6/14 - Possibly Moving up the Transplant List Cubs (Montgomery) @ Mets (Harvey) 6:10 CST CSN/670

[Aaron_Kennelly]

Grand slam to lose 9-8 would be almost too perfect.

 

Or a weak ground out -- that probably makes more sense.

[Cubswin11]

they could also be 5 or 6 up by July 4th... although that is hard to imagine

I'll take the bet that they are closer to 5 or 6 up on the 4th than 5 or 6 down

[Sammy Sofa]

They might be 5 or 6 out by July 4th

 

They might be able to lose every game until then and not be 6 out. Have you seen how horsefeathers this division is?

 

 

Ain't gonna mean horsefeathers.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

They might be 5 or 6 out by July 4th

 

They might be able to lose every game until then and not be 6 out. Have you seen how horsefeathers this division is?

 

 

Ain't gonna mean horsefeathers.

 

It will when we are 77-85 World Series champions.

[Sammy Sofa]

What, are the opposing teams going to be be unable to see the ball with all the tears in their eyes from laughing at the Cubs' starting pitchers? Edited June 15, 2017 by Sammy Sofa

[Sammy Sofa]

The worst part about all of this?

 

Making absolute butt off of season tickets the year after they won the horsefeathering World Series.

[halplm]

The worst part about all of this?

 

Making absolute butt off of season tickets the year after they won the horsefeathering World Series.

 

If that's why you have season tickets... :nono:

[Sammy Sofa]

It's A reason to have season tickets. Most of us slobs can't be Pink Hat guy and show up to every game.

[17 Seconds]

They might be 5 or 6 out by July 4th

 

the cubs are kind of an ass factory but i see no reason to expect this

[Sammy Sofa]

Yeah, let's keep our pessimism rooted in bleak reality, dammit.

[CyHawk_Cub]

A Dodgers fan buddy of mine has been trolling me w/ texts the past couple weeks suggesting Wade Davis trades to either Nats or Astros. I had been consistently telling him to eff off, but don't even have the drive to do that anymore.

[UMFan83]

I was pissed at my wife booking a cruise during the week of the NLCS this year but now I'm starting to wonder if it will matter.

[Bryants Disco Ball]

A Dodgers fan buddy of mine has been trolling me w/ texts the past couple weeks suggesting Wade Davis trades to either Nats or Astros. I had been consistently telling him to eff off, but don't even have the drive to do that anymore.

 

I'd love to make a huge profit off Davis and just move Carl to closer for the final two months. Although I'm also the only one that thinks the Cubs ain't turning this around, so can't imagine anyone else would agree.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

What, are the opposing teams going to be be unable to see the ball with all the tears in their eyes from laughing at the Cubs' starting pitchers?

 

Just last year, the Cleveland Indians were one win away from winning the World Series, despite resorting to starting Trevor Bauer and Josh Tomlin... on short rest. They even had something called Ryan Merritt start a playoff game.

 

Trade for a starting pitcher -- any, really -- and pair him with some combo of Arrieta/Hendricks/Montgomery, while riding Lester hard, and we have more than a puncher's chance in the playoffs.

 

And before we mention our shitty offense, that same Indians team hit .222, with a .288 OBP, in the playoffs last year.

 

You could ride Lester, Rizzo, Bryant, and Wade Davis for a couple weeks, without much help even and win it all. Hell, multiple of them might even suck and you could get a randomly hot Schwarber or Hendricks or something and still skate by.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

I still feel pretty much exactly as I did last week or whenever, when I said we'd win the division by 10 games. I still think we'll win it without much worry late in the year. Maybe drop a couple games off of that with the newfound worry about what we'll get from Hendricks and if/when he'll be back. We now have Eddie Butler and John Lackey both in the rotation, probably for awhile. That is bad news. But we'll trade for pitching. I'm not sure for what quality. But, at least enough to shoot Butler and/or Lackey into the sun.

 

And I remain convinced that the rest of the division is even more trashy than we are. There won't be another team in the division over .500. We could seriously win, like, 85 games and not sweat it out in the last week. And, with an addition here or there, a few guys picking it up even just a little, and Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo on the roster, that's not going to be that hard to do.

[Bryants Disco Ball]

I still feel pretty much exactly as I did last week or whenever, when I said we'd win the division by 10 games. I still think we'll win it without much worry late in the year. Maybe drop a couple games off of that with the newfound worry about what we'll get from Hendricks and if/when he'll be back. We now have Eddie Butler and John Lackey both in the rotation, probably for awhile. That is bad news. But we'll trade for pitching. I'm not sure for what quality. But, at least enough to shoot Butler and/or Lackey into the sun.

 

And I remain convinced that the rest of the division is even more trashy than we are. There won't be another team in the division over .500. We could seriously win, like, 85 games and not sweat it out in the last week. And, with an addition here or there, a few guys picking it up even just a little, and Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo on the roster, that's not going to be that hard to do.

 

Duker, I want you to be right so much. But I respectfully have to say you are crazy on this one.

 

I'm disappointed and in disbelief that the 2017 Cubs are this mediocre, especially since the division was just telling them to win it. Was giving it to them. But when so many things are below average, it's hard to see everything suddenly clicking. At least in 2015, we had quality starting pitching but just couldn't score. We needed one thing to improve to take off. We need like three major things to improve this time.

 

There is no opportunity to create any real momentum because there is no way this staff is going to get into a groove long enough. And our offense isn't good enough this season to compensate for that. An easy part of the schedule, that doesn't exist for us this season.

 

This is the Jason Heyward situation from last year, where everybody wanted to believe -- it's early, look at his track record, he's too good -- until finally we all just had to concede it wasn't going to happen.

 

The Cubs need their own reset. I still think there is a very real chance that ending such an historic drought and the intensity of those playoffs just took something out of them. (I realize now I've gotten into the crazy part of this post, but I do believe it).

 

Hopefully, these kinds of posts are hilarious to look back on in a few months. I just hope we are talking about mine and not yours.

[Sammy Sofa]

But when so many things are below average, it's hard to see everything suddenly clicking. At least in 2015, we had quality starting pitching but just couldn't score. We needed one thing to improve to take off. We need like three major things to improve this time.

 

This is the part that keeps me from getting all that excited about the Cubs stumbling in atop a terrible division; their mediocrity has layers to it.

 

If you had told me going into the season that the Cubs were basically only going to score via gigantic dongs, man, I would have been thrilled. The reality of that, however, is not nearly as fun as I would have pictured.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

We need, like, three major things to improve to turn into the 103-win World Champions of last year, that ran through everything in their path. That was one of the better baseball teams you are going to see, any year, really, though.

 

We are an about .500 team right now. Very average. By any way of looking at it. It is going to take an about .500 team to win this division. We don't need to improve that much to do that.

 

And... practically everything imaginable had to go wrong for us to become this .500 team. So it'd also have to stay wrong for us to stay .500. Past performances and such are still important. Definitely not as important as, like, a month ago. But, it is possible that some guys are just slumping and will break out of it. And it would be hard to get much worse.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

Basically, even if they remain this festering turd all year, they aren't going to fall out of the division race. As horrible as it's been -- and it's been horrible -- we're two games out. And the team that is above us is horsefeathering garbage. We don't even have to turn anything around to win the division. We could just win it... by default, as Sammy said last night.

[jersey cubs fan]

But when so many things are below average, it's hard to see everything suddenly clicking. At least in 2015, we had quality starting pitching but just couldn't score. We needed one thing to improve to take off. We need like three major things to improve this time.

 

This is the part that keeps me from getting all that excited about the Cubs stumbling in atop a terrible division; their mediocrity has layers to it.

 

If you had told me going into the season that the Cubs were basically only going to score via gigantic dongs, man, I would have been thrilled. The reality of that, however, is not nearly as fun as I would have pictured.

 

Their biggest weakness right now is the back of the rotation and some quality hitters that aren't hitting consistently. If they do get into the playoffs they will have Jon Lester, a potentially rounding into form Arrieta and hopefully Hendricks. And the back of the bullpen is great. It won't really matter that Lackey is a tire fire and the 5th starter is a hodge podge of middle relievers.

 

They are almost the epitome of a get in and see what happens team. Let the Dodgers face the AZ/CO playoff winner and take your chances against Dusty Baker's Nationals with the 4 pitchers leading the league in innings pitched and a mess of a bullpen.

[Sammy Sofa]

Yes, but I want watchable baseball NOW, not the Cubs' version of the NBA.

 

GIVE ME WHAT I WANT.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

But when so many things are below average, it's hard to see everything suddenly clicking. At least in 2015, we had quality starting pitching but just couldn't score. We needed one thing to improve to take off. We need like three major things to improve this time.

 

This is the part that keeps me from getting all that excited about the Cubs stumbling in atop a terrible division; their mediocrity has layers to it.

 

If you had told me going into the season that the Cubs were basically only going to score via gigantic dongs, man, I would have been thrilled. The reality of that, however, is not nearly as fun as I would have pictured.

 

The offense will round in to shape(this has already started, they had an 83 wRC+ in May and it's 106 in June), and they'll get some external SP help plus Hendricks will get healthy(and hopefully Montgomery gets more innings than Butler). This isn't some plan where 17 things have to go right in concert for them to win the division, and despite their struggles they're one game out in the loss column to a mediocre team.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

Yeah, despite everything seeming bad, we've actually been pretty good in a number of areas. It's just that, when taken altogether, it has equated to us sucking. And even then, we're still average and not actually bad.

 

We are definitely worse at just about everything. But we were also better than nearly every team in practically every facet of the game last year. So it seems worse in comparison.

 

This year, we rank 5th in MLB in bullpen ERA, 7th in DRS, 8th in BsR, our offense is 1st in BB% and 10th in ISO. Our BB% and ISO are nearly exactly the same as last year, but we rank last in BABIP. That's been the major difference with the offense. It's pretty much the only difference. That's not to say we've just been unlucky. We have hit like horsefeathers. Too much weak contact. Too many balls on the ground. Not enough line drives. But that stuff is fluid. It's one of the reasons BABIP is fluky. Weird stuff just happens sometimes. We haven't suddenly become a bunch of weak hitters. They've got the same ISO, after all. They just aren't getting good things to happen when they make contact. But they have in the past. And if a couple of them figure things out, our fortunes on offense could change really quickly.

 

The other stuff I mentioned above, where we rank well, still isn't quite where we thought we'd be in some cases. But it's certainly not bad. You can definitely live with being top 10 in those things. And that leaves the rotation. It horsefeathering blows right now. And it needs addressed. It will be. It will get better. And we just have to hope that Arrieta and Hendricks can at least be dependable.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

I was pissed at my wife booking a cruise during the week of the NLCS this year but now I'm starting to wonder if it will matter.

[spoil]it won't[/spoil]

[CaliforniaRaisin]

I still feel pretty much exactly as I did last week or whenever, when I said we'd win the division by 10 games. I still think we'll win it without much worry late in the year. Maybe drop a couple games off of that with the newfound worry about what we'll get from Hendricks and if/when he'll be back. We now have Eddie Butler and John Lackey both in the rotation, probably for awhile. That is bad news. But we'll trade for pitching. I'm not sure for what quality. But, at least enough to shoot Butler and/or Lackey into the sun.

 

And I remain convinced that the rest of the division is even more trashy than we are. There won't be another team in the division over .500. We could seriously win, like, 85 games and not sweat it out in the last week. And, with an addition here or there, a few guys picking it up even just a little, and Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo on the roster, that's not going to be that hard to do.

 

Duker, I want you to be right so much. But I respectfully have to say you are crazy on this one.

 

I'm disappointed and in disbelief that the 2017 Cubs are this mediocre, especially since the division was just telling them to win it. Was giving it to them. But when so many things are below average, it's hard to see everything suddenly clicking. At least in 2015, we had quality starting pitching but just couldn't score. We needed one thing to improve to take off. We need like three major things to improve this time.

 

There is no opportunity to create any real momentum because there is no way this staff is going to get into a groove long enough. And our offense isn't good enough this season to compensate for that. An easy part of the schedule, that doesn't exist for us this season.

 

This is the Jason Heyward situation from last year, where everybody wanted to believe -- it's early, look at his track record, he's too good -- until finally we all just had to concede it wasn't going to happen.

 

The Cubs need their own reset. I still think there is a very real chance that ending such an historic drought and the intensity of those playoffs just took something out of them. (I realize now I've gotten into the crazy part of this post, but I do believe it).

 

Hopefully, these kinds of posts are hilarious to look back on in a few months. I just hope we are talking about mine and not yours.

 

The comparison to Heyward last year isn't great because last year, you were relying on one guy to improve and there was a higher threshold to achieve this goal. This year, you can rely on any host of guys improving from their underachieving starts (some of whom are starting to turn it around) or acquiring another SP just to get the traction needed to win this garbage division.