Spring notes and the awful legacy of Cubs number fours

Boog opened Sunday's spring training broadcast by saying that if the Cubs won they would have their first 4-0 Cacti League start since 2009. And if there's a team we want this bunch to emulate it's the Milton Bradley 2009 Cubs.

Those Cubs went 83-79 just like the Cubs have each of the last two seasons, and they had the fifth best record in the NL in the second half (I actually don't know this and am too lazy to do the math).

Still rehabbing Nico Hoerner joined Boog and Jim Deshaies in the booth for two innings on Sunday (and he was unsurprisingly really good). One exchange was pretty interesting. In the third inning they had Cubs hitting coach Dustin Kelly also join in and they let Taylor ask him a question, which meant they had five people talking at the same time, which is always fun. She asked what he and Nico talk about on the bench during games. Dustin said that Nico is the Cubs hitter most invested in tailoring his next at bat to what the situation in the game requires. That's great. But from the results it appears that Nico and Dustin never think an extra base hit is what's needed in any of Nico's at bats.

Nico gave an update on his rehab from arm surgery and said he's progressing. He's currently taking grounders and then not throwing, which seems less than ideal. But he said he thinks it's a positive that he wants to throw, he just can't. Has he thought about just running the ball to the bag and yelling "Wheeeeeee!" like Nick Madrigal used to?

He did talk about how excited he is to talk hitting with new Cub Justin Turner, particularly how Turner went from a slap hitting infielder to a guy who really started slugging. Before he joined the Dodgers, Turner had just eight homers and a career .361 slug in parts of five seasons with the Orioles and Mets.

In his age 29 season Turner joined the Dodgers and hit .340/.404/.493 with 21 doubles in 109 games (but just seven homers), and then over the next five seasons he averaged 21 homers and slugged .508.

Nico has played more than Turner did in his first six seasons, but still has just 29 homers and a .381 slug.

So, can Nico take a similar jump at a similar point in his career?

Boog and Nico thought that was a great idea (so do I), but when they asked Kelly his answer was a tepid, "Sure. I guess. Why not?" I'm sure the fact that Turner slugged 90 points more in the minors than the majors through 2014 might have pointed to a slugging surge at some point in his career.

The first spring broadcast of the year was Friday and Marquee Sports Network kept talking about how the Cubs were celebrating the 10th anniversary of Sloan Park. They went on and on thanking the great folks at the toilet flapper company, and I was trying to do the math in my head (always problematic) until Taylor of all people explained that the Cubs have been playing in their spring training park for 11 years but the Sloan naming rights started ten years ago.

Yes, they were celebrating the anniversary of Sloan writing them a check and putting up some signage.

Great?

How many times do they need to sell the naming rights to be able to afford Kyle Tucker?

It was apparently anniversary weekend because on Saturday they "celebrated" the fifth anniversary of Marquee itself. It mainly served as a reminder that not only were they completely unprepared to launch a TV network five years ago, they also haven't done shit to make their substandard broadcasts any better.

You may or may not have noticed that there's a banner at the top of the newsletter that you can use to email in your burning questions to be answered here or on any of the podcasts. But you can also do it on Bluesky like Greg did here:

After two years of my pleading, Petecrow Armstrong has changed his jersey number from the awful 52 to the much better 4. He still has too many letters on his back, but cutting the digits down will help. Plus it just looks faster.

Petecrow claims that Jed Hoyer was shooting baskets with him before practice one day and dared him to change his number of Jed made a basket from wherever he was standing. Petecrow agreed, Jed granny shotted one on and voila!

It would be nice if the Cubs equipment staff could figure out how to center single digit numbers. They have a similar problem with Dansby Swanson's 7, but anything is an improvement.

When Greg asked his question, I immediately tried to think who the best four in Cubs history is and...man, it's bleak.