Chicago Tribune Live reports Hendry/Kenney to remain.

[USSoccer]

No, it isn't. There's no psychological hump that automatically stops the Cubs from being good once the postseason starts. That hump exists in the minds of ignorant fans who can't wrap their minds around the concept of sample size and probabilistic anomaly.

 

It's 6 games over 2 years.

 

 

Soccer, you really enjoy the insults, don't you?

 

Speaking of "probabilistic anomaly", how about 101 years? I guess that's just bad luck. The cubs just draw the crap side of the crapshoot for a century.

 

Go get 'em next time, boys. Adjustments are for hacks.

 

Actually, that's the very definition of probabilistic anomaly.

[KingCubsFan]

 

Your plan of action is nothing at all? how do the Cubs improve themselves enough to get to the world series? How do they overcome the psyche-crushing losses in back to back NLDS's? How do they get over that hump? Because that hump is there, wether you want to believe it or not.

 

No, it isn't. There's no psychological hump that automatically stops the Cubs from being good once the postseason starts. That hump exists in the minds of ignorant fans who can't wrap their minds around the concept of sample size and probabilistic anomaly.

 

It's 6 games over 2 years.

That might be true in the abstract, but it may not be applicable to this team. It's hard to watch the games last year and not see that they clearly choked. The big plays were mental mistakes, not bad luck.

And while the playoffs are obviously a crapshoot to a degree, I think any team that doesn't have good front-end starters is at a disadvantage.

[Arnold Layne]

Mojopin writes:

 

This is pointless. Your responses are nothing but empty rhetoric.

 

 

....then Mojopin writes:

 

 

If you lose, you lose. That's it. That's what happens. You come back out there the next year with another team ideally built for success and go at it again. That's baseball.

[Sammy Sofa]

Mojopin writes:

 

This is pointless. Your responses are nothing but empty rhetoric.

 

 

....then Mojopin writes:

 

 

If you lose, you lose. That's it. That's what happens. You come back out there the next year with another team ideally built for success and go at it again. That's baseball.

 

That's reality. Feel free to explain how any team can work around that and guarentee that they'll win the first round of the playoffs.

 

Here's a hint...you can't. The best bet to win in the playoffs is to put together a team and a staff that will have significant success over the course of the regular season and then ideally they'll be able to do the same in the playoffs. That's the most anyone can do.

[Arnold Layne]

That's reality. Feel free to explain how any team can work around that and guarentee that they'll win the first round of the playoffs.

 

Here's a hint...you can't. The best bet to win in the playoffs is to put together a team and a staff that will have significant success over the course of the regular season and then ideally they'll be able to do the same in the playoffs. That's the most anyone can do.

 

 

The most anyone can do is recognize a pattern and do something different the next time.

[Fred Hornkohl]

That's reality. Feel free to explain how any team can work around that and guarentee that they'll win the first round of the playoffs.

 

Here's a hint...you can't. The best bet to win in the playoffs is to put together a team and a staff that will have significant success over the course of the regular season and then ideally they'll be able to do the same in the playoffs. That's the most anyone can do.

 

 

The most anyone can do is recognize a pattern and do something different the next time.

 

Forget all the cliches, and rhetoric, and spin doctoring, and whatever it is you call a pattern. The fact is you simply cannot make a valid statistical inference from a 6 game sample size..... and only bad things will happen if you try.

[Andy]

Mark Grace once hit like .650 in an NLCS. Maybe he wants to play again? That would surely get the job done.

 

Ernie Banks won the World Series every single time he ever made the postseason. MONEY.

[Sammy Sofa]

That's reality. Feel free to explain how any team can work around that and guarentee that they'll win the first round of the playoffs.

 

Here's a hint...you can't. The best bet to win in the playoffs is to put together a team and a staff that will have significant success over the course of the regular season and then ideally they'll be able to do the same in the playoffs. That's the most anyone can do.

 

 

The most anyone can do is recognize a pattern and do something different the next time.

 

Forget all the cliches, and rhetoric, and spin doctoring, and whatever it is you call a pattern. The fact is you simply cannot make a valid statistical inference from a 6 game sample size..... and only bad things will happen if you try.

 

Nevermind he keeps talking about "something different" like there's a better option than trying to put a competitive team that will succeed over the course of the regular season on the field.

 

Him trying to find a pattern out of two 3 game series would be the equivalent of trying to find a pattern out of any stretch of lost games throughout the season. It's a futile gesture that completely ignores the larger and obvious point of it's simply a good team going cold like any do several times over the course of a long season.

[TruffleShuffle]

 

Your plan of action is nothing at all? how do the Cubs improve themselves enough to get to the world series? How do they overcome the psyche-crushing losses in back to back NLDS's? How do they get over that hump? Because that hump is there, wether you want to believe it or not.

 

No, it isn't. There's no psychological hump that automatically stops the Cubs from being good once the postseason starts. That hump exists in the minds of ignorant fans who can't wrap their minds around the concept of sample size and probabilistic anomaly.

 

It's 6 games over 2 years.

That might be true in the abstract, but it may not be applicable to this team. It's hard to watch the games last year and not see that they clearly choked. The big plays were mental mistakes, not bad luck.

And while the playoffs are obviously a crapshoot to a degree, I think any team that doesn't have good front-end starters is at a disadvantage.

 

if i remember correctly, the things that are most strongly correlated with winning in the playoffs are frontline power pitching, a good bullpen and good fielding. the cubs have rich harden, carlos zambrano and dempster (who was very good last year); their bullpen was solid with marmol and wood, and they were one of the better defensive teams in baseball last season.

 

but they got swept. crap happens.

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

That's reality. Feel free to explain how any team can work around that and guarentee that they'll win the first round of the playoffs.

 

Here's a hint...you can't. The best bet to win in the playoffs is to put together a team and a staff that will have significant success over the course of the regular season and then ideally they'll be able to do the same in the playoffs. That's the most anyone can do.

 

 

The most anyone can do is recognize a pattern and do something different the next time.

 

And what do you propose they do differently?

[Little Slide Rooter]

I can see this arguement lasting until mid august.

[jersey cubs fan]

Nor was I let down by the oh-so-subtle European sports jab.

 

Wasn't that just in response to a rather pointless jab at American sports?

[USSoccer]

Nor was I let down by the oh-so-subtle European sports jab.

 

Wasn't that just in response to a rather pointless jab at American sports?

 

It wasn't a jab, it was an observation. What makes sense about elevating a minuscule sample size and making it out to be more important than the larger sample size?

[jersey cubs fan]

Nor was I let down by the oh-so-subtle European sports jab.

 

Wasn't that just in response to a rather pointless jab at American sports?

 

It wasn't a jab, it was an observation. What makes sense about elevating a minuscule sample size and making it out to be more important than the larger sample size?

 

I don't see how playoffs/tournaments determining a champion is uniquely American.

[sneakypower]

i remember when Peyton Manning didn't "have what it takes to win in the playoffs"

 

and Steve Yzerman and Jordan, too

[dew1679666265]

i remember when Peyton Manning didn't "have what it takes to win in the playoffs"

 

and Steve Yzerman and Jordan, too

 

Yeah, it was really a sign of Peyton not being "able to win the big game" when he'd lose a 50-40 shootout to Florida. Or when the Colt defense (back when it wasn't good) gave up 40 points in a playoff game and he didn't have "what it takes."

[SouthSideRyan]

That's reality. Feel free to explain how any team can work around that and guarentee that they'll win the first round of the playoffs.

 

Here's a hint...you can't. The best bet to win in the playoffs is to put together a team and a staff that will have significant success over the course of the regular season and then ideally they'll be able to do the same in the playoffs. That's the most anyone can do.

 

 

The most anyone can do is recognize a pattern and do something different the next time.

 

Well what's the [expletive] pattern??? Tell me what the [expletive] is this mystical [expletive] that each of the past 10 world series winners have had in common??

[jersey cubs fan]

That's reality. Feel free to explain how any team can work around that and guarentee that they'll win the first round of the playoffs.

 

Here's a hint...you can't. The best bet to win in the playoffs is to put together a team and a staff that will have significant success over the course of the regular season and then ideally they'll be able to do the same in the playoffs. That's the most anyone can do.

 

 

The most anyone can do is recognize a pattern and do something different the next time.

 

Well what's the [expletive] pattern??? Tell me what the [expletive] is this mystical [expletive] that each of the past 10 world series winners have had in common??

 

They all scored more runs than the opposition in the majority of their postseason games, and weren't the Cubs.

[SouthSideRyan]

And yeah, I lose for being the first one to snap at this idiocy.

[Arnold Layne]

[Him trying to find a pattern out of two 3 game series would be the equivalent of trying to find a pattern out of any stretch of lost games throughout the season. It's a futile gesture that completely ignores the larger and obvious point of it's simply a good team going cold like any do several times over the course of a long season.

 

 

What you keep ignoring and not responding to is that the Cubs have "gone cold" for 101 years.

[Arnold Layne]

And yeah, I lose for being the first one to snap at this idiocy.

 

It's a shame people have to bring insults into a friendly baseball disussion. I would hope we could aspire to more than talk radio anger.

[Little Slide Rooter]

[Him trying to find a pattern out of two 3 game series would be the equivalent of trying to find a pattern out of any stretch of lost games throughout the season. It's a futile gesture that completely ignores the larger and obvious point of it's simply a good team going cold like any do several times over the course of a long season.

 

 

What you keep ignoring and not responding to is that the Cubs have "gone cold" for 101 years.

 

Maybe its some strnge mystical occurance, but its more likely a coincedence. The Cubs teams of different eras have no coralation with one another. Yeah, some wack job put a curse on them, but Im sure that almost every team in baseball has had some kind of hex put on them by some goof job, but since the Cubs have dropped the soap so many times, it always comes back to that.

[CubColtPacer]

[Him trying to find a pattern out of two 3 game series would be the equivalent of trying to find a pattern out of any stretch of lost games throughout the season. It's a futile gesture that completely ignores the larger and obvious point of it's simply a good team going cold like any do several times over the course of a long season.

 

 

What you keep ignoring and not responding to is that the Cubs have "gone cold" for 101 years.

 

And that was due to bad management for most of that time. I don't think anybody would argue that. The Cubs were not anywhere close to the playoffs for most of that time. You can't win the Series if your team isn't good enough to make it into the playoffs in the first place.

 

But are you saying that all the Cubs playoff teams over the last 100 years are built the same way? That the formula hasn't changed at all? I don't see what bringing up what the Cubs of 60 years ago did has anything to with today. Different ownership, different coaches, different players, different philosophy. It's simply not relevant to the issue.

[Arnold Layne]

That's reality. Feel free to explain how any team can work around that and guarentee that they'll win the first round of the playoffs.

 

Here's a hint...you can't. The best bet to win in the playoffs is to put together a team and a staff that will have significant success over the course of the regular season and then ideally they'll be able to do the same in the playoffs. That's the most anyone can do.

 

 

The most anyone can do is recognize a pattern and do something different the next time.

 

And what do you propose they do differently?

 

I've already proposed some things earlier in the thread:

 

1. Better advance scouting

2. Better management of the starting pitcher roll out (we're saving Z for game 4, etc)

3. Remove Soriano from the leadoff spot where he is dominated by RH playoff pitching to the point where he contributes nothing(sub .300 OPS, .125 OBP).

4. Stronger pre-game preperation in terms of plate discipline. The Cubs went away from that in 2007 and 2008.

 

If you want to rip those ideas, that's fair. But if the Cubs can't get past the NLDS again this year with yet another top 3 NL payroll, then there are some serious issues that need to be taken care of.

[Arnold Layne]

But are you saying that all the Cubs playoff teams over the last 100 years are built the same way? That the formula hasn't changed at all?

 

No. What I am saying is that the Cubs were never built to be good enough to win the world series for the last 100 years.

 

Something is very, very wrong with this organization and how they put together baseball teams. If I could figure it out, I would be a GM. But slapping together a team, pushing them out the door and hoping to make the playoffs every year and then saying "aw shucks, guys, go get 'em next year" hasn't worked. The track record speaks for itself.

 

And continually not being able to get past the NLDS and saying "aw shucks guys, go get 'em next year" may not work either. We will see this year, won't we?

 

I don't see what bringing up what the Cubs of 60 years ago did has anything to with today. Different ownership, different coaches, different players, different philosophy. It's simply not relevant to the issue.

 

It's relevant to team and organization psyche. And if theCubs fail to move past the NLDS again with a top 3 NL payroll, you can bet your tail that there is something deeply wrong with the mental makeup of the Chicago Cubs. It is completely unrealistic to not expect mental blowback from being repeatedly torched in the NLDS. Anyone who argues otherwise never took a psych class.