With Dansby Swanson, Cubs Start to Rebuild

“If I see a pattern from a pitcher, we’ll talk about it,” said Taillon, who signed a four-year, $68 million deal in December. “Winning teams and winning players do a good job of that. I saw it with the Yankees all the time, like Gerrit Cole going up to Aaron Judge or whomever and saying: ‘Hey, man, this guy hasn’t thrown a slider for a strike behind in the count all game. So if you’re behind in the count, hunt a fastball.’ Stuff like that. That’s what winning players bring to the table.”

The displaced Hoerner said he was “all in on playing second base and, really, without the shift, just owning that position.”

At 25, Hoerner is one of the few young Cubs to have established himself as a foundation piece, having first come to the majors in 2019 during the last gasps of a dynasty that never quite happened.

“We didn’t really have a sense of what was next,” he said. “I think one of the challenges of the last couple of years is just the amount of different people we’ve had here. This game is so fun and exciting to play when you’re sharing a locker room with guys like that, that you can build relationships with. That takes time.

“It’s all been good people here, but I’m excited to potentially have some guys who are going to be around for awhile and just go and build those bonds.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/26/sports/baseball/dansby-swanson-chicago-cubs.html