Cubs (Imanaga) vs Braves (Ritchie): 5/13/26, 6:15pm

[chibears55]

Brewers lose in 9th inning and Misiorowski hurt his leg

[mk49]

13 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

I agree,  but so far this season hes been off a bit more,  and hes striking out a whole lot more.  

Don't complain about Happ.  He's leading the team in HR and OBP, and the 3rd best in bWAR.  Here's the fact.  Happ is better hitter than Ohtani so far in this season.😁

Edited Thursday at 02:24 AM by mk49

[chibears55]

8 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

So 145 OPS+ and over 800 OPS is playing poorly. Got it. Also, he turns 32 in August. So most of next year he is 32. No, I wouldn’t give him 5 years. Maybe not sign him at all if they put money elsewhere. But you are shitting on him based on his last 55 AB. 

I wasn't even shitting on him with the original conversation that you chimed in on.

All I said was to Peanut post about extension between Suzuki and Happ was that as of now between the two, Suzuki would be the one to get the extension because Happ hasn't earned it yet,   IMO.

You and others may feel hes playing good but I dont.

[mk49]

2 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

I wasn't even shitting on him with the original conversation that you chimed in on.

All I said was to Peanut post about extension between Suzuki and Happ was that as of now between the two, Suzuki would be the one to get the extension because Happ hasn't earned it yet,   IMO.

You and others may feel hes playing good but I dont.

I agree Seiya should be extended/re-signed, but like I said 15min ago, Happ should be cheaper, so keeping Happ would probably make more sense.  If the Cubs keep Seiya, I would be surprised, at least a little.

[JHBulls]

27 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

Brewers lose in 9th inning and Misiorowski hurt his leg

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

Shota pitched great on the road against the best offense in baseball, and I'll pretend nothing else in this game happened. Great day.

[mk49]

Man, I didn't want to know, but I just found this.  Shota gave up 5 hard hits in 7 innings, and Maton 4 in one inning.  The Cubs had only 5 hard hits, and 2 of them were Mo.

Edited Thursday at 03:29 AM by mk49

[JBears79]

Cant wait for it to warm up a bit more. Bats are just ice cold right now. They will get it back.

[Rcal10]

1 hour ago, chibears55 said:

I wasn't even shitting on him with the original conversation that you chimed in on.

All I said was to Peanut post about extension between Suzuki and Happ was that as of now between the two, Suzuki would be the one to get the extension because Happ hasn't earned it yet,   IMO.

You and others may feel hes playing good but I dont.

In your initial post you suggested Happ hasn’t done anything to give the Cubs a reason to sign him. Again, OPS+ of 145 with OPS of 828 while still being a great outfielder. If this was stats of a nameless person you would say he was having a good year. I am fine with not extending him. I might not either, unless he was cheaper and would take a 3 year deal. But to say he isn’t doing anything this year IS undervaluing him. If they don’t sign him they will be worse in left field next year, period. 

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

2 hours ago, UMFan83 said:

Can you imagine if Shota didn’t accept the qualifying offer and was currently doing this for another team while all our pitchers arms are randomly falling off?

I'd like to imagine they would have been more aggressive on Dylan Cease if Shota had declined.

[chibears55]

29 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

In your initial post you suggested Happ hasn’t done anything to give the Cubs a reason to sign him. Again, OPS+ of 145 with OPS of 828 while still being a great outfielder. If this was stats of a nameless person you would say he was having a good year. I am fine with not extending him. I might not either, unless he was cheaper and would take a 3 year deal. But to say he isn’t doing anything this year IS undervaluing him. If they don’t sign him they will be worse in left field next year, period. 

I look at everything not just him having a good slug because of the 9 homers and that gives him a good ops.

The guy overall is just not hitting much, and has been cold the last 3 weeks now.

His slash on 4/24 was 250/357/510/868

After today its 225/.368/.457/.825

And he's striking out at a high rate of over 30%

If you seen a nameless person numbers dropping like that, you'd say hes having a bad month

I want him hitting as much as anyone because if he hits my favorite team has a better chance to win games, but im not going to pretend he's playing well when hes not.

 

We dont know who will be available for the outfield in the offseason to just say they will be worse in left if it not Happ

 

 

[Geographyhater8888]

5 hours ago, cl smooth said:

Whoops. Typos are aggravating.  

[Geographyhater8888]

9 hours ago, chibears55 said:

Whatever,  if youre happy with a guy hitting 220s cause hes scattering solo shots here and there then so be it.

Guy is 10 for his last 55 with 2 HRs and 25Ks

He hasn't been very good and doesn't deserve an extension right now as I said in original post

He has a 368 OBP and leads the team in runs scored with 32. Who do you think is scoring on those clutch base hits from Suzuki and Busch? Happ. 

The team has 12 hits since Saturday and Mo, Bregman, Nico and Swanson have been in an even bigger rut. Why is the focus on Happ specifically? 
 

He strikes out a lot, he’s streaky and seems to strikeout a lot in key situations. For a high 700’s OPS and GG defense in left field he’s paid accordingly. If he was being paid $200 million over 8 years then the amount of criticism he gets would make sense.

 

they’re not scoring.6 runs/game fewer than at the 43 game mark last season because of Happ, it’s because PCA and Busch’s wRC+ have dipped from 134 and 133 to 93 and 108.

Edited Thursday at 11:00 AM by Geographyhater8888

[CubinNY]

Pitching is holding up. They will snap out of it. 

[Rcal10]

5 hours ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

He has a 368 OBP and leads the team in runs scored with 32. Who do you think is scoring on those clutch base hits from Suzuki and Busch? Happ. 

The team has 12 hits since Saturday and Mo, Bregman, Nico and Swanson have been in an even bigger rut. Why is the focus on Happ specifically? 
 

He strikes out a lot, he’s streaky and seems to strikeout a lot in key situations. For a high 700’s OPS and GG defense in left field he’s paid accordingly. If he was being paid $200 million over 8 years then the amount of criticism he gets would make sense.

 

they’re not scoring.6 runs/game fewer than at the 43 game mark last season because of Happ, it’s because PCA and Busch’s wRC+ have dipped from 134 and 133 to 93 and 108.

He does this every year with Happ. Waits until he is in a slump then uses small sample size to argue his point that Happ isn’t good. Then Happ eventually turns it around and we don’t hear from him again until Happ struggles again. Happ is who he is. A very good ballplayer who puts up solid, overall, offensive numbers and great defense. Whether they sign him again or not has nothing to do with “his play giving them a reason to sign him or not”. It has to do with whatever the Cubs plan is and what Happ wants. If they don’t sign him they will probably spend money elsewhere. There is not a better outfielder in free agency. And I doubt they trade for a left fielder better than Happ. So maybe they ended up with Alcantara, Shaw or Long out there. Based on previous post regarding prospects, my guess is Alcantara would be the hope of some who love to just pencil in a guy from the minors and assume he will be better than Happ.  And that will result in worse play in left fielder. Not easy to replace a guy who consistently puts up a WAR of 3+ or better. 
Again, maybe they do that. Maybe they do cheap with a system guy in the outfield. If they spend on someone like Peralta instead, for the rotation, I understand what they are doing. But not signing him isn’t because he isn’t showing them a reason to sign him. That is the only thing I disagree with from the original post. 

[squally1313]

I want someone that can win a silver slugger, not a gold glove. Therefore, I propose we dump the guy on a 34 home run pace (second most LF home runs in baseball this year) (who also wins gold gloves). Other teams love him and do we really want to get into a bidding war with other teams? Instead, we should pivot to someone even better, who other teams, for some reason, would not want to get into a bidding war over. In my 'since 4/24' split, which is a very weird way to split up numbers and was almost assuredly done to make him look as bad as possible, the guy I want to dump has a .733 OPS/.339 wOBA. The guy I want, who makes $14m a year for the next 5 years and would cost entire MILB rosters, over that same stretch, has a .749 OPS/.335 wOBA and has, to use another relevant stat I cited, two non-solo home runs this year. 

The team, overall, is third in offensive fWAR and third in wRC. We are 11th in ERA and 22nd in pitching fWAR. The problems, to the extent a 27-16 team can have serious problems, are glaringly obvious. 

[Geographyhater8888]

19 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

He does this every year with Happ. Waits until he is in a slump then uses small sample size to argue his point that Happ isn’t good. Then Happ eventually turns it around and we don’t hear from him again until Happ struggles again. Happ is who he is. A very good ballplayer who puts up solid, overall, offensive numbers and great defense. Whether they sign him again or not has nothing to do with “his play giving them a reason to sign him or not”. It has to do with whatever the Cubs plan is and what Happ wants. If they don’t sign him they will probably spend money elsewhere. There is not a better outfielder in free agency. And I doubt they trade for a left fielder better than Happ. So maybe they ended up with Alcantara, Shaw or Long out there. Based on previous post regarding prospects, my guess is Alcantara would be the hope of some who love to just pencil in a guy from the minors and assume he will be better than Happ.  And that will result in worse play in left fielder. Not easy to replace a guy who consistently puts up a WAR of 3+ or better. 
Again, maybe they do that. Maybe they do cheap with a system guy in the outfield. If they spend on someone like Peralta instead, for the rotation, I understand what they are doing. But not signing him isn’t because he isn’t showing them a reason to sign him. That is the only thing I disagree with from the original post. 

People would rather focus on him striking out with bases loaded than being driven in the fourth from second base on a leadoff double in a 5-4 win. Both contribute to wins. He scores runs.

And truncating a specific 2 week cherry picked sample size to prove he sucks with a 6+ year track record of solid production is even more absurd. We’re not talking about PCA or Busch who may or may not have had outlier seasons in 2025. If the Cubs had a prime Mike trout batting second Im sure he’d fly under the radar more but because he’s one of our best hitters people have these unrealistic expectations of him. I think anyways. 
 

I personally would rather keep Suzuki unless both agree to short term deals but his future is beside the point. 

Edited Thursday at 01:31 PM by Geographyhater8888

[Rcal10]

3 minutes ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

People would rather focus on him striking out with bases loaded than being driven in the fourth from second base on a leadoff double in a 5-4 win. Both contribute to wins. He scores runs.

And truncating a specific 2 week cherry picked sample size to prove he sucks with a 6+ year track record of solid production is even more absurd. We’re not talking about PCA or Busch who may or may not have had outlier seasons in 2025. If the Cubs had a prime Mike trout batting second Im sure he’d fly under the radar more but because he’s one of our best hitters people have these unrealistic expectations of him. I think. 
 

I personally would rather keep Suzuki unless both agree to short term deals but his future is beside the point. 

I have never argued signing Happ or letting Happ walk. That has never been my discussion. I only took issue with using a small sample size to make a determination Happ isn’t good. Cubs won’t sign both him or Seiya. They might not sign either. They may put money elsewhere. But that doesn’t mean Happ isn’t good. That is all my conversation was about. 

[Jason Ross]

I haven't been able to be around as much; state testing, some real-life things (nothing bad!) and others have had a bit of a hold on me recently. But it's nice to see we are in the "complain about Ian Happ" part of the season and that the more things change the more they stay the same.

[Rcal10]

1 minute ago, Jason Ross said:

I haven't been able to be around as much; state testing, some real-life things (nothing bad!) and others have had a bit of a hold on me recently. But it's nice to see we are in the "complain about Ian Happ" part of the season and that the more things change the more they stay the same.

Yep. Any slump by Happ and the SS people come to life. 

[squally1313]

3 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Yep. Any slump by Happ and the SS people come to life. 

lol, he has an .859 OPS this month. Even this weird, 'let me exclude the rest of the year and start my sample size immediately after an 8 game hitting streak' stretch from 4/25 to now has him at a 122 wRC. 

It was frustrating, though not necessarily an indictment on him, when he was the best player in the lineup. He's the same guy now and he's realistically the 3rd or 4th best hitter and 4th or 5th best overall value guy. He's so far from the problem, the infatuation is bizarre. 

[chibears55]

7 hours ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

He has a 368 OBP and leads the team in runs scored with 32. Who do you think is scoring on those clutch base hits from Suzuki and Busch? Happ. 

The team has 12 hits since Saturday and Mo, Bregman, Nico and Swanson have been in an even bigger rut. Why is the focus on Happ specifically? 
 

He strikes out a lot, he’s streaky and seems to strikeout a lot in key situations. For a high 700’s OPS and GG defense in left field he’s paid accordingly. If he was being paid $200 million over 8 years then the amount of criticism he gets would make sense.

 

they’re not scoring.6 runs/game fewer than at the 43 game mark last season because of Happ, it’s because PCA and Busch’s wRC+ have dipped from 134 and 133 to 93 and 108.

The focus came after a poster responded in on a conversation between peanut and me about next season and which of the two between Happ and Suzuki if one were to be extended. Otherwise,  all this current talk about Happ now wouldn't of gotten to where it went. 

[Rcal10]

14 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

lol, he has an .859 OPS this month. Even this weird, 'let me exclude the rest of the year and start my sample size immediately after an 8 game hitting streak' stretch from 4/25 to now has him at a 122 wRC. 

It was frustrating, though not necessarily an indictment on him, when he was the best player in the lineup. He's the same guy now and he's realistically the 3rd or 4th best hitter and 4th or 5th best overall value guy. He's so far from the problem, the infatuation is bizarre. 

On base streak of over 30 games, I believe. Ended Sunday against deGrom. 

[Rcal10]

3 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

The focus came after a poster responded in on a conversation between peanut and me about next season and which of the two between Happ and Suzuki if one were to be extended. Otherwise,  all this current talk about Happ now wouldn't of gotten to where it went. 

That nice chibear. But this is a group forum. So when you say something someone disagrees with, whether is it in response to a different poster or not, another will respond. Since my response, you have continued to put numbers out to defend your belief Happ hasn’t done anything this year and has been bad. In a group forum people will agree and disagree with you even if your original point was just to one poster. Had you just said you would rather extend Seiya then Happ, maybe no one responds. Or maybe makes an argument of wanting Happ over Seiya. Personally, I wouldn’t have responded. That is a fair statement and a preference of yours. As I have said multiple times now, the only issue with your comment to PP was suggesting Happ isn’t very good.  Which is now the point of the discussion. And a point you continue to defend using SSS. 

[chibears55]

25 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

I haven't been able to be around as much; state testing, some real-life things (nothing bad!) and others have had a bit of a hold on me recently. But it's nice to see we are in the "complain about Ian Happ" part of the season and that the more things change the more they stay the same.

Funny thing is nobody was actually complaining about him until someone chimed into a conversation about whether he or Suzuki should get extended.

I just simply chose Suzuki and felt Happ as of now hasn't done much to get an extension.

I know everyone has different opinion on Happ, the guy is pretty much an above the norm streaky hitter, and at the end of year he has his numbers, but so far this season,  yes his HRs and walks are good but hes just not getting the hits and the strikeouts are much higher then normal. 

I dont dislike Happ, he is frustrating at time with his cold streaks, but i want him to play well cause that helps my team win more games, it just he just seems more off then usual so far.