5/31 Reds (Ashcraft) @ Cubs (Assad) 1:20 PM CT

[Bertz]

The last two weeks have....not gone great and the boo birds are coming out

Others have resorted to apathy

The last place Reds come to town today!

Cubs better win today, because they draw Greene and Lodolo the next two days

Go Cubs?

[UMFan83]

 

 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Trevor Megill was 27 when he was let go by the Cubs, had a 5.14 ERA in 14 AAA IP and 8.37 ERA in 23 MLB IP.  Then he went to Minnesota, gained 2 mph on his fastball, and was bad (though unlucky) for them in 45 MLB IP, *then* he came to Milwaukee and has had 14 excellent innings.  Crystal ball indeed.

 

Estrada there can be a little bit more hand wringing about, but across 39 AAA and MLB innings last year, he walked 39 batters and gave up 12 home runs.  The relievers that were rostered in his stead were Arias and Hodge, both who have plenty of stuff themselves.  Sometimes a reliever goes to another org and gets hot, or learns a new pitch, or both in Estrada's case.

[Derwood]

When I moved, I upgraded from "in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati's blackout areas" to just "in Cincinnati's blackout area".

 

So have fun with the series this weekend, but Rob Manfred has deemed me unworthy to watch

[CubinNY]

10 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Trevor Megill was 27 when he was let go by the Cubs, had a 5.14 ERA in 14 AAA IP and 8.37 ERA in 23 MLB IP.  Then he went to Minnesota, gained 2 mph on his fastball, and was bad (though unlucky) for them in 45 MLB IP, *then* he came to Milwaukee and has had 14 excellent innings.  Crystal ball indeed.

 

Estrada there can be a little bit more hand wringing about, but across 39 AAA and MLB innings last year, he walked 39 batters and gave up 12 home runs.  The relievers that were rostered in his stead were Arias and Hodge, both who have plenty of stuff themselves.  Sometimes a reliever goes to another org and gets hot, or learns a new pitch, or both in Estrada's case.

I think the broader point is that the Cubs have inside information that they don't appear to be using well. I don't have an opinion one way or the other on that. I think they are paying too much money on a system that can't help them command a pitch, but that's my bugaboo. 

No one is perfect, but Jed is not getting results and that should matter. I suspect it won't at least not this year. 

 

[Bertz]

Arizona Phil is great for minor league roster management minutiae and the in person looks he gets at ACLers and Spring Training backfielders.  

His opinions on MLB matters are about as valuable as any other rando on Twitter.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

9 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

I think the broader point is that the Cubs have inside information that they don't appear to be using well. I don't have an opinion one way or the other on that. I think they are paying too much money on a system that can't help them command a pitch, but that's my bugaboo. 

No one is perfect, but Jed is not getting results and that should matter. I suspect it won't at least not this year. 

 

Of all the criticisms to lob Jed's way, bemoaning a couple fringe relievers getting hot for 2 months as a systemic failure is not high on the list.  This is a thing that happens to every team and is the nature of relievers, especially in our current pitching dev environment.  You won't bat 1.000, seen through the fact that both Megill and Hudson had other stops at progressive/successful orgs that didn't unlock them before the Brewers, and the same way that the Cubs have successes of their own via this avenue.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

Yeah, I see the argument for not wanting to give up on Estrada quite yet, but most of us wanted Megill to get the boot well before he did.

Edited May 31, 2024 by Ding Dong Johnson

[KCCub]

5 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Of all the criticisms to lob Jed's way, bemoaning a couple fringe relievers getting hot for 2 months as a systemic failure is not high on the list.  This is a thing that happens to every team and is the nature of relievers, especially in our current pitching dev environment.  You won't bat 1.000, seen through the fact that both Megill and Hudson had other stops at progressive/successful orgs that didn't unlock them before the Brewers, and the same way that the Cubs have successes of their own via this avenue.

Agreed. The flip side could be said about Merryweather. 

Now if someone wants to go after Jed for giving Smyly/Mancini/Barnhart two year contracts along with picking up Hendricks option, Mastro/Madrigal, and going mutiple seasons without having a longterm 1b/3b/Catcher locked up, I'm all for giving Jed some flak there. 

 

[WhyCantWeWin]

PCA starting on back to back days? Never thought I’d see it

[mul21]

4 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Of all the criticisms to lob Jed's way, bemoaning a couple fringe relievers getting hot for 2 months as a systemic failure is not high on the list.  This is a thing that happens to every team and is the nature of relievers, especially in our current pitching dev environment.  You won't bat 1.000, seen through the fact that both Megill and Hudson had other stops at progressive/successful orgs that didn't unlock them before the Brewers, and the same way that the Cubs have successes of their own via this avenue.

Yeah, I think the message here is different strokes for different folks.  While the Cubs methodology for unlocking the best a pitcher can be may work the vast majority of the time, there's guys who just won't take to it.  There is no magic bean that makes every guy successful and that's been true forever.  Even in the days of the sinker ballers, you saw guys who just couldn't keep the ball down enough to make it work because of the natural path of their arm and pitches.  That's why these coaches and development guys get paid a ton of money to figure out what works best for who, and like anything else involving human beings, sometimes they miss something or the message isn't quite delivered the right way to a guy, or maybe he's just not ready to hear that message when it's delivered and 2 years later he is.  There's a million permutations and I think looking at the overall body of work where guys like Leiter, Merryweather, Mychal Givens and even Assad and Wesneski, tells you they have a good idea of what they're doing.

[Brock Beauchamp]

43 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Trevor Megill was 27 when he was let go by the Cubs, had a 5.14 ERA in 14 AAA IP and 8.37 ERA in 23 MLB IP.  Then he went to Minnesota, gained 2 mph on his fastball, and was bad (though unlucky) for them in 45 MLB IP, *then* he came to Milwaukee and has had 14 excellent innings.  Crystal ball indeed.

The Twins are pretty exceptional at increasing pitcher velocity. I don't think they let go of Megill because of performance, I think they didn't like the guy. I vaguely remember him throwing a hissy over a demotion.

Their mistake, obviously.

[Bertz]

5 minutes ago, mul21 said:

Yeah, I think the message here is different strokes for different folks.  While the Cubs methodology for unlocking the best a pitcher can be may work the vast majority of the time, there's guys who just won't take to it.  There is no magic bean that makes every guy successful and that's been true forever.  Even in the days of the sinker ballers, you saw guys who just couldn't keep the ball down enough to make it work because of the natural path of their arm and pitches.  That's why these coaches and development guys get paid a ton of money to figure out what works best for who, and like anything else involving human beings, sometimes they miss something or the message isn't quite delivered the right way to a guy, or maybe he's just not ready to hear that message when it's delivered and 2 years later he is.  There's a million permutations and I think looking at the overall body of work where guys like Leiter, Merryweather, Mychal Givens and even Assad and Wesneski, tells you they have a good idea of what they're doing.

This is a great point.  A lot of these teams are probably telling guys similar things, and the failure at one stop might be extremely necessary for the message to sink in and the changes to take hold at the next one.

[We Got The Whole 9]

42 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Trevor Megill was 27 when he was let go by the Cubs, had a 5.14 ERA in 14 AAA IP and 8.37 ERA in 23 MLB IP.  Then he went to Minnesota, gained 2 mph on his fastball, and was bad (though unlucky) for them in 45 MLB IP, *then* he came to Milwaukee and has had 14 excellent innings.  Crystal ball indeed.

 

Estrada there can be a little bit more hand wringing about, but across 39 AAA and MLB innings last year, he walked 39 batters and gave up 12 home runs.  The relievers that were rostered in his stead were Arias and Hodge, both who have plenty of stuff themselves.  Sometimes a reliever goes to another org and gets hot, or learns a new pitch, or both in Estrada's case.

Agreed completely. Megill and Hudson aren't really bothering me because of the gap between their success and their time with the Cubs. Hudson was just always seen as a huge disappointment since we drafted him. He wasn't on anyone's top 50. Megill's time in our organization was a tiny blip in his professional career and came at a time when we just wanted any semblance of velocity basically, and since we couldn't help him harness any of his secondaries, his fastball got annihilated and he gave up 9 HR in 40 IP as a 27 y/o nobody. Easy to move on from that. 

 

But Estrada, even with the troubles he showed last year, should have been given a longer leash, IMO. Too young and productive to just wash your hands of. I'm sure there were other cuts that could have been made. 

[squally1313]

Estrada has 16 major league innings where he's shown any semblance of success. Ben Brown, in his last 13 innings, has 19 Ks and 2 hits allowed. We got him for 2 months of David Robertson. These things happen, all the time, to every team in baseball. 

[17 Seconds]

the brewers play the white sox at home this weekend, so the cubs better take care of business here if they don't want the division to start getting out of hand

[Ding Dong Johnson]

Dansby is going yard today

[CubinNY]

9 minutes ago, Ding Dong Johnson said:

Dansby is going yard today

your keyboard to god's ears. 

Edited May 31, 2024 by CubinNY

[squally1313]

Tauchman has plenty of value here, but I don't think he needs to be 'guy who gets the most ABs on the team'

[Transmogrified Tiger]

3 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Tauchman has plenty of value here, but I don't think he needs to be 'guy who gets the most ABs on the team'

I'm hopeful for Happ to get back to the top of the lineup pretty soon in his stead, though to an extent I understand Tauchman fitting better at the top than 5/6 given PCA is at the bottom and you want to stagger LHH

[JHBulls]

Assad is so good. Of course the lineup won’t give him any run support. 

[LBiittner]

I think its probably time for the pitchers to just concentrate on their personal numbers so they can garner stronger earning power down the road.

[JHBulls]

That’ll do. 

[We Got The Whole 9]

Happer!

[CubinNY]

Happer