The Cubs and .500

[jersey cubs fan]

3 hours ago, CubinNY said:

When do we start paying attention to the fecal league standings? When do Jed and Ross get placed on the proverbial hot seat?

Fecal league standings aren't a topic of conversation until after the draft, unless the Cubs totally bomb out.

Ross is on the hot seat as long as they stay under .500. Jed probably isn't on the hot seat until they come up short next season.  This year was about convincing fans they cared by the time tickets went on sale. They needed to look theoretically good. Nobody thought they'd be actual good. 

[imb]

petition to rename to The Cobs and .400

[jersey cubs fan]

56 minutes ago, imb said:

petition to rename to The Cobs and .400

If they lose 4 straight they will get there. And heads will roll

[jersey cubs fan]

The best the cubs can do before Memorial Day, is get back to .500, but not over. They could theoretically get over .500 ON Memorial Day, if they sweep the next two series and beat Tampa in game one. They are on pace to lose 92 games. They need to go 62-54 the rest of the way to finish above .500. That’s an 87 win pace, which may be a bridge too far for this squad. 
 

 

[17 Seconds]

I wonder how loud the boos will be this homestand

i predict that ross is fired this summer and jed is fired next summer

Edited May 21, 2023 by 17 Seconds

[UMFan83]

3 hours ago, 17 Seconds said:

I wonder how loud the boos will be this homestand

i predict that ross is fired this summer and jed is fired next summer

Have you seen the weather forecast this week? No one will care enough to boo that loudly

[Hairyducked Idiot]

"never" is really not looking bad right now

[jersey cubs fan]

28 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

"never" is really not looking bad right now

55% of the vote

[CubinNY]

15 hours ago, 17 Seconds said:

I wonder how loud the boos will be this homestand

i predict that ross is fired this summer and jed is fired next summer

Tommy Boy loves Jed and Jed loves Ross. There will not be any firings this year. 

[SouthSideRyan]

'08 had the best position player OBP in the majors.

[Andy]

Those numbers are all great and I don't remotely trust that the team is good enough to keep them going long enough for their close-game luck (or failures, depending on the mood I'm in on a given day) to normalize. All they mean to me is the team has wasted probably the best baseball they'll play this season on a 20-26 record.

[soccer10k]

Odds are the only players we’ll be trading for in the summer are minor leaguers.

[PackLandVA]

9 hours ago, TomtheBombadil said:

So right now (5/22 still AM) the position player group as a whole:

- 3rd in OBP. Tbh this one's so important that I'd be happy to stop here with so much time left. 2016 was 2nd in baseball, only Cubs team (maybe '08?) I can think of with such a competitive OBP

- 5th in WAR

- 5th in BB%............

 

 

 

 

Now do the pitching.

[jersey cubs fan]

Over .500 by end of Memorial Day still on the table 

[Tryptamine]

It's kind of amazing that, by ERA, the Cubs have 3 starters in the top 20 in baseball. Steele 2.20(6th), Smyly 2.93(15th), Stroman 2.95(16th) and they're still under .500. 

[17 Seconds]

if they finish like 20 games under. are they even going to try to win next year, or could the cubs be so bad this year that they push back the timeline and extend the mini-rebuild?

[CubinNY]

10 minutes ago, 17 Seconds said:

if they finish like 20 games under. are they even going to try to win next year, or could the cubs be so bad this year that they push back the timeline and extend the mini-rebuild?

They aren’t actually trying to win this year so, I don’t know. The Ricketts believe in building a team from the farm. They don’t have any Marquee (no pun intended) on the current roster so they won’t be landing any prospects with sell offs. I think they will stay the course. It’s all they can do, really. 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

4 minutes ago, 17 Seconds said:

if they finish like 20 games under. are they even going to try to win next year, or could the cubs be so bad this year that they push back the timeline and extend the mini-rebuild?

IMO things would have to go very wrong in a very specific way(think Stroman + Steele needing TJS) for them to deviate significantly from the path they're on.  What I could see is if things are particularly bad/unlucky, that might influence their decision on whether or not to go over the LT next year.  They were careful to not exceed it this year, and a .500ish team that looks poised to make the jump is an easy sell on paying the tax if needed.  But if it's a 70 win team where Mervis, Morel, and Wesneski all flop to varying degrees, I could see them staying under given the amount of holes that would still exist.  I don't think it would change all that much on who and how they spend the money they do have available to them.

 

Ultimately though, they almost certainly won't continue being this much worse than the sum of their parts for the whole season.  So either they'll get hot and sort some things out and hit that .500ish trajectory, or the individual stat lines start taking a hit, and if that happens you need to see *how* it happens to see what it means for 2024.  A 70 win team that can't catch a break because Mancini is unplayable, Bellinger goes back in the tank, and the bullpen can't find traction has a different outlook than a 70 win team that has 1-2 SP worth being in a playoff rotation and 4 unsettled lineup spots because none of the young bats are seizing them.

[UMFan83]

35 minutes ago, 17 Seconds said:

if they finish like 20 games under. are they even going to try to win next year, or could the cubs be so bad this year that they push back the timeline and extend the mini-rebuild?

That's an interesting question.  If they finish 71-91 and attempt to add a 4th and 5th year to the "retool" there should be serious questions about whether they have the right people in charge.

[Derwood]

I predict the Cubs will be .500 again on Opening Day 2024

[jersey cubs fan]

5 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

That's an interesting question.  If they finish 71-91 and attempt to add a 4th and 5th year to the "retool" there should be serious questions about whether they have the right people in charge.

Jed is signed through 2025. Presumably they won’t fire him until at least after 2024 so they aren’t double dipping on a presidential salary. They could even let him work through his contract. But if they tumble my guess is they’d put limitations on what Hoyer can do, so as to not handicap his inevitable replacement. Hard lines drawn on the cap, limits on years offered to free agents. If 2025 starts out good and they end up contending, he might get a short extension, otherwise they’ll start looking for his replacement in the middle of that season. 

[jersey cubs fan]

On 5/26/2023 at 5:49 PM, UMFan83 said:

That's an interesting question.  If they finish 71-91 and attempt to add a 4th and 5th year to the "retool" there should be serious questions about whether they have the right people in charge.

Currently on pace to come up well short of 71-91. 

[Derwood]

On 5/26/2023 at 5:59 PM, Derwood said:

I predict the Cubs will be .500 again on Opening Day 2024

 

This post is holding up

[apete6]

Welp. This team STINKS. They've wasted probably the best seasons that Stroman and Swanson will ever have. The farm system is good, but there are no guaranteed all-stars in the bunch. We could be bad for a loooooong time. 

[UMFan83]

4th of July maybe??