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Cubs’ Catching Situation Provides More Questions Than Answers

Very few people would confuse Tim Federowicz for Jonathan Herrera, at least up close. But if you look from a distance and squint a bit, you might just see the resemblance. Herrera, you’ll recall, spent the entire 2015 season on the Cubs’ big league roster despite making it into just 73 total games and starting […]

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BP Instant: Miguel Montero to the Disabled List, Tim Federowicz up from Iowa

On Thursday morning, a few hours before the Cubs took on the Milwaukee Brewers in the finale of a rain-shortened two-game set at Wrigley Field, the team announced that Miguel Montero would be placed on the 15-day disabled list, retroactive to Monday, and that Tim Federowicz had been called up from Triple-A Iowa to take […]

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Fatigue, Platoons, and a Prospect: Cubs Catching Sans Schwarber

Kyle Schwarber was never going to catch more than a couple dozen games this season. Even as the end of Spring Training revealed the Cubs’ plan to hitch Schwarber’s catching starts to Jason Hammel’s starts on the mound, the former Hoosier’s catching development—which some began to view with cautious optimism last season, a testament to […]

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Hammel, Cubs Banking On Familiarity With Schwarber To Drive Results

It now appears that Kyle Schwarber will be Jason Hammel’s personal catcher for some portion of the 2016 season, and possibly all of it. That’s the plan, anyway, according to (variously) the Chicago Tribune and Comcast SportsNet. Why? Let’s think about this first from Schwarber’s perspective. For one thing, the Cubs want to give Miguel […]

MLB: Cincinnati Reds at Chicago Cubs

Montero and Cervelli: Twin Stories Colliding in the City of Bridges

The most fascinating players on the field on Wednesday night in Pittsburgh are likely to be Gerrit Cole and Jake Arrieta. They’re the aces, after all. They’re the huge names around whose matchup anticipation so nicely formed in the final days and weeks of the regular season. Starting pitchers take center stage during the postseason, if […]