Press Pass | Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune Discusses Kris Bryant, Nico Hoerner, and Covering Three Different World Series

Mark Gonzales covers the Cubs for the Chicago Tribune. In the past, Mark has covered the White Sox and Diamondbacks, and has covered three separate World Series titles over the course of his career. He chatted with The Big Lead about his experience as a reporter in Chicago, the 2001, 2005, and 2016 World Series, and his final outlook for the Cubs’ season. 

Liam McKeone: Hey Mark, thanks for taking the time to chat today. Let’s start with the biggest discussion topic in Chicago this week. What are your thoughts on the Addison Russell situation and reports of the Cubs pressuring media members to lay off him?

Mark Gonzales:  It’s a very, very strange landscape right now. I say that because there so many parts to all this. There’s many ways it’s been reported. One thing that gets overlooked is that there’s a victim or victims in this. So… I just really wonder about how this was interpreted by the person or persons that decided this was a threat. I say that because this thing kind of spread like a brushfire, but I can tell you- to my knowledge, I’ve never been intimidated or threatened by an organization telling me I should write something this way. It’s been suggested, but never with any intent of a threat.

I do want to mention that I’m not questioning that someone was asked to tone [it] down, I’m not questioning that. I just think it’s a delicate issue, and people better be careful about how they interpret things, because once again, there’s people involved in all this whose lives were affected.

McKeone: Let’s move on to this year’s Cubs team. One guy that Cubs fans are really excited about is Nico Hoerner. Do you think there’s any chance he comes up to the majors this year?

Gonzales: They’ve been pretty firm about saying no, he’s not going to be called up. I think it has more to do with what’s going on with the 40-man roster, his development, and of course, teams are very careful about starting a young player’s service time clock. He’s certainly a guy they see as a big-time prospect, a big piece of their future, but there’s always financial considerations involved when you’re talking about a prized prospect like him and you project a high ceiling for him.

McKeone: There have been a lot of comparisons between Hoerner and Kris Bryant, especially as far as how the Cubs have handled their rise through the minors. What do you think of that comparison?

Gonzales: It’s pretty interesting how Bryant was one of the first guys affected by the service time clock issue. You go back a few years earlier, the Giants didn’t care [about that] with Buster Posey. When he was ready, they called him up and gave him a big-time contract later. As far as Hoerner goes, there’s really not a huge rush to get him up here because they have so many good middle infielders that play his position… Nico was a first-round pick and a very talented player, but not as touted as Bryant, who was the big man coming out of the University of San Diego and was the second overall pick.

McKeone: While we’re on Bryant, do you think the Cubs will give him what he wants right away in terms of his new contract, or will it be more drawn out?

Gonzales: I see it as a drawn out situation here. He got off to a slow start, but he’s starting to warm up. At the same time, the team wants to see how things pan out this season. They certainly want him to be a big part of their future, but there’s financial considerations involved. They have a lot of big-ticket guys on the books for several years, a guy like Jason Heyward. They also have guys like Javier Baez, whose having an All-Star year and an MVP-caliber year, so there’s a lot of balls they’re juggling right now.

I think their preference would be to tie up Kris long-term, but he seems willing to go year-to-year if that’s the case. He is willing to listen to a multi-year offer but his agent, Scott Boras, is going to do what he sees as best for his client.

McKeone: How long would Bryant go year-to-year, if that was the case?

Gonzales: I can see him taking it all the way to his free agency [in 2021]. He seems very, very comfortable where he’s at right now, he’s paid handsomely for a guy that’s still got two years left before hitting free agency. He’s making $12.4 million. That’s pretty good money for a kid right now who’s 27. He’s in no rush right now. Certainly he likes it here, but he’s going to be very deliberate with this whole process.

McKeone: Ian Happ is another young guy that Cubs fans are asking about. Will he get called back up to the big leagues this year?

Gonzales: I think he comes up to the majors later this season, but a lot depends on whether he can cut down his strikeout rate and put more balls in play. He can point to the fact that he hit 39 home runs in the last two years. That was very impressive, that .850 OPS, but the strikeouts were alarming, especially from the left side.  He was caught in a position this spring where they had a couple of choices to go. Last year that wasn’t case, and now they had choices to rearrange their roster and go in a different direction, and it was kind of eye-opening for him. But I think he’s better served down there right now.

McKeone: Let’s switch gears and talk about your journey as a sports journalist. What was it like going from covering the White Sox to the Cubs?

Gonzales: It was a matter of time for me. At the time, we were just under the impression that [The Tribune] were going to hire a backup writer to help out on the White Sox coverage. But we had some people leave the Bears beat, and priorities re-shifted a bit. We did some moving around, and they asked if I wanted to go over to the Cubs. I was ready for a move at that point. I thought that eight and a half years on the White Sox was a lot. The last couple of years on the White Sox probably tested my patience, it probably tested the team’s as well. I didn’t like some of the things that were going on there. It wasn’t acrimonious, but I thought it was time for a change and a challenge. You’re not covering Minnesota Tech when you’re covering the Cubs. When you’re covering the Cubs, you’re addressing a worldwide audience, not just Cook County.

McKeone: Addressing that worldwide audience for the 2016 World Series must have been something. What was that experience like?

Gonzales: It was fascinating and exhausting. I think the magnitude of the achievement didn’t really hit until you ride in a trolley cart in that parade and you see it make the right turn onto Lake Shore Drive and just see hundreds of thousands, millions of people lining up along Lake Shore Drive, as well as Michigan Avenue. It was something I’ll never forget.

McKeone: How does it stack up to the White Sox championship you covered in 2005?

Gonzales: It was fascinating as well, because the White Sox have a real tight-knit community. I still stay in contact with some of their fans. I can understand some of their frustration over the years and the elation of winning that title in 2005. You hear stories about people putting the White Sox flag on their parents’ or grandparents’ graves. It shows what the White Sox meant to them throughout generations. It was fascinating in both regards, covering those two World Series.

I covered the Diamondbacks World Series in 2001, which really had a freshness, a newness to it. One of the regrets I have in this business is not really absorbing that moment and what it symbolized. Even though the Diamondbacks were a young franchise at the time, only four years old, the achievement and what went on to make that team a World Series title team. Then you throw in 9/11 almost two months prior to that, it really covered a spectrum of emotions.

McKeone: Do you have a favorite out of the three that you covered? Or is there another story from your career that you would say was your favorite story or topic that you covered?

Gonzales: There have really been so many, and yet they’re so different. The one thing about the Diamondbacks’ World Series title was even though they were an expansion team, they had so many great veterans. Randy Johnson, Luis Gonzalez, Curt Schilling, Mark Grace… the mission was so singular at that time that there was probably more pressure on those guys to do it, and to do it against a Yankees team that the whole nation was rooting for. I wouldn’t say that was my favorite story, but I think that goes overlooked a lot in the history of the World Series.

McKeone: Getting back to Chicago, do you think the Wrigley and Wrigleyville renovations are eroding the ballpark’s charm or are they ultimately for the better?

Gonzales: I think they’ve pushed it as far as they could. You could make a case that it does look beautiful, it’s a real nice setup blending the new architecture with the old structure. But they’ve pushed it to a point now where you have to tap the breaks and say, ‘Okay, enough’s enough.’

I’ve always joked around that one thing they could do to Wrigley to really help everybody was to have an advertisement showing the temperature, because, you know, at Wrigley Field it always seems like there’s two extremes there. We don’t have spring here, and Wrigley’s freezing the first two months, why not have a temperature sign up there with something they can sell? They can sell a billboard or a panel easily with advertising on it, and then in the summer people are going to wonder how hot or humid it is, it would be the perfect sign to have. Other than that, they’ve gone as far as they can in terms of the renovations and expansions without turning it into an Indianapolis race car with all the advertisements.

McKeone: What’s your prediction for how the season will unfold for the Cubs?

Gonzales: I think they’ll find a way to get to the playoffs. There’s a lot at stake, and these guys really recognize the importance that they better get to the playoffs and go deep. However, I think they’ll get to the NLCS and lose. Right now, they could really use one more pitcher down there. Playoff baseball is so different. They’re constructed right now to do well during the regular season. There’s just something different about the playoffs.

They got kind of lucky in 2017 against a Nationals team that played their way out of the series. You’ve seen what the Dodgers have done the last two years, and they have a deeper farm system. So that’s why I think the Cubs will get to the playoffs but fall short of their goal of the World Series.

McKeone: Are there any transactions you could see the Cubs making to try and go from a regular season roster to a playoff roster?

Gonzales: They’d have to make a real daring move right now. They’ve been pretty firm and consistent in saying they don’t have the money to add reinforcements, and that might mean they’d have to trade a prospect or a young big league player to get that player they feel they need to get over the top. I’m not so sure this is the year they’re going to get an Aroldis Chapman.