Braves (Pérez) vs Cubs (Gausman): 09/15/26, 6:40 PM

[Soul]

40 minutes ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

For what it’s worth, Cabrera has a 2.4 ERA this year in the first inning. As a 1 inning guy I’d try him out. In no way should this inspire optimism just to be clear.

He really does sail along for a little while and then just collapses.  A baffling player. 

[gflore34]

10 hours ago, Wilson A2000 said:

Man, that final 95 mph changeup by Cabrera to Acuna was one of the nastiest pitches I have ever seen. Unfortunately, it was after the two-run homer.

We've seen flashes of this before, his last start, for a few at bats, Cabrera was un-hittable, just nasty, batters had no chance.  I don't who to blame for his failure to consistently execute, coaching offers some ultimately, it's up to the player to execute.

Edited 10 hours ago by gflore34

[Jason Ross]

I'm rarely the "fire the coach" guy, but I do think we're at a point where Hottovy's time has likely run a course. Not as a scapegoat, but as a "something has to change" thing. Sometimes simply having the same exact voice in the room for a long time runs its' course. Fresh eyes. Look at the problem from a new angle and offer a different potential solution. 

They can't do it today, and I won't lay this entirely on his feet (at some point it's the pitcher's fault for being bad) however the Cubs can't just replace the entire pitching staff as easily as they can switch up the pitching coach. 

This isn't really his fault across the board. Injuries have hurt. Player's haven't produced. But I do think the Cubs' can find a benefit from hearing a new, fresh perspective on these things in 2027.

[Geographyhater8888]

51 minutes ago, Soul said:

He really does sail along for a little while and then just collapses.  A baffling player. 

I wonder what the pitching lab tinkered with to “fix” him. 

[Derwood]

9 hours ago, ILMindState said:

PCA might be having the greatest individual Cubs season you'll ever see in your lifetime. Don't let a piss poor bullpen have you lose sight of that. 

and if the Cubs lose in the first round while PCA goes 1 for 12 with 5 K's, the idiot fans will blame it on him

[Gjfificifjdej]

56 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

I'm rarely the "fire the coach" guy, but I do think we're at a point where Hottovy's time has likely run a course. Not as a scapegoat, but as a "something has to change" thing. Sometimes simply having the same exact voice in the room for a long time runs its' course. Fresh eyes. Look at the problem from a new angle and offer a different potential solution. 

They can't do it today, and I won't lay this entirely on his feet (at some point it's the pitcher's fault for being bad) however the Cubs can't just replace the entire pitching staff as easily as they can switch up the pitching coach. 

This isn't really his fault across the board. Injuries have hurt. Player's haven't produced. But I do think the Cubs' can find a benefit from hearing a new, fresh perspective on these things in 2027.

Even if he’s a genius and seeing exactly what the problems and adjustments are, something has to change when literally everyone becomes bad overnight. 

[Jason Ross]

4 minutes ago, Gjfificifjdej said:

Even if he’s a genius and seeing exactly what the problems and adjustments are, something has to change when literally everyone becomes bad overnight. 

I want to be fair to Hottovy: there's a reason why the bullpen got bad all of a sudden and it isn't really on him, there. The Cubs are kind of patchwork because of a lot of injuries. Palencia has lost run or ride (depending on the night) on the fastball post injury. Cabrera has been missing in action for months; not shocking he's rusty. Caleb Theilbar is as old as I am; not shocking he's rough. Jacob Webb is absolutely struggling right now, but good reminder, he was also the best pen arm we had 85% of the year. 

Things I do think we can trace back to Hottovy have been the tweaks made on players. We haven't seen Zeferjahn take steps forward. Cabrera's tweaks weren't taking. They haven't found some of the magic they had. And I think it's on those margins where a new, fresh take is probably in order. 

This isn't Hottovy's problem nor his making, but I also think there's likely some aspect in which fresh, new ideas are welcome. 

[UMFan83]

10 hours ago, mk49 said:

I like your idea, well, kind of.  Our pitching situation is pretty much chaos right now.  I don't even know who should pitch after Holmes (assuming he keeps pitching well for 2? more starts).  Peterson has been actually pretty good, so is Shota (the last 2 starts and basically, the 2nd half of the season).  Gausman has 50/50, or maybe, 55/45 chance he pitches well.  Otherwise, he sucks.  Boyd needs to pitch better.  We can't really trust anybody in the pen, maybe, Civale and Rolison, but they're not high leverage guys, especially Civale.   It's not very good.  Every one of them, including Assad needs to step up.

I'm not counting on Steele at all.

The Phillies and the Padres lost tonight.  Shota and the pen should pitch well tomorrow.  

Yeah my thought is that our bullpen sucks but maybe the one strength we have is a lot of somewhat competent guys who can go 2-3 innings.  Our 1 inning/matchup guys have been terrible so might as well lean into the strength.

[Geographyhater8888]

15 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

Yeah my thought is that our bullpen sucks but maybe the one strength we have is a lot of somewhat competent guys who can go 2-3 innings.  Our 1 inning/matchup guys have been terrible so might as well lean into the strength.

I wouldn’t even be averse to seeing Holmes moved to the pen after the wild card series where it’s a best of 3. They can’t run out a bullpen without a single arm they can’t count on to hold a lead every night. Holmes would be that guy can be stretched out too. 

Edited 8 hours ago by Geographyhater8888

[squally1313]

1 hour ago, Jason Ross said:

I want to be fair to Hottovy: there's a reason why the bullpen got bad all of a sudden and it isn't really on him, there. The Cubs are kind of patchwork because of a lot of injuries. Palencia has lost run or ride (depending on the night) on the fastball post injury. Cabrera has been missing in action for months; not shocking he's rusty. Caleb Theilbar is as old as I am; not shocking he's rough. Jacob Webb is absolutely struggling right now, but good reminder, he was also the best pen arm we had 85% of the year. 

Cubs bullpen by fWAR, monthly:

• April: 22nd
• May: 24th
• June: 28th
• July: 19th
• August: 28th
• September: 28th

I'm not going to divvy out a pie chart of blame amongst Hoyer, Counsell, Hottovy, Zombro, Ricketts, the pitchers themselves, etc. But it's a complete organizational failure in terms of pitching. The list of what-ifs is endless and essentially pointless, but ultimately this is a pitching infrastructure that hasn't produced above average results in the last three years and is very clearly trending in the wrong direction. We have all of two pitchers signed for next year who have both A. produced positive value this year and B. thrown a pitch in the last three months: Ryan Rolison and Jordan Wicks (somehow).

It's bad, and it's absolutely a problem going forward. Credit where credit is due on an incredible offensive roster full of what all appear to be contracts that range from reasonable to absolute steals. But it's hard to argue against the idea that this is as good as it's going to get for that side of the ball for the next few years, and I have very little confidence we can offset it. 

 

[squally1313]

Having said all that, I'm of basically two trains of thoughts at the moment:

1. This organization is absolutely brutal at putting together pitching, and this current pitching staff is, agreeing with everyone here, depressing bad and almost completely reliant on the defense and the wind blowing in.

2. The idea that we have zero chance of competing in October, or that we're somehow not going to make the playoffs, is just tiresome doombonering. The pitching is terrible. It's been terrible all year. The hitting is elite. It's been elite all year. There's been no real change in the outlook of this team, and we have a 154 game sample size that says they are the 6th best team in baseball, record wise, and the third best team in baseball, RD wise. I'm of the belief that October baseball is just baseball, it's the same rules, the same goals. The best teams in the regular season tend to play the best in October. There's nothing in the data that says it can't be us. 

[Jason Ross]

11 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Cubs bullpen by fWAR, monthly:

• April: 22nd
• May: 24th
• June: 28th
• July: 19th
• August: 28th
• September: 28th

I'm not going to divvy out a pie chart of blame amongst Hoyer, Counsell, Hottovy, Zombro, Ricketts, the pitchers themselves, etc. But it's a complete organizational failure in terms of pitching. The list of what-ifs is endless and essentially pointless, but ultimately this is a pitching infrastructure that hasn't produced above average results in the last three years and is very clearly trending in the wrong direction. We have all of two pitchers signed for next year who have both A. produced positive value this year and B. thrown a pitch in the last three months: Ryan Rolison and Jordan Wicks (somehow).

It's bad, and it's absolutely a problem going forward. Credit where credit is due on an incredible offensive roster full of what all appear to be contracts that range from reasonable to absolute steals. But it's hard to argue against the idea that this is as good as it's going to get for that side of the ball for the next few years, and I have very little confidence we can offset it. 

 

It's been an interesting way to build a staff, and the hope is that learning has happened, but who knows? We'll have to take a "wait and see" approach with the young pitching; but internally I know the team thinks they're solving the pitching issues with Zombro. He's got influence across the board, but I think his influence will be felt more through the draft and development than in terms of the MLB side of things more than anything (I do think he's apart of the discussion there, but I think he's probably more helping the team find Trent Thorntons than overall grand roster construction). Also important to pay attention to Dan Kantrovitz this offseason, his name has popped up for bigger openings and he might be out. Have to see how that plays out in that aspect.

On the MLB side, I expect Hottovy will be gone by the end of the playoffs, fair or not (and I think it's a bit of column A and B to be frank). This offseason will be a telling one as once again the team will have the opportunity to spend on pitching (Skubal, King, Taira as examples) and will also need to do some offensive work (LF/RF namely). And with the upcoming CBA shrinking the offseason timeline, they won't be on "Jed-time" this year where he can let the market play out and whittle people down. 

We're at a point of (likely) back-to-back playoff appearances and a recent extension that Hoyer is certainly safe this offseason (barring absolute collapse), but I also think 2027 is kind of a "make or break" it year for him. Which really makes this an offseason to watch on that front. Does he come out guns blazing to fix the pitching? Is it an over correction? Is this the "mega contract" offseason for him? 

[squally1313]

1 minute ago, Jason Ross said:

It's been an interesting way to build a staff, and the hope is that learning has happened, but who knows? We'll have to take a "wait and see" approach with the young pitching; but internally I know the team thinks they're solving the pitching issues with Zombro. He's got influence across the board, but I think his influence will be felt more through the draft and development than in terms of the MLB side of things more than anything (I do think he's apart of the discussion there, but I think he's probably more helping the team find Trent Thorntons than overall grand roster construction). Also important to pay attention to Dan Kantrovitz this offseason, his name has popped up for bigger openings and he might be out. Have to see how that plays out in that aspect.

On the MLB side, I expect Hottovy will be gone by the end of the playoffs, fair or not (and I think it's a bit of column A and B to be frank). This offseason will be a telling one as once again the team will have the opportunity to spend on pitching (Skubal, King, Taira as examples) and will also need to do some offensive work (LF/RF namely). And with the upcoming CBA shrinking the offseason timeline, they won't be on "Jed-time" this year where he can let the market play out and whittle people down. 

We're at a point of (likely) back-to-back playoff appearances and a recent extension that Hoyer is certainly safe this offseason (barring absolute collapse), but I also think 2027 is kind of a "make or break" it year for him. Which really makes this an offseason to watch on that front. Does he come out guns blazing to fix the pitching? Is it an over correction? Is this the "mega contract" offseason for him? 

I don't know nearly enough about organizational structure, priorities, etc, but honestly at this point it's mainly the complete lack of relief arms coming through the system that all other teams seem to churn through with ease. Palencia was....fine last year. He was also 25 years old. And there doesn't really seem to be anyone anywhere close to being one of those guys either. Guys like Palencia, Azlolay should be coming through all the time, not once every couple years. It's a much bigger problem and solution than to try and write out in a couple paragraphs, but ultimately the results just haven't been close to acceptable. 

Pitchers break, they hit a wall, I get it. But this pitching staff is not one Cade Horton and one half of Ben Brown away from being even average. I liked the Zef pickup because it seemed like they were finally trying to find some guy with nasty stuff that would be around for seemingly forever (see: Abner Uribe, Ashby, Megill), and I admittedly bought in on the 'woah guys, look at these 16 innings'. But even that's been ugly so far. It's incredibly difficult and complex in a way that like....Bregman vs Schwarber isn't. But they're very clearly worse at it than almost every other legitimate major league team.

[WhyCantWeWin]

Hottovy being the scapegoat for Jeds penny pinching scrap heap pickups and terrible scouting work is definitely likely. 

[ILMindState]

3 hours ago, Derwood said:

and if the Cubs lose in the first round while PCA goes 1 for 12 with 5 K's, the idiot fans will blame it on him

Who cares, can't fix stupid. 

[Soul]

#1 qualification to be a bullpen arm in the future has to be upper 90’s fastball, preferably 100 MPH.  Everyone else has plenty of velocity in their pen.  We don’t have enough.

[UMFan83]

21 minutes ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

Hottovy being the scapegoat for Jeds penny pinching scrap heap pickups and terrible scouting work is definitely likely. 

and also injuries. This team looks a lot different with some combination of Steele, Horton and Brown in the rotation, though obviously bullpen issues don't change (though they've had their share of injuries too).

[Jason Ross]

1 hour ago, squally1313 said:

I don't know nearly enough about organizational structure, priorities, etc, but honestly at this point it's mainly the complete lack of relief arms coming through the system that all other teams seem to churn through with ease. Palencia was....fine last year. He was also 25 years old. And there doesn't really seem to be anyone anywhere close to being one of those guys either. Guys like Palencia, Azlolay should be coming through all the time, not once every couple years. It's a much bigger problem and solution than to try and write out in a couple paragraphs, but ultimately the results just haven't been close to acceptable. 

Pitchers break, they hit a wall, I get it. But this pitching staff is not one Cade Horton and one half of Ben Brown away from being even average. I liked the Zef pickup because it seemed like they were finally trying to find some guy with nasty stuff that would be around for seemingly forever (see: Abner Uribe, Ashby, Megill), and I admittedly bought in on the 'woah guys, look at these 16 innings'. But even that's been ugly so far. It's incredibly difficult and complex in a way that like....Bregman vs Schwarber isn't. But they're very clearly worse at it than almost every other legitimate major league team.

I think the issue with how they haven't had a pipeline of relievers is probably a bunch of different things all rearing their heads at once. First, the 2020 and 2021 drafts are really difficult years for teams to have nailed and the Cubs really haven't had a lot of luck from them. Certainly some teams found some guys, but with how scouting and development basically took a pause there, it's really hard to blame anyone. That's not a full on "pass" given, but I find it interesting these are basically the two drafts Kantrovitz whiffed on almost entirely and they're probably the two most difficult drafts we've had. 

Beyond that, the IFA guys just haven't popped. IFA arms, are also, largely lottery tickets. If prep arms in the draft at the hardest to predict, 16 year old kids from Latin America are even harder. Also, something I think is bad luck in some aspects. But also much deeper failures in development; these kids take forever to pop (if you sign at 16 and get to the bigs by 24, that's eight freakin' years!). That's a failure of development that goes back a while, and probably starts well before Hoyer took over. Sadly, it hasn't really changed much, though there's some signs of a few guys maybe bubbling up.

It's not all bad luck though. The Cubs have lost guys via trade that were high picks (Jackson Ferris to name one, Ty Johnson being another). They probably gave up on someone like Jermiah Estrada too soon. And they were probably too far into drafting guys with secondaries that they could hopefully squeeze fastball juice out of, as opposed to guys with stuff that they could teach control. Too many Dom Reid's and not enough guys like they took this draft. 

Add it all up and there's just a dearth of interesting arms. Those reliever types are generally those "big stuff but oopsie, no control" types. The few the Cubs had flamed out (Luke Little) but it's a numbers game. You'll have five Littles to one decent pan out, but when you don't have many, you get very few. 

2026 was a heavy arm-draft and while I think 2027 will need to be more bats than 2026 were, based on how they shifted their focus from Dom Reid types to like Carson Jasa types, they will hopefully get more of these random relief guys. But it's likely not going. to help for a few years, and that''s going to continue to suck. 

[Jason Ross]

1 hour ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

Hottovy being the scapegoat for Jeds penny pinching scrap heap pickups and terrible scouting work is definitely likely. 

To be fair, it's not entirely a scapegoat thing. And that's not an anti-Hottovy thing, but this year the Cubs haven't really had a lot of success tweaking guys like they have. They traded for Kittredge at the deadline last year, tweaked a few things and he went nuclear for the rest of the way. This year, they took Zeferjahn, continued to tweak and...results have varied. That's not saying it's all on him, but that's kind of the thing we're seeing not happening this year. That wasn't a cheap trade and the results haven't panned out. Nor do I blame that on scouting. 

And it isn't as if the scrap heap thing hasn't worked in years past. This year hasn't really been the case. 

Would I blame it all on Hottovy? Oh hell no. But when you have an all systems failure like we're seeing, it's usually an all systems failure and Hottovy is going to shoulder some of that. Pitching coaches are an easy change, easier than Baseball Ops, easier than full-staff turnover, and are such, the first to go. So it's probably going to be a bit of a "change is necessary" scapegoat thing, but it isn't like Hottovy isn't in some shape or form apart of this failure, too. 

[CubUgly]

5 hours ago, Jason Ross said:

I'm rarely the "fire the coach" guy, but I do think we're at a point where Hottovy's time has likely run a course. Not as a scapegoat, but as a "something has to change" thing. Sometimes simply having the same exact voice in the room for a long time runs its' course. Fresh eyes. Look at the problem from a new angle and offer a different potential solution. 

They can't do it today, and I won't lay this entirely on his feet (at some point it's the pitcher's fault for being bad) however the Cubs can't just replace the entire pitching staff as easily as they can switch up the pitching coach. 

This isn't really his fault across the board. Injuries have hurt. Player's haven't produced. But I do think the Cubs' can find a benefit from hearing a new, fresh perspective on these things in 2027.

I'm torn on Hottovy and our "pitch lab" I think there are pitchers that they do improve and unlock things for, but I also perceive that they try to change something with some and it just doesn't work and the pitchers just can't find it.  I think sometimes they tinker more than they need to and results are uneven. 

[Jason Ross]

23 minutes ago, CubUgly said:

I'm torn on Hottovy and our "pitch lab" I think there are pitchers that they do improve and unlock things for, but I also perceive that they try to change something with some and it just doesn't work and the pitchers just can't find it.  I think sometimes they tinker more than they need to and results are uneven. 

The pitch lab thing is everyone's favorite scapegoat but it's not the issue. Pitch labs are good because they're really just data machines. Think of them like baseball savant on steroids. It's what teams do with the data that is always the questionable stuff. Some tinkers will work, others won't. This is why sometimes Pitcher X will be bad with one organization and pop with another; they're working from similar data sets but are reading and tweaking the guy differently. And like with anything, certain teams specialize in certain things.

So don't blame the lab. It's just a vehicle.

[abuck1220]

2 hours ago, UMFan83 said:

and also injuries. This team looks a lot different with some combination of Steele, Horton and Brown in the rotation, though obviously bullpen issues don't change (though they've had their share of injuries too).

that is true, obviously, but those three guys have hardly been models of health in their careers. like, duh, of course those three guys all got hurt...were we expecting them not to? 

[UMFan83]

21 minutes ago, abuck1220 said:

that is true, obviously, but those three guys have hardly been models of health in their careers. like, duh, of course those three guys all got hurt...were we expecting them not to? 

I get it but the odds of all 3 being out virtually the entire season are pretty low.  I'm not absolving them for building such a ****** pitching staff, but they did build SP depth, it just needed to be anchored with maybe 2 of those 3 guys.

[squally1313]

20 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

The pitch lab thing is everyone's favorite scapegoat but it's not the issue. Pitch labs are good because they're really just data machines. Think of them like baseball savant on steroids. It's what teams do with the data that is always the questionable stuff. Some tinkers will work, others won't. This is why sometimes Pitcher X will be bad with one organization and pop with another; they're working from similar data sets but are reading and tweaking the guy differently. And like with anything, certain teams specialize in certain things.

So don't blame the lab. It's just a vehicle.

I mean, this is absolutely semantics now, but something about this triggered another aspect of my frustration, which is that I feel like I could point to multiple acquisitions in the last year or two where the pitcher was objectively/front-page-of-Fangraphs bad/at-best mediocre, but it was sold to us as this like 'well, now we have all this infrastructure, and once we make the tweaks, we're really going to unlock something'. Like, wasn't there this whole 'we're going to revolutionize getting more frequent infield fly balls' plot line at some point?

I watch these pitchers who have been bad in their entire careers show up and continue to pitch poorly and it's hard for me to get too angry at the specific pitchers. That's just who they generally are and generally have always been. But it does feel like strategy is at least outwardly 'we can spend less on pitching, because we uniquely/proprietarily know how to make them better, so just trust us' which is, at this point, incredibly bait/switch-y to me. 

I think that's what people are talking about when they say 'the lab'. Yes, they aren't mad at a machine that spits out numbers. But it definitely referenced whenever the first reaction to a new pitcher was like 'wait, this guy sucks'

[Jason Ross]

21 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

I mean, this is absolutely semantics now, but something about this triggered another aspect of my frustration, which is that I feel like I could point to multiple acquisitions in the last year or two where the pitcher was objectively/front-page-of-Fangraphs bad/at-best mediocre, but it was sold to us as this like 'well, now we have all this infrastructure, and once we make the tweaks, we're really going to unlock something'. Like, wasn't there this whole 'we're going to revolutionize getting more frequent infield fly balls' plot line at some point?

I watch these pitchers who have been bad in their entire careers show up and continue to pitch poorly and it's hard for me to get too angry at the specific pitchers. That's just who they generally are and generally have always been. But it does feel like strategy is at least outwardly 'we can spend less on pitching, because we uniquely/proprietarily know how to make them better, so just trust us' which is, at this point, incredibly bait/switch-y to me. 

I think that's what people are talking about when they say 'the lab'. Yes, they aren't mad at a machine that spits out numbers. But it definitely referenced whenever the first reaction to a new pitcher was like 'wait, this guy sucks'

I think that is probably fair; but then I also think that's on people to understand the difference, which was the point of that. The lab is the vehicle, the organization is the driver. You put a teenager behind an F1 car, and if they crash, it's not the car's fault. 

I do think that the development thing gets a little hammered too hard. Like, the Cubs' squeezed an extra year out of Jameson Taillon last year largely because they taught him a kick change, as an example. The Cubs squeezed two quality years of Colin Rea because they tweaked his arm angle and pitch mix. And we can find faults in the plan (like maybe the Cubs can do that and still add good players) but these kinds of things generally go under valued, under the radar when people complain about "the lab" because they're not studs after that. 

Overall, I think every organization should be trying to find undervalued players, though. And especially in the bullpen. Like, look at last year's FA BP class. Sure, Phil Maton has been hurt and bad, but Edwin Diaz has been bad an hurt, Devin Williams has been bad, Rober Suarez has been hurt, Ryan Helsley has been hurt...and Mason Montgomery has been a top-13 reliever and he was a throw-in and was bad last year. The lesson here is that "if you're hoping for FA to save your pen, you're probably already in a bad place". 

You really need to develop "the guy" (or two/three) in your pen yourself but you can build a spine out of throw-aways. Like you should be able to find/develop a few Jacob Webb's every year - the Cubs' failure is that they haven't had young players stay healthy as the "guy" in the bullpen. Every time we think Porter Hodge or Daniel Palencia is ready they get hurt and fall away. Same with Alzolay. And this year there weren't many next-guys up. I do think that's a failure of the organization as much as it's a bit of bad luck (imagine if the Brewers saw Megill and Uribe do that? Would we think of them as the gold standard as much? Probably not). 

But this is really just a long winded post to say "I'm not mad people blame the lab, but I wanted to reframe the discussion". The tools aren't the issue, it's the carpenter more than anything.