The Cubs and .500

[CubUgly]

 

Posted Saturday at 04:46 PM

4th of July maybe??

 

I think we have a winner!!

[Derwood]

Remaining schedule heading into the ASB:

1 @ PIT

2 vs. STL (London)

3 vs. PHI

3 vs. CLE

4 @ MIL

3 @ NYY

 

 

[David]

On 6/9/2023 at 9:30 AM, apete6 said:

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. 

Not trying to dunk on this or saying this is absolutely wrong or anything.  They're still under .500, after all. 

That said, it's wild how much the vibes can change in a couple weeks, lol.

[jersey cubs fan]

Hey Jed and David…,

[soccer10k]

7 hours ago, David said:

Not trying to dunk on this or saying this is absolutely wrong or anything.  They're still under .500, after all. 

That said, it's wild how much the vibes can change in a couple weeks, lol.

They shitty division certainly helps too. Rather than being 8.5 back of Arizona or 11 back of Atlanta, we’re only 3.5 back, which at least provides some hope of getting into the playoffs.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Did not expect this thread to return to relevance.

[squally1313]

Well we've tripled our playoff odds in two weeks, from 7.1% to 21.9% as of today. Brewers are still the clear favorite, although a lot of that is based on projections that just haven't really played out so far this year....Burnes has been simply above average, not dominant, even before he got blown up in his last start. Peralta has a well earned 4.60 ERA so far this year, Zips has them for 3.5 more fWAR this season and they've combined for 1.6 so far this year, 72 games in. Who knows with Woodruff, and then you're left with Teheran (5.86 K/9), Houser (5.49 K/9), Wade Miley (5.4 K/9) and Colin Rea (Colin Rea). Yelich and William Contreras are the only hitters over 100 wRC.

Basically all these teams suck, might as well give it a shot. 

[David]

I'm going with June 25th.

[David]

Oh, wait.  It says "over."  Damn it.

[UMFan83]

[CubinNY]

1 hour ago, UMFan83 said:

What did you say a month or two ago? Least fun team to watch. True then, true now. They won't be fun any time soon. 

[jersey cubs fan]

After tomorrows game they will have played half the season and best they can hope for is 3 games under .500. That also means the best they can do by Fourth of July is be at .500. They can still cross the mark before the all star break and be in a position to contend. But they can’t really afford too many more 4 game losing streaks.

 

the four game set against Milwaukee could make or break the season, but will most likely leave a lot of questions unanswered. 

[jersey cubs fan]

[Sammy Sofa]

On 6/21/2023 at 9:38 AM, David said:

That said, it's wild how much the vibes can change in a couple weeks, lol.

[jersey cubs fan]

[CubinNY]

Which is worse:

1 - Jed thought this team would be competitive when he built it

2 - Jed built this team to be mediocre with the idea of maybe selling some of it for parts with the idea of competing in 2024 and beyond.

[Irrelevant Dude]

11 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

Which is worse:

1 - Jed thought this team would be competitive when he built it

2 - Jed built this team to be mediocre with the idea of maybe selling some of it for parts with the idea of competing in 2024 and beyond.

The first one is much worse.  If Jed intentionally built a mediocre team, that at least allows for the possibility that he knows how to build a good team when he deems the time is right.  The first one implies that Jed simply has no idea what he is doing and how to build a team except to try to catch lightning in a bottle again like Theo did with the 2016 era group.  Unfortunately I think Jed having no idea how to build a winning team is much closer to the truth.

[UMFan83]

12 hours ago, jersey cubs fan said:

[Tryptamine]

I've thought this a few times, but Jed really needs to come out and say that it is and actually was a rebuild. If he's going to stick to that he truly thought this was a competitive team then he has proven himself to be entirely to incompetent to remain with the organization.

[Sammy Sofa]

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I feel like this line of conversation has memory wiped how everyone has talked about the team for months, either that or we've forgotten what it's like to follow a mediocre team.  On the former, very few people thought this was a do or die situation in terms of making the playoffs.  A lot of folks described it as trying to be between the 2014 and 2015 seasons where they'd be a decent team and springboard from there into consistent playoff contention/appearances(especially with Heyward and Hendricks' money off the books).  80% of us said the team would win 85 or fewer games(and a big chunk was 5+ games fewer), so given the line for playoff competitiveness most years we were collectively bearish on that possibility.  So that leaves the latter, which is understandable.  The Cubs have won between 76 and 90 games just once since the Hendry era, and that was 2019(84 wins) which was naturally going to feel like a huge disappointment.  Mediocre teams are frustrating, they lose more than you feel they should, and they leave you feeling miles away one week and then counting your what-ifs when they put it together the next.  I pegged them at 84 wins, and while that's what their pythag says they've earned with their play so far, it's been a disappointing year, but also one that is part of the reasonable set of outcomes when you're projected to be a middling team.

[Sammy Sofa]

6 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

I pegged them at 84 wins

Man, that's easily worth at least 90.

[CubinNY]

2 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

I feel like this line of conversation has memory wiped how everyone has talked about the team for months, either that or we've forgotten what it's like to follow a mediocre team.  On the former, very few people thought this was a do or die situation in terms of making the playoffs.  A lot of folks described it as trying to be between the 2014 and 2015 seasons where they'd be a decent team and springboard from there into consistent playoff contention/appearances(especially with Heyward and Hendricks' money off the books).  80% of us said the team would win 85 or fewer games(and a big chunk was 5+ games fewer), so given the line for playoff competitiveness most years we were collectively bearish on that possibility.  So that leaves the latter, which is understandable.  The Cubs have won between 76 and 90 games just once since the Hendry era, and that was 2019(84 wins) which was naturally going to feel like a huge disappointment.  Mediocre teams are frustrating, they lose more than you feel they should, and they leave you feeling miles away one week and then counting your what-ifs when they put it together the next.  I pegged them at 84 wins, and while that's what their pythag says they've earned with their play so far, it's been a disappointing year, but also one that is part of the reasonable set of outcomes when you're projected to be a middling team.

The reasonable question seems to be, is this what Jed thought of the team when he built it? If so that's fine I suppose, but they are going to finish right around the same as where they were last year. Their pitching and defense plan for success doesn't seem to be working. 

 

I'm getting way ahead here, but they have to make a strong bid for Urias if he makes it to FA. 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Just now, CubinNY said:

The reasonable question seems to be, is this what Jed thought of the team when he built it? If so that's fine I suppose, but they are going to finish right around the same as where they were last year. Their pitching and defense plan for success doesn't seem to be working. 

 

I'm getting way ahead here, but they have to make a strong bid for Urias if he makes it to FA. 

I guess what are the alternatives if he didn't think that?  It's that he thought he had built a near 90 game winner/division contender, which doesn't track with his words or behaviors during the offseason, or he thought he had built a low-70s win team but for some reason was fine with throwing lots of money at Swanson, Taillon, and extending Hoerner & Happ to lock in a core of players.  The most logical interpretation to me is that the target was building an averageish team that would get some fan excitement by being in the playoff hunt later in the year, but ultimately wasn't banking on a playoff appearance.  You can see some residue of success in that approach with things like the run differential, but a combination of where the inevitable misses have come and some bad fortune with injuries/schedule luck mean that fan excitement isn't happening.

Maybe the telltale sign for how to view this team is in their record when they actually have their good players available.  I DIY'd this several days ago so I may be off a game or so, but at last check they're a .500 team(and better by RD) when Hoerner, Swanson, and Bellinger are on the roster(not in the lineup, just on the active roster). The problem is those 3 have been on the roster for about half of the team's games.  I think that's telling because it's not saying that they're any type of juggernaut when things aren't going wrong, but that they needed more things to break right and for various reasons in and out of their control they haven't so far.

[Irrelevant Dude]

10 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

I feel like this line of conversation has memory wiped how everyone has talked about the team for months, either that or we've forgotten what it's like to follow a mediocre team.  On the former, very few people thought this was a do or die situation in terms of making the playoffs.  A lot of folks described it as trying to be between the 2014 and 2015 seasons where they'd be a decent team and springboard from there into consistent playoff contention/appearances(especially with Heyward and Hendricks' money off the books).

The gaping hole in that comparison is the Cubs still have nowhere near the level of Minor League talent they had in 2014-2015, and they aren't ever going to get there by picking in the middle of the first round every year.  We could see the 2015/2016 team taking shape well in advance and it was clear that the team was building to something.  That simply isn't the case now.  The Minor League system is "ok", but lacks any real impact talent for the foreseeable future.  The top prospect is PCA and he might be a nice player, but even he doesn't really move the needle.  If the goal was to rebuild the farm system from terrible to slightly above average and field a Major League team that can look like a fringe contender year after year if you squint really hard, then mission accomplished.