General Cubs Chit-Chat

[Bull]

This sure doesn't feel like a 95 win season.

[Bull]

 

 

Did you read the article, or just the clickbait headline?

 

Its obvious that the reporter used the word "worried" and Ross "admitted" he was enough to pull him. "another at bat, something serious happens and he's done for the season."

 

Awful reporting and you're awful for posting it.

 

edit: and moreso for associating the great scoob with it.

[Sammy Sofa]

[Ding Dong Johnson]

[Andy]

I will add that to the list of posting atrocities to repent for...Perhaps more satisfactory:

 

 

I knocked out at like 8:15 last night tbh, just playing catch up and didn't see any posts about the injury. If he's ready for the playoffs then yay, couldn't care less about this "regular" season

Maybe not-so-hot take: Unless you're confident in Bryant coming out of whatever this season has been, not having him at 3B in this year's playoffs might be an upgrade.

[Proven Veteran]

Nailed it.

[CyHawk_Cub]

I'm less sentimental, yet still want to show a sense of something lost:

 

[Brian]

I've been wondering if keeping Descalso on the IL all year (as opposed to DFA) enables the Cubs to make an insurance claim and recoup his salary, but I could never come up with why Descalso would go along with that....

 

[tweet]

[/tweet]

 

No clue if the Cubs would actually be able to make an insurance claim though... I'd guess they'd have to have some medical proof that he couldn't play.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Aren't only the highest dollar contracts insured? Descalso's 2.5 million wouldn't be high on the list in that case.

 

This may not be how it works(I can never remember with buyouts), but a different penny pinching argument for keeping Descalso is not bringing his 1 million buyout for 2021 forward into this year by releasing him.

[Brian]

Yeah I'm not sure how insurance works, it just seems like there is something else there because I couldn't figure out why the Cubs kept him tied to the organization for seemingly no reason and why he didn't seem to mind. His side makes a little more sense now, and perhaps the Cubs gave permission to his agent to kick the tires around the league to see if he'd get a job after a DFA and came up empty. Still not clear on their end though, I don't think it's the option though because I don't see why they would have to pay that ahead of time when if DFA'd he theoretically could sign elsewhere and that team could end up picking up the option.

[Bertz]

 

This is sobering to say the least

[Bull]

Yeah I'm not sure how insurance works, it just seems like there is something else there because I couldn't figure out why the Cubs kept him tied to the organization for seemingly no reason and why he didn't seem to mind. His side makes a little more sense now, and perhaps the Cubs gave permission to his agent to kick the tires around the league to see if he'd get a job after a DFA and came up empty. Still not clear on their end though, I don't think it's the option though because I don't see why they would have to pay that ahead of time when if DFA'd he theoretically could sign elsewhere and that team could end up picking up the option.

So PTR is now Good Guy Greg?

[UMFan83]

 

And this was before yesterday’s game. Setting the date to August 1st only really eliminates the first week of the season. Can’t pretend that week didn’t happen, but basically since that first week they’ve been amongst the worst 5 offenses in baseball. Still seems crazy to me with all the draft capital we spent on offense during the first few years of Theo that we ended up with a core that is collectively performing so poorly, weird season or not

[Bertz]

So, I don't want this to come off as a Leslie Nielsen everythingisfine.gif sort of thing, but there's a real BABIP component to that performance since 8/1. Since 8/1 the team wide BABIP is .271, 25th in the league. This comes despite being 10th in hard hit rate, 18th in barrel rate, 15th in exit velo. They hit the ball on the ground too much, but that's a dong killer not a BABIP killer. They should probably have a modestly-above-average BABIP.

 

Give them even an average .295 BABIP, and the team suddenly has an ~average offense (their slash would look in line with the Cardinals). Being merely average for this long still sucks given the resources invested, but we'd be less in the existential crisis state of fandom.

[Andy]

So, I don't want this to come off as a Leslie Nielsen everythingisfine.gif sort of thing, but there's a real BABIP component to that performance since 8/1. Since 8/1 the team wide BABIP is .271, 25th in the league. This comes despite being 10th in hard hit rate, 18th in barrel rate, 15th in exit velo. They hit the ball on the ground too much, but that's a dong killer not a BABIP killer. They should probably have a modestly-above-average BABIP.

 

Give them even an average .295 BABIP, and the team suddenly has an ~average offense (their slash would look in line with the Cardinals). Being merely average for this long still sucks given the resources invested, but we'd be less in the existential crisis state of fandom.

I feel like we're discussing how unlucky the Cubs' offense is every year in some form or fashion. I'm not saying you're wrong, the numbers suggest you aren't, but I feel like there's got to be a different explanation for this.

[minnesotacubsfan]

So, I don't want this to come off as a Leslie Nielsen everythingisfine.gif sort of thing, but there's a real BABIP component to that performance since 8/1. Since 8/1 the team wide BABIP is .271, 25th in the league. This comes despite being 10th in hard hit rate, 18th in barrel rate, 15th in exit velo. They hit the ball on the ground too much, but that's a dong killer not a BABIP killer. They should probably have a modestly-above-average BABIP.

 

Give them even an average .295 BABIP, and the team suddenly has an ~average offense (their slash would look in line with the Cardinals). Being merely average for this long still sucks given the resources invested, but we'd be less in the existential crisis state of fandom.

 

 

since 2015, the Cubs offense has always seemed to be a bit streaky. facing dominate pitching was one explanation (2015 NLCS vs Mets) but not always leading to poor results (2016 NLCS vs Dodgers). Hopefully late in this season, it can be explained simply as bad luck and their luck changes when they start the playoffs

[Hairyducked Idiot]

It's baseball. Everyone is streaky and it's basically a slightly weighted RNG that needs to play out over huge samples.

[Bertz]

So, I don't want this to come off as a Leslie Nielsen everythingisfine.gif sort of thing, but there's a real BABIP component to that performance since 8/1. Since 8/1 the team wide BABIP is .271, 25th in the league. This comes despite being 10th in hard hit rate, 18th in barrel rate, 15th in exit velo. They hit the ball on the ground too much, but that's a dong killer not a BABIP killer. They should probably have a modestly-above-average BABIP.

 

Give them even an average .295 BABIP, and the team suddenly has an ~average offense (their slash would look in line with the Cardinals). Being merely average for this long still sucks given the resources invested, but we'd be less in the existential crisis state of fandom.

I feel like we're discussing how unlucky the Cubs' offense is every year in some form or fashion. I'm not saying you're wrong, the numbers suggest you aren't, but I feel like there's got to be a different explanation for this.

 

The Cubs' problems with this group have generally been related to sequencing: how does an offense with X OBP and Y SLG only score Z runs. It's happened enough that there's probably something there. My pet theory is a homegeniety in what kind of pitchers they feast/famine against, but it could be a million things (including dumb luck).

 

This BABIP issue is more of a run of the mill bit of unluckiness. And it's happened to this group before, such as in the first half of 2017. The problem is that BABIP is the sort of thing that does usually mostly even out over a season, but doesn't normalize quite so fast enough that it smooths out by Memorial Day.

[abuck1220]

yeah, it doesn't really apply this season since every hitter sucks, but last year it seemed like you could have replaced every cubs hitter with an objectively worse statistical hitter and the team would have somehow scored more runs.

[Cubswin11]

[Gmoney23]

 

And this was before yesterday’s game. Setting the date to August 1st only really eliminates the first week of the season. Can’t pretend that week didn’t happen, but basically since that first week they’ve been amongst the worst 5 offenses in baseball. Still seems crazy to me with all the draft capital we spent on offense during the first few years of Theo that we ended up with a core that is collectively performing so poorly, weird season or not

 

The draft capital can always bust.. even before they make the majors. What is weird to me is they were sucha damn good offense from 2015 to 2017, coupled with Baez, Happ & Contreras becoming much better hitters since then (minus the 2020 eight week season) you would think the offense would be a juggernaut or at the very least pretty good.

[chopsx9]

Former Cub Jay Johnstone passed away over the weekend from complications due to COVID. He was on the Cubs when I first began watching baseball in '82. The OF was a noted prankster, wrote a few books about his playing days and appeared in The Naked Gun with Leslie Nielsen. He and Jerry Reuss dressed up as grounds keepers during a Dodger game and swept the infield between innings much to the ire of Tommy Lasorda. The most notable Cubs story I recall was that he was sent up as a pinch hitter by Lee Elia (I believe) with instructions to bunt which he ignored and hit a HR. Elia fined him anyway. Godspeed Jay.

 

[jersey cubs fan]

RIP JJ

[PackLandVA]

 

 

I was a fan a JJ. ALways seemed like he was having fun. I remember he always seemed like a big power hitter in the batter's box, but really was never much of one. Twenty year career for "jag". Good for you JJ and rest in peace!

[Ding Dong Johnson]

I’ll always remember him for not even taking the bat off his shoulder against Spiwack.