That damn song is already being played to make my ears bleed. Go Cubs Go. I’ve heard it being played at a local parish function. The Cubs already brain washing the youth. Maybe that’s how Hitler got the whole country of Germany to say “Hail Hitler.” He had to have spiked the water. Can you imagine if people had to hail Trump? The civil war part two would take place. The song is back spring training is here. Now the Cubs are getting geared up to defend their World Series title as no drought here no longer. Will they repeat?

In baseball and even in any sport, it is very hard to repeat. In Cub land they have a loaded roster once again and they might be able to repeat. Right now everything is hunky dory but as we know championships do cost money. Right now the Cubs core, the position players, are locked up for a few years. What about their pitching though? Do they have any big pitching prospects ready to come up to the major league level? Jon Lester and John Lackey are aging. Then you have the man, Jake Arrieta. Some will say he is the Cubs number one, Some will say Lester is your number one. Jake Arrieta’s contract runs out after this season. His agent is Scott Boras and you know he will want a few Brinks trucks for Jake, especially if he has another great season this year.

Jake Arrieta came over from Baltimore. It’s like the Cubs gave the beans to the Orioles and they sent the cow back to Chicago. Jake has won the Cy Young in 2015. In 2016, he had two no hitters. He won the silver slugger as he was the top hitting pitcher. He was also a gold glove finalist last season as well. All of that and he is only 31 years old. Will Boras want to get him a similar deal to what Max Scherzer got from the Washington Nationals? That was seven years at 210 million. Could he still be pitching effectively at 38 years old when the contract runs out? Theo, Jed and company will have to make some big decisions next off season.

The Cubs have plenty of money – look what they invested in Heyward. He was horrible last year. However you don’t want to go down the same road when you overpay all those guys like Soreno and Aramis Ramirez. It took awhile to get out of those back loaded contracts and you had to pay teams to take them off your roster. Having one big contract that the player sucks is OK, having two it gets to be really hard. Plus you have to think about your core, they will need to be paid and they will want big money at Menards. Jake seems like he runs out of gas towards the end of season anyways. Some say he’s on or was on some kind of steroid that suddenly made him so dominating, especially in 2015. Now he reminds me of the Russian boxer in Rocky. Once Rock got a solid punch in to make him bleed he fell apart. I think teams had found that if you rattle Arrieta, he will fall. Let the buyer be aware that it might be OK to pass on Arrieta after this season. Especially the kind of money he will demand. I do not see him up for the long haul of his career.