Sahadev Sharma

You extend Pete Groh-Armstrong, arguably the best defender in baseball.

Nico Horner is now extended around for another six years, arguably the best second baseman in baseball defensively.

Just, you know, they have something you can rely on daily.

You know, when a pitcher steps on the mound, they're not going to lose that game because of poor defense.

Very rarely will that happen to the Cubs.

And I think they've kind of built this core to have, you know, something that you can define them with.

And going forward, there's some trust.

You know, obviously having the stability for Jed Hoyer, that allows him to do all these things.

It's kind of like when it all started as well.

Once he got that stability, once they had a winning season, he was able to kind of put everything in place and be a little bit more aggressive with everything.

I think so.

I think, you know, they have a defined leader.

There's no lack of, I think there was a, I don't, I wouldn't say this was roundly the feeling in the clubhouse when I asked around this spring, but there were some people agreed with the idea that coming into last year, uh,

it was a different feeling than this year as far as the confidence and the feeling of stability and really trusting.

We are a playoff team.

We are a World Series contender.

It's not that they didn't believe they could win.

It was almost like

we kind of have to win or things are going to change around here type feeling.

I think some people felt that way.