Cubs (Steele) vs Pirates (Jones): 8/27/24, 5:40pm

[chibears55]

1 hour ago, UMFan83 said:

There's really no point to watch the scoreboard.  The season is effectively over.  For instance here is a scenario:

The Cubs would need to go 21-8 to reach 88 wins

In order to pass the Braves, Atlanta would have to go  15-15 or worse

or

The Padres would have to go 11-17 or worse

or

The Diamondbacks would have to go 12-18 or worse

or

The Brewers would have to go 12-19 or worse

It's definitely possible, but the likelihood of the things that need to happen are so low, its not worth scoreboard watching.

Of course, I'm not going to tell anyone how to fan.  Obviously the Cubs winning games has been fun and its fun to have hope.  Just giving general advice based on how low the odds are.  I'm just enjoying watching the team play well and using it as hope that things will be different next year.  Unfortunately it was just a bad season to take 2 months off since the bar for the Wild Card (and division) is so high this year.  Last year teams made the WC in the NL with 83 and 84 wins.  This year there is a very real chance that all 3 WC teams will have over 90 wins.

Hopefully this is a lesson to Jed that he can't aim for building 85 win teams

Yes, stranger things have happened with teams in September as far making or blowing a playoff spot. But, I'm just hoping for a good finish to these last games and hopefully they can carry the momentum into next season and start out strong. 

Hoyer needs to have a good offseason and bring in guys to upgrade certain areas of the roster over just patching up a few holes with cheap bandaids.

[Stratos]

7 hours ago, Chicago Al said:

Paredes running in slow motion, geez

Let's put Amaya and Paredes in a race.

[Stratos]

Dansby projected to finish with a 3.5 fWAR.  Pretty good considering how bad most of his season was at the plate.

Seiya's numbers look very similar to last year.

[Backtobanks]

7 hours ago, chibears55 said:

Yes, stranger things have happened with teams in September as far making or blowing a playoff spot. But, I'm just hoping for a good finish to these last games and hopefully they can carry the momentum into next season and start out strong. 

Hoyer needs to have a good offseason and bring in guys to upgrade certain areas of the roster over just patching up a few holes with cheap bandaids.

Are you saying we're doomed for next year?

[thawv]

19 hours ago, Tryptamine said:

If Amaya is the answer at C that is very significant for free agency. It basically means the Cubs can do one of two things. If Cody opts out, they have a tremendous amount of money to dump on RF/DH, 1x SP and 1x back end/closer type. If Cody stays, they still have like 40M to use on SP/RP. I still don't think Jed has the balls to pull off big moves like Soto or Burnes, but strictly from a financial aspect, it's 100% feasible. 

I'm seeing over 60 million to spend if Cody doesn't opt out.  And that's accounting for all arb guys, and 0-3 guys. 

[squally1313]

9 hours ago, UMFan83 said:

There's really no point to watch the scoreboard.  The season is effectively over.  For instance here is a scenario:

The Cubs would need to go 21-8 to reach 88 wins

In order to pass the Braves, Atlanta would have to go  15-15 or worse

or

The Padres would have to go 11-17 or worse

or

The Diamondbacks would have to go 12-18 or worse

or

The Brewers would have to go 12-19 or worse

It's definitely possible, but the likelihood of the things that need to happen are so low, its not worth scoreboard watching.

Of course, I'm not going to tell anyone how to fan.  Obviously the Cubs winning games has been fun and its fun to have hope.  Just giving general advice based on how low the odds are.  I'm just enjoying watching the team play well and using it as hope that things will be different next year.  Unfortunately it was just a bad season to take 2 months off since the bar for the Wild Card (and division) is so high this year.  Last year teams made the WC in the NL with 83 and 84 wins.  This year there is a very real chance that all 3 WC teams will have over 90 wins.

Hopefully this is a lesson to Jed that he can't aim for building 85 win teams

Hey, if the Cubs can be historically unique outliers in blowing leads after the 8th inning or failing to get runners in from scoring position, why can't they go and make a run on a 3.3% playoff chance?

[mul21]

10 hours ago, UMFan83 said:

There's really no point to watch the scoreboard.  The season is effectively over.  For instance here is a scenario:

The Cubs would need to go 21-8 to reach 88 wins

In order to pass the Braves, Atlanta would have to go  15-15 or worse

or

The Padres would have to go 11-17 or worse

or

The Diamondbacks would have to go 12-18 or worse

or

The Brewers would have to go 12-19 or worse

It's definitely possible, but the likelihood of the things that need to happen are so low, its not worth scoreboard watching.

Of course, I'm not going to tell anyone how to fan.  Obviously the Cubs winning games has been fun and its fun to have hope.  Just giving general advice based on how low the odds are.  I'm just enjoying watching the team play well and using it as hope that things will be different next year.  Unfortunately it was just a bad season to take 2 months off since the bar for the Wild Card (and division) is so high this year.  Last year teams made the WC in the NL with 83 and 84 wins.  This year there is a very real chance that all 3 WC teams will have over 90 wins.

Hopefully this is a lesson to Jed that he can't aim for building 85 win teams

I said on Monday that unless they go 7-2 or better this week, I'm not even thinking about a playoff push.  4-1 is a good start but with Skenes looming tonight that probably means they need to sweep in Washington and that's likely going to include a double header on Sunday based on the current weather forecast.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

The way to think about playoff optimism is they just need to keep winning series.  The Braves are the only team they have an impractical path to pass at current rates, so you just take care of your business and hope Atlanta has a 4-6 stretch or so in the next couple weeks to put you within 2-3 games for the final stretch.  It's unlikely of course, but the part that's out of their hands is 1) only one team and 2) that team doesn't have to completely faceplant in order to bring the race back to the range where normal variance could happen.

 

Also, you can enjoy the Cubs playing good baseball!  Even if the games become dead rubbers, the team isn't set to have a dramatic makeover in the offseason, so playing well means good things for 2025.

[CubinNY]

3 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

dead rubbers, 

ewwww

[Rcal10]

6 hours ago, Stratos said:

Dansby projected to finish with a 3.5 fWAR.  Pretty good considering how bad most of his season was at the plate.

Seiya's numbers look very similar to last year.

Only 5 outfielders have a better wRC+ that is better than Seiya’s this year. He is having a very good season. 

[Rcal10]

2 hours ago, squally1313 said:

Hey, if the Cubs can be historically unique outliers in blowing leads after the 8th inning or failing to get runners in from scoring position, why can't they go and make a run on a 3.3% playoff chance?

This is true. But not counting on it. It is just fun to see them play solid baseball. If it wasn’t the Braves they weee chasing I would say they had a chance. But I doubt the Braves play under 500 the rest of the year. 

[squally1313]

25 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

This is true. But not counting on it. It is just fun to see them play solid baseball. If it wasn’t the Braves they weee chasing I would say they had a chance. But I doubt the Braves play under 500 the rest of the year. 

I've also spent most of the season just assuming the Braves would figure out a playoff spot and spent most of August hoping for a Padres/DBacks swoon, neither of which happened. But...have you seen their lineup recently? Albies, Riley, and Acuna all out, Matt Olson struggling to stay about 100 wRC. It's basically Ozuna and some bizarre late career resurgences from Whit Merrifield and Travis D'Arnaud. They picked up Soler and are voluntarily playing him in right(!). Gio Urshela, released by the Tigers(!), is their starting 3B now that Riley is out. It's pretty dire.

The pitching is good but it is so, so old. I don't really know how Chris Sale went from

• 2020: 0 innings
• 2021: 63 innings total
• 2022: 16 innings total
• 2023: 109 innings total
• 2024: 148 innings and somehow the Cy Young favorite?

TLDR: This is not the 2023 Braves

[17 Seconds]

1 hour ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Also, you can enjoy the Cubs playing good baseball!  Even if the games become dead rubbers, the team isn't set to have a dramatic makeover in the offseason, so playing well means good things for 2025.

i've been enjoying the low-stakes games a lot

[Stratos]

6 hours ago, Rcal10 said:

Only 5 outfielders have a better wRC+ that is better than Seiya’s this year. He is having a very good season. 

Yeah Suzuki is 5th and Happ is 12th.  Happ is 13th in OF WAR and Suzuki is 17th.  Suzuki would be even higher if he didn't DH.  There's 90 OF spots in the MLB so that's very good.

[Tryptamine]

35 minutes ago, Stratos said:

Yeah Suzuki is 5th and Happ is 12th.  Happ is 13th in OF WAR and Suzuki is 17th.  Suzuki would be even higher if he didn't DH.  There's 90 OF spots in the MLB so that's very good.

And yet when I was just talking to my friend about how PCA has been killing it since the ASB, he responded that so did Seiya last year and he's only average this year. It's amazing how out of touch most fans are with reality. I get the impression they'd rather have the .750 OPS 30 HR bat over the .850 OPS 20 HR guy.