. I once was pulled over by a cop in a bad west side neighborhood, and the first thing that came to my mind was that he probably thought I was a kid from the suburbs looking for the h.
Nope, I am and was an artist/musician, and another artist had bought a building in a dangerous area to house artists. If you avoid these bohemian zones or whatever you want to call it, Chicago is filled with cops and security and cameras… it’s just a whole media lie to manipulate people about Chitown and to force a narrative. The rate of crime is average there. There’s just more counting numbers to scare people with. If anything, there are too many cops and order there. At least in the Chicago I experienced from the late 90’s until 2019.
I used to drunkenly ride my bike through Wrigleyville yelling “Cubbies!” in the most mocking tone possible. Everyone else was walking between bars or after the Cubs game, drunk too. No one cared or maybe it didn’t even register that I was mocking them, but regardless, these were more carefree times. I used to enjoy going to the Gingerman, a bar near Wrigley. I saw the Cardinals on the 4th of July there, and my friend and I were able to walk to Wrigley Field because I lived in Uptown, just one neighborhood past Sheridan, which was just north of Wrigleyville. I lived right by Graceland Cemetery, one of the world’s greatest places for the dead, I guess?
I spilled a beer on a Cubs fan on accident that 4th of July, but not his girlfriend. So I didn’t feel too bad about it. I had brought my best friend, friends since grade school, with, and we will always have a chuckle over that one.
OK! So yeah, the Cubs this year… my gut tells me last year was their peak window, and they didn’t do enough. They blew it, whether it was the players on the field or the owners not putting forth the funds to compete with the coasts. Or maybe we could just say, the two Big Cities. LA & NY will almost always outspend anyone. They usually do. Ironically enough, the Dodgers were originally from NY, but empires go coast to coast.
Sometimes I just get into this writing mode and words gonna churn like butter. The Chicago Cubs are the best of the midwest, the cream of the crop? Let’s check that out.
The Cubs best infielder is Dansby Swanson. In December, 2022, the Cubs signed Dansby Swanson to a 7 year, $177 million contract. He should put up around 3.7+ WAR this season. Dansby was maybe a sleeper pick because he’s athletic in not the offensive way: he’s good at defense and a fast runner. Sort of their Masyn Winn. I think the two players will be rather similar this season.
Nico Hoerner and Alex Bregman round out their really good infield. Bregman is projected to be close to the same value as Nico, according to the consensus of projections. ZiPS actually says Hoerner is the superior player. Dansby, Nico, and Alex are quite the left side of the infield! Not a world beater, but pretty damn good. Over at first base, Michael Busch ain’t no slouch either. He’s not supposed to be much better than Alec Burleson, but still, that’s good! Two and a half plus WAR ain’t nothing to scoff at.
Oh but the Cubs have a Pete Crow-Armstrong, their best player! Will he be a legend like he was the first half of 2025, or more like the second half? Maybe him and Victor Scott II will both be better first half players, not to compare the offense but in a most general sense, they both did not have as good of second halfs. For Pete Crow Armstrong, he seems a little bit difficult to predict: 3.3 to 4.9 is the difference in floor vs ceiling projections here. I will do a final article comparing projection systems without any outlier projections involved, later on. Still, he is a key factor in what sets the Cubs ahead of the pack. He is more than likely going to be the Cubs best position player, like it or not. That’s how important it is for a defensive center fielder to be able to hit a little bit. They just become super valuable.
It’s time (for me) to admit the Cubs are going to be good. They have installed a 13.5ish WAR infield with a somewhat fantastic outfield because of PCA, Seiya Suzuki, and Ian Happ. The corner outfielders are no slouches, either. Ian Happ has always been annoying, and Seiya Suzuki should be around a 3 WAR player!
It’s their starting pitching *especially at Wrigley, that doesn’t seem to be very competitive. They will predictably trade for a better starting pitcher around the all star break (maybe?) but Matthew Boyd, Edward Cabrera, Shota Imanaga, Cade Horton, and Jameson Tailon aren’t projected to break 10 WAR. That’s better than the Cardinals rotation, but maybe not by as much as many people think. If OOPSY is right about the Cubs rotation and The Bat is correct about the Cardinals rotation… they’re almost the same. Both teams will certainly not rely on the same top 5 all year, so it’s just spitballing, but I was a little surprised.
A conclusion to derive from the Cubs starting position players is that they absolutely blow away the Reds, Cardinals, and Pirates lineups. I am guessing, the Brewers too. I don’t think much sticks out about the Cubs bullpen, and I don’t know much about it, so I’ll just leave it at that.
Matthew Boyd should be the best Cubs starting pitcher, but Shota Imanaga is the most famous name on the staff. They don’t have bad pitching depth, but it’s not too impressive either. The Cubs will rely upon health among their position players to compete, is what I am reading in the tea leaves.
I’ll just lay the Cards on the table: none of the Cardinals, Pirates, or the Reds have the firepower to compete with the Cubs position players. They may have shot themselves in the foot with lackluster pitching at Wrigley field, plus if any of Swanson, Armstrong, Hoerner, Bregman, Busch, or Suzuki go down, they may be hampered quite a bit. Carson Kelly – Miguel Amaya are a good catching tandem, as well, but they kind of back each other up pretty well. The two will equate to a pretty decent catcher.
*Pirates updated but not finalized, Cardinals still in raw form… I switched from ZiPS to ZiPS DC and updated all
Will the Cubs be the projected favorite to win the division? Only the Brewers might compete.
***
There is something about the Cardinals, though, that you cannot predict: they’re one of the youngest teams in all of MLB! Also, if you dive into the linked ESPN created average age chart, a mystery 38 year old player is listed: Ryan Tapera! So maybe we are the youngest team, idk, you tell me.
The top 5 aging rosters are the Padres, the Mets, the Dodgers, the Yankees, and the Cubs! Only the Marlins, Nationals, and White Sox have a younger average roster age than the Cardinals. The Guardians and the Cardinals have the same average age of 26.5. This puts us on the same page as Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, and of course Cleveland. The top three youngest teams are not much younger, overall.
If you look at these projections through an age lens, it would appear that the Cubs flubbed the most this offseason. They should have done more. Maybe they will, but time runs out soon on their offseason endeavors. But Atlanta did not do much either, comparable to Chicago. Neither did Toronto.
Texas, Kansas City, Houston, and Baltimore are all aging teams when you get to the middle. The Orioles need to do something now. Hopefully they’ll compete in the AL East. Seattle, Detroit, Boston, Arizona, and San Francisco are also probably in the “better do something” boat. Philadelphia seems to be set up pretty well to compete with a slightly younger average age than you might think. But they’re also the same age as the Angels.
Age vs price of aging player contracts is such a huge factor and disparity within baseball. Perhaps what everyone needs to go through is a leveling of the playing field, a jubilee of sorts. Contracts and wages are all out of whack everywhere within out society and economy. Everything is stagnant. And it has been for a while, but things are grinding to a halt, it would feel. Maybe the system needs a whole revision, on every level.
So, the Cardinals are now a very, very young MLB team. Let’s take a look at our team’s players’ ages…
Pitchers
- Ryne Stanek is now the older brother in the clubhouse, oldest Cardinal at 34 years old (also, he was born in St Louis!)
- Riley O’Brien will surprise some at 31! He doesn’t seem that old, does he
- Nick Raquet is 30… we have 3 rostered players who are 30+
- JoJo Romero is 29… maybe when he’s 30, he will be traded
- Dustin May, Kyle Leahy, Matthew Pushard, Chris Roycroft, & Justin Bruihl are all 28 year olds
- Matt Svanson, Andre Pallante, Zak Kent, and Ryan Fernandez are 27
- Matthew Liberatore, George Soriano, Richard Fitts, and Hunter Dobbins are 26
- Michael McGreevy and Gordon Graceffo are 25
- Roby, Mautz, & Hjerpe are all 24 years old
- Tink Hence is the youngest rostered pitcher at 23
Catchers
- Yohel Pozo is the godfather of the catchers at 28
- Pedro Pages is 27
- Ivan Herrera is 25
- Jimmy Crooks III is 24
- Leonardo Bernal is one of the youngest rostered players at 22!
Infielders
- Sir Alec Burleson is the eldest infielder at 27 years old
- Jose Fermin and Cesar Prieto are 26
- Nolan Gorman is 25
- Masyn Winn and Thomas Saggese are only 23!
Outfielders
- Lars Nootbaar is the same age as Bryan Torres: 28
- Victor Scott II and Nathan Church are both 25
- Jordan Walker is the same age as his buddy Masyn Winn: only 23
- Up and comer Joshua Baez is only 22!
Nelson Velasquez is 27 in case anyone was wondering (I was!)… if he perseveres, it will be his first MLB appearance since 2024. His MLB career had some ups and downs but ended at .719 OPS, not bad, not great. In his last MLB stint, he was with the Royals, and had a .640 OPS in 240 PA. You can’t really hope he’s any kind of answer to the outfield equation, but maybe he will surprise.
1978
Here I am, writing about the last 50 years of my life. Back in 1978, things were just as topsy turvy as they are now, or I’d like to think of it that way, anyway.
Roman Polanski skipped bail in the US and fled to France after pleading guilty to sexual relations with a 13 year old girl. Charlie Chaplin’s remains were stolen in Switzerland. Dallas the tv show debuted on CBS, and gave birth to the genre of modern primetime soap opera. Jimmy Carter decided to delay production of the neutron bomb. May 25, 1978 featured the first Unabomber attack at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. Al Unser won his 3rd Indianapolis 500 (my favorite racing event other than drag racing). June 25th, 1978 was the debut of the LGTB rainbow flag.
Angels outfielder Lyman Bostock was shot to death in Gary, IN while visiting friends during the season. He was another 27 guy. On October 14, 1978, Jimmy Carter signed a bill into law that allowed the home brewing of beer in the U.S. The first Superman movie was released. In Chicago, John Wayne Gacy was arrested. My friend rented an apartment in that house years later!
1978 was a Yankees Dodgers World Series, the Yanks somehow overcoming multiple issues to win everything. Those types of World Series are really annoying, but hey, I suppose they’re bound to happen sometimes. The Yankees were the only 100 game winner in 1978, and they ended up winning it all. The Dodgers were nearly as good, winning 95 games that season. The Big Red Machine was still running strong at 92 wins, more than the NL East leader, the Phillies, who only won 90 games. The Cardinals and Mets were terrible in 1978, winning under 70 games! The Red Sox finished only 1 game back of the Yankees at 99 wins.
It must be serendipitous that I was speaking of Chicago at the beginning of this article, because my favorite album of 1978 is an album that was part of an overarching soundtrack to my life in Chitown. Sun Ra’s masterpiece album, ‘Lanquidity’. I listened to it often while living there.
#1 Sun Ra – ‘Lanquidity’ One of the most subtle and deep groove albums of all time! Parts acid jazz, classic jazz, funk, world music, and space rock, it is among the best albums of Sun Ra’s entire discography! It works both as an introduction to Sun Ra and as advanced Solar Arkestra listening. They’re both more focused and tight here than usual, but also more detached and machine-like. This is Sun Ra still at his peak. Total pure genius. A stunningly deep work. Sun Ra and His Arkestra invented Afrofuturism, not just music, an art movement. And we will see several other cultural movements arise in 1978, a time of change.
#2 Rush – ‘Hemispheres’ is just as close of a life soundtrack to me as Lanquidity, so one could consider this a tie… but I feel like Sun Ra runs a little more deep. Rush is also super deep, but in a very prog rock way. And this is probably the most exemplary prog rock album of all time. It far outdoes ‘2112’, and King Crimson isn’t quite as well known as Rush. Hemispheres vs Court of the Crimson King would be an interesting debate about best prog rock album ever, but you could also enter Yes – ‘Fragile’ into that conversation as well. However, ‘Hemispheres’ is the best prog rock album released in my lifetime, and there’s not much doubt about that. And despite it being known as a bloated prog rock extravaganza, it’s actually very concise at just over 36 minutes.
#3 Captain Beefheart – ‘Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)’ could easily be #1, I would basically consider these top 3 albums a tie for first. Shiny Beast is Captain Beefheart’s sleeper beast of an album. Troutmask Replica gets most of the attention, but I’d argue that there are a few better Beefheart albums, nothing against Troutmask it’s just that the good Captain’s discography is absolutely stacked. I also love ‘Lick My Decals Off Baby’ and his very first album ‘Safe As Milk’, and I’m rather fond of his later era trio of albums ‘Shiny Beast’ (which is also known as Bat Chain Puller, which could get confusing because there’s another version of the album recorded in 1976 and released in 2012), ‘Doc At The Radar Station’ (I have both of these albums on remastered vinyl), and ‘Ice Cream For Crow’. Captain Beefheart is THE weirdo musician, and isn’t it supremely weird that him and Frank Zappa went to the same high school, concurrently?
#4 Weidorje – ‘Weidorje’ is funky alien music with basslines that not only conjure disco and funk but also Jaco Pastorius and the sound of early 70s King Crimson bassist John Wetton. This is another spinoff band from another more well known band. That band is fellow Zeuhl movement powerhouse, Magma, who also make this 1978 top 10 list. So now you know two prog rock movements: Zeuhl and RIO (rock in opposition). Canterbury Scene is another. Anyways, you may wonder where I find this stuff, but I have been a fan of this album for at least a decade. Just a big prog rock fan! This is honestly one of my favorite albums of all time. This is a very fun listen, mostly instrumental but some fun made up language vocals occasionally keep things interesting. And that album cover is absolutely amazing.
#5 Various Artists – ‘No New York’ Pretty much right after the punk explosion hit, punk rock started to splinter into new movements and subgenres. One of the earliest and most punk subgenre of all was No Wave punk, an alternative to the smoother sounds of New Wave. ‘No New York’ is exemplary, a blueprint for a whole movement, which was primarily based in New York City, but also branched out to Philadelphia, Chicago, and the Kansai region of Japan, cities with creative musicians who wanted to be on the cutting edge of culture. The term was a reaction to New Wave, and it became not only a music scene but an art movement in NYC. Glen Branca started to deconstruct the sound of guitars, bands started to do the same, and detune guitars or make certain instruments sound absurd. Rather than technical playing, reinventing sounds and displaying raucous energy were the focus. The bands on this super punk album sound really ahead of their time and had names like The Contortions, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Mars, and DNA. As this was largely a nihilistic cultural movement, the sounds of the music are usually abrasive, noisy, dissonant, and/or absurd. What is most interesting is how the movement branched out to incorporate so many different, disparate genres into its sound, making the genre more about a spirit, style, and attitude that is not easy to describe unless you’re already familiar it. This album (produced by Brian Eno) is a good intro to no wave music.
#6 Magma – ‘Attahk’ French Zeuhl progenitors update their sound with more funk, more jazz fusion, and even gospel. This album would be ranked a little higher because I love them, but I think they’re stretching a bit here. It makes the list because it features three of their best songs in album opener “The Last Seven Minutes”, “Lyric Necronomicus Kant”, and the lovely “Dondai”. This is one of the best live bands you’ll ever see, so if they tour again, it’s a must. They bring a full band with multiple guitarists, bassist, a choir of singers, and keys plus the incredible talents of drummer and bandleader Christian Vander. I’m don’t think they will be touring again because Vander is going to turn 78 years young in a couple days, but you never know.
#7 Devo – ‘Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!’ Speaking of New Wave, Devo are my favorite new wave punk band! If they were even a little less structured and pop, and a little more noisy, I think they’d be considered no wave (or maybe they just had to live in NYC instead). Devo were certainly a little weird themselves, and were one of my first favorite bands. I had a cool older sister who listened to them, and they always looked fun on MTV in their hats. While Devo were formed back in 1973, they didn’t release their first album until 1978! Devo went on to release an album every year from 1978 to 1982! And yet another album in 1984. This is one of the few bands I never got to see live, that I’d like to see. They’re so fun! Devolution.
#8 Art Bears – ‘Hopes and Fears’ is the sound of one band disintegrating into another band during the recording sessions. At the same time half of ‘Hopes and Fears’ was being recorded, the final Henry Cow album was also laid to tape. The swansong album was not released until 1979, however. The world got to hear the new band Art Bears, first. The second half of the album was recorded in March 1979, just a month or two after the first half was recorded, but now with only a trio of musicians, including singer Dagmar Krause. She absolutely steals the show here, who along with guitarist Fred Frith and drummer Cris Cutler created next level avant art rock. They became (along with Henry Cow) the originators of the Rock In Opposition movement, which aligned European outsider prog rock bands, and the English Art Bears/Henry Cow. They even had a festival based around these bands no record label dared to promote. If you enjoy oddball, weird music, this is a must-listen.
#9 Siouxsie and the Banshees – ‘The Scream’ I did not know this album even existed before I did my research, but I’m glad I found it! I’ve always liked what I have heard from Siouxsie, but I had no idea that they went all the way back to 1978. As it turns out, they’ve been around as long as Devo. While new wave and no wave were also around, Siouxsie was getting post-punk started. While they had been around a couple years before their debut album, they were not signed right away. But eventually a label released their tunes to critical acclaim and even were said to have created a new sound. The late 1970s were a very interesting time in music where old ideas were dying out and new ones emerging constantly. It was a good idea to be in a band back then as it could be your career. And you could create new ways while doing it.
#10 Magazine – ‘Real Life’ and to round out my top 10 albums of 1978 is Real Life by Magazine, and eclectic collection of songs that could also be filed under post-punk. People have also described this album as new wave or art rock, but you get the picture. If you want to know a band that influenced Radiohead, here you go. My standout track is “The Light Pours Out Of Me” which one of my favorite bands Ministry covered really well, I might add!
I could go on forever writing about music and baseball. Let’s cut if off until next week though, thanks for reading!
