[Applause]
welcome to the rants live [Applause]
welcome to the uh early morning edition of the rant live uh hopefully uh we'll
have lots of viewers maybe people come back and watch it after we record and uh certainly i'm sure the podcast
for our early morning edition hi evan hello how are you it's not really early
morning for me it's like mid morning at least it's earlier for you but uh like i was
just saying i've been up for five hours anyway i got up at 5 30.
tuesdays and thursdays man 5 30. i'm up early i got to work out in
everything i can i barely made it down here i do this from the basement in my house and
my office is on our second floor so like i had to come all the way down here and then i realized i'd done a podcast upstairs a couple days ago so i
got back down my headphone my mic weren't here to walk back i'm old i'm not as old as you but i'm old and hey who are you calling
you and going up and down the stairs after having deadlifted this morning
is not my idea of fun and then doing it twice is even worse i'm like now i'm just
sitting here in the chair and uh and i hope i can get back up so we'll see okay well maybe we should record that later
and watch it no no we we we really no it's uh we're perfectly fine perfectly fine i'm
not doing that well we have a special guest today um you all know her as a host and field
reporter for the chicago cubs and marquis sports network let's bring on taylor mcgregor taylor
nice having you today you know i'm just sitting here first of all thanks for having me on but really
inspired evan by your early morning efforts now if you could just share some of that motivation to me because my
alarm went off at seven and i still had to snooze ten times because i was on phoenix time and it
just feels really early so the fact that you also came back from phoenix you have children to attend to and you were able
to do all of this i'm quite impressed well you know part part of it is it's not really a preferable thing
um but my son my son made his middle school baseball team and we had been we've been
doing some working out and he started to lift he's 13. and
i had compiled some stuff in it you know and i said well you you've got choices
we're not going to quit working out but you know he's got practice until 4 30. it's like your one choice is you get done with practice you come home we eat
some dinner and we go to the gym in the evening a little bit later or we get up early we work out before school twice a
week and you can do it that way and then just you get done you shower you straight to school and he was like yeah
i'll do that and so that was more his choice uh but it's it's easy for him now your
choice he's done yeah well now it's it's also mine yeah but but i actually kind of like it because i've got enough stuff
we just work out in the garage and uh thankfully it's been um
the other day wasn't great but it's been getting better i don't have to run the space here so um but
it's a lot better at like six than it is at 5 30. once you get a couple of those
lifts in um it works out pretty well and then seeing it you know it's cool to watch it uh ideally pay off for him
so uh so we'll see but that's that's uh you know once you get back and adjust it to the time you can get i'm gonna be
looking for the before and after pictures evan yes no i've got no this is like of you
as i say this i'm looking at like a good like i john the beer that we got when we were out there and uh does
nothing to compare i got a big shipment uh wreath so i'm looking at like my beer fridge and a whole bunch of stuff over here so i do a few too many like
16-ounce curls in addition to my workout so the before and after is like before
looks better than after it's just yeah it's it's i still have a distinct
dad bod it's just like my pants fit a little better so that's really that's really welcome
well i was just gonna say i am the perfect example of sometimes when i work out harder than i think i can eat worse
yeah i'm like this is counterproductive for me because i'm so much more hungry i'm like oh now i can eat a pizza
because i worked out today so yeah that's that's exactly how it works that's kind of the whole point right
that's what i thought at least especially as you get older but this is where you're done you're always the same time we have to have john you and i just
have to be honest you know we don't we're we're not trying to be presentable to like more than five or six people at a time so yeah
we have we have maybe hundreds of viewers versus millions so yeah it's a
little bit different for us a little less pressure um but welcome to the show as we like to
say you know the production value around here is we kind of make fun of it a little bit because it's it's not that
great usually um so uh i'd like to apologize in advance if the production
level falls well short of your uh i think it's great experience well you guys are well lit i definitely
need to invest in a ring light i've been saying that i'm gonna do that for two years now and i haven't
so um i definitely need to do that because you guys are well lit you have awesome backgrounds and i have neither uh so i
think you guys are way ahead of me when it comes to that so i'm impressed okay all right my lumi cube i won't
shine in anybody's face one of those things like half of my face is lit from the window yeah this thing is really
good i i i've been happy with that one and it it's uh it's all you know it's remote and all that good
stuff uh but uh typically i will forget to charge it and then so you will generally find i think it's fully charged now we just go about
halfway through a show all of a sudden it just goes dark okay hence the production value
perfect i was putting my i was preparing for the show and uh and and the realization
settled upon me that we we're interviewing somebody who does this for a living and suddenly i got
like very nervous i was like oh my god i'm going to be she's going to be critiquing the questions so that's why i come out and
not that i think you are but i'm just saying like that's why i just wanted to kind of set the the level the the
your expectations really low i'm just happy to be on
truly well thanks for joining us so you joined the cubs at the start of the 2020 season just as marquis was starting up
what was that transition like moving from a team like the rockies the smaller market team to a larger market team like
the cubs it was really exciting i sort of started interviewing for the job in november of
2019. so it had been in the works i got to go to cubs convention in early 2020 when
the world was normal and that absolutely blew me away
i mean i couldn't believe the extent of that where
cub fans came from all over the country to attend this event and just the production that it takes to put that
thing on that was my first taste of oh boy i'm not in kansas anymore um
and i really enjoyed it and then you know the pandemic hits so it's been very
different for me the last two seasons really because i haven't gotten the full experience of what the job would
normally be like but i think the thing that stands out to me is even the
travel that i have done although it's been limited every game feels like a home game you go everywhere and cub fans show up
everywhere and that is so fun and so cool and um you know even for me i remember i was
doing a game at florida state for for espn because i do some college football stuff
and one of the referees was a huge cub fan and he stops me and
taylor and and that you know just the reach of cubs nation
is crazy and and that's what you know really stands out to me when i think about the difference you
know i don't think i experienced that as much in colorado but you know and with with the cubs it's
it's real cubs nation is amazing and they're everywhere
yeah it's so is it more kind of like a a feeling of celebrity almost being
associated with the cubs and and being recognized maybe more uh at more places than than you would
have before or you know maybe not just in chicago i wouldn't say celebrity as
much as you can just feel the extent of the franchise and how far it reaches and
um you know even you hear stories of oh i you know i became a fan because my
grandfather's grandfather's grandfather and just the generational impact that this organization has had on
families that's what stands out to me so i would just say the reach i wouldn't then necessarily say the celebrity but
just you know how many fans there are all across the country and then when you talk to them
their stories of why they became cub fans are so cool and you know in denver the
franchise is under 30 years old so i've basically been alive for the
entirety of the franchise and um you know there's no such thing as my grandfather's grandfather's grandfather
was a rockies fan who brought me over and that's what's different in chicago
i actually lived in colorado when the rockies started and it was cool because they started
playing in mile high i don't i don't know if uh if you remember that evan but yeah it was insane and they were selling mile
high out and that was like a hundred thousand people was like they reconfigured the entire stadium and it
was just it was a it was a trip they still have the attendance record and it will never really be broken
because mile high holds a capacity that none of the other stadiums hold so
even if you sell out every single game you're still not going to reach the attendance record yeah special first few
seasons there for sure yeah that was uh i always had the i considered the rockies for a while well
now and as a as a chris bryant fan i can uh i can let my rockies flag fly a little bit more but i have a lot of
family out in denver so we've gone to rocky's games in the past like uh and uh i was actually out there for my cousin's
wedding last summer we went to a rocky's a's game not quite as well attended as some others but uh but i was out
when would that have been 12 was it was it 92 that they uh that they
were formed yeah and then 12 i think that was so i was out there when they had the 20th anniversary uh so they had
like andre scalaraga and dante bechet and uh and larry walker were all out there blake street bombers yeah the
blake street bombers and i was there because the cubs were playing there and i happened to schedule a business trip um and i actually got to see junior
lakes debut and he got a double and it was just kind of a cool it was so that there's always that uh that tie uh
because when i was a kid that was like neat they oh we got two new teams we got the rockies and the marlins and um so
anyway uh that aside you know i was i was wondering about because you you talk about going to cubs
convention and and getting kind of i don't know if you can really be acclimated to it but getting that you're
drinking through a fire hose i'm sure right brand new network brand new fan base
and then you know two months later the whole thing shuts down um
what what was that like for you trying to make that transition get your feet under you with this whole new venture
and then boom everything's gone there's no baseball for a while uh how did how were you able
to handle that and just kind of balance the new duties and responsibilities of this job with not actually having a team
to cover for a while it was wild um and it was hard for everybody across baseball who covers the
sport you know for marquis we had this momentum we had launched and it felt like okay the
season is progressing i had done every spring training game up to that point and so i you know i felt like i was
getting to know the guys we were on a good path and boom the world shuts down and then
you know quarantine was weird for everybody but then the part when we came back and
i could not do my job even remotely the same way that i had become accustomed
the past several years that was the hardest part because i didn't have the type of relationship with the players
that some of the other reporters had had and i mean it was hard for everybody whether you'd known the guys for 30
years or not so it just seemed impossible you know everything was over zoom and everybody
had the same stuff it was hard for me because you know i'm trying to tell a little bit different stories than you know you
might read in the paper and there was just no avenue to sort of go about getting them
and that was really really hard and you know i think for me professionally
it was like i'm being judged on this work that's not even the way that i would actually do my job and so
yeah it was hard in a way to be you know feel like i was being judged by that but at the same time like
i'm confident in the reporter that i am and who i am so i tried to not let that stuff bother me
um and just knew that it would get better one day and and this is a global pandemic and everybody's going through a
hard time and i'm not the only one so i'm not gonna feel sorry for myself um
so it was definitely weird um and i hope all that stuff is in the rear view
hopefully and we never have to go through that again but i think one day we'll look back and
in a way be thankful to say i was there i covered that i was at wrigley on opening day in 2020 when nobody else was
there i was the only person in the stands and there's a part of that that all cherished forever you know because it
was unique and so weird and different um and i gotta be a part of that whether i
really would have chosen that or not i don't know but um you know i'm trying to now look at it in a positive light
yeah i can't imagine that was that was the dream that unfolded when you were first offered the the cubs job was like
you know your first game being in an empty stadium with absolutely no fans and people yelling at you from the
rooftops what was that experience like could you like literally because we went to some games on the rooftops could you
you could hear the the guys that were up on the rooftops from inside the stadium like what was
was that kind of a weird feeling it was super weird and the cubs opened with milwaukee that year
in 2020 and i remember ryan braun coming to bat and you heard the booze really loud and
that was um or wait was ryan brown gone and it was yelich and maybe that's what we were
talking about could have been either of them
now that i say that um but i just remember the booze and that was fun um
to hear and and i know yelich said something like of course they still found a way to boo me um
that was the real for sure yeah yeah you mentioned you know this
isn't exactly what i dreamt of i i had gone to day games at wrigley before as a fan
and i remember specifically it was cubs diamondbacks 2016. it was june of 2016
going to a game and i just graduated college thinking oh my gosh you know i
could work here one day that would be about as good as it gets so certainly when the job presented itself
and i got it that was what i was thinking of is those atmospheres the day games and
especially that year because i think everybody at that point sort of knew the team was special and so i you know that
was what i wanted to replicate that season and it was the exact opposite with zero fans in attendance
well you know you talk you talked about opening day in 2016 and and i was i was kind of reminiscing
yesterday uh because opening day 2016 was it was in anaheim it was the same night as the
ncaa championship and uh and i was in anaheim it was you know you talked about this earlier like
you go on the road and there's tons of cubs fans there it was wild to go out to
anaheim and have like i i went as i work a regular job in
addition to my um my fame here as a podcaster and blogger but um i was out
there again on a business trip it's amazing how many of my business trips have have somehow coincided with cubs games
yeah it's it's amazing it's really incredible um i don't know how that works out there was a coincidence yeah
totally coincidence and we go to um there's a brew pub just north of the ballpark
and i knew like five people in line and we go inside i know a bunch more people in there and um
danny rocket and and luis medina from from bleach nation and and bleed cubby
blue and san ranto podcast respectively and then joel cummins who's a keyboard player for humphreys mcgee was in there
he's a friend of mine he's coming over and hanging out with and my co-workers looking at me and she is not okay she's from texas originally she was
like are you famous or what like i was like no we just we all knew we were going to be here
right but but it was wild to be like we all knew something special was happening and
i'm i'm actually driving toward a point here so bear with me but um but you can go through this all the time taylor yeah
and you see all these pictures though on twitter that were yesterday from cubs fans who were there in anaheim
at the start of that season because everybody knew first of all it's a much nicer weather in anaheim for
opening day that typically is in chicago so it's a great trip but i guess getting back to that
this is really so you talk about 2020 opening day ballpark is empty 2021 opening day 25 capacity or whatever it
was at the time 30 percent whatever now however you know it's open
it's a new season you've got a full ballpark does that are you looking at this a little bit differently just as
part of this is like your first regular season
on the on the gig right like this is you you get to finally cover a full ballpark right from the start and ideally a full
season do you look at it that way i mean are you kind of maybe a little bit more hyped up than usual to kind of really
get started with this thing absolutely and not just for 100 capacity
obviously that is so important and i cannot wait for that but for me clubhouse access being able to be
on the team charter and back to the normal way of traveling as a broadcaster and just being able to
build those relationships with the players and get better stories and talk to guys when i want to talk to them and
not have to wait for them to be on the zoom call that week or you know schedule interview a week out so
it's i cannot even tell you how excited i am um it's gonna be so much fun and
look the last few years you sort of felt like oh this job isn't as fun as i thought it you know as i remember it
being and it's like well yeah because everything fun about the job has been eliminated you know it was sort of like
the relationships that you get to build and the people that you get to be around and the fun things that you get to do the travel like that's so much fun and
with all that stripped away and all you do is just appear on live tv like that's not as fulfilling to me as building
those relationships even with fans i mean the fact that i could go out to the berm and meet you guys and hang with you
like that fills me up so much in the last couple years i haven't been able to do that um so people definitely are the
reason that i do this job and when you kind of took that away from me the last few years it's been hard so i am so so
excited to have that all back and um you know hopefully we get to talk again
down the line and i'm saying like this is exactly what i dreamed of you know i knew this was gonna be good so i'm
looking forward to it yeah i mean in a way the whole covet experience you know i think this is true
for everybody but maybe even a little bit more so for you and and the players on the cubs
kind of brought probably brought you a little closer together when like you go through you know a couple seasons like
we've just gone through and then you see them at the beginning of this season and things are kind of much more normal and
it's kind of like it has to feel like really refreshing not just for you but for the players is
there like is there like an extra level of camaraderie that you think you've built even though maybe you hadn't had
the chance to develop those same relationships i would definitely say players have
stopped us in the clubhouse and said wow we're glad you're back we've missed this and that's a special bond you know
because sometimes you're in the clubhouse and you think they don't want me here at all but the fact that they went without that for two years and now
having us back they actually realized oh we like this we want you in here that's
been special i think what's challenging about answering that question from a cubs reporter perspective is the
turnover you know if i was dealing with the same guys that i was dealing with in 2020 maybe
um but obviously the clubhouse has changed so i think there's a level of camaraderie with these guys that's
unique simply because they're young and they're new to the big leagues they want to be on tv they want to get interviewed
you know as time goes on that's not necessarily um how everybody feels
yeah yeah they kind of hide from you well we were out uh in arizona we were talking about when you know javi and
chris bryant and all those the bigger guys were on the team there's that path that goes from
the the player facility into the stadium at sloan park and we started talking about how the players as they got really
good and after 2016 they wouldn't come down that path anymore they'd take a golf cart around the back and they'd
avoid the fans but now you've got all the young uh players who are coming down there they're signing autographs they're
stopping they're talking we were talking about how refreshing that is to kind of see that change and it's kind of the
exact same thing right absolutely that's such a great way to put it and a great example
um of once you you've been around the block a little you kind of get burnt out and
it's nice to get some fresh faces that appreciate um you know the
cubs nation appreciate my job you know wanting to tell stories so not that those other
guys didn't but they had done it so much it wasn't as alluring at for you know anymore because they had done it so so
much and there was a lot of demand for those guys because they were such stars so
um i don't i don't necessarily blame them for the way that you know they might have avoided the fans a little or
the media because they'd certainly done a lot over the years but it is nice
to have some younger faces in there and guys who are excited to step into a new role
yeah that's gotta make your your job just a little bit kind of i don't know if it's more fun or easier or what the
way to describe it is but where you've got you know if you look forward as cubs fans when we look at what's happening
right now after the trade deadline and kind of the younger faces that are coming up a lot of uncertainty around the team and how they're going to
perform this year in the next couple of years as fans that can kind of get you a little uh tense you know but as as
someone that's in your position it's actually kind of a cool thing because you get to meet all these new faces you
get to establish lots of new relationships and that's kind of that's that's i assume you enjoy that part of
it uh no doubt no doubt and just sort of being there from the beginning i think
you develop a level of respect with the players that will never go away i felt that in colorado with some of the
guys who debuted when i was there um you know no matter how big of stars
they become i think they'll always you know sort of have a respect for me that's different because i was there
from day one and i feel the same way about the players who are getting brought up now you know to be there from
day one you just have a different level of of respect of connection with with
somebody so that's what's exciting for me you know being there when frank schwendell came up and had those great
two months you know um we'll see the way that he performs this year but it's been cool
to be there and and you know to kind of share that with him and now as he goes
on through the rest of his career hopefully just keep that relationship that we have so
it is cool it's really a unique situation to be in especially because it's
basically the whole team yeah but not just a couple players oh we've noticed yeah yeah
yeah we may have talked about that a couple years oh really yeah oddly enough uh which is what's nice to break up the
monotony of us just whining about stuff but uh no but but there there have been a few people
and i think that's one of the neat things so we've talked about this on here as well as we've had some guests um
oddly enough much easier to get guys when they're in the minor leagues um but but to be able to follow that
journey um and a couple of those and i think you know i was i'm not gonna lie i got a little i was
cutting some onions last night when i saw the ethan roberts stuff um because ethan's a guy
um i won't go into the whole story i won't bore you with it i've shared it a million times already about how i got to
know him but like we've had scott f ross on the show and i've interviewed him from the time that he was at myrtle beach before
changing to sidearm and so to follow that journey and then you feel invested
in these guys and then you see that and i think everyone even if you didn't know him ethan that is the the video from last
night and you see this guy talking to the media afterwards with this smile on his face that that looks
like it's going to split his whole head in half because he just he's walking on air that's i just you know for someone like
yourself who i'm sure that's a story you're gonna follow a little bit right as he's coming up with the club but are there
are there some guys in particular or some different angles that you're kind of i don't wanna i want you to give away
you know any of any of your uh material that you're building but are there any particular stories
you're kind of digging into right now or planning out for the next few weeks or just letting it happen organically
yeah well there's certainly a lot of stuff that just happens organically and it might be something i see in the moment that you follow up on but just
sort of a broad approach like you were mentioning i mean i think of justin steele and the story that he was last year
coming up out of the pen and then getting stretched out as a starter and just his mentality he's such a
competitor i love watching him pitch um and i just i trust him because of that mentality
and i you know he's kind of a guy that i knew from day one and i'm excited to see how his season plays
out and there's some stories like that i think ildemar vargas he had a great spring i have a great relationship with
him obviously he just got optioned to triple a but you know maybe there's depth needed in the middle infield and
he gets brought up and that's kind of a fun story to me um you know the potential that he could provide patrick
wisdom is a is a great story we've all heard about it we know
um you know what makes his game great the things that he needs to work on but also just
the story of him being a 30 year old rookie and i actually knew some people who knew him so i had kind of you know
heard about him for years before i met him as a reporter so
that's a fun story to follow too so i think there's a lot of good stories on this team that are going to be really
interesting to see how they play out frank swandell i mentioned it he had a great two months well what's the season
going to be like over the course of 162 games can he be a legit first baseman for this team and
somebody who hits maybe even 280 um over the course of 162 games we'll see so um
to answer your question there's a lot of stuff that i'm following i don't know if i have anything specifically for you
right now but um i just think overall there's a lot of numbers and trends that we'll keep our eyes on through the
course of the season that i think are going to be fun to follow yeah i've got to admit that you know
it was kind of weird you know obviously when the cubs traded anthony rizzo and all the other guys it was it was it was heartbreaking to be
honest i was actually in chicago i live in phoenix arizona but i was in chicago
i usually go for a couple weeks at a time and stay with a friend near wrigley
and go to games with my my two boys who are eight and nine and
we were staying there and i was you know covering it for the blog cubs insider and as the trades were happening and i'm
posting things and my kids come in and they're crying because they're watching this stuff unfold on tv as i was inside
and i'm sitting here trying to type up stuff i've got my kids crying because chris brian and anthony rizzo been traded i'm like it's it was a very
emotional time um and and it was just weird and then and then you get to pass that right and and
then and then you have a guy named frank schwendel that comes up and you've never heard of him and there couldn't be like
uh just a more perfect name like that's not like a guy you think like i had never heard of frank sindel
i'm going to admit um but to see him and like as you mentioned like that story unfold and to
watch it kind of become something where it's like and he seems like a really cool like fun loving guy for i mean
think about what it took for him to get to the major leagues like he's played baseball his entire life 30 year well
maybe not 30 years but you know up until he was in his 30s and he's finally made it i mean like
like what's the energy from a guy like that versus the energy from a guy that's young and a prodigious talent
i think the best way to put it would probably be
a different type of appreciation um i think
i'm going to put patrick wisdom in this category frank schwendale they've sort of been burned by the game
you know they've had challenges frank schwendell was up with the oakland a's i think he hit a homer in his first game and then
was optioned and then dfade and and so it was like what can i do more to stick in this game and then obviously he
gets his chance with the cubs and sort of runs with it and there's a long list of things that he went through throughout the course of his career
patrick was in the same way a first round pick couldn't really stick he had ups and downs and then he kind of finds a a spot
with the cubs and he hit 28 homers last year so there's
i think they understand the spot that they've been given a little bit more um
you know i with the rockies trevor story this is what i think of in in 20 i think it was
2017 when he came up and you remember he hit like 10 homers and
crazy amount of his first like two weeks in the big leagues and i remember carlos gonzalez saying
like the game's about to humble him like he can't hit that many homers forever and i think when you're with some of the
younger players who haven't maybe experienced the trials and tribulations of of baseball in the major leagues you
know they're just everything is perfect nothing could go wrong oh my gosh this is the greatest thing ever and there's
and there's an appreciation and almost like i can't believe i'm here factor and then with some of those older guys i
think there is the same like i'm so appreciative i can't believe i'm here but it's also like
i've been through so much to get here that i'm sort of you know in a different way appreciating how hard it was to get
there if that makes any sense there's just sort of a little i think the older guys sort of have a
different view of how hard it is to really make it to the major leagues and a different type of
appreciation if that makes sense but frank's awesome because he's such a normal dude and wisdom same way there's
so many guys with the cubs right now that you're like you're so normal you know they go frank goes back to new
jersey and lives with his wife's parents it's just they're just so normal
and things that we all do you know so it's been fun to cover them
now that's uh that that has been really cool and we we noticed like my son um he was there with me at spring train
he got got pictures along the walkways john was talking about it was just interesting to note how you know guys
like schwendell and wisdom would stop and and get pictured when wisdom was leaving right he left the game just a little bit early i think you know and we
had left we were going back to the backfield and he's leaving the ballpark but as he's walking down there he's still signing for people getting
pictures just kidding and thanking people yeah thank hey thank you guys and i think that was so cool it's like
hey we're we're getting this appreciation like those guys weren't used to fans knowing who they were right because i mean frank schmidt is a
really nondescript dude there's no way you're picking him out and saying that's a ball player that guy you know that guy came up and
starred for the cubs for sure like he's the last person you'd pick or you know again i look at somebody like
like roberts but if you're if you're looking into some stuff there's some cool and maybe you already have this so i'm not you know but but neat
statistical things i think uh and these are these are guys who i'm following anyway but you look at ethan roberts
spin rates uh the fact that he set the record for spin rate at vanderbilt despite the fact that he never went to
vanderbilt but he's got the highest spin rate recorded there in their ballpark and then if you look at scott f ross no
other pitcher in baseball releases the ball more to the third base side than he does with his sidearm delivery so um fun
things there and and i know you you all have covered that and talked about it with his uh changes but
i know one of the things i'm really looking forward to is seeing how that development pipeline works out and
seeing how many more of these new guys come up through the system so i'm looking forward to the coverage um and just
being able to watch every day and get that i i know um you know certainly the early going was was
rough with 2020 but uh it's nice to have i mean honestly i i switched to xfinity
so i can make sure i had marquis uh right because i needed to be able to watch uh i'm i live outside of indianapolis
and so i never got it locally anyway and so i needed to have that channel in it but
it's great to be able to pull that up and i get to watch cole wright and uh and and have him do his thing we've had
him on the show we've had tony and drake here on the show now we've got you um i really appreciate the the coverage
that you all are putting out there and the access uh to be able to have one place
right uh well other than the occasional friday night um when uh when we can watch and i have
apple tv plus so i can watch those games now but but having everything there right front to back um nose to tail coverage
so uh again appreciate everything that that you're doing there and i look forward to seeing
uh how this all plays out over the next year should be fun thank you i appreciate that it's been so much fun so
i'm looking forward to even more access with the players and a more normal year
so taylor i wanted to ask you just a couple uh not necessarily personal questions here
before we before we end the show but you know you're obviously you're new to chicago how how much time have you spent
in chicago had you spent in chicago before you got the job with the cubs so my best friend from college lived here
before i got the job so having her here was huge just that instant comfort level and i had visited her i had come as a
visitor with the rockies um i came to a wedding here in college
i had visited maybe at you know five six seven times before
um been to wrigley twice you know two different series
so limited in a way um but i always said i
would love to live in chicago i i knew that and so when this job came open it was sort of too good to be true wait i
can move to chicago and you know my 20s and have a fun life there and cover the cubs
like sign me up so it didn't really go according to plan because the pandemic hit and i couldn't have as much of a
social life as they wanted to but it's still been great so i'm looking forward to the summertime shy that everybody
talks about and it's awesome in chicago that we play day games
uh for a lot of reasons but one of those you can go to dinner with your crew or with your friends
on fridays and saturdays so i'm looking forward to this summer for sure so have you had an old style in the
bleachers or just in wrigley i have yes yes i
i did have a lot of fun out in the bleachers that i was telling you that game against
the diamondbacks 2016. we were there for a wedding um and so there was a ton of my college
friends in town and we had a college-like time i'm out in the bleachers and it was great it was so
much fun uh and again i'm not kidding when i say i remember thinking if i could work here that would be as
good as it gets um because the electricity and that stadium i just remember
it was captivating it was so much fun so yes yeah especially in 2016 right yes it
was it was the perfect time and it was funny because a bunch of my friends got cubs gear and you know kind of followed
them throughout the year and then they won the world series so um i think some of my friends took
credit because they were the the newfound cups fans but i do not want them to take me credit all just why not
hey we i'd take credit for it because i left the bar where i was at during the rain delay because i said if i left and
they would win so i think i think all of us whatever whatever we've got to do to tell
ourselves that we had a part of it i think we try i'm the queen of that i'm about as superstitious as it gets unfortunately
awesome well it's been it's been awesome having you today taylor it's been great getting to know you thanks so much for
joining us and good luck this season thanks so much for having me this was so much fun john i was glad i got to meet
you and evan i look forward to having you out to chicago both of you guys together and
you'll be out enjoying a nice cold one out um in the bleachers i will be working but i'll wave to and i'll come
say hi how about that sounds good awesome sounds good thanks thanks a lot taylor
thank you bye see all ya cool that was fun it's always fun
uh you know what do you guys have a guest and shake things up you know so it's not just me bitching about what the
cubs have done or whatever but it is that it is really cool though to get that perspective and i think that goes
back to something we it's been a while since we talked about it but when we when we had you know sahadev sharma and
um tony and draki i mentioned some of those guys who cover the team and how
the last couple years uh certainly 2020 they weren't able to really
get and tell those stories right that that you would normally to
not not just to get to know the guys but to find out more the personal stuff because when you're on a zoom conference
call like everybody's got access to the same questions and the same answers but it's those little things you kind of
pick up that you know and the first hey you might have five conversations with somebody and the first four of those
none of that's ever being reported none of it's ever going to be the actual story
but those things all then feed into what the story eventually becomes and i think that's one of the most
important things that that a lot of us don't ever see right we we read the story or we hear
you know we might hear taylor report on it but we don't know what all went into that and and the trust that you've got
to build with someone the rapport for them to actually share some of those things and and um
you know like i said that that is what's cool to me and i'm just man i'm so
stoked after yesterday i can't tell you how excited i was like i that last night was when baseball that was cool like
officially brought it back for me because yeah we've been saying for a while like i've been putting it out
there i said ethan roberts will make the roster because i've been trying to speak it into existence like he deserves it he's gonna make it i know he will
but to see that happen to see his reaction to it and to know that it was it was going on
man that was so neat and i'm just so so happy for him and his family um to
to see that and to and again to look at it be like you know i've gotten to interview justin steele i actually did
at that uh cubs convention taylor was talking about i've gotten to interview justin steele a couple times we've had scott afros on the show a couple times
we had ethan on the show now there's these guys that are up with a club that
while there are some other things that i may not be real happy with about the direction that the team is making
i feel personally invested in the fact that i actually know some of these people as human beings um
and i'm very very excited to watch them perform and so that that part of it means a lot to me
uh if i strip away any objectivity at all and i can just look at it say like you know what this is cool because i get
to watch ethan pitch not not roberts not this guy this rookie they called up like i
you know someone who uh who i've gotten to know and i i love that about this season even if
other things maybe are not what i would prefer so well that was kind of what uh what
taylor was was talking about right was like getting getting involved at the beginning of something and and what
you're talking about is even more so right where it's like even before the beginning i guess right is is when
they're in the minor leagues and that's that's something that we've always valued is the relationship set that we have with those minor league
players and then you start to kind of see them going up and moving up into the organization and
that was something that that we haven't really experienced i mean you have a relationship with mike bryant chris
bryant's dad but that was still a little different i mean that happened after chris had already kind of made it and
chris was the star even before he became uh you know a major league player
and so yeah like seeing these these guys like that are in the minor leagues that
that you and the show have developed a relationship with make it up
i mean you can't help but root for them right i mean like they're obviously major underdogs heading into the season
but who knows i mean like i said you go nine and one at least you've got some excitement going on
yeah and i mean i think we talked about that when i was out there saying you know is that likely with the brewers coming
to town to open with four games no but but you know hey you go you go 9-1 that's eight games over five but you go
500 the rest of the year your eight games over 500 finished with with the six teams in the league making
the playoffs you know that probably gets you in now and and really the the real key
we talked about last year we talked about how things went and and again if a frog had wings he wouldn't bump his ass when he hopped so
we got to be careful with how we we put these hypothetical situations out there but cubs fans we that's what we do man
well that's true but i mean they had two double-digit losing streaks right like that's what sank them it
wasn't like i mean because they had some re i mean they were just smoking hot through a lot of may
and june you know up till june 24th and then the wheels fell off and then you have you have a couple of those so um
again i think on on paper they're certainly improved from what they were you know after the trade deadline um but
again i think there is uh you know while i i believe there are other things i've
made note of those many many times that i think they should have done uh what they are
right is uh there there are a lot of guys and there's more coming right there's more of them that'll be coming
up and i look at guys like going down those backfields and watching a lot of those young guys play uh whether that be
brennan davis james trantos owen casey write very different levels of the organization scott kobos uh max bain
i got to talk to max for a while again two-time guest to the show right there he and frost both
um and to see what happens with those guys in the minors and and how that development path goes
um you know there are a lot of things that for as much as i could but but you know
what at the end of the day i can complain about it but um i'm reasonably sure that neither tom ricketts nor jed
hoyer listens to me or or reads me at least in terms of trying to determine what they should do
and so no amount of me complaining about it is going to change things so
now that it's started now that we're past the point of of me trying to be like well you should make these moves
uh you know i kind of resigned myself like i said hey your your boys have baseball going on my
son's got baseball going on uh you know no pun intended pretty much full swing we got a meeting tonight with the
athletic director and then the team break out we're they're getting their jerseys and so i'm like hey man i've got so much
time devoted to that that the last thing i really need to do uh i say as i as i posted two
articles this morning one of which is about how the cubs are still the most exp expensive experience in baseball the other about how they added dan gilbert
to their uh bid consortium for chelsea so i'd say i'm not going to be negative and i've written two things
this morning that are laying out the business side but um hey the ricketts make it pretty easy
right they set that up yeah i mean it's a low-hanging fruit right it's not like i think i'm digging for this stuff um
you know sadly yeah and they're probably i mean it sounds like they're they're like way out front of the chelsea bid at this point it's what it sounds like but
um you know i i haven't been i haven't i didn't go to a game at wrigley last year
um i i don't i don't think i did did i no i don't think i did
is that the first year or it's the first year since 2001
wow that i had you got to get out there this year well right well i mean 2020 i couldn't right i went to two games on
the rooftop right so like kind of i did but but nobody went to a game in wrigley so i and and i went to um i saw them
play the reds in cincinnati so i went to a cubs game uh i saw
the yankees and rangers play in arlington and i saw the a's and rockies play in denver so i went to major league
games and i did go to a cubs game i did not go to wrigley a lot of that was the timing right with my son's baseball and
everything else and i was kind of like you know i didn't want to go early i went to a south bend cubs game um yeah
so i i absolutely have to get back and it's a timing thing but now
a lot of that is is the personal investment of being able to go and and what's funny is last year i went
to see you know the iowa cubs came through town right played the indianapolis indians here i went
uh one time i got uh got to see i got talked with scott f ross right saw him
pitch there and as i'm talking to him justin steele was doing rehab so i talked to justin steele here the next
time they come through uh ethan roberts is up with him and i talked to ethan and so what a trip
uh it would be right these guys came through and i got to see them all play triple a ball and now they're all going
to be up with the cubs all three of those guys are up with chicago cubs on the opening day roster um you know as a
part of the team and that again that to me is something that i am far more invested in
than you know really maybe the machinations of the of the greater organization at this point because i can't affect that but i can
support people that um that i respect and appreciate and and uh just enjoy that you know as a as
a person even beyond being a fan so that's that's really cool but i said man excuse me
i don't think i'm not actually getting choked up now like in a in a emotional sense i just got a dry throat but but it
wasn't it was it was dude legit cutting onions
you know what i mean last night it was awesome so anyway well i i'll tell you dude the the cubs
this year are set up to you know obviously there's not a lot of expectations around the team but they do
have some talented players and there is a world where you know where you can convince yourself or you could look at
this team and and say you know this is a group of guys that could get on a hot streak
right i mean it's not it it wouldn't be the craziest thing that's ever happened in the sport for
them to get on a hot streak and and it certainly is kind of the group of guys
that it would be a lot of fun if they did get on a hot streak and if they did get out and start going and and
doing really well yeah i mean they could and uh i was just trying to you know again here's production value good thing
we don't have a guest on i was going to reply to you but i'm on my computer that doesn't type and so uh so i would say we
just go ahead and do the preview because i will not be here on thursday i'm going to be out of town um so i'd say we we could go ahead and and
rock a little preview here to close the show out maybe yeah so i haven't even looked at the the the
pitching oh you probably don't watch you probably don't want to but it's uh the cubs are opening on
thursday the weather's been kind of a little shaky it now looks like a kid i
have a ticket to opening day and i was going to go out there and and now i've said no i'm not going to go out there
and and then my buddy uh out in chicago which you know obviously we know some people in chicago just fyi
and he's telling me oh man the weather's changing the weather is changing so let's look to see the forecast for the
weather it was it would look really good it's gonna be like 43 and not rainy instead of like 40 and rainy
46 right now and cloudy instead of rain but it does look rain and snow on friday
well that is just that's downright balmy yeah
so um so it's it'll be interesting but saturday and sunday look like it's going to be okay so perhaps they get a double
double header and if they can't get the game in on friday but opening day looks like it's a go uh going to be a little chilly um
cubs uh kyle hendricks on them on the bump it goes hendrix steel um
marcus strowman and then and then who's four probably smiley probably smiley because they want to go
right left right left didn't look particularly good yesterday as a matter of fact no that game was crazy
yeah and i think i think the thing here's the thing to note too as we saw so uh jesse chavez
went i think three innings the day before and then smiley what did he end up getting three but he
he's not been stretched out nor has alec mills i i think we see jesse chavez in like a piggy back type situation i i
think the guys the back end of that rotation with smiley and mills are going to be heavily dependent upon the bullpen
um you know more so than maybe what we'd expect i mean in general you kind of find that but i think i think that'll be
more the plan than like we'll have these guys ready just in case but more like hey man if you make it
three innings that's gravy you know what i mean so i think that'll be uh the key but yeah it looks like the brewers are
gonna have so that he got corbin burns brandon woodruff freddie peralta and probably
adrian houser uh for their first four and uh if you look at what was it 15 or
4 or 14 and five that they went against the cubs either way they they steamrolled the cubs pretty easily last
year and having to face those first three uh you were talking about
some very serious some hard throwing nasty junk dudes uh that the brewers are gonna put
out there so that's where uh the optimistic 901 star but hey you never know i mean that
the whole thing is those guys will limit you but you know maybe some things happen we saw
yesterday somali didn't have a good game but the cubs really exploded offensively
before all of their flaws and the lower upside i think that we see
with this lineup than what we've seen in the past it does appear to be a little bit more balanced right and in terms of
uh you know if i mean hell nick madrigal hit a home run but i mean with him you know he appears to be healthy
uh nico horner i mean i really like what clint frazier's bringing we saw happ hit a big bomb yesterday
uh suzuki seems to be getting his timing i mean there's i feel
i don't feel great about the lineup by any stretch but this at least does not feel like that
boom or bust type of deal where you're going to see them break out for 15 runs one game and then get shut out two in a
row and then score one run and then come back and score 10 you know in the fourth well and that's kind of the most
interesting thing about starting with the brewers is that the cubs have aired on the side of high contact guys and
yeah you know i've been complaining a lot about it uh because it just doesn't seem like they have any power
but we're gonna find out right away if that is a good approach or not because they're going against they're in
situations that you want high contact guys and and this would be a series that
you know in prior years with uh you know javi baez and and chris and
all the other big names that were on the team before it would be boom or bust type of situation right where they where you
could see him like you know not having very much offense at all but this team was built for this right
this team is kind of constructed in a way that they should be
in the game as long as they get some decent pitching yeah i mean that that's
i think that's the other the other real issue right is that they they did construct uh
the lineup to have a lot of contact unfortunately their rotation gives up a lot of contact right that's they they
but they've got it they've got a good defense though right yeah i mean they they you know on paper i think except
for the fact you know and what i don't like is the idea that jason hayward gets shifted over to uh to center where he is
not nearly as adept defensively i mean he is he's a an average to slightly
below average center fielder right he's do you think he's starting it's the starting center field he's gonna be the
starting center fielder um you know i mean should he be no
um but the way it's set up it doesn't look like they're even willing to relegate him to a bench role it may be
one thing you know that they don't want to dfa him which you know again i get it even though realistically
that's probably the best move organizationally at this point um
but they're also not making them a bench bet so a little bit odd there for a variety of reasons but i i think we'll
see some different lineups i think ross is going to tinker with some stuff i think you're gonna see
all kinds of pictures this this opening weekend these first four days just because again the limited
amount of time strowman's really the only one who we saw get stretched out much at all even
hendrix wasn't going beyond really three innings in most these games so uh the bullpen is gonna be
integral more so than usual these first couple of weeks in particular as they go through the rotation get these guys
stretched so um you know and i don't know where the brewers are at on that so we might see
some of that same thing and uh you never know man i mean you catch somebody right way i mean look what happened when they
when they rolled the dodgers in the past and they jumped all over clayton kershaw you know early and then they had that seven inning double header where they
just destroyed a couple of those guys and you know kershaw lasted like two thirds of an inning so
many many stranger things have happened so well the brewers line up it doesn't exactly strike fear into your heart
they're you know and they do not have much offense and so when you start thinking about it you
know the weather is going to be cold it's going to be there's not going to be a lot of offense even if there were a
lot of high potent bats in the lineups and so it really
you know that it's lining up uh to to i don't want to say it favors the
cubs but it certainly uh plays into how this team was constructed
to go out there against a team that doesn't have a lot of offense but does have very good pitching and scratch out some runs so yeah i
don't know yeah we'll see i mean it's you know a hope spring's eternal right it's it's there and and you know
there's a certain i was i was noting this like i i have
enjoyed watching the last few games the ncaa tournament because there's there's no teams in it i didn't actually care
for either of the teams last night i had zero rooting interest whatsoever um but
i didn't have like an active hatred for either of them and none of the teams i like were in it and so there is a
freedom in that um now obviously we can't completely take a
horse out of the race with the cubs but when you have really low expectations uh
it's very difficult for the team to actually fall below them so you know it's entirely possible that
we're looking at this just kind of negatively or even if you're not you know all the way
out on them you're probably not super high on them and uh you know maybe some of these guys we'll surprise and that's
like what i said so like rather than trying to look at the i don't expect the team to be
very competitive or successful or finished better than third in the division right i just don't and so i have and that's realistic yeah
and so i'm making it more of a point to like i'm gonna follow some guys right i wanna i wanna follow some of these
stories i want to see what these guys do and uh you know and then maybe i'll end up being pleasantly surprised or at
least i'll be able to enjoy kind of watching some stories unfold a little
bit further that we've been able to follow for the past several years as they've come up through the system and
now we're seeing that evolve so um that's kind of where i'm at on it i'm excited for it but it does feel weird
that it's like oh wait spring training's over today oh the season starts today really what weird you know so be kind of
wild but uh it's good it's good yeah it is good so we are we are gonna
try to do a show we'll see how this works uh but we're gonna try to get the cadence down of doing a show
kind of before after each series this year and we'll see if that lines up with our schedules and we're actually able to
pull that off but uh i think uh going into it that's the intent at least so um
i think as we do that do you uh do you want to give a a a chance here you want
to try to [Music] give me your prediction on this series
outcome this first series against the brewers four games at wrigley field uh yeah i don't i don't
after all we just talked about kind of talking it up i still think i think if the cubs split that would
surprise me a great deal so i i think they go one and three i just i don't think they can overcome the brewers pitching
i i i am going to predict a split because i'm going to be optimistic here um i do think that they could come in
and and you know with the bats you never know what's going to happen but with the weather it kind of seems very unlikely
that you're going to get a lot of offense but you know they could scratch out a few runs here and there i don't expect any of these games to be high
scoring if they are high scoring it's probably because there's been errors and mistakes made so which is also possible
so we'll see how it goes but i'm gonna go out on a limb and say two and two to start the season and then uh
let's take a look who do they who do they play in the next series they actually travel
away i believe right there will be some games where they play
exactly so let me just look at the schedule real quick i just want to pull that up so that they play uh
the brewers to start which obviously a little rough but it's at home two against the pirates
uh at uh pittsburgh four against the rockies and old friend chris bryant at
colorado they come back home against tampa which could be rough and then and then they have four against the pirates
at home uh close out the month at atlanta and then at milwaukee
so the middle part of that feels feels not terrible pittsburgh colorado
pittsburgh again but we'll see i mean it's it's also one of those things where you look at the
schedule and you're like okay yeah you know things could work out well it could also be really awful like if they
if they lose a bunch of those games in there like to the pirates and to the rockies
uh chances are it's gonna be a really really long season because they're probably not
doing well against the uh the rays they're probably not doing well against the braves and the and they play the
brewers what six times in the month so it's like that's that's teeing up
to possibly be really ugly so let's hope that that does not happen yeah well we'll see uh you know they could they
could catch a little bit of a heater in there but uh i'll be i'll be quite surprised if they're if
they're not a few games under 500 by the time the month closes right they've got a this is a tough month they they close
it i think it's a little bit easier they get the reds and pirates a lot i think uh at the end of the season um
yeah but by then i mean right then it doesn't really matter i mean who knows it might be a totally different team you know they might be on on par with those
teams by that point so um but yeah i mean i think i think i'm just looking to see what happens i believe
this first series is going to see a lot of different lineup stuff guys kind of getting um you know mixed around
here and there between different positions who do they use as dh you know how do they handle the pitching um
because again 28 man roster short spring training late start to the season a lot of different factors in there so
it's still going to be a little bit funky here as they get their feet under them but uh but like i said i'm just
it'll it'll be nice to watch real baseball you know where the outcomes matter see how that happens and
and find out you know again from some of these guys like schwendel and wisdom can they maintain what we saw from them last year uh if if not to the same extent
right i don't think we expect that completely but some semblance of that performance how
to say a suzuki adjust you know what do we see from some of these new guys in the bullpen um how does that rotation
hold up i mean there's there's so many questions but uh yeah i mean getting getting a chance to finally watch some
baseball with uh you know maybe not a packed house yet at wrigley but uh
at least they're allowing 100 capacity now the only thing for a packed house yeah now the only
thing stopping it is is weather and you know just malaise yeah it's just general mediocrity
cool well uh we'll circle back uh maybe we'll try to do a show on monday the
brewers series goes through the weekend on sunday so we'll we'll either do a show on monday or tuesday uh in advance
of the the pirates series and uh and yeah hopefully uh all goes well for the cubs and we're talking
about a series split or win crosstalk okay
thanks for joining us everybody until then we'll see you later
[Music] so
[Applause]
you