{"id":562375,"date":"2026-04-03T15:12:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/562375\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T15:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:12:16","slug":"sb-nation-reacts-cubs-starting-pitching-is-your-biggest-concern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/562375\/","title":{"rendered":"SB Nation Reacts: Cubs starting pitching is your biggest concern"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Cubs fans and fans across the country.\u00a0Sign up here<\/a>\u00a0to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, I asked you<\/a> what your biggest concern is about the Cubs. It\u2019s very early in the season, but a small majority of respondents in the SB Nation Reacts survey said it\u2019s the starting rotation:<\/p>\n

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This is a place where I don\u2019t agree with the majority. As has been the case the last couple of years, the Cubs bench doesn\u2019t appear very strong. On paper, with Dylan Carlson (who still hasn\u2019t played!), Michael Conforto and Scott Kingery (plus whoever isn\u2019t the starting catcher) as the bench players would seem better than last year\u2019s selection of Jon Berti and Vidal Bruj\u00e1n (among others), but Craig Counsell hasn\u2019t given those guys much playing time. Of the three mentioned above, only Conforto has started a game, and he doesn\u2019t have a hit. Kingery has pinch-run \u2014 once \u2014 and as noted, Carlson hasn\u2019t played at all.<\/p>\n

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I continue to believe that Carlson would be better in right field right now than either Conforto or Matt Shaw. But they don\u2019t let me make that decision, so we\u2019ll see what Counsell comes up with.<\/p>\n

The survey was posted before Edward Cabrera and Matthew Boyd put together really good outings on Tuesday and Wednesday, so perhaps some of you who voted \u201cstarting pitching\u201d might have a different vote now. How do you feel about the rotation after six games? Personally, I feel pretty good about it. Four of the five starters threw pretty well, and Sh\u014dta Imanaga made one bad pitch that was smacked for a three-run homer.<\/p>\n

I think they\u2019ll be fine, particularly after Justin Steele returns.<\/p>\n

Here are the results of the national questions asked in the survey this week.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I\u2019d concur with this vote, though now that the Pirates have called up Konnor Griffin and signed him to a long-term deal, perhaps he\u2019d be the guy. Griffin is MLB\u2019s No. 1 prospect and immediately becomes a strong Rookie of the Year candidate. And he doesn\u2019t turn 20 until later this month.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I concur with this vote as well. Netflix paid big bucks to have the Yankees and Giants play a season opener as the only game, but\u2026 many folks don\u2019t have Netflix and didn\u2019t want to sign up just for that.<\/p>\n

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Over the past few seasons (before this year), MLB made a big deal about having all 30 teams play on Opening Day. I\u2019d like to see them go back to that.<\/p>\n

Thanks to all who participated in this week\u2019s survey.<\/p>\n

This edition of SB Nation Reacts is\u00a0sponsored by FanDuel<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[47319,9894,147337,42327,2934,183996,17880,25927,99195,4293,363,166454,99,249066,101897],"class_list":{"0":"post-562375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-craig-counsell","9":"tag-cubs","10":"tag-dylan-carlson","11":"tag-edward-cabrera","12":"tag-getty-images","13":"tag-jon-berti","14":"tag-justin-steele","15":"tag-matt-shaw","16":"tag-matthew-boyd","17":"tag-michael-conforto","18":"tag-mlb","19":"tag-scott-kingery","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-starting-rotation","22":"tag-vidal-brujan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}