9/12 - Cubs (Assad) vs Rockies (Flexen): 7:40pm, Marquee

[Brock Beauchamp]

That game was a lot closer than it should have been but ultimately, the Cubs walked away with a win.

[We Got The Whole 9]

Seiya got some FG love

[Cubs420psd]

Can the Cubs stop pitching Cuas in anything that isn't mop up duty? He sucks.

[Rex Buckingham]

28 minutes ago, Cubs420psd said:

Can the Cubs stop pitching Cuas in anything that isn't mop up duty? He sucks.

if Ross would have gotten him out as soon as it became clear his command was gone, it wouldn't have been as much of an issue.  

[We Got The Whole 9]

32 minutes ago, Cubs420psd said:

Can the Cubs stop pitching Cuas in anything that isn't mop up duty? He sucks.

It's pretty clear what they see in him. It's not common for a guy to have velo from that arm slot and funky delivery and he is really hard to square up and gets a lot of weak contact. But too often the control is awful. 12 BB and 3 HBP in just 16 IP as a Cub is atrocious. The bottom is sure to drop out if he doesn't get that reined in. His control was not so awful in KC and he was getting significantly more chases and whiffs. Feels like the Cubs pixie dust really isn't working on him yet.

[abuck1220]

on the bright side, merryweather should be available tonight and cuas should not.

[Cubs420psd]

2 hours ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

It's pretty clear what they see in him. It's not common for a guy to have velo from that arm slot and funky delivery and he is really hard to square up and gets a lot of weak contact. But too often the control is awful. 12 BB and 3 HBP in just 16 IP as a Cub is atrocious. The bottom is sure to drop out if he doesn't get that reined in. His control was not so awful in KC and he was getting significantly more chases and whiffs. Feels like the Cubs pixie dust really isn't working on him yet.

I am fine with a project, I'm just not fine with a project pitching in crucial situations during a playoff run.

 

I gotta imagine that's the last time you see him in non mop up duty, atleast I hope.

Edited September 12, 2023 by Cubs420psd

[WhyCantWeWin]

If PCA doesn't start tonight we riot 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

30 minutes ago, TomtheBombadil said:

Cuas is just the latest scapegoat-of-the-week* (the situation being so dire) this season as the world looks to come to grips with Cubs not selling despite an imperfect roster not fan fic’d to compete. Madrigal, Wisdom, Smyly, Suzuki, etc have been there and done that already

*I assume until he implodes

Yep, every bad night for the offense is a failure of lineup construction, every 4+ run outing is poor bullpen management of some sort(starter left in too short/long, wrong relievers picked, etc).  Every negative outcome is avoidable.

 

That said I do hope Cuas moves down the pecking order with Smyly's emergence and Wesneski having a good September. I've never thought the degree of confidence in him was deserved because of the control issues.

[UMFan83]

21 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Yep, every bad night for the offense is a failure of lineup construction, every 4+ run outing is poor bullpen management of some sort(starter left in too short/long, wrong relievers picked, etc).  Every negative outcome is avoidable.

 

That said I do hope Cuas moves down the pecking order with Smyly's emergence and Wesneski having a good September. I've never thought the degree of confidence in him was deserved because of the control issues.

I just hate when in the moment you are thinking "this is a terrible idea, why are you doing this?" and then it backfires as you expected.  Of course when the move works the complaints stop immediately.   

At the end of the day though David Ross knows 1000x more about baseball than me and also has access to a lot more data than I do and its his job to study it.  Its possible he's misevaluating Cuas, but more likely there's a reason he left him in while laboring and allowing the previous 3 batters to reach and didn't bring in someone else. 

[abuck1220]

i'd be tempted to try little in a semi-high leverage spot tonight. cuas will be down, smyly might be down, not sure they'd want to immediately use fulmer back to back, rockies suck against lefties, etc. 

at some point, one of the guys not named fulmer, merryweather, leiter or alzolay is just gonna have to be a guy.

[Brian707]

How about a 16-2 game for tonight? I just want a relaxing evening.

[squally1313]

38 minutes ago, abuck1220 said:

i'd be tempted to try little in a semi-high leverage spot tonight. cuas will be down, smyly might be down, not sure they'd want to immediately use fulmer back to back, rockies suck against lefties, etc. 

at some point, one of the guys not named fulmer, merryweather, leiter or alzolay is just gonna have to be a guy.

Yeah I've been a little surprised by how Little has basically been invisible since his (solid, I think?) debut a week ago or whatever. And will be a little annoyed if he immediately throws Boxberger into a high leverage situation. Hopefully he's just here to be a body until Stroman is ready in a few days.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

1 hour ago, UMFan83 said:

I just hate when in the moment you are thinking "this is a terrible idea, why are you doing this?" and then it backfires as you expected.  Of course when the move works the complaints stop immediately.   

At the end of the day though David Ross knows 1000x more about baseball than me and also has access to a lot more data than I do and its his job to study it.  Its possible he's misevaluating Cuas, but more likely there's a reason he left him in while laboring and allowing the previous 3 batters to reach and didn't bring in someone else. 

I don't expect everyone to engage with games this way, but what's more interesting for me is to treat that 'why are you doing this?' as less of an exclamation and more of a puzzle.  Trying to understand why an unexpected decision happens can be a useful exercise and sometimes that process(e.g. 'what would have to be true for this to make sense to me') can lead to greater understanding.  Doesn't mean you always agree with it, but I think it helps illustrate the nuances and how these decisions are rarely black/white good/bad.  Also sometimes you can think you have it pegged and then your assumption gets undermined 10 minutes later, I don't want to give off the impression that there's some fan nirvana waiting all the time.  But in 2023 I think we can give more benefit of the doubt than we did to managers of yore who operated more independently, more stubbornly, and with less information.

[Rex Buckingham]

Cerami posted that PCA is starting tonight

[Jason Ross]

9 minutes ago, Rex Buckingham said:

Cerami posted that PCA is starting tonight

On one hand, I'm excited. That's exciting. 

On the other hand, I live in the Eastern time zone, this game is in the Mountain time zone, and I have to work tomorrow. I request hardship and need the MLB to move the start time up at least an hour.

[Brock Beauchamp]

41 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

I don't expect everyone to engage with games this way, but what's more interesting for me is to treat that 'why are you doing this?' as less of an exclamation and more of a puzzle.  Trying to understand why an unexpected decision happens can be a useful exercise and sometimes that process(e.g. 'what would have to be true for this to make sense to me') can lead to greater understanding.  Doesn't mean you always agree with it, but I think it helps illustrate the nuances and how these decisions are rarely black/white good/bad.  Also sometimes you can think you have it pegged and then your assumption gets undermined 10 minutes later, I don't want to give off the impression that there's some fan nirvana waiting all the time.  But in 2023 I think we can give more benefit of the doubt than we did to managers of yore who operated more independently, more stubbornly, and with less information.

My baseball life improved dramatically when I began employing this strategy. If you believe the other person has a functioning brain and is capable of making decisions, why they make those decisions becomes a riddle unto itself, and often a rewarding one.

[javy knows my name]

I'm going tonight! First ever game at Coors. And technically PCA didn't have an AB last night so Imma see his first one live

[mul21]

46 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

I don't expect everyone to engage with games this way, but what's more interesting for me is to treat that 'why are you doing this?' as less of an exclamation and more of a puzzle.  Trying to understand why an unexpected decision happens can be a useful exercise and sometimes that process(e.g. 'what would have to be true for this to make sense to me') can lead to greater understanding.  Doesn't mean you always agree with it, but I think it helps illustrate the nuances and how these decisions are rarely black/white good/bad.  Also sometimes you can think you have it pegged and then your assumption gets undermined 10 minutes later, I don't want to give off the impression that there's some fan nirvana waiting all the time.  But in 2023 I think we can give more benefit of the doubt than we did to managers of yore who operated more independently, more stubbornly, and with less information.

Sure, but generally my line of thinking, especially in cases like last night when you can literally see things unravelling as they happen is why aren't they more prepared to take action to remedy the situation?  It was obvious last night that Cuas had lost command and he apparently wasn't willing to even try to throw his slider.  At that point, you have a batter who knows exactly what's coming and he's thrown enough pitches that they knew what was going to be a strike and what wasn't.  I'm fine conceding that the guys in the dugout know a lot more about the situation and nuance than I do, but it would be nice to occasionally get a glimmer of the thought process to instill some additional trust in the process, even if it doesn't work.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

19 minutes ago, mul21 said:

Sure, but generally my line of thinking, especially in cases like last night when you can literally see things unravelling as they happen is why aren't they more prepared to take action to remedy the situation?  It was obvious last night that Cuas had lost command and he apparently wasn't willing to even try to throw his slider.  At that point, you have a batter who knows exactly what's coming and he's thrown enough pitches that they knew what was going to be a strike and what wasn't.  I'm fine conceding that the guys in the dugout know a lot more about the situation and nuance than I do, but it would be nice to occasionally get a glimmer of the thought process to instill some additional trust in the process, even if it doesn't work.

I'm not gonna say there's a perfect right and wrong answer to this, but I think it's a tricky line to walk.  We know the back end of the pen is a bit thin with Alzolay's injury, Merryweather being down, and Fulmer not having pitched in a game in 2 weeks.  Warming guys up comes at a cost, and I understand trying to minimize that cost where you can.  In the case of Cuas' outing, he didn't get to a 2 ball count until the 4th hitter, having gone K, K, groundball 1B.  The 4th hitter was HBP on a full count(dubiously, I still contend), and only then did things go particularly poorly.  Even then he was facing bad, same-sided hitters at the bottom of a bad lineup, so the matchup wasn't especially poor.  In order for him to have gotten pulled any earlier, you would've had to start warming a reliever after the 2 out single, which while not indefensible I don't think is unreasonable under the circumstances to let ride a bit further.

[WhyCantWeWin]

26 minutes ago, javy knows my name said:

I'm going tonight! First ever game at Coors. And technically PCA didn't have an AB last night so Imma see his first one live

Front row seats to see PCA drop 4 sac bunts

[PackLandVA]

Most everyone is the Cubs bullpen has moved down in the pecking order. And that’s the problem. There’s a pretty big gap between the few reliable arms and all of the other (overused) “just arms”. It’s been pretty consistent that the Cubs 6, 7, and 8 inning guys all have regular bouts of “can’t throw a strike” and/or “can’t get the third out”. There really are no sure bets. It’s a coin flip each night for Ross.

[Banedon]

 

[itisallpartoftheplan]

Candelario to IL Carnario back on Roster.

[Banedon]