Cubs Have Good Chance to Win Wednesday Since Counsel Doesnt Have Pitching Choice Selection

[Banks-Williams]

On Wednesday the Cubbies will have a much better opportunity to win because the starting pitcher is a given: Jameson Taillon.  Good thing Craig Counsel did not have much of a choice in the matter or he might arrive at the crazy idea of pitching Boyd on three days rest.  While that notion was averted for game 3, the loss at game one cannot the undone.  Nor can his decision to take Assad off the roster, in favor of the leading cookie tosser, Shota Imanaga, be undone. 

I know I’m using tough talk here, but it is not from hindsight.  And it was crazy to think Boyd on three-days-rest could pitch better than Assad on five.  In fact, he probably wouldn’t pitch better than Assad on 5 days rest.

When Boyd pitched 4 1/3 innings on 9/30, he gave up one run and 4 hits while walking one and striking out only two.  In contrast, Assad on 9/28, pitched 5 1/3 innings against the same team, struck out 6, walked only one, and gave up 0 runs with 3 hits.   Looking at these numbers, who should be your starter on 10/4?  The better pitcher with 5 days rest, or the guy who’s not throwing as well with 3 days rest?

Counsel choose the latter,  Then for an encore, he takes the guy who is pitching good and who is rested OFF THE ROSTER!  And he has the top HR man start game 2.  And what happens?  Two home runs in 2 2/3 innings.

Hello McFly?  Good thing Counsel does not have a choice for the game 3 starter.  The Cubs thus will have a good opportunity to win.  

Edited October 7, 2025 by Banks-Williams

[Rcal10]

5 minutes ago, Banks-Williams said:

On Wednesday the Cubbies will have a much better opportunity to win because the starting pitcher is a given: Jameson Taillon.  Good thing Craig Counsel did not have much of a choice in the matter or he might arrive at the crazy idea of pitching Boyd on three days rest.  While that notion was averted for game 3, the loss at game one cannot the undone.  Nor can his decision to take Assad off the roster in favor of the leading cookie tosser, Shota Imanaga, be undone. 

I know I’m using tough talk here, but it is not from hindsight.  And it was crazy to think Boyd on three-days-rest could pitch better than Assad on five.  In fact, he probably wouldn’t pitch better than Assad on 5 days rest.

When Boyd pitched 4 1/3 innings on 9/30, he gave up one run and 4 hits while walking one and striking out only two.  In contrast, Assad on 9/28, pitched 5 1/3 innings against the same team, struck out 6, walked only one, and gave up 0 runs with 3 hits.   Looking at these numbers, who should be your starter on 10/4?  The better pitcher with 5 days rest, or the guy who’s not throwing as well with 3 days rest?

Counsel choose the latter,  Then for an encore, he takes the guy who is pitching good and who is rested OFF THE ROSTER!  And he has the top HR man start game 2.  And what happens?  Two home runs in 2 2/3 innings.

Hello McFly?  Good thing Counsel does not have a choice for the game 3 starter.  The Cubs thus will have a good opportunity to win.  

WOW! Welcome to the site. Hopefully you won’t be around long. 

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

Dear Lord.

[Banks-Williams]

35 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

WOW! Welcome to the site. Hopefully you won’t be around long. 

Just telling it like it is ….  Counsell blew both games. The writing was on the wall, but sadly he can’t read or see. 

Edited October 7, 2025 by Banks-Williams
Misspelling and wrong letter inserted into word

[Tryptamine]

The pitching has not been good, but when the offense has scored 12 runs in 5 games it doesn't much matter even if the pitching is good.

[Banks-Williams]

Yes that’s not good production, but it only takes one run to win the game.  In the playoffs, you’re up against teams that have excellent pitching. You can’t expect a lot of runs.  Therefore you will not win if you make bad pitching choices for your starters. Counsell made two terrible choices, and all the players and fans have suffered for it. 

[Rcal10]

24 minutes ago, Banks-Williams said:

Just telling it like it is ….  Counsell blew both games. The writing was on the wall, but sadly he can’t read or see. 

Nonsense. 

[Banks-Williams]

Just now, Rcal10 said:

Nonsense. 

So you think using Boyd on 3 days rest was a good choice?  And letting the league-leading HR tosser start was a good choice too?  

The reason you curtly say “nonsense” only without any reasoning is because what I wrote is sensical. 

[Rcal10]

13 minutes ago, Banks-Williams said:

So you think using Boyd on 3 days rest was a good choice?  And letting the league-leading HR tosser start was a good choice too?  

The reason you curtly say “nonsense” only without any reasoning is because what I wrote is sensical. 

I’m already on record of not liking the idea of Boyd. I would have went Assad. But that doesn’t mean they win if Assad pitches. Boyd was a reasonable option among all less than ideal options. Then, after they went Boyd in game 1, Imanaga was on obvious choice in game 2. He was good against Milwaukee this year. He even pitched a decent game during his bad stretch, against the Brewers. You are just ranting things that can’t be proven. And your personal attach on Counsel does not help your credibility, therefore I said NONSENSE. 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

1 hour ago, Banks-Williams said:

So you think using Boyd on 3 days rest was a good choice?  And letting the league-leading HR tosser start was a good choice too?  

Thank you for asking, yes, using your two best pitchers all year, even on short rest in Boyd's case, are perfectly fine choices compared to the alternatives.  In the modern game there are basically no obvious decisions that managers don't make. So if you find yourself thinking that a manager has 'blown' a game by doing something incomprehensible, you should probably update your priors and consider that making a series of 50/50 or at best 60/40 decisions is not going to lead to excellent results in every case and therefore they aren't single handedly costing the team wins.

[Stratos]

1 hour ago, Rcal10 said:

Nonsense. 

The Shota start might have been more questionable than the Boyd start IMO.  At least he hadn't been terrible his last month in every single start.

[imb]

let this guy cook

[Jason Ross]

8 minutes ago, Stratos said:

The Shota start might have been more questionable than the Boyd start IMO.  At least he hadn't been terrible his last month in every single start.

Between July 30th and September 19th Shota Imanaga had a 3.69 ERA and a 3.79 xFIP. Shota had one decisively bad start after getting beat up by the White Sox in mid-July...his last start of the year of the regular season on September 25th. 

So, neither had Shota Imanaga. 

[mk49]

The Cubs had good chance, because aside from Horton, Jamo was the best pitcher at the end of the season, and it's a home game.  

[Stratos]

44 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

Between July 30th and September 19th Shota Imanaga had a 3.69 ERA and a 3.79 xFIP. Shota had one decisively bad start after getting beat up by the White Sox in mid-July...his last start of the year of the regular season on September 25th. 

So, neither had Shota Imanaga. 

Why did you cherry-pick around the terrible start he had vs the Mets on Sept 25?  Shota had a 6.51 ERA in Sept and was the worst qualified SP in the baseball in Sept. in terms of fWAR.  Then he got lit up by the Padres in the NLWC.

Colin Rea was the best SP in baseball in Sept in fWAR, the choice seemed obvious:

Go back to Aug 1 and Rea is still better (this doesn't even include Shota's bad start vs Padres in NLWC:

Shota's ERA in Aug was good but his xFIP was average,  He pitched twice at Wrigley with the wind blowing in from CF and another start at Wrigley vs the Pirates, then started in STL (they suck) and in SF (huge OF).  Given how he's been pitching he's likely not going to be good unless he's pitching at Wrigley with the wind blowing in.

[Brian707]

4 hours ago, Banks-Williams said:

On Wednesday the Cubbies will have a much better opportunity to win because the starting pitcher is a given: Jameson Taillon.  Good thing Craig Counsel did not have much of a choice in the matter or he might arrive at the crazy idea of pitching Boyd on three days rest.  While that notion was averted for game 3, the loss at game one cannot the undone.  Nor can his decision to take Assad off the roster, in favor of the leading cookie tosser, Shota Imanaga, be undone. 

I know I’m using tough talk here, but it is not from hindsight.  And it was crazy to think Boyd on three-days-rest could pitch better than Assad on five.  In fact, he probably wouldn’t pitch better than Assad on 5 days rest.

When Boyd pitched 4 1/3 innings on 9/30, he gave up one run and 4 hits while walking one and striking out only two.  In contrast, Assad on 9/28, pitched 5 1/3 innings against the same team, struck out 6, walked only one, and gave up 0 runs with 3 hits.   Looking at these numbers, who should be your starter on 10/4?  The better pitcher with 5 days rest, or the guy who’s not throwing as well with 3 days rest?

Counsel choose the latter,  Then for an encore, he takes the guy who is pitching good and who is rested OFF THE ROSTER!  And he has the top HR man start game 2.  And what happens?  Two home runs in 2 2/3 innings.

Hello McFly?  Good thing Counsel does not have a choice for the game 3 starter.  The Cubs thus will have a good opportunity to win.  

[Brian707]

1 hour ago, imb said:

let this guy cook

[soccer10k]

33 minutes ago, Stratos said:

Given how he's been pitching he's likely not going to be good unless he's pitching at Wrigley with the wind blowing in.

Sp you’re saying it wasn’t smart to have lined him up to start Games 2 and 5 in Milwaukee?

[Jason Ross]

8 hours ago, Stratos said:

Why did you cherry-pick around the terrible start he had vs the Mets on Sept 25?  Shota had a 6.51 ERA in Sept and was the worst qualified SP in the baseball in Sept. in terms of fWAR.  Then he got lit up by the Padres in the NLWC.

Colin Rea was the best SP in baseball in Sept in fWAR, the choice seemed obvious:

Go back to Aug 1 and Rea is still better (this doesn't even include Shota's bad start vs Padres in NLWC:

Shota's ERA in Aug was good but his xFIP was average,  He pitched twice at Wrigley with the wind blowing in from CF and another start at Wrigley vs the Pirates, then started in STL (they suck) and in SF (huge OF).  Given how he's been pitching he's likely not going to be good unless he's pitching at Wrigley with the wind blowing in.

You're the one who created the "last month" timeline, I didn't "cherry pick". Of course his "last month" looks terrible, one of his starts was an 8 run blow up. But prior to his worst start of the year, a start that was a week beyond the Cubs clinching the playoffs, he was just fine dating back his prior 60 innings. That *one* start skews that data set *you* created. So don't blame me for that. I responded to your criterion. I expanded that criterion out to show that one bad start made things look dire but it wasn't anywhere near that bad if we just zoom out a little.  Prior to his last start of the regular year, he was on a 60 IP good stretch. It was 10 starts. One start does not erase the prior 10.

I don't want to entirely ignore that the HRs were a bit of an issue. They were. But if we are erasing SPs based on their September ERA, the Mariners George Kirby (5.40 ERA) shouldn't have made a start, either. This is exactly why one month of data should be zoomed out, and zooming out gets us a better picture. You may point out his xFIP was under 3.00 during the month and while he is obviously a better pitcher than Shota, Imanaga had an xFIP of 4.04 in September prior to his bad game. Kirby, himself, had a 16.7% HR/FB%. Shota was again worse, but that would have been higher than any other month Shota had all season. 

Secondly I wasn't comparing him to Colin Rea, I was responding to a comparison of Boyd and Imanaga, so this is moving the goal posts, but if you want to do that all of a sudden we can. First, Rea was far more shielded than Shota. Go back and look at home may times Rea wasn't even allowed to go 5 innings. Over that same span (last 10 starts) Rea was pulled before he made the 15th out three times, a fourth he was pulled after the 15th. Shota went under 5 zero times, went over 6 times almost every single start. Rea went 6+ just twice. The Cubs protected Colin Rea much, much more and shielded him heavily from seeing a lineup a third time - a cliff we know SPs struggle with. That skews the data.

Rea also allowed *one* home run over his last 57 IP. We know for a fact that's just entirely unsustainable for Colin Rea. His xFIP during the same run as Shota I used? A 3.80 xFIP. The difference between the two is a single, bad, Shota blowup on the 25th. And guess what? Both got Wrigley wind benefit. All of the Cubs starters did. 

If you want to go meta numbers, both starters faced Milwaukee twice in that sample size. Colin Rea surrendered 6 over 9, walked as many as he struck out. Shota surrendered five in 12, striking out 13 and walking two. Shota was clearly better against the Brewers over that span.

Before we point out that July 30th was a start directly after Shota got bombed by the White Sox - July 29th is the start after Rea got rocked by the Royals for six runs. Both have the advantage of having a bad start being the end point. They got the same treatment. 

So on paper, they were basically as good as each other over the same span. Rea did so with unsustainable home run rates, the same Wrigley wind protection was worse against Milwaukee and the Cubs shielded him much more than Imanaga. The difference was truly one, very bad, no good start on September 25th. If you are going to let that start make you think Colin Rea is a better bet than Shota Imanaga, more power to you, but that's incredibly reactionary and by this same logic, you would have to at least *consider*, even momentarily, Colin Rea a better option than George Kirby. And I think we both know how silly that would be. 

[BigbadB]

12 hours ago, Banks-Williams said:

Yes that’s not good production, but it only takes one run to win the game.

While I'm on record as wanting a Rea, Boyd, Taillon, Imanaga rotation for this series, I'm curious if you know how many games the pitching staff would have won in any of the playoff matchups through these first two series if the Cubs only scored one run. The Cubs bats aren't doing enough to win games. The Cubs were never going to get "perfect" with the remnants and duct tape of the current rotation. 

And while I am on record as wanting a different rotation, we don't really know whether that rotation would have had better results. 

[mul21]

Regardless of whether or not people agree with your premise, the level of hyperbole you're using is going to cause them to tell you to piss up a rope, and rightfully so.

[Banks-Williams]

5 hours ago, mul21 said:

hyperbole

I don’t/didn’t use it. Just stated facts and outcomes. Both were in line. Face it: Counsell made terrible choices that cost the Cubs the first two games of the NLDS. 

[Banks-Williams]

19 hours ago, Rcal10 said:

I’m already on record of not liking the idea of Boyd. I would have went Assad. But that doesn’t mean they win if Assad pitches. Boyd was a reasonable option among all less than ideal options. Then, after they went Boyd in game 1, Imanaga was on obvious choice in game 2. He was good against Milwaukee this year. He even pitched a decent game during his bad stretch, against the Brewers. You are just ranting things that can’t be proven. And your personal attach on Counsel does not help your credibility, therefore I said NONSENSE. 

It is an obvious choice to use the league’s leading cookie thrower to start a NLDS game?  Well … looks like you got what you wanted: a loss from two home runs. Imanaga had not been pitching good at all heading into the post season. Get real. 

[Banks-Williams]

19 hours ago, Rcal10 said:

I’m already on record of not liking the idea of Boyd. I would have went Assad. But that doesn’t mean they win if Assad pitches. Boyd was a reasonable option among all less than ideal options. Then, after they went Boyd in game 1, Imanaga was on obvious choice in game 2. He was good against Milwaukee this year. He even pitched a decent game during his bad stretch, against the Brewers. You are just ranting things that can’t be proven. And your personal attach on Counsel does not help your credibility, therefore I said NONSENSE. 

I never said they’d win if Assad pitches. And I never “ranted about things that can’t be proven”.  I only spoke of two very poor decisions, both of which created two losses for the Cubs.  You really need to work on your reading comprehension my friend.

[Jason Ross]

17 minutes ago, Banks-Williams said:

It is an obvious choice to use the league’s leading cookie thrower to start a NLDS game?  Well … looks like you got what you wanted: a loss from two home runs. Imanaga had not been pitching good at all heading into the post season. Get real. 

This is a league spray chart on regular season games from 2021-2025 on sweepers (the pitch Imanaga gave up to Vaughn) and the location of the plate in which it was thrown, while also being only thrown from LHP to RHH. It's a pitch location that is rarely hit for home runs (just one instance) and is almost always an out. 

To clarify where the pitch was, it was #7 - well off the inside of the plate - it was not a strike: 

Your initial point might be to somehow blame Imanaga for that. That because he's so good at allowing home runs, his sweeper which has graded out better than league average in shape since coming into the league, was super easy to hit - but that's just not accurate. 

His pitch to Willson Contreras is much worse. I'm not going to defend him on that one. But three of the runs scored on that swing and it was pretty damn lucky. 

This idea, again, that this was some fireable offense is exactly what was said prior; it is hyperbole.