8/22 - Cubs (Smyly) vs Detroit (Olson): 5:40pm, Marquee

[itisallpartoftheplan]

4 minutes ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

Reflecting back on happier times, remember when Drew Smyly almost threw a perfect game?  Remember that? That was awesome.

Yan Gomes ramming into him is Drew Smyly’s version of Trey Mancini executing Marcus Stroman.

[UMFan83]

Rangers losing yet again to Arizona 3-0

Reds down 2-1 to the Angels

Marlins lead the Padres 1-0

Brewers beating Twins 7-3

Other than SF losing and maybe Cincinnati its a nearly a worst case scenario night.  Was really hoping we'd put some distance between us and the WC race during this stretch of games against bad teams while our competition is mostly playing good teams instead we're going to be right where we started, tied for WC3 and 2 games farther back in the division

[Transmogrified Tiger]

25 minutes ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

I think spending 20 mil on a cof struggling to put up any slug is a failure. He'll be the 10th highest paid outfielder next year and his wrc+ is barely top 50 for outfielders. 

There are 50 qualified OFs, Happ is 17th in fWAR and 22nd in wRC+.

[Irrelevant Dude]

3 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

Was really hoping we'd put some distance between us and the WC race during this stretch of games against bad teams while our competition is mostly playing good teams

I think losing Stroman killed any hope of pulling away from the field. This is going to be a struggle to the finish line.

[UMFan83]

Ross basically confirmed that Smyly would make his next start

[UMFan83]

9 minutes ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

I think losing Stroman killed any hope of pulling away from the field. This is going to be a struggle to the finish line.

Maybe...he's only really affected 1 start so far, tonight right?  Not that the Cubs should have expected to go 7-0 in this stretch but 4-3 is probably below expectations.  They haven't been playing well lately, but have been fortunate enough to bank wins.  They may have banked this one too if the Cubs had another option at SP.

 

The true frustrating part is the Diamondbacks went from one of the worst teams in baseball to unbeatable overnight.  And the Rangers have probably cost the Cubs 10% in playoff odds over the last week.

Edited August 23, 2023 by UMFan83

[squally1313]

Having a .714 winning percentage in any amount of games over 1 is probably unrealistic expectations 

[UMFan83]

6 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Having a .714 winning percentage in any amount of games over 1 is probably unrealistic expectations 

Meh you are probably right but 5-2 is reasonable to me when 5 of those games are against teams a combined 60 games under .500 and the Cubs have been facing nothing but starters with ERAs over 5 for the last 5 games

 

Edited August 23, 2023 by UMFan83

[Irrelevant Dude]

The Reds are winning now too.

Mama said there'd be days like this.

[PackLandVA]

So what to do with Smylie now? I don’t see Jed DFA him. But if he can’t be trusted as a starter, given how he’s been dreadful in his first inning of work, how can he be trusted in any role coming out of the pen. Except maybe mop up duty in a blow out. I know there a big difference in starting a game versus relief but he has been awful in most innings of his very, very short outings.

is he eligible to be sent down?

[UMFan83]

2 minutes ago, PackLandVA said:

So what to do with Smylie now? I don’t see Jed DFA him. But if he can’t be trusted as a starter, given how he’s been dreadful in his first inning of work, how can he be trusted in any role coming out of the pen. Except maybe mop up duty in a blow out. I know there a big difference in starting a game versus relief but he has been awful in most innings of his very, very short outings.

is he eligible to be sent down?

I mentioned earlier that Ross in the PG presser all but confirmed he’s starting on Sunday. He said something about giving him some grace. 

[PackLandVA]

1 minute ago, UMFan83 said:

I mentioned earlier that Ross in the PG presser all but confirmed he’s starting on Sunday. He said something about giving him some grace. 

ACubs Sunday game. A Smylie start.

Double whammy!

[UMFan83]

4 minutes ago, PackLandVA said:

ACubs Sunday game. A Smylie start.

Double whammy!

Actually that's pretty brilliant of Ross.  Gonna lose anyways, might as well throw Smyly out there.

[Tryptamine]

Always fun to forfeit every 5th game while in a pennant race.

[Stratos]

The Cubs lost today because the pitching is lacking depth.  Smyly should not be starting, and shouldn't have pitched more than a couple innings.  The pen only has a few good options and they're all gassed.  Ross didn't have good options today, not his fault.  The Tigers scored 8 runs on them.  Cubs need to win games where they score 6 runs.  Hoyer didn't add enough pen depth in the offseason and didn't add anyone reliable at the deadline.

Stroman is out.  Cubs need to think about bringing up one of the young SP in the minors to replace Smyly.

Edited August 23, 2023 by Stratos

[UMFan83]

Now 5 teams within 1 game of each other for 2 playoff spots. 

[Ding Dong Johnson]

Wrong thread

Edited August 23, 2023 by Ding Dong Johnson

[thawv]

On 8/22/2023 at 9:08 PM, Transmogrified Tiger said:

I guess the disconnect for me is that I don't think this is particularly good?  It's basically the bare minimum of what we'd expect of a AAA pitcher with serious MLB aspirations, and we're getting to it by slicing his already minimal AAA time in half.  And this is in the context of a guy pitching once a week and who hasn't hit 90 pitches all year(notably, he's been pulled earlier than pitch count would imply in a couple of these strong recent starts), it just doesn't strike me as a realistic expectation that he can be a functional MLB starter immediately in a playoff chase.

I think the point is that he could be better than Smyly right now.  Not that he's the end all be all pitcher this teams needs.  If he's better than Smyly, which is very possible, he should be pitching in his place in a playoff chase.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

3 minutes ago, thawv said:

I think the point is that he could be better than Smyly right now.  Not that he's the end all be all pitcher this teams needs.  If he's better than Smyly, which is very possible, he should be pitching in his place in a playoff chase.

This presupposes the only choice is between Smyly and Wicks.  My original post on the topic was that Wicks was 3rd at best in that hierarchy, fixing the Smyly problem can be done with Wesneski or Kilian, or even more creatively with Shane Greene if you want to.  Bringing up a Wicks who isn't fully baked as a prospect and isn't fully ramped to take on the role being asked of him is just hoping against hope to me.

[mul21]

15 hours ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

This presupposes the only choice is between Smyly and Wicks.  My original post on the topic was that Wicks was 3rd at best in that hierarchy, fixing the Smyly problem can be done with Wesneski or Kilian, or even more creatively with Shane Greene if you want to.  Bringing up a Wicks who isn't fully baked as a prospect and isn't fully ramped to take on the role being asked of him is just hoping against hope to me.

I can see taking a chance on Green based on his Iowa usage, but we've done the Kilian and Wesneski experiments already this season with poor results and I'm not sure there's any reason to expect that to be any different if they try them again.  At least Wicks gives you some optimism for success and even if he's only giving you 4 IP every time out, if he's allowing 0-2 runs doing it, it's light years better than what they've been getting out of that spot.

[Tim]

1 minute ago, mul21 said:

I can see taking a chance on Green based on his Iowa usage, but we've done the Kilian and Wesneski experiments already this season with poor results and I'm not sure there's any reason to expect that to be any different if they try them again.  At least Wicks gives you some optimism for success and even if he's only giving you 4 IP every time out, if he's allowing 0-2 runs doing it, it's light years better than what they've been getting out of that spot.

I'd personally be all about piggybacking Wesneski and Smyly right now. Figure out who starts based on the matchup, but don't let either one go through the order more than twice.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

7 minutes ago, mul21 said:

I can see taking a chance on Green based on his Iowa usage, but we've done the Kilian and Wesneski experiments already this season with poor results and I'm not sure there's any reason to expect that to be any different if they try them again.  At least Wicks gives you some optimism for success and even if he's only giving you 4 IP every time out, if he's allowing 0-2 runs doing it, it's light years better than what they've been getting out of that spot.

For me it boils down to there not being much reason to think that Wicks is a better option to give you 4 IP and 0-2 runs other than not having tried him before.  Wesneski went to Iowa to get some starts and immediately dominated(1.35 ERA, 3.3 FIP, 35% K%).  Kilian's top line at Iowa is a bit similar to Wicks, but he's going deeper in games and has refound his control so at a minimum he's gonna force teams to beat him in a way we can't be certain of with Wicks today.