Arrieta Had Better Offers But Wanted the Cubs, the Last Playoff Win, and Other Cubs Bullets – bleachernation.com

The Little Girl, who will always be The Little Girl for purposes of this space, turns 10 years old today. That is, on its own, an incredible and wonderful thing, but it also bears a little relationship to this place – it was her arrival that led to me taking stock of life, leaving the law firm, and deciding to do BN full-time. Thank you for that, my dear, and a very Happy Birthday.

•   The Cubs will soon have to make the Jake Marisnick and Jake Arrieta signings official (hey, they’re both named Jake!), at which time they’ll have to clear two spots on the 40-man roster. Barring a surprise trade, we’ll see the Cubs try to sneak a couple guys through waivers.

•   According to Jon Heyman (who not infrequently seems to communicate with agent Scott Boras), Jake Arrieta “had higher offers elsewhere but loved the idea of a reunion with the Cubs, and pursued it.” That just makes you smile.

•   It’s wild that three years ago this weekend, the Cubs signed Yu Darvish, having seemingly preferred him at that time to re-signing Jake Arrieta (though there were reports that the Cubs did make a similar offer to Arrieta to stay). Now, three years later, the Cubs have traded Darvish and are bringing back Arrieta. Just kinda wild how that worked out, even as the two clearly took very different paths the last couple years. No one is projecting Arrieta’s performance in 2021 to replace the expected performance of Darvish (don’t set yourself up for that kind of disappointment – the realistic hope is that Arrieta can be a steady, near-league-average pitcher with periodic clunkers and periodic excellent starts).

•   This is crazy and also depressing:

•   I was at that game against the Dodgers – it was the game Javy Báez hit the bubblegum homer (and another one) and Willson Contreras hit one to O’Hare – and Arrieta was fantastic, and we kinda knew it might be his farewell:

(Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

•   Not that the multiple reports were to be doubted, but you can consider it confirmed that Jake Arrieta is coming back to the Cubs, assuming the physical checks out:

•   Thanks again:

•   Ugh. That time of year has arrived: pitchers show up to camp, start throwing a little more aggressively, and some of them realize that something is wrong. Brace yourself. Happens every year:

•   Bummer for Hall of Fame weekend:

•   I’m not surprised MLB is reiterating this, because it’s been a little underreported:

•   Whoopsiedoodle: