maybe let's turn this into a baseball thread, or at least an NL Central thread. I think the reason why watching the Cubs win it all last year was so awesome was that it was the culmination of an amazing build of a baseball team. Following guys like Baez, Bryant, Soler, and Russell in the minor leagues, watching them turn old crappy guys via trade into Jake Arrieta, Pedro Strop, and Kyle Hendricks, and then seeing how they blended together the free agents like Lester, Heyward (he's hitting a little bit now!), and Zobrist was really fun to see.
You can now see the Brewers trying to do the same thing and I think the Reds finally got on the rebuild train by trading Phillips and Frazier. I predict the Brewers to be the Cubs toughest competition in 2019 and 2020. They're a pretty fun team to watch. If you haven't seen Jacob Barnes pitch for them, look him up. Guy is filthy and should be the closer any day now.
I'll be interested to see how the Reds look. Looks like their young pitching could be pretty good with Reed and Garrett and maybe Finnegan if he can fix his control issues. I really wish Billy Hamilton could ever learn to hit at least a little bit. The game is better with guys like him in it, but man, he makes Heyward 2016 look like Babe Ruth.
