This and That

Pitchers and catchers report today, and already I’m complaining about Chicago baseball on both sides of town. Allow me to vent. Let’s start with the Cubs. I read two stories today about how ex-Sox first-round draft pick Nick Madrigal is going to be given a shot to win the starting job at third base. Oh, please. Here are two reasons why Madrigal won’t—he’s hit all of fourteen homeruns between college, the minors and three injury-plagued seasons with the Sox and Cubs; and he has yet to make it through a full season as a major-leaguer, unless you think last year’s 209 at-bats qualifies as a full season. I’m not down on Madrigal because he was traded to the wrong side of town; I just don’t see him as a full-time player. Three years with the Sox and Cubs, three different sets of injuries. Until he shows otherwise, Madrigal remains the perfect college player, great every spring. But if he has to play anything more than sixty games, look out. As for my team, it looks like Mike “I Didn’t Spit on No Baby” Clevinger will be allowed to show up to camp while MLB investigates him on abuse charges. Oh, goodie, that won’t be a distraction, now will it? And, if it is, too bad. At the risk of repeating myself, any free-agent signing these days has to go through a Caesar’s-wife process. In signing Clevinger, Rick Hahn and the front office didn’t know what they needed to know; they put that egg on their collective faces. The media should be all over Clevinger, Hahn and owner Jerry Reinsdorf, if only he ever showed his face around reporters. And, while we’re at it, I’m still waiting for Andrew Benintendi to show his immunology bona fides. If he knows all about vaccines and when to take them (or not), I want to hear about it.