Ivy League Cubs

By: Jacob Zanolla

This season continues to get weirder and weirder every day. First we have the Ohtani gambling scandal, followed by Pat Hoberg, and now CJ Abrams.

According to Cody Delmendo of CHGO Cubs, Abrams was seen overnight at a Chicago casino, leaving only 5 hours before the game at Wrigley Field.

Abrams made his first All-Star team this year, but since then he has only hit .203 with a .586 OPS. At first the thought was that he received the demotion due to poor performance, but it still seemed sketchy and random to send your All-Star leadoff hitter to the minors out of nowhere. None of the Nationals minor league squads are in the playoffs, with their last AAA game being Sunday.

Talk Nats, a Nationals blogging site, reported on Saturday morning that this was not the first of such incidents. This may be another reason to take him off the team, as he has clearly already been told to stop, and it’s not like the Nationals demoted him out of nowhere.

Due to the demotion, Abrams will lose around $30,000 of his salary. He could (and probably will) appeal with the players union, but assuming he did indeed break team curfew, I’m not sure he will have much of an argument.

Twitter has decided to fight about whether the Nationals made the right choice by demoting Abrams after this news came out. Washington has one of the youngest rosters in baseball, but that should set them up for some success in the coming years. Young names like James Wood and Dylan Crews headline their lineup, with CJ Abrams being with them until now.

Mathematically, CJ Abrams would have gotten very little sleep, if any, on Thursday night. The Cubs game ended at 9:32 PM on Thursday, and players are normally there for about 30 minutes to an hour after the game ends. It’s a 20-30 minute commute from Wrigley to the Bally Casino Chicago, so the assumption is he didn’t get any sleep. Having one of your star players gambling after a game isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as long as it’s not on baseball. The issue is that got no sleep, and didn’t leave said casino until five hours before first pitch for a Friday 1:20 game at the Federal Landmark. The Cubs normally arrive around 8:30-9:30 for day games, and Abrams would have just left the Casino.

Every team needs a good clubhouse. It’s easily one of the most underrated aspects of a team and their success. This includes having good role models. CJ Abrams was the opposite of that, and it was smart for the Nationals to send him down since they are out of the playoff races anyway.

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