Braves (Ritchie) vs Cubs (Imanaga): 09/16/26, 6:40 PM

[squally1313]

99.9% playoff odds. Though the goalposts have apparently moved from 'we're going to miss the playoffs' to 'we can't beat either of the two best teams in baseball in the NLDS' so that's fun. The important thing is to never admit they're good. 

[Rcal10]

6 hours ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

If you’re not confident in the pen, which is a massive problem in a playoff series when everyone trims the fat off of their pitching staff and increases the work load of their top arms, then how many runs do they need to score? 5? 6? 7? 
 

The pitching staff as is will be what we see in October for the most part and Counsell is still throwing darts hoping for something to stick. They can win, as long as they score lots and lots of runs.

To be fair, even if/when the Cubs had a decent to even good pen, I was never confident in it. 
Also, we keep speaking about the Cubs pitching WAR. And I get it, it sucks. But come playoff time no one is going to care if the Cubs pitching WAR is bad, but because of defense they only give up 3 or 4 runs a game. Cubs team era is 17th, I believe. So just a little under league average. Why are they going to go from giving up an average of right around 4 runs a game to now, in the playoffs, give up 7? None of the possible first round opponents are offensive powerhouses. All around average. 
WAR is a great stat to use to show how a team is expected to perform over the course of the season. Come the playoffs, what matters is actual runs. I don’t care if a team hits more balls hard then the Cubs or if their hit expectancy is higher than the Cubs in a particular day. They are hitting the ball into the best defense in baseball. 
As someone say, maybe even you, when they go against the Dodgers and Brewers is the biggest fear. And I agree with that. But as Jason pointed out, they can play with anyone in a 5 or 7 game series. 
In the end, the pessimistic fans will most likely be right. They will lose a series. But not because it is obvious they will. Because there are 11 other teams in the playoffs and only 1 wins. I guarantee you that winning team has a fanbase of doomsday fans right now suggesting they can’t win because of a flaw they have.

[Rcal10]

2 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

99.9% playoff odds. Though the goalposts have apparently moved from 'we're going to miss the playoffs' to 'we can't beat either of the two best teams in baseball in the NLDS' so that's fun. The important thing is to never admit they're good. 

Yep. They are good. The sad part of this is, even good, winning a WS is hard. Most likely they won’t. And when they won’t the naysayers will be all over it about how they knew they couldn’t win because of…… pick the reason.
I have seen the excuse that when they get to the playoffs they won’t hit good pitching. Excuse 1 ready to go.

The pen is so bad they can’t hold a lead. Excuse 2, ready.

No starting pitching. Excuse 3 also ready.

CC is a terrible manager and cost the Cubs the series. Excuse #4
In the end, whatever goes wrong will be what the naysayers KNEW all along. But the reality is they can win. But so can several other teams. Which is why it is hard to win a WS. 

[squally1313]

The Phillies have given up 650 runs this year. Pitching is very good, Defense is mediocre (17th in baseball). The Cubs have scored 817 runs. Split the difference? 730ish.

The pitching staff that the Cubs will never be able to overcome has given up 674 runs this year for us. The Phillies, facing an assortment of league pitching, have scored all of 681. 

The Cubs are just absolutely a better team, no matter what version of baseball you think they're playing. Here are the ten Phillies with the most PAs this year. It's gross.

 

[Bertz]

I have very intentionally avoiding the game threads the last two weeks, I assume the current zeitgeist is pretending Gausman and Holmes are bad?

[squally1313]

Just now, Bertz said:

I have very intentionally avoiding the game threads the last two weeks, I assume the current zeitgeist is pretending Gausman and Holmes are bad?

Close. The bullpen will pitch to a double digit ERA the rest of the year and also especially in the playoffs. 

[Outshined_One]

3 minutes ago, Bertz said:

I have very intentionally avoiding the game threads the last two weeks, I assume the current zeitgeist is pretending Gausman and Holmes are bad?

We still have some stragglers who are convinced the Cubs are going to miss the playoffs despite the fact that we are in "safe to start using magic numbers" territory, so the zeitgeist is otherwise occupied.

[Brian707]

Yeah reading the game threads:

[gflore34]

21 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

The Phillies have given up 650 runs this year. Pitching is very good, Defense is mediocre (17th in baseball). The Cubs have scored 817 runs. Split the difference? 730ish.

The pitching staff that the Cubs will never be able to overcome has given up 674 runs this year for us. The Phillies, facing an assortment of league pitching, have scored all of 681. 

The Cubs are just absolutely a better team, no matter what version of baseball you think they're playing. Here are the ten Phillies with the most PAs this year. It's gross.

 

The Phillies fans here are putting them on a pedestal.

[Bertz]

12 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Close. The bullpen will pitch to a double digit ERA the rest of the year and also especially in the playoffs. 

At least with this I think there's some legitimate worry about Webb and Palencia (though fingers crossed Palencia seems to be pulling out of it?).  Z's been awesome though lately, clearly his issues were related to the transition. 

We'll hopefully have two of those guys rolling heading into October, plus Peterson will help.

[squally1313]

Just now, Bertz said:

At least with this I think there's some legitimate worry about Webb and Palencia (though fingers crossed Palencia seems to be pulling out of it?).  Z's been awesome though lately, clearly his issues were related to the transition. 

We'll hopefully have two of those guys rolling heading into October, plus Peterson will help.

Yeah I'm not going to sit here and say that they're somehow going to be Good. But winning baseball games does not require a shutdown pen. All this specific complaining coming in a game thread where we beat an 89 win team (to win the series 2-1) in a game where our bullpen gave up 3 earned in 3 innings but it was fine because we scored 8 runs is like the perfect encapsulation. 

[gflore34]

36 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

The Phillies have given up 650 runs this year. Pitching is very good, Defense is mediocre (17th in baseball). The Cubs have scored 817 runs. Split the difference? 730ish.

The pitching staff that the Cubs will never be able to overcome has given up 674 runs this year for us. The Phillies, facing an assortment of league pitching, have scored all of 681. 

The Cubs are just absolutely a better team, no matter what version of baseball you think they're playing. Here are the ten Phillies with the most PAs this year. It's gross.

 

Posters here bitch and moan about the Cubs delta between batting and pitching WAR, what about the unbeatable Phillies?  Team offense WAR of 6, yes, that's right 6, and OPS+ of 89 vs. a pitching WAR of 29. I don't care how great the Phillies pitching is, they're not going to shutdown every playoff opponent.

[ILMindState]

10 hours ago, Rcal10 said:

Again, why do they have to score 8. Stop acting like they can’t win games. I agree I am not confident in the pen. But they can win. If they don’t it will most likely be the pen. But please stop acting like there is no way they can win in the playoffs. This isn’t just you. I am talking about all the people who know they can’t win.

They have to score 7-8 runs a game in order to win because our pitching gives up HRs at a near historic rate and our bullpen is not capable of holding a 3 run lead.

[BKHoo]

Chicago Cubs: Despite a top-tier offense and MVP candidate Pete Crow-Armstrong, their pitching depth is weak, making a deep postseason run unlikely, especially against teams like the Philadelphia Phillies.

Patrick McAvoy

[javy knows my name]

5 minutes ago, gflore34 said:

Posters here bitch and moan about the Cubs delta between batting and pitching WAR, what about the unbeatable Phillies?  Team offense WAR of 6, yes, that's right 6, and OPS+ of 89 vs. a pitching WAR of 29. I don't care how great the Phillies pitching is, they're not going to shutdown every playoff opponent.

Yeah, we match up really well with the Phillies in particular

[BKHoo]

15 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Yeah I'm not going to sit here and say that they're somehow going to be Good. But winning baseball games does not require a shutdown pen. All this specific complaining coming in a game thread where we beat an 89 win team (to win the series 2-1) in a game where our bullpen gave up 3 earned in 3 innings but it was fine because we scored 8 runs is like the perfect encapsulation. 

We need to look at the 2019 Nationals.  They had exactly one bullpen arm they trusted and flooded their games with starting pitchers.  Now the Cubs have ZERO bullpen arms they trust, and their starters are not as good, but I'd like to see the Cubs use the 3-5 starters they do have that are capable in more roles, and that may include Assad.  

[BKHoo]

11 hours ago, squally1313 said:

This is so tiring. Why can’t we score a lot of runs in the playoffs? Because the average amount of runs scored goes down? But not for the teams we’re going to play, apparently?

Because the appearance of elite starters goes up.  The Phillies, Brewers and Dodgers crush us with the first two starters comp.  We just don't have top of the line starters like they do.  Pitching wins in October.  

Edited 6 hours ago by BKHoo

[squally1313]

2 minutes ago, BKHoo said:

We need to look at the 2019 Nationals.  They had exactly one bullpen arm they trusted and flooded their games with starting pitchers.  Now the Cubs have ZERO bullpen arms they trust, and their starters are not as good, but I'd like to see the Cubs use the 3-5 starters they do have that are capable in more roles, and that may include Assad.  

It's hard to find historic comparisons. Yes, it's exceedingly rare for a team with this bad of pitching to have any success at all, much less postseason success. 

But if we accrue 1.1 more fWAR in the next 9 games (have 36.2 so far this year, so likely), this will be the fourth best offensive group this century. 

[squally1313]

5 minutes ago, BKHoo said:

Because the appearance of elite starters goes up.  The Phillies, Brewers and Dodgers crush us with the first two starters comp.  We just don't have top of the line starters like they do.  Pitching wins in October.  

Luzurdo and Sanchez don't spend a lot of time going up against teams that have a 123 wRC against LHP. The four times they did, the Phillies went 1-3 and gave up 33 runs. Do they get different balls in October or something?

 

[Geographyhater8888]

10 minutes ago, BKHoo said:

Because the appearance of elite starters goes up.  The Phillies, Brewers and Dodgers crush us with the first two starters comp.  We just don't have top of the line starters like they do.  Pitching wins in October.  

Kind of. The Bluejays had no issues scoring against Schitter, Rodon and Fried+The Dodgers 4 headed monster. The 2023 Rangers, 2019 Nationals are other examples of teams that won because they could pile on runs. 
None of them were having in season tryouts with 10 games left for high leverage relief roles that I’m aware of, nor were any of them giving up home runs at a record pace.

That needs to be solved ASAP, because the other ingredients are there that we haven’t had since the 2015-17 teams. 

Edited 6 hours ago by Geographyhater8888

[Bertz]

6 minutes ago, BKHoo said:

Because the appearance of elite starters goes up.  The Phillies, Brewers and Dodgers crush us with the first two starters comp.  We just don't have top of the line starters like they do.  Pitching wins in October.  

Does it?  The Dodgers won a world series 2 years ago with a clearly washed Walker Buehler as their #2 starter.  The Blue Jays were 23rd in pitching WAR and a baserunning gaffe away from winning the world series.  Rangers didn't have a true ace.  Royals.  Etc. etc.

[Jason Ross]

15 minutes ago, BKHoo said:

Because the appearance of elite starters goes up.  The Phillies, Brewers and Dodgers crush us with the first two starters comp.  We just don't have top of the line starters like they do.  Pitching wins in October.  

Does it? The Blue Jays (16th in xFIP in 2025) went to seven games against the Dodgers (5th in xFIP) last year. 

The Phillies (1st in xFIP) lost in four against the Dodgers. The Blue Jays beat the Mariners (3rd in xFIP) in the ALCS. 

[BKHoo]

Our bullpen is not just bad, it’s more that recently it has been the worst in baseball. And what’s even worse is we don’t have one trustworthy person to forecast into high leverage playoff situations.  

[squally1313]

1 minute ago, BKHoo said:

Our bullpen is not just bad, it’s more that recently it has been the worst in baseball. And what’s even worse is we don’t have one trustworthy person to forecast into high leverage playoff situations.  

This isn't necessarily a counter, but am I reading it right that there have been 3 games since August 21st where the Cubs didn't have a lead?

[Jason Ross]

3 minutes ago, BKHoo said:

Our bullpen is not just bad, it’s more that recently it has been the worst in baseball. And what’s even worse is we don’t have one trustworthy person to forecast into high leverage playoff situations.  

Since August 21st the Phillies and the Cubs both have 7 blown saves. Yes, the Cubs bullpen is untrustworthy right now, but see how we can play around with the data, too?