General Cubs Chit-Chat

[CyHawk_Cub]

My wife bought me a "Try Not To Suck" t-shirt for your 18 year anniversary of our first date.

I can barely remember the date of my wedding. I have declared all other "anniversaries" null and void.

 

I didn't remember it. My wife did. And actually, mine is easy to remember, because our first date was on same night as the final episode of Seinfeld.

 

You missed the final episode of Seinfeld for a girl?!?!?!? Or perhaps worse: the date consisted of watching the final episode of Seinfeld?!?!?

[Aaron_Kennelly]

I can barely remember the date of my wedding. I have declared all other "anniversaries" null and void.

 

I didn't remember it. My wife did. And actually, mine is easy to remember, because our first date was on same night as the final episode of Seinfeld.

 

You missed the final episode of Seinfeld for a girl?!?!?!? Or perhaps worse: the date consisted of watching the final episode of Seinfeld?!?!?

 

Sorry, guys, I gotta go see about a girl.

[Tim]

So...we dodged this bullet: Russell Martin

[sneakypower]

did he stop doing yoga

[sneakypower]

holy horsefeathers, did we know this was a thing?

http://www.orlandophantomsfootball.com/list/2016-defense/

 

the DE section is of particular note

[Derwood]

holy [expletive], did we know this was a thing?

http://www.orlandophantomsfootball.com/list/2016-defense/

 

the DE section is of particular note

 

The MS Paint cropping of #56's hair had me distracted from Kyle for a minute

[Ding Dong Johnson]

holy [expletive], did we know this was a thing?

http://www.orlandophantomsfootball.com/list/2016-defense/

 

the DE section is of particular note

yes, it was talked about a while back

[jersey cubs fan]

http://www.orlandophantomsfootball.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/56-Chrsitian_Rivera.jpg

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/instagraphs/the-cubs-are-dominating-the-ground-ball-game/

[BigbadB]

I can barely remember the date of my wedding. I have declared all other "anniversaries" null and void.

 

I didn't remember it. My wife did. And actually, mine is easy to remember, because our first date was on same night as the final episode of Seinfeld.

 

You missed the final episode of Seinfeld for a girl?!?!?!? Or perhaps worse: the date consisted of watching the final episode of Seinfeld?!?!?

 

A little bit of both. We met on a AOL chat room. Divorced and 30 something or other chat room. We were about 100 miles apart. We agreed to meet in a public place in case I was a psycho, so we met at Old Spaghetti Factory in Riverside, in the bar. I was there early, and Seinfeld was playing on the bar tv above the bar where we sat. I was not watching Seinfeld at the time. I was working 2 jobs at the time and the hours of prime time tv was actually my 4 hour window of sleepy time, generally.

 

It did not bother my wife that I occasionally freaked out when helicopters were flying over announcing that a child was missing in the neighborhood, or that I would waltz into my nearest Blockbuster and cut up my BB card with scissors when they charged me for late movies that weren't late. I am psycho, but she married me anyway.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

we met at Old Spaghetti Factory

http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrjkl1ZPF71qgiie0.png

[Sammy Sofa]

The Spaghetti Factory is maybe the surest sign of madness there is.

[BigbadB]

we met at Old Spaghetti Factory

http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrjkl1ZPF71qgiie0.png

 

Haha! Close. Our most often cited celebrity doppelgangers are Jeff "Lebowski" Bridges and Sheryl Crow. You pick which one is which.

[David]

 

I didn't remember it. My wife did. And actually, mine is easy to remember, because our first date was on same night as the final episode of Seinfeld.

 

You missed the final episode of Seinfeld for a girl?!?!?!? Or perhaps worse: the date consisted of watching the final episode of Seinfeld?!?!?

 

A little bit of both. We met on a AOL chat room. Divorced and 30 something or other chat room. We were about 100 miles apart. We agreed to meet in a public place in case I was a psycho, so we met at Old Spaghetti Factory in Riverside, in the bar. I was there early, and Seinfeld was playing on the bar tv above the bar where we sat. I was not watching Seinfeld at the time. I was working 2 jobs at the time and the hours of prime time tv was actually my 4 hour window of sleepy time, generally.

 

It did not bother my wife that I occasionally freaked out when helicopters were flying over announcing that a child was missing in the neighborhood, or that I would waltz into my nearest Blockbuster and cut up my BB card with scissors when they charged me for late movies that weren't late. I am psycho, but she married me anyway.

 

lmaoooo this is an nsbb deep cut

[BigbadB]

The Spaghetti Factory is maybe the surest sign of madness there is.

 

Wasn't my idea. I had never been to one before that night. Haven't been to one since, either. Don't really even remember the food. I can make good spaghetti at home. It's not really that hard. The one we went to in Riverside closed. I think there might still be one in downtown San Diego, but there are way better places if you are going to go down there and fight for parking.

[BigbadB]

 

You missed the final episode of Seinfeld for a girl?!?!?!? Or perhaps worse: the date consisted of watching the final episode of Seinfeld?!?!?

 

A little bit of both. We met on a AOL chat room. Divorced and 30 something or other chat room. We were about 100 miles apart. We agreed to meet in a public place in case I was a psycho, so we met at Old Spaghetti Factory in Riverside, in the bar. I was there early, and Seinfeld was playing on the bar tv above the bar where we sat. I was not watching Seinfeld at the time. I was working 2 jobs at the time and the hours of prime time tv was actually my 4 hour window of sleepy time, generally.

 

It did not bother my wife that I occasionally freaked out when helicopters were flying over announcing that a child was missing in the neighborhood, or that I would waltz into my nearest Blockbuster and cut up my BB card with scissors when they charged me for late movies that weren't late. I am psycho, but she married me anyway.

 

lmaoooo this is an nsbb deep cut

 

I knew you would enjoy that one, David! Had to spruce it up, because it's kinda boring otherwise. Although I believe IMB enjoys the Blockbuster story more than the helicopter one.

[Sammy Sofa]

The Blockbuster card story might be the greatest NSBB moment of them all. Either that or Bum's Windermere saga.

[Sammy Sofa]

The Spaghetti Factory is maybe the surest sign of madness there is.

 

Wasn't my idea. I had never been to one before that night. Haven't been to one since, either. Don't really even remember the food. I can make good spaghetti at home. It's not really that hard. The one we went to in Riverside closed. I think there might still be one in downtown San Diego, but there are way better places if you are going to go down there and fight for parking.

 

http://s3-media3.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/BtYHU7RE_YmRz98UJv79AQ/o.jpg

[David]

another pic from karaoke night at stanley's

[SouthSideRyan]

The Cubs aren't selling out consistently the year after winning 97 games and going to the NLCS, and after a huge offseason?

 

That surprises me.

 

A part of it is awful weather and a bigger part of it, I think, is dynamic pricing (as fewer tickets are available, the price to buy them from the team goes up). It might cost them some sell outs but likely is still more profitable, assuming having a few less butts in the seats doesn't offset that with profits lost on concessions and crap.

 

I don't think I realized that was a thing until I was trying to figure out face value for this past Saturday and saw $79 tickets for Friday bleachers. It makes logical sense, but damn, that's gotta be more than 2x.

[UMFan83]

another pic from karaoke night at stanley's

 

I have to assume Lester invited Lackey and the rest of the guys froze him out all night, thus him standing in the back

[David]

http://www.cubsrelated.com/2016/05/cubs-xbabip-statcast-data-vs-babip-who.html

[BigSlick]

http://www.cubsrelated.com/2016/05/cubs-xbabip-statcast-data-vs-babip-who.html

This is really neat.

 

It's also a good thing to point to when people say Soler has been unlucky because...uh...he's just been really bad (and a little unlucky). Predictably Heyward has been pretty darn unlucky, and amazingly, David Ross has been robbed of a bunch of hits. (He's looked like a completely different player this year)

 

Fowler is gonna slowly come back to earth, which is sad, but :hello: thanks for those 40 games of Luck

[Aaron_Kennelly]

http://www.cubsrelated.com/2016/05/cubs-xbabip-statcast-data-vs-babip-who.html

 

That's really interesting. I hadn't seen that article on fangraphs. This is what I've been waiting to see. This is what Statcast is meant to do. This isn't perfect, but it is a start. He's got batted balls defined in specific wedges of launch angle, 5 feet-by-5 feet. And it doesn't account for shifting. But it's close. It's much better than plain old BABIP already. It needs refined some. I am sure there will be others working on this stuff. More research will be done, and we could get a really good xBABIP that will allow us to throw BABIP by the wayside.

 

Those stats North has aren't up-to-date, though. They are from when the guy at fangraphs compiled them for his article. But he is keeping them updated daily, which you can see in this google doc that he links in his article:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_bwfyWPDu20x5nXMXQGBuHiXqJoS9N4-xSlPqkwh8PA/pubhtml#

 

It also has numbers for pitchers in there, too. And and expected wOBA number, and splits, and all sorts of other goodness. I'm going to be poring over this stuff tonight.

 

From what I've seen, there's a lot of stuff that makes sense: Jorge hasn't been putting the ball in play in ways that are conducive to getting on base... duh. But, then there's also the low Rizzo xBABIP, too. One thing that looks great: Adam Wainwright fares very poorly according to this data, too. He is just getting squared up.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

Looking at the expected wOBA numbers:

 

(wOBA listed first / xOBA second)

Russell: .341 / .367

Bryant: .364 / .400

Rizzo: .411 / .406

Fowler: .417 / .363

Zobrist: .404 / .366

Heyward: .296 / .317

La Stella: .415 / .436

Ross: .333 / .379

Baez: .313 / .331

Soler: .242 / .251

Montero: .265 / .293

Szczur: .446 / .380