3/31 Cubs (Hamels) @ Rangers (Lynn) 3:05 NBCSC

[imb]

Yankees lost 2 of 3 at home to the Orioles and Red Sox lost 3 of 4 to the Mariners. I assume their seasons are over too.

 

I think this is a needed post. Not sure people like Duker or Tim are going to post enough to call us ninnies or tell us #wearegood. We need at least somebody to point out overreactions after three games.

 

Of course both duke and Tim were wrong last year.

 

The context here is obviously the key part. No 3 game series, particularly the very first one, means anything - yet the cubs lost exactly how a look at their roster predicted they would. The Yankees and Red Sox don’t have the same roster issues (actually the Red Sox might)

 

My fear about the pen is not only that it might not be good, the only reliable parts are a mid 30s strop who looked washed late last year and cishek (same.)

[Cubswin11]

Yankees lost 2 of 3 at home to the Orioles and Red Sox lost 3 of 4 to the Mariners. I assume their seasons are over too. horsefeathers, series and some of the worst ways to lose. At least the offense looks good. Bullpens can be fixed, even the options we have aren’t this bad as they’ve been the last 2 days. Hamels was a blown strike away from having a good start today. Idk, I’m willing to give it some time before I make any sweeping judgements.

I don’t know if I have faith in the front office to fix this mess. Their hands are tied with 3 bad contracts. Hayward, Darvish, and Chatwood.

 

The offense is a positive but man the bullpen is a mess.

 

The only way to fix it is to hope that Carl Jr. becomes good again and Morrow actually is back in May, and then you have four clean options in Carl, Strop, Cisek and Morrow and maybe somebody else I'm forgetting. That said, Carl has to somehow be good again and Morrow has to somehow come back in May.

 

Also, we really need the starters to not do this 5-inning, 95-pitch thing again.

The other thing about fixing the pen (or making it better) outside of what you mentioned, would be if Brach and/or Kintzler really is something serviceable or even very good like they’ve been in the past. Also we probably should start turning a spot over with AAA guys and see if something sticks, try and catch lightning in a bottle with one of the dozen or so guys down there. Cut Chatwood, DL Monty (he doesn’t look right, maybe his shoulder is still bothering him), or something to create a spot.

Edited April 1, 2019 by Cubswin11

[Cubswin11]

Yankees lost 2 of 3 at home to the Orioles and Red Sox lost 3 of 4 to the Mariners. I assume their seasons are over too.

 

I think this is a needed post. Not sure people like Duker or Tim are going to post enough to call us ninnies or tell us #wearegood. We need at least somebody to point out overreactions after three games.

 

Of course both duke and Tim were wrong last year.

 

The context here is obviously the key part. No 3 game series, particularly the very first one, means anything - yet the cubs lost exactly how a look at their roster predicted they would. The Yankees and Red Sox don’t have the same roster issues (actually the Red Sox might)

 

My fear about the pen is not only that it might not be good, the only reliable parts are a mid 30s strop who looked washed late last year and cishek (same.)

Yeah the worrying part is they lost on the things that we were worried most about. Hopefully it gets sorted out like we all think it can be, the talent is there for it not to be THIS bad. I don’t recall Pedro looking washed last year, he just got hurt running to 1B?

[Aaron_Kennelly]

[Sammy Sofa]

nobody cares about the 1-2 record, it's the way it happened. think about the resources that were used to acquire the pitchers who looked broken this weekend. and it's not that they were bad, it's that they were complete messes in the ways that they were complete messes last year.

 

Yeah, so many key parts of the pitching equation was handled along the lines of, "older pitchers with obvious issues who will be a year older and we'll just hope they figure it out and/or don't get hurt."

[bcl412]

It’s so frustrating to see how this team looks like a possible dynasty to every move we make since the World Series feels disastrous. Finishing below .500 feels so possible this year

[17 Seconds]

It’s so frustrating to see how this team looks like a possible dynasty to every move we make since the World Series feels disastrous. Finishing below .500 feels so possible this year

 

and then how would we fix it? there are going to be limited free agents (and who knows when ricketts will be willing to spend again on FA, assuming we'll need to pay baez and kb soon), and the farm system is still pretty bad right? like how are we going to add talent to make up for these huge mistakes.

[Cubswin11]

It’s so frustrating to see how this team looks like a possible dynasty to every move we make since the World Series feels disastrous. Finishing below .500 feels so possible this year

 

and then how would we fix it? there are going to be limited free agents (and who knows when ricketts will be willing to spend again on FA, assuming we'll need to pay baez and kb soon), and the farm system is still pretty bad right? like how are we going to add talent to make up for these huge mistakes.

There’s money (but obviously talent) coming off the next two years to add FA, maybe there isn’t money there for top tier FA (there really aren’t any this coming year anyways) but there are a lot of middle tier FA SP and there’s always plenty of bullpen/position player roster filler FA that don’t cost much. Bullpens can be built back up relatively easily year over year without crazy investments. We got Nico, Amaya, Roederer and Davis in the minors offensively, there’s a big enough stockpile of pitching that we should start seeing at least some bullpen options/back of rotation guys emerge soon, the guys with TOR stuff/potential are further off (not that there’s many).

 

This is obviously assuming we keep most of our own guys offensively and they remain good to elite and we only need to keep adding complimentary pieces to the offense through FA/trade/guys from the system through draft/IFA (you’d hope some of the draft/IFA guys like Nico, Amaya, Roeder And Davis are more than complimentary pieces) to the core and not spend on the elite additions there for some time yet.

Edited April 1, 2019 by Cubswin11

[r_mack]

Not developing any pitching talent looks bad right about now. That's the main problem.

[imb]

while yes it's bad that our roster is an unmanageable mess thanks to god-awful signings (darvish, chatwood, heyward, morrow, hamels [if you're feeling really nihilistic]) and the minors are bare and that any time a bad contract rolls off the books it will immediately replaced by arbitration raises given to our actual good players, the good news is that Theo is really only Theo when he's being forced to use his brain and not a checkbook. that's when he finds arrietas and strops and hendrickses.

[CubinNY]

I’m really upset about losing two games maybe they shouldn’t have. I’m more worried about the starting pitching than I am about the bullpen. There’s a lot of potential badness with little hope of fixing.

[KrisBryantisaBeast]

What a fun opening weekend

Well at least you weren’t in the stadium for this horsefeathers show like I was. What a waste of time and money.

 

I unfortunately was. I drove up from Austin for it. :(