Ryan Back-ish, Streaming TV Status, Arrieta and Ross and other Cubs Bullets

Ryan Back-ish, Streaming TV Status, Arrieta and Ross and other Cubs Bullets

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BASEBALL IS BACK TODAY * !!!

* (Well, Baseball Spring Training. **)

** (Well, but the Cubs don’t yet. They play tomorrow.)

• As suggested by the team photo, Kyle Ryan is actually now in camp with the Cubs. Jordan Bastian reports that he’s practicing with the team, but is still technically on the COVID list (I’m not sure how it works, but I’m glad he’s ready to continue). When it is officially activated, the Cubs will have to clean up a vacancy in the 40-man squad again, and they will have to clean up another to hire Ryan Tepera as well. I suspect that Rowan Wick is going to hit the 60-day IL at some point to open one of these spots, because if he hasn’t even shot (intercostal problem), then there’s no way he’s ready to shoot in the regular season by the end of April, at the very least (at which point he would be reaching the 60 day mark anyway.

• I hear this question a lot: will YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV choose Marquee for the baseball season? The answer is still “who knows”. Both streaming services chose to discard virtually ALL regional sports networks after the baseball season, so what I suspect will happen is that there will be pressure campaigns at the end of spring training to get streamers to choose the RSNs for return. Most of this will be conducted by Sinclair, which owns half of the MLB-related RSNs (those of FOX), and also has a minority stake in Yankees ‘YES Network and Cubs’ Marquee Sports Network. Therefore, Sinclair will likely try to take advantage of this coverage to strike a deal for all of these networks with any streamer who is interested in making this happen. Will it work? Well, Hulu had Marquee last year, but YouTube did not. So let’s see. We will also see if DISH finally decides to add regional sports back this year or not. For now, its only certainties in transporting the Marquee are the traditional cable providers, in addition to DirecTV and AT&T (which will soon become just one entity).

• If you missed it, the Spring Training broadcast schedule for Marquee is right here.

• Not that you expected otherwise, but when asked about second base competition, David Bote spent more time talking positively about Nico Hoerner and Ildemaro Vargas than talking about himself as the guy. He thinks it will happen anyway, and these two guys are very good:

• It makes many of us smile:

• A small side benefit of having a manager who also spent a lot of time catching an active pitcher:

• It’s just different here:

• After my confusion with a dental floss-induced filling coming out, several people told me that I needed to buy a dental floss with water (which is apparently exactly what it looks like). So I see that today is one of the deals of the day on Amazon. I think I know what I have to do. #Ads

• I look forward to seeing this, Bryan:

• This is incredible, but we are also finished:

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