4/10 Cubs (Hendricks) @ Padres (Cease) 5:40 PM

[CubinNY]

It’s the Cubs time to turn the table

[KCCub]

 

[Derwood]

Hendricks is cooked. He can't be relied on anymore. Time to make up a phantom injury for him.

Taillon can't come back quickly enough.

[Irrelevant Dude]

Has Marquee always had the ticker at the bottom of the screen running constantly?  I thought it used to only appear at certain intervals.  I would much rather be able to watch a game without it.  We all have cell phones and don't need to be constantly fed scores on the screen.

[Rex Buckingham]

I hate the constant betting info on the ticker

[Bobson Dugnutt]

Looking forward to a rotation of Steele-Imanaga-Taillon-Wicks-Horton in the second half.

[JHBulls]

This team can make postseason because of hitting, some starters and some relievers. This team won’t go deep in postseason because there is more suckage on this team. 

Edited April 11, 2024 by JHBulls

[UMFan83]

Is it possible Jose Cuas isn’t good?

[UMFan83]

14 minutes ago, JHBulls said:

This team can make postseason because of hitting, some starters and some relievers. This team won’t go deep in postseason because there is more suckage on this team. 

I think it’s the other way around. The Cubs will have trouble making the postseason due to depth issues/number of sucky player issues. But if the team makes the postseason they could go deep because of their hitting and some solid starters and 1-2 decent relievers. 
 

that said it’s a long season and there is plenty of opportunity to improve that depth

[17 Seconds]

bitchass brewers at it again already this season

[Andy]

This Hendricks thing is going about as well as the 2021 Jake Arrieta reunion did.

I guess everything ends badly otherwise it wouldn't end.

[chibears55]

Looks as if Wisdom will be returning soon

So as I asked before, who goes ?

Cooper, Mastrobuoni,  or Madrigal ?

 

 

Manager Craig Counsell who teased the return of slugger Patrick Wisdom as he's continued to progress in the rehab of his back strain.

 

According to their injuries and moves page on MLB.com, the skipper said they are eyeing a return at some point during their road trip that would have him back with Chicago sometime between now and April 17.

 

Based on how Wisdom performed at Triple-A on Tuesday night, going 2-for-4 with a double, a home run, and three RBI, he might be back sooner rather than later.

 

[JHBulls]

59 minutes ago, Andy said:

This Hendricks thing is going about as well as the 2021 Jake Arrieta reunion did.

I guess everything ends badly otherwise it wouldn't end.

Yeah, going well so far. Damn. 😞

Edited April 11, 2024 by JHBulls

[WhyCantWeWin]

2 hours ago, KCCub said:

 

First a historic implosion from the bullpen and now a historically awful start to the season from Hendricks. Pitching is going to be a huge issue this year, especially if Taillon doesn’t rebound after his terrible season last year 

[Stratos]

5 hours ago, JHBulls said:

Michael Busch has been an early season revelation. 

He looks pretty legit.

[Stratos]

6 hours ago, Cubs420psd said:

Exactly if you can't make it past 3 innings without getting tattooed you blow. 

 

Time for the Drew smyly treatment

He's not even missing his spots on the HR he's giving up, which was an issue in 2021-22.  His stuff is just well below average.  He's going to give up more hits and HR than average and K below average.  Maybe a bit of bad luck on some hits falling in today but he only K'd 2 guys and walked zero.  He wasn't fooling anyone.  His H/9 this year is off the charts.  That will regress down over time as bad luck does, but still...

If he keeps it up these performances he should maybe head to the pen until something improves, though I have no idea what that would be, he's not doing anything "wrong".  I wasn't against bringing him back but I wouldn't have done it for the $16.5m.  The league has just passed him by.

[Stratos]

5 hours ago, JHBulls said:

Good thing is we only have about 6 months left of Hendricks’ contract and aren’t in “contract expiry” watch for 6+ years like most Cubs fans were for Heyward. 

I think the Cubs still need to be a little more careful with how they spend on these smaller contracts.  Smyly, Mancini, and now maybe Hendricks.  I believe in paying for talent rather than paying for stats, the cream usually rises to the top and the duds will usually expose themselves eventually.  Stats can go up and down, but nothing replaces talent.  Sometimes you have to take the spreadsheets with a grain of salt and listen to the scouts.  At least they seem to do their homework with the bigger signings.

[Stratos]

5 hours ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

Well this is getting real bad now, he’s just toast

Wouldn't give up on him yet, but I don't think any player should earn the right to stick around and make the team worse based on past performance and "loyalty".  If it turns out he's 2021 Arrieta you can't keep running him out there, but I think it's worth giving him more looks to see if he can figure stuff out, he was at least an average SP last year.

[Stratos]

5 hours ago, Rex Buckingham said:

I hate the constant betting info on the ticker

It's for the children.

[CubinNY]

With the injuries and ineffectiveness, I keep telling myself not to panic. My rational self knows not to, but damn this looks bad for the future. 

[CubinNY]

9 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

With the injuries and ineffectiveness, I keep telling myself not to panic. My rational self knows not to, but damn this looks bad for the future. 

It's like Jed hired Counsell and wanted to give him a challenge. 

[Bertz]

I don't think there's any reason to expect 40% of flyballs to leave the yard.  With Kyle's unique velocity never say never but he's probably fine.

[17 Seconds]

29 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

With the injuries and ineffectiveness, I keep telling myself not to panic. My rational self knows not to, but damn this looks bad for the future. 

are you talking about hendricks, or the cubs pitching outlook? I'm not worried about the pitching long term. they have a ton of positions players locked in and on the way, they can use most of their resources on pitching going forward.

 

[Jason Ross]

15 minutes ago, Bertz said:

I don't think there's any reason to expect 40% of flyballs to leave the yard.  With Kyle's unique velocity never say never but he's probably fine.

I think two things can be true at once: we shouldn't expect 40% of his flyballs to be home runs, but that there is also an underlying issue here that needs to be figured out. His whiff rate, chase rate, weak contact rate, are all way down. His xBA and xwOBA, xERA barrel rate are all way up.  He's giving up a higher rate of no-doubt HR's than ever before. 

Some of this is just who he's faced: he's faced really good competition. Some of this was a little bad luck, like some of the hits he gave up early last night. Some of this is some regress-to-the-means-stuff, like the FB%. But I'm not entirely sure he'll be just fine, either because some of this is clearly an issue with Kyle, too. He's 34 and with the locations of his pitches, he's been a victim of his own failures in that respect. I don't want to sound the panic bells; I'm not shouting we should DFA him, but this has been a pretty awful no good start for him that is definitely raising some red flags. 

The good news is that there's a realistic reason to believe this is a mechanical thing and if there's one pitcher who can work on their command, it's probably Kyle Hendricks. The bad news is that at the age of 34, and someone who's worked with marginal stuff his entire career, it's also possible that a dip in command due to age regression is on the table, and that it could be a steep cliff for someone like Kyle, too. It's too early to say which it is, but it's also why I hesitate to be confident that he'll be fine. He might be! But...he really might not be, too. More so than other players who struggle initially in April, Hendricks has the recipe for someone I can see things turning sour quickly due to the factors of age, injury history, and stuff. 

From a personal stand point I'm really rooting for him as he's a personal favorite. But I really am a bit worried.

[squally1313]

1 hour ago, CubinNY said:

With the injuries and ineffectiveness, I keep telling myself not to panic. My rational self knows not to, but damn this looks bad for the future. 

Alternatively, we've played the world series champs and the best team in baseball, have been down two starters basically the whole time to non-season ending injuries, and are playing at a 94 win pace.