Braves (Smith-Shawver) @ Cubs (Brown) - 5/23/24, 1:20 CST, Marquee

[17 Seconds]

jed has taken like one swing as a gm and we got Michael Busch out of it

[WhyCantWeWin]

6 minutes ago, 17 Seconds said:

jed has taken like one swing as a gm and we got Michael Busch out of it

Wonder if his seat will ever get hot, seems like Ricketts is fine with mediocrity 

[UMFan83]

14 minutes ago, 17 Seconds said:

If any of the prospects are good they will just be replacing the good cubs who price themselves off of the cubs. this was the year that Jed had to build a good team, and it doesn't look like he's done it 

Well we really don't have a true superstar hitter on the Cubs.  Seiya and Belli are the closest but I'd say they are a level below elite hitters.  Jed needs one of these guys to turn into a Soto or Judge caliber player.  I know that's asking for a lot but if your strategy is to build up the farm system and tread water until they develop you need to be developing at least 1-2 superstars.  Maybe others who follow the farm system can correct me but while there seems to be plenty of fun exciting hitters coming up in the farm but none of them have the upside of anything close to a Juan Soto as a hitter (sorry I just got off a conference call with a team from our NYC office that were going on and on about how well Soto and Judge have been playing while I was sitting there watching my team go down 1-2-3 every inning)

[BKHoo]

Brown was great today. That’s what I am trying hard to focus on. 

[Outshined_One]

20 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

Well we really don't have a true superstar hitter on the Cubs.  Seiya and Belli are the closest but I'd say they are a level below elite hitters.  Jed needs one of these guys to turn into a Soto or Judge caliber player.  I know that's asking for a lot but if your strategy is to build up the farm system and tread water until they develop you need to be developing at least 1-2 superstars.  Maybe others who follow the farm system can correct me but while there seems to be plenty of fun exciting hitters coming up in the farm but none of them have the upside of anything close to a Juan Soto as a hitter (sorry I just got off a conference call with a team from our NYC office that were going on and on about how well Soto and Judge have been playing while I was sitting there watching my team go down 1-2-3 every inning)

The system has a handful of hitters in the high minors with really intriguing upsides who could become superstars in their own right some day, but the likelihood that any of them could come up and produce at that level this season is pretty low.

Take PCA as an example.  He was productive and useful, you can see the reason for the hype, but he clearly needs time to grow and improve.

[chibears55]

1 hour ago, UMFan83 said:

We're not going to make it to 10 years of service time are we Kyle

He'll go on IL for the duration 

[gflore34]

They're not hitting mistakes, it's frustrating but, at some point it's going to turn around.  Plus, they're not going to be facing this absolute gauntlet of starting pitching, that's going to even out as well.

[NorthsideAvenger]

Can May please end already?

[BigSlick]

there's literally nothing worse as a baseball fan than watching a team that can't hit

 

[ToolDRT]

This offense is offensive. But, it was poorly constructed so 🤷‍♂️

[JHBulls]

Just watched the final 3 inning and that was terrible. Good starting pitching. But poor hitting. And then Kyle Hendricks came in and represented the bullpen as only he knows how. 
 

If Jason Heyward is getting released with a year and the club ate $20+ million, there is no reason why the same can’t happen with Kyle Hendricks. He’s a bad starting pitcher. A bad reliever. The rules won’t ever revert back from the 3 batter rule, so Hendricks has to face 3 batters every pitched game. I don’t trust him facing 1 batter. Maybe a bit unfair to single out one person and especially the one that was huge in 2016. It’s pretty damn frustrating. 

[CubinNY]

41 minutes ago, ToolDRT said:

This offense is offensive. But, it was poorly constructed so 🤷‍♂️

It was. And it was predictable. They have too many Guardians and no chiefs that’s fine if everyone is getting on base. 
 

The injuries have hurt a lot and there is plenty of time to turn it around, but they have to be a team that is selectively aggressive and not what they are now. They do not have enough slugging and hoping on Busch was not smart. They need to go after a slugger like Alonso or even Vald. Suzuki, Belli, and Happ to have better results and start hitting line drives. 
 
It’s not time to panic. It’s time to grind out ABs. 
 

horsefeathers filter changes I n d I a n s to Guardians

Edited May 24, 2024 by CubinNY

[Soul]

I think we went through this kind of power outage last year too. Didn’t we sink back to 500 around this time of year as well?

[JHBulls]

30 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

It was. And it was predictable. They have too many Guardians and no chiefs that’s fine if everyone is getting on base. 
 

The injuries have hurt a lot and there is plenty of time to turn it around, but they have to be a team that is selectively aggressive and not what they are now. They do not have enough slugging and hoping on Busch was not smart. They need to go after a slugger like Alonso or even Vald. Suzuki, Belli, and Happ to have better results and start hitting line drives. 
 
It’s not time to panic. It’s time to grind out ABs. 
 

horsefeathers filter changes I n d I a n s to Guardians

I was going to make a joke that I’d kill for some Guardians. Until I saw your edit. Well done for keeping it in anyway. 😄

[Stratos]

4 hours ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

Well, not the best relief debut for Hendricks, wonder when they will consider cutting bait on him. Or maybe they will be delirious and listen to the experts who thought his first outing against the pirates would be repeatable and keep him a bit longer. 

Today he was leaving bottom-of-the-league-quality sinkers over the heart of the plate.  He walked a guy too.  He needs to be precise and on the corners and walking virtually nobody or he shouldn't be on the roster.  The only way he fixes that is to pitch innings and get the feel for his command back.  They should DL him again and let him work, either BP/live sessions or in the minors.  Or release him.

[Irrelevant Dude]

1 hour ago, JHBulls said:

Just watched the final 3 inning and that was terrible. Good starting pitching. But poor hitting. And then Kyle Hendricks came in and represented the bullpen as only he knows how. 

Maybe I just don't have it in me to be upset about Kyle, but did it really even matter?  If the offense can't score, I don't care which reliever did or didn't give up runs.  Unless the offense starts producing, the Cubs could have Mason Miller pitch out of the pen every night and it wouldn't make any difference.

[Stratos]

4 hours ago, 17 Seconds said:

jed has taken like one swing as a gm and we got Michael Busch out of it

Busch has hands as slow as molasses at the plate, that's been clear since early ST.  He's the anti-Nico.  He's always going to K a ton, even if he turns things around.

According to Savant bat-tracking his bat speed is also below league-average, ranking between Nico and Bellinger's on the team.  But unlike them, he can't make contact or put barrel to ball at near the rate that they can (so far).

[JHBulls]

28 minutes ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

Maybe I just don't have it in me to be upset about Kyle, but did it really even matter?  If the offense can't score, I don't care which reliever did or didn't give up runs.  Unless the offense starts producing, the Cubs could have Mason Miller pitch out of the pen every night and it wouldn't make any difference.

I get that it was the difference between a 1-0 and 3-0 loss on the box score, but I will take a tidy inning from a reliever and see if the offense can change their approach rather than have a reliever give up 2 runs straight off the bat, which would just demoralise the offense. 

But hey, this offense is crappy, so yeah, they weren’t scoring any runs even if Kyle managed to come out of the inning still 1-0 down

[UMFan83]

5 hours ago, Soul said:

I think we went through this kind of power outage last year too. Didn’t we sink back to 500 around this time of year as well?

2024 has felt very similar to 2023 so far. I know it’s not identical but there are a lot of similarities. 2023 team started out 14-10, then went 8-20 and continued to sputter for awhile hitting a low point of 9 games under .500. They then played like a 103 win team for ~70 games or so. 
 

2024 Cubs started better (17-9) and their May drop off hasn’t been extreme (10-15) but a lot of the issues were the same: injuries, struggling bullpen, struggling offense.  Hopefully 2024 continues like 2023 did and they get hot for a few months (without the eventual September collapse). They should…there’s enough talent on this team. 

Edited May 24, 2024 by UMFan83

[Stratos]

With every position guy back healthy it may be in the interests of the Cubs to give Morel a couple of days off to heal up.  Get him ready for the 4-game series vs the Brewers that starts Monday.

Stick Wisdom at 3B on Fri vs Cards, he should be able to handle Mikolas and Imanaga as a FB guy means not many GB for Wisdom to punt anyways.

[Stratos]

May stats:

Cubs are 27th in MLB in runs scored (Braves are 28th haha), Cubs are 8th in ERA and FIP.

Pen has dramatically improved in May.  In April the main issue as a pen staff was BB/9.  May pen stats:  2.92 BB/9, 10.90 K/9, 0.89 HR/9. 3.55 ERA and 3.13 FIP.

Neris, Leiter, Brown, Wesneski, Tyson Miller have all pitched very well.  Miller hasn't given up an ER in 5.1 IP.  Hodge with a promising debut.

Cubs offense should break out of the slump eventually, especially with everyone now healthy (Morel walking wounded?).  Things looking positive going forward for the team for now.

[Brian707]

The ceiling for this team is 87 wins. I don't know why many are surprised or angry.  They probably played a bit over their heads in April. They lost a lot of games they should have won and won some They should have lost. Blame Jed, but more importantly blame this horrible family who owns this team. 

They are who we thought they were

 

[Andy]

13 hours ago, BigSlick said:

there's literally nothing worse as a baseball fan than watching a team that can't hit

 

The only thing that comes close is a bullpen that can't hold a lead of any size and we already did that dance for like 6 weeks too   (been better lately of course)

[Brock Beauchamp]

@Southpaw19 is up for today's game thread.

[thawv]

19 hours ago, Stratos said:

Would be nice if the horsefeathers Cubs would start hitting the horsefeathers baseball.  They're at home for fucks sake.

And maybe this offseason we don't give some injured washed up has-been 16.5m dollars based on a few months of success and the fact that he's a nice guy and been with the team for a long time.  You want a Smyly for SP depth then go pay Smyly money.  But Smyly sucks too.  So maybe stop signing bad SP to bloated contracts.  If they want crappy SP results then pay a few million for a crappy SP.  If they want a SP with talent who can get outs not based on luck then pay the money it costs for talent.  Is Hoyer not listening to coaches and scouts who should be telling him the small amount of success Smyly and Hendricks had before their deals/options were signed was based on a bunch of luck hanging on a razor's edge?  Scout the darn talent and get your heads out of the short-term stat sheets you idiots.

Hendricks, Smyly, Mancini, Barnhart, Villar, Descalso....pay for talent not replacement bums you idiots!  You want replacement players then go sign some AAAA nobodies for pennies and hope for the best.

Sorry for the rant.

You're right.  Overall, Jed has done a horrible job putting together a major league team with the 237 million he has to spend. 

Edited May 24, 2024 by thawv