After missing the playoffs in consecutive seasons, the Chicago Cubs were one of the most active teams during the offseason, and they hope the 2023 season will represent a large step forward to the organization.

As the Cubs head to Mesa for spring training, and as you settle onto your couch and dream of warmer summer days, here is a refresher course on the new players that will dot the team’s roster.

Tucker Barnhart

With the departure of Willson Contreras in free agency, the Cubs have opted to go in a slightly more defensive direction, signing Barnhart to a two-year deal.

Barnhart, winner of two Gold Gloves during his time in Cincinnati, drove in 16 RBI’s and posted a .287 on-base percentage in 308 plate appearances last season with the Detroit Tigers. He’ll hope that a down year was an aberration, as he previously had posted an OBP of greater than .320 in six of the previous seven seasons before 2021.

Cody Bellinger

Few Cubs players will attract the amount of attention that will surely come Bellinger’s way in 2023, as the former National League MVP will look to bounce back after a series of disappointing seasons.

Bellinger did hit 19 home runs and drive in 68 RBI’s last season, but his slash-line of .210/.265/.389 didn’t exactly light the world on fire for the Dodgers, who opted to non-tender him following the campaign.

The Cubs hope that swing tweaks and a fresh start in Chicago will be enough to get him back to his old ways at the plate, and his Gold Glove-caliber defense in center field is a huge bonus for a team that put a premium on good gloves this offseason.

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Brad Boxberger

The Cubs added a solid arm to their bullpen this offseason when they signed the veteran Boxberger, who posted a sterling 2.95 ERA in 70 appearances with the Milwaukee Brewers last season.

The one thing to keep an eye on with Boxberger was an increase in his WHIP, which went from 1.07 to 1.23 season-over-season. The latter number is more in line with his career performance, but the Cubs will hope that an improved defense will help turn some of the base hits Boxberger gave up in 2022 into outs.

The parents of Georgia football player Devin Willock are scheduled to appear outside an Athens courthouse on Thursday at a press conference called where legal action to be taken will be discussed after their son’s death Sunday in a car crash.

The personal injury firm, Go Big Injury Lawyers, is representing David and Sharlene Willock, according to Brian Stellwag, who handles media relations for the law firm. It worked with Devin on a name, image and likeness campaign where he was featured on billboards.

The press conference would come four days after Willock and Georgia recruiting staffer Chandler LeCroy were killed in a single-car crash on Barnett Shoals Road at about 2:45 a.m. The crash report released by the Athens-Clarke County police cited excessive speed as a contributing factor.

Attorney Roy T. Willey IV and members of the legal team will be discussing the accident investigation details.

LeCroy was the driver of the 2021 Ford Expedition and Willock was a passenger. Two other passengers, Georgia offensive lineman Warren McClendon and recruiting staffer Tory Bowles, were injured in the crash.

Willock, from New Milford, N.J., completed his third season with Georgia where he played offensive line.

Athens-Clarke County coroner Sonny Wilson said Wednesday that the toxicology report from the crime lab could take at least a month to complete. It is standard for a toxicology report to be done when the driver is killed, he said. He said he would not say at this point if autopsies were conducted on the two killed.

Fleishman Is in Trouble is finally making its way across the pond, bringing along with it a slew of positive critical reviews.

Adapted from Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s best-selling novel of the same name, the limited series stars Jesse Eisenberg as newly divorced dad Dr Toby Fleishman.

Just as he decides to enter the world of app-based dating, his ex-wife Rachel (Claire Danes) disappears, leaving him with their two young children, Hannah (Meara Mahoney-Gross) and Solly (Maxim Swinton).

While juggling parenting, friend reunions and work, Fleishman finally comes to realise he’ll have to confront his marriage’s failings to discover what happened to Rachel.

Following its November US release, Fleishman Is in Trouble was met with praise from critics and fans alike, which you can find a roundup of below.

“Fleishman Is In Trouble is a sharp, fierce, and funny adaptation of a truly great novel. And, for what it’s worth, it does what a throwback should: It reminds us of why we keep returning to the same stories, even when they stop making sense,” Annie Berke said in her review for AV Club.

In The Guardian’s four-star review of the series, Adrian Horton wrote: “Mundane, yet still potent. A frenetic Whac-A-Mole of everyday stressors propels Fleishman Is in Trouble.”

Describing it as “an anxious series”, she branded it a “smart adaptation” of Brodesser-Akner’s 2019 novel. Horton further lauded Danes’s performance as the “reward of the series”.

“Watching Fleishman Is in Trouble, you may occasionally resent its insinuation that people need to be tricked into finding women’s experiences compelling. But a lot, again, depends on perspective,” The Atlantic’s Sophie Gilbert argued.

“The show, because it has to hew strictly to an eight-episode format and the conventions of TV, sometimes feels like it’s indulging old patterns more than upending them. But its cast is so compelling, and its truths so sharp when they stick you, that it doesn’t really matter. There’s enough packed into it that you’re bound to find something that resonates.”

Daniel Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter said: “You shouldn’t come away from Fleishman Is in Trouble with a singular assessment of the perpetrator or victim, a clear image of who’s to blame. This is a series about understanding instead of indicting in a way that’s poignant and probing at once.”