8/1 - Reds (Lively) vs Cubs (Steele): 7:05pm, Marquee

[KCCub]

3 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

Gotta keep Madrigal and Wisdom bat in the lineup 🤷‍♂️😅

Since being called back up on June 9th (80 PA), Madrigal has a 138 wRC+ while playing stellar defense. As long as we take ABs away from Mancini and Wisdom, I'm all for Madrigal getting PT. 

[squally1313]

7 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

Do we expect the Reds and Brewers to just stop winning ???

There 55 games left after tonight, so that obviously means the cubs will have to play 7 games better then the Reds(if they lose) to pass them, that tougher to do when you have fewer head to head remaining. 

And if they win they'll have to play 5 games better, still pretty tough! The difference in those is one night (in the next two months) where the Cubs win and the Reds lose. 

Like, yes, obviously winning is better than losing. But kinda getting the sense that everyone on Team Sell is secretly a little excited to declare that the Season Is Over. 

[Hairyducked Idiot]

42 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

That's some kind of logic. 

I'll put it this way, it may not be a "must" win situation, but it certainly puts more leverage on the rest of the games this season when they aren't playing a team in their division that is directly in front of them. Maybe not a must-win from the academic definition, but very important still. 

By your reckoning, the only must-win game is the one that eliminates them from the postseason.  Make's sense. 

I mean yeah that's what "must" means 

[UMFan83]

2 hours ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Agreed, not winning is a big missed opportunity given there's not many head to head chances anymore, but the overall playoff outlook doesn't hinge on winning specific games at this point.

It's really weird going from feeling like every game last week was a must win to this week having a very important series but the games are less must win due to being given a 2 month extension basically.

Doesn't mean the games aren't very important in this series, their backs are still up against the wall, but losing games last week meant the season was effectively over.  They've bought some wiggle room now.  Not a ton, but some.

Edited August 1, 2023 by UMFan83

[CubinNY]

14 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

I mean yeah that's what "must" means 

you should change your name to concrete. 

[Outshined_One]

19 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

I mean yeah that's what "must" means 

[WhyCantWeWin]

https://twitter.com/M_Montemurro/status/1686469076095295490?s=20

 

Steele best era in baseball now

[chibears55]

No Suzuki tonight, Tauchman is in RF

[KCCub]

 

 

[Ding Dong Johnson]

 

[chibears55]

20 minutes to add more then just Candelario 

[UMFan83]

Blame Tauchman and the White Sox terrible pitching if you're angry the Cubs bought

 

 

 

[UMFan83]

Also

 

 

 

[Cuzi]

3 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

Blame Tauchman and the White Sox terrible pitching if you're angry the Cubs bought

Did we really buy, though?

We upgraded 1 position for 2 months. If beating the White Sox bullpen and having a walk off catch against the Cardinals is enough for this PoBO to "push in his chips" with Candelario, then... I'm really scared for the future of this team as long as he is around.

[chibears55]

2 minutes ago, Cuzi said:

Did we really buy, though?

We upgraded 1 position for 2 months. If beating the White Sox bullpen and having a walk off catch against the Cardinals is enough for this PoBO to "push in his chips" with Candelario, then... I'm really scared for the future of this team as long as he is around.

Exactly my thoughts,  so basically one more loss last week would of made them sellers 😅

[Hairyducked Idiot]

22 minutes ago, Cuzi said:

Did we really buy, though?

We upgraded 1 position for 2 months. If beating the White Sox bullpen and having a walk off catch against the Cardinals is enough for this PoBO to "push in his chips" with Candelario, then... I'm really scared for the future of this team as long as he is around.

It's not a poker game.  The analogy doesn't work. At all.

 

[Bobson Dugnutt]

26 minutes ago, Cuzi said:

Did we really buy, though?

We upgraded 1 position for 2 months. If beating the White Sox bullpen and having a walk off catch against the Cardinals is enough for this PoBO to "push in his chips" with Candelario, then... I'm really scared for the future of this team as long as he is around.

Two guys that hang around the 15-25 range of organizational top prospects lists isn’t really pushing in his chips.

[UMFan83]

29 minutes ago, Cuzi said:

Did we really buy, though?

We upgraded 1 position for 2 months. If beating the White Sox bullpen and having a walk off catch against the Cardinals is enough for this PoBO to "push in his chips" with Candelario, then... I'm really scared for the future of this team as long as he is around.

Well let’s see we made a trade for a player that makes our team better so yeah we “bought”

[Rcal10]

32 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

Exactly my thoughts,  so basically one more loss last week would of made them sellers 😅

What’s is they really lose? Who cares. They tried to win. Maybe they will, probably they won’t. But they had to try. What is the infatuation with obtaining prospects? They didn’t really lose much for the future and they gave themselves a chance this year. Good! That is what they should have done even if it doesn’t work. 

[CubinNY]

This is a little bit damned if he do damned if he don’t. 
 
I think they did about as much as they should’ve. 
 

however, I don’t have high hopes for them spending big in FA. They’ll spend to around the LT bit will not go over it again. 

[Cuzi]

15 minutes ago, Bobson Dugnutt said:

Two guys that hang around the 15-25 range of organizational top prospects lists isn’t really pushing in his chips.

I see you picked up on why I put push his chips in in quotes.

 

We made a move to say we made a move. I dont care about the prospects we gave up to make the move. We marginally increased the talent of this roster for 2 months for the sake of saying we did so. What's the point? Are we a legitimate contender now with Candelario? Is this singular move the excuse to sit out that sellers market on rental pitching?

Edited August 1, 2023 by Cuzi

[chibears55]

16 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

What’s is they really lose? Who cares. They tried to win. Maybe they will, probably they won’t. But they had to try. What is the infatuation with obtaining prospects? They didn’t really lose much for the future and they gave themselves a chance this year. Good! That is what they should have done even if it doesn’t work. 

What ???

I'm laughing at the fact that Hoyer said his decision was made based on beating the Sox twice and Tauchman catch to win that game, so is he saying if they had loss one of those games,  he would of traded away guys ?

[Hairyducked Idiot]

25 minutes ago, Cuzi said:

I see you picked up on why I put push his chips in in quotes.

 

We made a move to say we made a move. I dont care about the prospects we gave up to make the move. We marginally increased the talent of this roster for 2 months for the sake of saying we did so. What's the point? Are we a legitimate contender now with Candelario? Is this singular move the excuse to sit out that sellers market on rental pitching?

Yes.  There's no such thing as a "legitimate" contender.  That's an entirely arbitrary, made-up category.

We marginally increased the talent because we are in a situation where marginal wins have an increased chance of being the difference between making the playoffs and not, and that's the most important thing there is.  More important than getting geeked up over moving up another spot in one of 15 different prospet rankings or whatever people were hoping for from trading Bellinger and Stroman.

[Bobson Dugnutt]

26 minutes ago, Cuzi said:

I see you picked up on why I put push his chips in in quotes.

 

We made a move to say we made a move. I dont care about the prospects we gave up to make the move. We marginally increased the talent of this roster for 2 months for the sake of saying we did so. What's the point? Are we a legitimate contender now with Candelario? Is this singular move the excuse to sit out that sellers market on rental pitching?

The point was to increase the chances of making the playoffs using players of little consequence, which is what they did.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

3 minutes ago, Bobson Dugnutt said:

The point was to increase the chances of making the playoffs using players of little consequence, which is what they did.

Pretty shortsighted of them to try to make the playoffs. Don't they know what that does to your draft position?