Al Yellon created Bleed Cubbie Blue and has been its managing editor since 2005. He's also written three books about the Cubs, the latest is "Chicago Cubs Firsts."
Today, Thursday, Jan. 9, was the deadline for teams and arbitration-eligible players to come to contract agreements for 2025 or the players would head to an arbitration hearing in the next few weeks.
Now, it is certainly possible for players and teams who didn’t agreed to term by the 12 noon CT deadline to work out a deal before a hearing takes placs. But in recent years, many teams have viewed this as a hard deadline and then “file and trial” with no further discussion.