May 20, 2019 - Phillies (Jakester) at Cubs (p-Yu) 7:05 PM Live from Wrigley on NBC Sports - Chicago

[itisallpartoftheplan]

What a stupid game to lose. horsefeathers.

[soccer10k]

 

No he didn't

 

Look at the still above. He went.

 

*shrug* was that a still that the umpire got to see before making his call? Did he have that angle on it?

 

That’s not the point. Schwarber Fan said he went around, you said he didn’t. The ump missed the call. Just admit you were wrong and move on.

[17 Seconds]

how many times do we have to watch this happen

[CyHawk_Cub]

Given how unlikely it is that a move happens any time soon, plenty more times I figure.

[17 Seconds]

ownership and the front office are just happy to be above .500

[17 Seconds]

man this one really stings

[Cubswin11]

The positives are Yu and Brach looked good. If Brach is back to his old self hitting 96-97 that’s a nice bullpen piece. We probably can get by with Strop/Cishek/Brach as the main 3 pieces for a while with Carl, Kintzler, Chatwood, Monty and Cedeno as complimentary pieces though they should and need add at least a Ken Giles, Will Smith or someone at some point.

[17 Seconds]

The positives are Yu and Brach looked good. If Brach is back to his old self hitting 96-97 that’s a nice bullpen piece. We probably can get by with Strop/Cishek/Brach as the main 3 pieces for a while with Carl, Kintzler, Chatwood, Monty and Cedeno as complimentary pieces though they should and need add at least a Ken Giles, Will Smith or someone at some point.

 

just frustrating to know their record should be better based on how they've generally performed, and it's because of games like this that it's not. after losing the division by 1 game last year, it feels really bad to watch the overall roster perform much better than milwaukee's for the first quarter of the season and have almost no separation to show for it. every time one of these aaa relievers loses a game, it's because the cubs decided they were good enough, even though last year they weren't.

 

i just never thought we'd spend the 3 years after the world series struggling to stay ahead of the milwaukee brewers

[Cubswin11]

The positives are Yu and Brach looked good. If Brach is back to his old self hitting 96-97 that’s a nice bullpen piece. We probably can get by with Strop/Cishek/Brach as the main 3 pieces for a while with Carl, Kintzler, Chatwood, Monty and Cedeno as complimentary pieces though they should and need add at least a Ken Giles, Will Smith or someone at some point.

 

just frustrating to know their record should be better based on how they've generally performed, and it's because of games like this that it's not. after losing the division by 1 game last year, it feels really bad to watch the overall roster perform much better than milwaukee's for the first quarter of the season and have almost no separation to show for it. every time one of these aaa relievers loses a game, it's because the cubs decided they were good enough, even though last year they weren't.

 

i just never thought we'd spend the 3 years after the world series struggling to stay ahead of the milwaukee brewers

It’s frustrating but all bullpens lose games, Hader gave up a walk off Dong this weekend. We literally won a game this year because Taylor horsefeathering Davis hit a grand slam. This horsefeathers evens out. We are playing at 97 win pace and last I checked fangraphs they had us at 92-93 wins and nobody else in the division above 87. We are better than the Brewers, it’s only May and we have a 3-4 game lead in the loss column. Pedro is back soon and hopefully we add at least one solid reliever sooner than later on top of him (sounds like we’re looking in to it already) and another one around the deadline.

Edited May 21, 2019 by Cubswin11

[17 Seconds]

The positives are Yu and Brach looked good. If Brach is back to his old self hitting 96-97 that’s a nice bullpen piece. We probably can get by with Strop/Cishek/Brach as the main 3 pieces for a while with Carl, Kintzler, Chatwood, Monty and Cedeno as complimentary pieces though they should and need add at least a Ken Giles, Will Smith or someone at some point.

 

just frustrating to know their record should be better based on how they've generally performed, and it's because of games like this that it's not. after losing the division by 1 game last year, it feels really bad to watch the overall roster perform much better than milwaukee's for the first quarter of the season and have almost no separation to show for it. every time one of these aaa relievers loses a game, it's because the cubs decided they were good enough, even though last year they weren't.

 

i just never thought we'd spend the 3 years after the world series struggling to stay ahead of the milwaukee brewers

It’s frustrating but all bullpens lose games, Hader gave up a walk off Dong this weekend. We literally won a game this year because Taylor horsefeathering Davis hit a grand slam. This horsefeathers evens out. We are better than the Brewers, it’s only May and we have a 3-4 game lead in the loss column. Pedro is back soon and hopefully we add at least one solid reliever sooner than later on top of him (sounds like we’re gonna looking in to it already) and another one around the deadline.

 

we were better than the brewers last year too. it means nothing if they can't actually be better than them in the standings. a lot of that is the brewers over-performing, and some of that is our cheapness. you'd think the front office wouldn't want to dick around with clear flaws on the team costing us games early in the season. i know that because they talked about it after they blew it last year.

[Cubswin11]

 

just frustrating to know their record should be better based on how they've generally performed, and it's because of games like this that it's not. after losing the division by 1 game last year, it feels really bad to watch the overall roster perform much better than milwaukee's for the first quarter of the season and have almost no separation to show for it. every time one of these aaa relievers loses a game, it's because the cubs decided they were good enough, even though last year they weren't.

 

i just never thought we'd spend the 3 years after the world series struggling to stay ahead of the milwaukee brewers

It’s frustrating but all bullpens lose games, Hader gave up a walk off Dong this weekend. We literally won a game this year because Taylor horsefeathering Davis hit a grand slam. This horsefeathers evens out. We are better than the Brewers, it’s only May and we have a 3-4 game lead in the loss column. Pedro is back soon and hopefully we add at least one solid reliever sooner than later on top of him (sounds like we’re gonna looking in to it already) and another one around the deadline.

 

we were better than the brewers last year too

We were and they had to play like .750 baseball for 30-40 games to catch us, can’t do much about that. We went 49-32 July-September last year. I’d bet that doesn’t happen this year and if we win 92-95 games like we should we’re gonna win the division.

[17 Seconds]

It’s frustrating but all bullpens lose games, Hader gave up a walk off Dong this weekend. We literally won a game this year because Taylor horsefeathering Davis hit a grand slam. This horsefeathers evens out. We are better than the Brewers, it’s only May and we have a 3-4 game lead in the loss column. Pedro is back soon and hopefully we add at least one solid reliever sooner than later on top of him (sounds like we’re gonna looking in to it already) and another one around the deadline.

 

we were better than the brewers last year too

We were and they had to play like .750 baseball for 30-40 games to catch us, can’t do much about that. We went 49-32 July-September last year. I’d bet that doesn’t happen this year and if we win 92-95 games like we should we’re gonna win the division.

 

at a certain point i'd like for the "we are way better than the brewers" stuff to actually show up in the standings. every little annoying little setback is just allowing it to continue. we should be past the brewers. they should not be a concern to the cubs with the pieces we have in place and the resources to make it better.

Edited May 21, 2019 by 17 Seconds

[Cubswin11]

 

just frustrating to know their record should be better based on how they've generally performed, and it's because of games like this that it's not. after losing the division by 1 game last year, it feels really bad to watch the overall roster perform much better than milwaukee's for the first quarter of the season and have almost no separation to show for it. every time one of these aaa relievers loses a game, it's because the cubs decided they were good enough, even though last year they weren't.

 

i just never thought we'd spend the 3 years after the world series struggling to stay ahead of the milwaukee brewers

It’s frustrating but all bullpens lose games, Hader gave up a walk off Dong this weekend. We literally won a game this year because Taylor horsefeathering Davis hit a grand slam. This horsefeathers evens out. We are better than the Brewers, it’s only May and we have a 3-4 game lead in the loss column. Pedro is back soon and hopefully we add at least one solid reliever sooner than later on top of him (sounds like we’re gonna looking in to it already) and another one around the deadline.

 

we were better than the brewers last year too. it means nothing if they can't actually be better than them in the standings. a lot of that is the brewers over-performing, and some of that is our cheapness. you'd think the front office wouldn't want to dick around with clear flaws on the team costing us games early in the season. i know that because they talked about it after they blew it last year.

We are 3-4 games clear of them in the loss column as of today. I’m willing to give them some slack on the pen until after the deadline. The high priced options have all kinda sucked so far this year, it’s not like Andrew Miller is killing it. Bullpens are volatile and I kinda like the throw horsefeathers against the wall strategy and think we ultimately have some good shake out of it then address the needs as you see them in season up to the deadline (hopefully we can make a move or two soon). Kimbrel isn’t a silver bullet and it would be dumb to give him Melancon/Jansen money and he had some major red flags last year.

[17 Seconds]

It’s frustrating but all bullpens lose games, Hader gave up a walk off Dong this weekend. We literally won a game this year because Taylor horsefeathering Davis hit a grand slam. This horsefeathers evens out. We are better than the Brewers, it’s only May and we have a 3-4 game lead in the loss column. Pedro is back soon and hopefully we add at least one solid reliever sooner than later on top of him (sounds like we’re gonna looking in to it already) and another one around the deadline.

 

we were better than the brewers last year too. it means nothing if they can't actually be better than them in the standings. a lot of that is the brewers over-performing, and some of that is our cheapness. you'd think the front office wouldn't want to dick around with clear flaws on the team costing us games early in the season. i know that because they talked about it after they blew it last year.

We are 3-4 games clear of them in the loss column as of today. I’m willing to give them some slack on the pen until after the deadline. The high priced options have all kinda sucked so far this year, it’s not like Andrew Miller is killing it. Bullpens are volatile and I kinda like the throw horsefeathers against the wall strategy and think we ultimately have some good shake out of it then address the needs as you see them in season up to the deadline (hopefully we can make a move or two soon). Kimbrel isn’t a silver bullet and it would be dumb to give him Melancon/Jansen money and he had some major red flags last year.

 

citing the "loss column" in may is pointless. they are 1 game ahead of them, not 3-4.

[Cubswin11]

 

we were better than the brewers last year too

We were and they had to play like .750 baseball for 30-40 games to catch us, can’t do much about that. We went 49-32 July-September last year. I’d bet that doesn’t happen this year and if we win 92-95 games like we should we’re gonna win the division.

 

at a certain point i'd like for the "we are way better than the brewers" stuff to actually show up in the standings. every little annoying little setback is just allowing it to continue. we should be past the brewers. they should not be a concern to the cubs with the pieces we have in place and the resources to make it better.

It showed up in 2017 and pretty much for most of last year until they didn’t lose for all of September. If they’re gonna go win 95 games, like last year, it’s hard to blow past them regardless of what we do. Most years aren’t like 2016.

[Cubswin11]

 

we were better than the brewers last year too. it means nothing if they can't actually be better than them in the standings. a lot of that is the brewers over-performing, and some of that is our cheapness. you'd think the front office wouldn't want to dick around with clear flaws on the team costing us games early in the season. i know that because they talked about it after they blew it last year.

We are 3-4 games clear of them in the loss column as of today. I’m willing to give them some slack on the pen until after the deadline. The high priced options have all kinda sucked so far this year, it’s not like Andrew Miller is killing it. Bullpens are volatile and I kinda like the throw horsefeathers against the wall strategy and think we ultimately have some good shake out of it then address the needs as you see them in season up to the deadline (hopefully we can make a move or two soon). Kimbrel isn’t a silver bullet and it would be dumb to give him Melancon/Jansen money and he had some major red flags last year.

 

citing the "loss column" in may is pointless. they are 1 game ahead of them, not 3-4.

Citing the standings the May is even more pointless. Being up in the loss column is always important, they can’t make up losses on us

[17 Seconds]

another part of it is the fact that the cubs have played a little over their heads so far, so it feels bad for that to have not turned into a bigger lead. fangraphs still only has us at 90 wins. the top 4 hitters have been absolutely absurd, and when they inevitably regress, i have no confidence for the other guys to be better than they have been. the rotation is also likely to regress.

 

basically i'm just annoyed that the last season plus has been spent thinking that we're about to surge way ahead of the brewers, only for it to never happen. i know we can't control them playing above their heads, but horsefeathers it feels bad that can't pull away from THAT team.

[17 Seconds]

We are 3-4 games clear of them in the loss column as of today. I’m willing to give them some slack on the pen until after the deadline. The high priced options have all kinda sucked so far this year, it’s not like Andrew Miller is killing it. Bullpens are volatile and I kinda like the throw horsefeathers against the wall strategy and think we ultimately have some good shake out of it then address the needs as you see them in season up to the deadline (hopefully we can make a move or two soon). Kimbrel isn’t a silver bullet and it would be dumb to give him Melancon/Jansen money and he had some major red flags last year.

 

citing the "loss column" in may is pointless. they are 1 game ahead of them, not 3-4.

Citing the standings the May is even more pointless. Being up in the loss column is always important, they can’t make up losses on us

 

it's relevant late in the season when there are limited games left because of the "we control our own destiny" aspect of it. if you want to point out the winning percentage then fine, but citing the loss column in may is to intentionally overstate the difference between the teams.

[We Got The Whole 9]

I'm sick of hearing how a team carrying a 200m payroll is cheap. It is patently absurd.

[17 Seconds]

I'm sick of hearing how a team carrying a 200m payroll is cheap. It is patently absurd.

 

"i'm sick of hearing how a player making a million dollars a year to play a game is underpaid. it is patently absurd"

[We Got The Whole 9]

I'm sick of hearing how a team carrying a 200m payroll is cheap. It is patently absurd.

 

"i'm sick of hearing how a player making a million dollars a year to play a game is underpaid. it is patently absurd"

You sound like a petulant little brat. The team has committed 600m in FREE AGENCY payroll in the Maddon era. Cheap, is a total crock of horsefeathers.

[17 Seconds]

I'm sick of hearing how a team carrying a 200m payroll is cheap. It is patently absurd.

 

"i'm sick of hearing how a player making a million dollars a year to play a game is underpaid. it is patently absurd"

You sound like a petulant little brat. The team has committed 600m in FREE AGENCY payroll in the Maddon era. Cheap, is a total crock of horsefeathers.

 

it's obvious you aren't even willing to have a real argument about that, because you dropped one number with zero context to pretend like you don't understand what the debate is. yes, that's objectively a lot of money, no horsefeathers.

[soccer10k]

another part of it is the fact that the cubs have played a little over their heads so far, so it feels bad for that to have not turned into a bigger lead. fangraphs still only has us at 90 wins. the top 4 hitters have been absolutely absurd, and when they inevitably regress, i have no confidence for the other guys to be better than they have been. the rotation is also likely to regress.

 

basically i'm just annoyed that the last season plus has been spent thinking that we're about to surge way ahead of the brewers, only for it to never happen. i know we can't control them playing above their heads, but horsefeathers it feels bad that can't pull away from THAT team.

 

The Cubs have played over their heads?

 

Here's a list of players who posted a full season OPS higher than 1.172 since 2000: Barry Bonds 4 times and Sammy Sosa once. Go back a couple more years and you can add a couple McGwire seasons. Yelich has obviously improved significantly over the last year or so but if you think he's turned into steroid era Bonds/Sosa/McGwire, you're crazy. That doesn't mean he's bad, but he'll probably settle closer to his overall numbers from last year rather than what he's at now.

 

We can both play the overperforming/underperforming game here. If we're talking Cubs regression...

 

KB is at .937. He was .939 and .946 in 2016 and 2017 and was above that last year before getting hurt. And that's with a .280 BABIP when he's been at least .330 in his first four years. He's also got a career low K rate and a career high BB rate.

Rizzo's at a .910 OPS. He's been between .846 to .928 the last five years. I'd say he's right in line. He's still only at a .226 BABIP. K's and BB's right in line with the last four years also.

Javy has gone .737 to .796 to .881 and is at .953 this year. I'll buy some regression there considering his BABIP is at .407, as it's been an average of .340 the last three years.

Which leaves Willy, and he'll almost certainly regress a decent amount. He had a .850 OPS his first two years and he's at 1.053 now.

 

But that still means out of our top-4, I'd call one who has been "absolutely absurd" as you say. That leaves one who has slightly underperformed, one right in line and one slightly overperformed.

 

And for pitching, if we're doing quick and dirty, Hendricks and Q have ERA's which are right in line with their FIP, Darvish is slightly under (before today, don't know how that affected it), while Hamels and Lester have overperformed (0.86 for Hamels and 0.89 for Lester). So two of our starters have overperformed but not nearly to the extent that two of the Brewers starters have.

 

Brewer's rotation?

 

Zach Davies has a 1.54 ERA despite a 3.74 FIP and a 1.18 WHIP.

Gio has a 1.69 ERA despite a 3.00 FIP and 1.08 WHIP

 

I could do more digging but it's late and I have to work in the morning.

[Old Style]

I'm sick of hearing how a team carrying a 200m payroll is cheap. It is patently absurd.

 

"i'm sick of hearing how a player making a million dollars a year to play a game is underpaid. it is patently absurd"

You sound like a petulant little brat. The team has committed 600m in FREE AGENCY payroll in the Maddon era. Cheap, is a total crock of horsefeathers.

Now tell us how many billions per year the Rickettseseses are pocketing.

[Bryants Disco Ball]

I'm going to give 17 Seconds a little slack because at least his frustration is coming from his annoyance with the Brewers, and anybody who hates the Brewers or are annoyed with them is good in my book.

 

Here are the things I disagree with.

 

1. I know people will call this boot licking, but we really have to stop acting like the Cubs are cheap. Yes, it's fun because the Ricketts have now become even more frustrating than the Tribune Company and, even worse, they are crappy people. But we have the second-highest payroll in baseball and the highest in the National League, according to Spotrac.

 

The Cubs spent their wad the past four seasons, and this was always going to happen. We have easily spent enough money to be a great club, whether it was allocated well enough certainly can be part of the discussion. But spending money really shouldn't be. That said, hell yes, of course I'd love for them to just throw 15 million at Kimbrel for the rest of the season. But I'd ask you to consider, unless you are talking to a Boston Red Sox fan, don't bring up spending money if you are at talking to a fan of any other team. They picked a team to cheer for that is even cheaper than yours.

 

2. I always look at the loss columm no matter what month it is. Sure, it doesn't mean as much on May 21, but as Cubswin11 said, neither do the actual standings.

 

3. I still don't understand the people who think we should somehow be five to eight games ahead of the Brewers right now. Maybe they are lucky, maybe not. But they have one of the best records in the National League. Expecting the Cubs to not only have one of the best records in the league but to be that far ahead of another team with one of the best records just isn't real fair. It's often about what division you are in.

 

If you switch the Cubs into the Dodgers' division and the Dodgers into the Cubs', suddenly, the Cubs are looking a whole lot better.

 

Thanks for taking the time to read, even if you don't agree with all three points or any of them.