Bryson Graham Hired To Lead The Bulls Back To Relevancy

The Cincinnati Reds showed up at Wrigley Field in first place and left in last place. The Cubs swept them in 4 games thanks to back-to-back-to-back walk-off wins. Michael Conforto homered, Michael Busch singled (plus Elly De La Cruz missed the ball), and Michael Busch walked to bring home the dramatic Ws. Going on the road ended their streak when the Texas Rangers took 2 of 3 in the weekend series and shut the Cubs out in 2 consecutive games. The pitching hospital continues to gain patients as Matthew Boyd injured his meniscus while playing with his kids and will miss at least a month. Ben Brown filled in and fired 4 hitless innings on Friday!

10 must be a hard cap. Now how many 10-game win streaks can this team put together? Fringe pitchers and an elite position player group are currently unifying for a historic stretch of baseball. 27-14 puts them in the ballpark of the 2016 Cubs at this point in the season (29-12), and their hitters have the highest collective fWAR (9.9) in all of baseball. I’m used to month-long offensive slumps from this group, and I know they will hit the occasional wall like the last 2 games, but I’m starting to think I was wrong about needing to acquire a superstar hitter to replace Kyle Tucker and carry this lineup every day.

Rookie minicamp occurred over the weekend, and they signed Barrington native WR Scotty Miller after a couple impressive days of practices.

The odds beat them, and they stayed at #4 overall in the NHL Draft. Some experts are mocking winger Ivar Stenberg to the Hawks even though he may be the 2nd best player in the draft. He would be a great linemate for Connor Bedard! Prospect Roman Kantserov is officially leaving the KHL and will sign with the Hawks soon.

39-year-old Bryson Graham was hired to lead the next era of the Bulls. Michael Reinsdorf found everything he was looking for in the unexpected winner of the interviews: communication, leadership, and talent evaluation.

Lottery luck finally went their way again as they jumped up from #9 to #4. Thanks to a group of 4 prospects generally expected to go at the top, the Bulls will land a potential star. After years of refusing to tank, the new regime can take advantage of a tank-like 4th overall pick with the redemptive version of the Patrick Williams pick.

Alex Bregman should not bat higher than 5th.

The Cubs have 12 position players with 50+ plate appearances so far this season. Alex Bregman has the lowest wRC+ (90) of all of them. The lowest mark of his career is 114, so his struggles won’t last forever. Even when he figures it out, there is no reason to keep him cemented at #3 in the lineup where he has stayed since the season began.

With Nico Hoerner hitting leadoff, a lefty makes sense at #2 and #4, and Seiya Suzuki needs to be at #3. Michael Busch and Seiya are their most complete hitters when they’re firing on all cylinders, so Nico/Busch/Seiya should be penciled in every day at the top. Another lefty like Ballesteros or Crow-Armstrong can drive in a ton of runs hitting cleanup, and that moves Bregman down to #5. He’s a solid hitter. He produces. But the Cubs have plenty of professional at-bats with higher slugging upside who should hit ahead of him.