5/7 Cubs (Shota) vs. Padres (Vasquez) 6:40 PM CT

[PackLandVA]

[Crusader]

horsefeathers yeah Michael

[squally1313]

96 win pace for the first place Chicago cubs who have gotten like 9 innings out of their opening day starter and 15 games out of their (probable) best hitter. 

[s2obed]

Hope this gets him out of his funk! Haven’t lost one with Shota on the mound yet! 

[UMFan83]

3 minutes ago, Derwood said:

That's why you're not sending Busch down

Who was suggesting Busch should be sent down?  I know he's been struggling offensively and defensively but that really doesn't make much sense to me at all (no offense to whoever suggested that)

[Jason Ross]

High fastball. Good to see Busch go get thst pitch.

[PackLandVA]

[Derwood]

4 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

Who was suggesting Busch should be sent down?  I know he's been struggling offensively and defensively but that really doesn't make much sense to me at all (no offense to whoever suggested that)

Some dude earlier in this thread

[Thusly Boned]

5 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

96 win pace for the first place Chicago cubs who have gotten like 9 innings out of their opening day starter and 15 games out of their (probable) best hitter. 

I think Suzuki is probably their best hitter imo, but that only strengthens the point.

In first place having been down your two best hitters for long stretches concurrently and your best starter for almost the whole season to this point. And having the bullpen go about as badly as you could have imagined performance wise (plus the Merrywether injury).

Gotta feel pretty good about that.

Edited May 8, 2024 by Thusly Boned

[Thusly Boned]

Apparently I counted the Brewers out too early down to their last out. I think they are playing with some of that old Cardinals devil magic; they are nowhere as good as their record.

[squally1313]

4 minutes ago, Thusly Boned said:

think Suzuki is probably their best hitter imo, but that only strengthens the point

That’s who I was referring to, yeah

[squally1313]

10 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

Who was suggesting Busch should be sent down?  I know he's been struggling offensively and defensively but that really doesn't make much sense to me at all (no offense to whoever suggested that)

I was workshopping a Hot Take along these lines just in the sense of letting Bellinger get back to full strength at first base, keep PCA in the deep end (and contributing defensively), Busch being kinda useless if he’s not giving you an 800+ OPS. But it was probably too reactionary (was right after the botched pop up) and based a little too much on me desperately wanting PCA to figure it out. 

[NorthsideAvenger]

Michael sure did amBUSCH that fastball.

[We Got The Whole 9]

I said Busch should be demoted and I stand by it 

[mfcubs22]

Why are we demoting our 121 wRC+ rookie? 

[UMFan83]

10 minutes ago, Thusly Boned said:

I think Suzuki is probably their best hitter imo, but that only strengthens the point.

In first place having been down your two best hitters for long stretches concurrently and your best starter for almost the whole season to this point. And having the bullpen go about as badly as you could have imagined performance wise (plus the Merrywether injury).

Gotta feel pretty good about that.

They just really need to get the bats going.  We know guys like Swanson and Happ have the capacity to hit much better than they've hit so I'm assuming they will...just really frustrating waiting this out.

The pen is the pen.  They're gonna have to find options whether its external or guys like Brown and Wesneski taking bullpen roles.  That is more fixable IMO than the offense.

But the ceiling is high for this team...like I said earlier it feels a lot like early 2023 with the nice start, some bumps in the road, but once the bats got hot and the pen sorted itself out (for a while) they went on a tear and put themselves in a position to make the playoffs

[We Got The Whole 9]

3 minutes ago, mfcubs22 said:

Why are we demoting our 121 wRC+ rookie? 

Because of the 50% K rate over the last few weeks 

[squally1313]

Stealing this from twitter but the three runs scored last night forced them to turn to Suarez for five outs and kept him out of the 9th inning tonight. Which is the kind of moral victory that I love in baseball. 

[UMFan83]

21 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Because of the 50% K rate over the last few weeks 

I mean that's not great but I don't understand why that means he should be demoted to Iowa vs letting him try to figure it out here.  A few weeks isn't exactly a large sample size and he's basically doing what all rookies do when they get to the majors and teams start to get a book on him.  How he makes adjustments will go a long way in telling us how good he can be.  Sending him down to Iowa to mash crappier pitchers doesn't really help anyone very much IMO.

[NorthsideAvenger]

53 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

I said Busch should be demoted and I stand by it 

Itching to see Wisdom play 1B full time , are we?

No need to send Busch down right now. 

[We Got The Whole 9]

20 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

I mean that's not great but I don't understand why that means he should be demoted to Iowa vs letting him try to figure it out here.  A few weeks isn't exactly a large sample size and he's basically doing what all rookies do when they get to the majors and teams start to get a book on him.  How he makes adjustments will go a long way in telling us how good he can be.  Sending him down to Iowa to mash crappier pitchers doesn't really help anyone very much IMO.

Then why do teams do it? Even with Uber prospects. You don't have to let a dude languish for weeks. Sometimes a reset can do them a world of good. He has options; I hope it's not entirely ruled out.

[WhyCantWeWin]

Still shook about that Profar HR, thank god they came back otherwise that would haunt my dreams. 

[UMFan83]

20 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Then why do teams do it? Even with Uber prospects. You don't have to let a dude languish for weeks. Sometimes a reset can do them a world of good. He has options; I hope it's not entirely ruled out.

Yes usually when they do that it’s because the player looks completely lost for an extended period and there is a benefit for them to develop more in AAA.  You’re usually talking about players in their very early 20s who haven’t had a ton of MiLB PAs. 
 

Michael Busch is a 26 year old with ~2600 PA between college, minors and MLB. I really don’t think more MiLB PAs are going to do anything at this point. 
 

And then you consider where he ranks this season compared to his teammates (min 30 PA)

HR: 2nd

RBI: 2nd

ISO: 2nd

Average: 4th

OBP: 7th

SLG: 2nd (1st amongst currently active Cubs)

wOBA: 3rd

wRC+: 3rd

fWAR: 3rd

Yes he’s had a rough 3 weeks and yes he’s being exploited with high fastballs. But you can’t pretend that the first 3 weeks of the season never happened. He still did all those things. Rushing him back to the minors the first time he hits a speed bump, especially when the offense as a whole is really struggling doesn’t seem very smart at all. Sure if his still looking lost 3 weeks from now you might start having a discussion but damn it’s been 17 games. 

Edited May 8, 2024 by UMFan83

[soccer10k]

https://www.mlb.com/cubs/video/michael-busch-homers-7-on-a-fly-ball-to-right-center-field?t=walk-offs

LOL Coomer. Says that Busch was "sitting on a breaking ball and whacks it". Uh Ron, it was a 94 mph fastball buddy.

Edited May 8, 2024 by soccer10k

[CubinNY]

Best thing about last night is that they play a day game today.