9/14 Cubs Off Day Chatter

[Brock Beauchamp]

Well, that Rockies series didn't go as planned after the bats decided to take a nap.

There are also some question marks with the pitching with Alzolay being injured. A good time for an off-day and a reset, it seems.

Then it's back to the Diamondbacks, where hopefully the Cubs can post more runs than they did against them in Wrigley.

[CubinNY]

This should be a fun thread. I have faith in this team to make it to the playoffs. 

[s2obed]

The bats have to start coming out of their funks otherwise we’ll miss the playoffs. 

[We Got The Whole 9]

40 minutes ago, s2obed said:

The bats have to start coming out of their funks otherwise we’ll miss the playoffs. 

Pretty sure we are getting a spot but I am not so confident it will be any different from that last time we did. Our bats just look tired lately, really slow to adjust. We're not even facing good pitching and they're struggling. 

[s2obed]

39 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Pretty sure we are getting a spot but I am not so confident it will be any different from that last time we did. Our bats just look tired lately, really slow to adjust. We're not even facing good pitching and they're struggling. 

I am thinking we do too but there are 4 teams below us that still have a real shot at getting a wild card spot. 

[Rex Buckingham]

I'm just glad I won't be watching a Cubs game today... not good for my BP

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 hour ago, CubinNY said:

This should be a fun thread. I have faith in this team to make it to the playoffs. 

To this point, no one seems particularly interested in claiming the final Wild Card spot. The Cubs have scuffled, even against a direct opponent in the Diamondbacks, and are still 2.0 games ahead of the third WC spot.

[Soul]

49 minutes ago, s2obed said:

I am thinking we do too but there are 4 teams below us that still have a real shot at getting a wild card spot. 

I don't know what's going to happen but we do not have a comfortable position in the WC; there are a lot of teams close and any one of them could streak, or more than one.

We are very lucky to still be in that 2nd WC slot after the Colorado debacle.  I think the Cubs can do better these last few games and lock it up.  But they can't play like the last 3 and expect anything. 

[Derwood]

DANSBY: I'm finally hitting again

BELLINGER/MOREL: Lol, about that

[UMFan83]

1 hour ago, s2obed said:

I am thinking we do too but there are 4 teams below us that still have a real shot at getting a wild card spot. 

True, however there are 3 spots at play since the Phillies keep losing.  Right now there are 6 teams within 4 games of each other fighting for 3 playoff spots.

The Cubs playoff odds were at 93% last Thursday.  Today they are at 77.7%, meaning more than 3 out of every 4 times the Cubs end up in the playoffs.  They absolutely have to play better than they have the last week but they should.  Whats the old adage things are never as bad as they seem at their worst and things are never as good as they seem at their best.  If we're looking at the team from July on, this is their worst. 

[Billy62]

I know we are not going to win every game. But in the stretch run when you go 2-5 in what was considered winnable games it does raise an eyebrow. My mind is also on the tail-end of the schedule. Six games on the road vs, Atlanta and Milwaukee. Tough competition there. Even tougher if we are not scoring runs. I think solid series wins against Arizona and Pittsburgh are vital. If we don't do well here, I think that we would stand a good chance of missing the post-season. It's not just hitting either. Some pitchers suddenly find that they can't throw strikes, and we are making too many outs on the basepaths. Combine that with a suddenly anemic offense, and you pretty much have a recipe for an end of season disaster. We need to be a bit smarter and a show a bit more situational awareness on the bases. The team has the talent to do this.

[bukie]

All I can really say is that this seems like a much needed day off after 27 games in 27 days, as they were definitely starting to run out of steam the past week.

[squally1313]

3 minutes ago, Billy62 said:

My mind is also on the tail-end of the schedule. Six games on the road vs, Atlanta and Milwaukee. 

Worth noting that the Braves will most likely have home field through the WS essentially wrapped by the time we get to that series. That's not to say they're going to roll out a AAA team for a week, and they're so good that they've been on auto pilot for three months and are still dominating. But it's going to be a team with nothing to play for. 

[UMFan83]

21 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Worth noting that the Braves will most likely have home field through the WS essentially wrapped by the time we get to that series. That's not to say they're going to roll out a AAA team for a week, and they're so good that they've been on auto pilot for three months and are still dominating. But it's going to be a team with nothing to play for. 

It will be interesting to see how they play it.  It's a little different in the past where the team could set their rotation by having them pitch in the 2nd to last series of the season so they are rested but not rusty going into the NLDS.  But in this format, the Braves will have 6 days off between their last regular season game and first NLDS game due to the WC round.  

In past years I'd think the 2nd to last series of the season is a bad time to play them because they'd probably set their rotation in that series and then rest people the final 3 games of the season.  But in this format, maybe they rest starters the 2nd to last series and have their starters go in the final series of the season so they don't have like 11 days of between starts.  Who knows, but either way I wouldn't rely on the Braves half assing it against us.  It will still be a tough series.  

The Brewers might be different.  I'm assuming they'd want Burnes, Woodruff, Peralta to start in the WC round that is 10/3-10/5.  If Counsell has the opportunity to set his rotation for that round and ideally give his guys a 5th day of rest before the playoffs, he'd ideally have them going the 27th, 28th, and 29th, meaning only 1 of them (probably Peralta) would go against the Cubs.  But that's only if they've clinched the division in time to set that up.

Edited September 14, 2023 by UMFan83

[CubinNY]

41 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Worth noting that the Braves will most likely have home field through the WS essentially wrapped by the time we get to that series. That's not to say they're going to roll out a AAA team for a week, and they're so good that they've been on auto pilot for three months and are still dominating. But it's going to be a team with nothing to play for. 

Aren’t they playing Atlanta at home?

[UMFan83]

Some notes from Carter Hawkins radio appearance today:

 

 

[Irrelevant Dude]

25 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

Some notes from Carter Hawkins radio appearance today:

 

 

Again, this is interesting to me in that apparently the Cubs have a very low opinion of Matt Mervis.  It says a lot that they see Canario as a more valuable bat off the bench than the left-handed Mervis.

[Soul]

2 hours ago, UMFan83 said:

True, however there are 3 spots at play since the Phillies keep losing.  Right now there are 6 teams within 4 games of each other fighting for 3 playoff spots.

The Cubs playoff odds were at 93% last Thursday.  Today they are at 77.7%, meaning more than 3 out of every 4 times the Cubs end up in the playoffs.  They absolutely have to play better than they have the last week but they should.  Whats the old adage things are never as bad as they seem at their worst and things are never as good as they seem at their best.  If we're looking at the team from July on, this is their worst. 

Ugh, I dislike that kind of stat.  93% yesterday, 50% tomorrow.  It's a completely different argument day to day.  Especially with several games left.  It's 3 of 4 times until a few days from now and it's not.

[Rcal10]

10 minutes ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

Again, this is interesting to me in that apparently the Cubs have a very low opinion of Matt Mervis.  It says a lot that they see Canario as a more valuable bat off the bench than the left-handed Mervis.

I don’t think it means that at all. They probably want a right handed bat off the bench. That wouldn’t be Mervis. I think with Candelario going down the choice was either PCA or Mervis. They went PCA over Mervis. But PCA helps them defensively and on the bases. So not a surprise they went with him. 

[WhyCantWeWin]

1 hour ago, UMFan83 said:

Some notes from Carter Hawkins radio appearance today:

 

 

Knew the FO would mandate PCA starts, Ross would have him riding the bench in favor of Tauchman otherwise. 

[Irrelevant Dude]

2 minutes ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

Knew the FO would mandate PCA starts, Ross would have him riding the bench in favor of Tauchman otherwise. 

I'm not sure that isn't the best approach right now.

[UMFan83]

3 minutes ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

I'm not sure that isn't the best approach right now.

He has a .493 OPS since August 12th (28 games) .167/.301/.192 slash line.  Maybe PCA is also a bad hitter right now, but if he's putting up a .493 OPS he's still offering elite defense and (we havent seen it yet but) baserunning.   That said Tauchman might not be what he was earlier in the summer, he's not a .493 OPS player and still takes great ABs and gets on base at a decent clip relative to his BA.

[17 Seconds]

i'm only giving pca starts right now if it makes sense for the current team. there are 15 games left, his development isn't going to take a hit for missing a couple weeks of at-bats. it makes sense to start him with big outfields, but we also need offense badly, and he probably isn't a great bat right now

[SOFNR]

I'm not at all confident they get in but they are still in the drivers seat here. They really need to take care of business against Arizona. Unfortunately this stretch of bad play probably makes it very unlikely they'll get a chance to line up their rotation how they want in a Wild Card playoff. That would have been nice. With the shape of the pitching on this team I'm not going to be very  optimistic about even making the divisional round. Hopefully the offense starts heating up again soon.

[Irrelevant Dude]

I completely agree that Tauchman has been awful recently, but even with that I have more confidence in him providing some offensive value over the next two weeks.  I wouldn't hesitate to get PCA in as a late inning defensive replacement though.