If the Cubs Miss the Playoffs, There's One Man to Blame

I literally laughed out loud last night when checking The Stats of this Cubs team and seeing that - as it’s been all year - they’re one of the better all around teams in baseball with one of the better offenses in the MLB. Ross is a badass manager. I more lean this is playoff team because he’s competent and up to date, not shitting his pants and reacting - with fear, flailing - to every noise and da numbah of the moment 

Maybe most fascinating is a fanbase that desperately wanted to save The Future by selling at the deadline - the One One Right Way, write off 2023 and probably 2024 too - suddenly is looking for One Man to blame for the total failure of 2023 lol. I tell you America is a crazy horsefeather place 

6 minutes ago, TomtheBombadil said:

I literally laughed out loud last night when checking The Stats of this Cubs team and seeing that - as it’s been all year - they’re one of the better all around teams in baseball with one of the better offenses in the MLB. Ross is a badass manager. I more lean this is playoff team because he’s competent and up to date, not shitting his pants and reacting - with fear, flailing - to every noise and da numbah of the moment 

Maybe most fascinating is a fanbase that desperately wanted to save The Future by selling at the deadline - the One One Right Way, write off 2023 and probably 2024 too - suddenly is looking for One Man to blame for the total failure of 2023 lol. I tell you America is a crazy horsefeather place 

Tom, man, I dig the optimism, because of course there does remain some meaningful chance that they fix this and make the playoffs. But if you think people have just been overreacting endlessly in both directions all year, I think a couple of things must be true:

1. You can’t have been actually watching this team that closely. As we’ve established in the past, you and I are the same age. We’ve seen the same number of baseball seasons. This team has not been normal. Their variance, their inconsistency, is at a far right edge of the scale. 
2. You’re treating a very, very divided and multifarious “fan base” as a monolith. You’ve made a lot of remarks about the mood of the fan base, or Cubs Twitter or whatever, and I don’t find that there’s anything like the hive mind you perceive. The above is one take, and I thought a pretty well-articulated one by Brandon, in a sea of differing ones. I really think you’re oversimplifying perceptions and smoothing over realities too much.

17 minutes ago, TomtheBombadil said:

I literally laughed out loud last night when checking The Stats of this Cubs team and seeing that - as it’s been all year - they’re one of the better all around teams in baseball with one of the better offenses in the MLB. Ross is a badass manager. I more lean this is playoff team because he’s competent and up to date, not shitting his pants and reacting - with fear, flailing - to every noise and da numbah of the moment 

Maybe most fascinating is a fanbase that desperately wanted to save The Future by selling at the deadline - the One One Right Way, write off 2023 and probably 2024 too - suddenly is looking for One Man to blame for the total failure of 2023 lol. I tell you America is a crazy horsefeather place 

You're high.  Almost nobody wanted to sell.  Ross has consistently played for that game with no eye to the future.  He's not good enough to do this job long term.  Counsell is probably the best manager in baseball so it's not necessarily a fair comparison, but he's far out managed Ross with just as many injuries and a far inferior offense all year.  He's not up to the task.

With the way this team is constructed (which, that's a whole other argument) they need to be able to win on the margins, and it just hasn't happened.  Ross has seemingly not trusted enough guys early, leading to large workloads for guys with injury history like Alzolay and Fulmer and someone who has never faced a relief workload like this in Leiter Jr., and trusted guys like Cuas just because.  Batting order doesn't matter a ton, but it seems to me that guys in horrible slumps (Happ earlier this year, Swanson now) have gotten way more ABs high in the order than their performance deserved.

Anecdotally, it also seems like he has been too slow to react to his pitchers losing it, not having guys up when a starter is running out of gas, not getting guys up when pen arms clearly don't have it on a given night, etc.

On the Arizona play why is Gomes reaching over the plate to apply the tag? Carrol has to get to the plate - if he just puts his glove on the plate Carrol is out. 

Ross is not a terrible manager. He's also not a championship manager or the manager of a team that has aspirations of the playoffs. He's a Rick Renteria-type manager. He gets the team to play hard, but he's deficient in the strategy needed to be a good manager. He may have been able to learn it as a bench coach, but he's never been a bench coach. 

Every couple of days we see his deficiency on display in a winable game that the Cubs lose or a game that got away before he did anything about it. 

I don't think he's going to get fired until they put better players on the team and they stall out. 

I don't think this team has the same talent level as the 2003 team, but a similar phenomenon is happening. They're out of gas. 

I've debated the Rossi factor all year with folks here and elsewhere, with my opinion being that even when his options were limited by the personnel he had earlier in the year (specifically the first base issue) that he still lost us games on the margins with very questionable lineup decisions and playing folks in positions on the field that set them up for failure.   I have not changed my stance on that...I think if there was a WAR for managers his would be among the worst.

Now I know I'll be told you can't quantify that....that there is info they have that we don't....that there are 50/50 decisions they have to make constantly that really are a coin flip, that baseball is just weird,  etc., etc. and I concede all of that, but after one concedes all that - you can't exclude the manager from all responsibility - good or bad.

I think Rossi is a good culture guy and that counts for something.  I think game planning, lineup decisions, both who plays and where and in game strategy - there is ample room to criticize. 

46 minutes ago, mul21 said:

Counsell is probably the best manager in baseball so it's not necessarily a fair comparison, but he's far out managed Ross with just as many injuries and a far inferior offense all year.  He's not up to the task.

This is revealing, because a lot of what makes Counsell perceived to be a good manager are things that have nothing to do with him, namely having multiple excellent starters who can go deep into games and one of the best closers in baseball.  It's not a coincidence that when Ross has those things the yelling about him goes down to a minimum because they're winning games.  From the time Alzolay started closing more or less full time until his week off prior to the dead cat bounce and his DL stint, the Cubs were 45-26, a near half season at 102 win pace.  And that includes periods with injuries to Bellinger, Swanson, and Stroman so it was far from an ideal roster window aside from simply having closer settled.  Conversely, the Brewers muddled around .500 without Woodruff and have only played like an excellent team with him, Burnes, and Peralta pitching excellently and consistently 6+ innings, with Williams serving as the back end foundation.

About 5 weeks ago, the Cubs were 1 game out of a wild card spot, and since then, they've sustained injuries to Stroman, Alzolay, Fulmer, Candelario, and Madrigal (and those are the ones we know about requiring IL stints).  Leiter lost his splitter, Steele has hit a wall and had multiple disaster starts, and there haven't been more than 2 or so hitters swinging well at any given time.  And they had to play 40 games in 22 days or whatever it was.  Their playoff position has improved by a game. But I'm supposed to believe the real reason the Cubs would have missed the playoffs is that Ross didn't sequence the batting order quite right, or didn't play PCA(0/9 w/ 5 Ks despite protected matchups) enough, or didn't do...something different with the bullpen despite being starved for worthy options?  Lunacy.  The Cubs are an average team and their record reflects their averageness.  Yes it's frustrating that they've swung between white hot and ice cold, but as tempting as it can be to think that's a dial the manager can turn, it's really not when you consider the causes(pitching injuries & fatigue, teamwide RISP slumps).  Sometimes the other team plays well, and sometimes the circumstances are not in your control to improve enough to change game outcomes.

@Transmogrified TigerNah, I'm not griping about sequencing the batting order or little things like that.  I'm talking about playing the long game and ignoring ridiculous things like Dansby saying no more days off, riding the same relievers every close game, not having guys up in the pen ready to go when it's clear a starter is close to the end of the rope in a game, letting Steele throw the most pitches he's thrown all season for the last 4 weeks when he's at an all time high in IP.  Obvious stuff that we can all see and while it may result in a lost game at the time because you have to use a lesser reliever or get a starter out before you may want to, it results in less wear and tear long term so guys are healthy and available at the end of the season when things are down to the wire and you don't have half your reliable pen guys on the IL.

The Brewers have started Colin Rea, Julio Teheran, and Adrian Houser in a third of their games.  Peralta is averaging a little over 5.5 IP per start and Woodruff has started 10 games all year. I will concede that their pen is miles better and that hides a lot of warts, but they have exactly 2 regular position players (3 with Canha added) with an OPS+ over 100, so he's pushing the right buttons to score runs.

1 hour ago, mul21 said:

Almost nobody wanted to sell. 

This is some 1984 “we’ve always been at war with Eurasia” stuff. 

1 hour ago, Matt Trueblood said:

1. You can’t have been actually watching this team that closely. As we’ve established in the past, you and I are the same age. We’ve seen the same number of baseball seasons. This team has not been normal. Their variance, their inconsistency, is at a far right edge of the scale. 

Good! Normal is an incredibly low and nebulous bar! I love how un-Cubs like this team is, wouldn’t wish normal on almost anyone

Brandon’s a good writer! I do have a bad habit of hive minding the whole but also would guess - from what I see online anyway - this is the popular take. Managers and HCs are the fall guy so that makes sense but also the ones acthally up top just laugh to the bank as employees cook employees. I think this year’s results only speak to how excellent a manager he is, even the post-TDL spike in emotion speaks only to long overdue raised expectations thanks to Ross and co.

3 minutes ago, mul21 said:

@Transmogrified TigerNah, I'm not griping about sequencing the batting order or little things like that.  I'm talking about playing the long game and ignoring ridiculous things like Dansby saying no more days off, riding the same relievers every close game, not having guys up in the pen ready to go when it's clear a starter is close to the end of the rope in a game, letting Steele throw the most pitches he's thrown all season for the last 4 weeks when he's at an all time high in IP.  Obvious stuff that we can all see and while it may result in a lost game at the time because you have to use a lesser reliever or get a starter out before you may want to, it results in less wear and tear long term so guys are healthy and available at the end of the season when things are down to the wire and you don't have half your reliable pen guys on the IL.

The Brewers have started Colin Rea, Julio Teheran, and Adrian Houser in a third of their games.  Peralta is averaging a little over 5.5 IP per start and Woodruff has started 10 games all year. I will concede that their pen is miles better and that hides a lot of warts, but they have exactly 2 regular position players (3 with Canha added) with an OPS+ over 100, so he's pushing the right buttons to score runs.

A couple things on that first bit.  One is that this is with the benefit of hindsight, because the howling every time that Merryweather/Leiter/Alzolay were healthy/rested scratches in close games and every time Madrigal starts makes me skeptical that we'd have nodded along with that outcome.  Another is that some of this is perception driven by the team as a whole losing, Swanson has a 108 wRC+ in September for example.  But most importantly I don't see much sign that these are 1) obvious decisions to make and 2) lead to a better outcome.  The idea that Ross should've rested pitchers more when they were a whisker away from selling and have only spent the last couple weeks in any type of playoff position is dubious, and even if they do so it's likely a wash in terms of playing a little better now for a little worse before.

On the Brewers, I don't watch them so I'm not going to pretend to be intimately familiar with Counsell's work(and really Brock is the only one here who probably can).  My point is that a huge chunk of what we ascribe to the quality of managers we don't regularly watch is actually the depth and quality of their pitching staff.  Especially at the back end of the pen, because issues there compound and create a ton of difficult coin flip managerial decisions.  Said most simply, the idea that Counsell would have managed the Cubs pitching staff to greater success and consistency if he were in Chicago this year strikes me as fanciful thinking.

1 hour ago, Brandon Glick said:

The team is paying the price now. Off to the IL are overused and taxed late-inning relievers Alzolay and Fulmer. Candelario is similarly unable to play with a back injury, and now Nick Madrigal is dealing with hamstring problems. Bellinger hasn’t looked all the way back in center field defensively since his leg injury in Houston in May; Swanson hasn’t looked right at the plate in weeks. Whatever momentum Canario and PCA were bringing to the majors following their hot stretches at Triple-A Iowa has all but vanished. 

Basically everything that TT said, but I find this part especially questionable. You spent a couple paragraphs talking about how Ross didn't use Canario or PCA enough and then blamed that for....injuries to Alzolay, Fulmer, Bellinger in May, and Madrigal? How exactly were those two outfielders, the 8th and 11th best hitters at Iowa with over 100 PAs per wRC, 1/14 with 1 home run and 2 walks combined in the majors, supposed to help avoid those? I'm not saying that those guys can't seriously contribute to a future good Cubs team (or even a present good Cubs team), but....the entire Iowa team has an .841 OPS this year. It's just a completely different sport. It's bad luck, I guess, that our top prospects support (in a post-Mervis world) happened to be pure outfielders which is the last thing we need. But unless you wanted like, the Ian Happ, second baseman, experiment again, hands are kinda tied. 

The bullpen is full of bad pitchers trying to back up a rotation that has been for the last month essentially one seriously overworked ace and 4 dudes either outright sucking or peripherally sucking. It'd be great if Ross had the 'Devin Williams' or 'Josh Hader' or hell, even 'Josh Suter' button to press, but he doesn't. I keep hearing those dudes are coming, and maybe they are. But we had like three decent, non elite pitchers (Alzolay, Leiter, Merryweather) and a bunch of garbage. No one's going to be able to do anything with that over a 6 month period.

The Brewers got 320 innings from the following guys:

Bryse Wilson: 73 IP, 2.59 ERA

Joel Payamps: 68 IP, 2.51 ERA

Hoby Milner: 61.1 IP, 1.91 ERA

Elvis Pegeuro: 61.1 IP, 3.38 ERA

Devin Williams: 56.2 IP, 1.59 ERA

But yes, the difference is Craig Counsell is just smarter than David Ross.

     I think it is pretty much written in ink that if the team misses out on the playoffs that Ross will be out next year. It is the nature of the game. I think their woes as of late have been more than managerial, and some players will have to deal with the fact that they contributed to his ouster. Still, trying to stay positive here though. If the team can right the ship against the Rockies (2-1, 3-0) is possible, and do some damage against Atlanta and Milwaukee (3-3 is achievable, love to go 4-2), they still might snag that 3rd wildcard spot after-all (fingers crossed). They seem to be going through peaks and valleys here. Earlier, when they were not hitting, the pitching was lights out. Now they are hitting the ball a bit, but now getting people out has been a challenge. Let downs in the field are starting to pop up all over the place. They need to tighten this up......now. We are running out of season here. My initial pick of 87 wins for this team looks over optimistic now. I think that figure would have definitely got them into the playoffs. Probably not as Division Champ, but a pretty solid wildcard spot. Now, hopefully they hit the 84 or 85 win mark. Get some help, and still slip in. It is a difficult path, but not totally impossible. If not, there will have to be some changes to next years roster. Not an overhaul, but some tweeking will be necessary. I think the pen will be revamped regardless. It is a better than average club, but probably needs some help to take the next step.

1 hour ago, Matt Trueblood said:

1. You can’t have been actually watching this team that closely. As we’ve established in the past, you and I are the same age. We’ve seen the same number of baseball seasons. This team has not been normal. Their variance, their inconsistency, is at a far right edge of the scale. 

if you build a team for 81 wins before the season starts, you just might get it

9 hours ago, squally1313 said:

Basically everything that TT said, but I find this part especially questionable. You spent a couple paragraphs talking about how Ross didn't use Canario or PCA enough and then blamed that for....injuries to Alzolay, Fulmer, Bellinger in May, and Madrigal? How exactly were those two outfielders, the 8th and 11th best hitters at Iowa with over 100 PAs per wRC, 1/14 with 1 home run and 2 walks combined in the majors, supposed to help avoid those? I'm not saying that those guys can't seriously contribute to a future good Cubs team (or even a present good Cubs team), but....the entire Iowa team has an .841 OPS this year. It's just a completely different sport. It's bad luck, I guess, that our top prospects support (in a post-Mervis world) happened to be pure outfielders which is the last thing we need. But unless you wanted like, the Ian Happ, second baseman, experiment again, hands are kinda tied. 

The bullpen is full of bad pitchers trying to back up a rotation that has been for the last month essentially one seriously overworked ace and 4 dudes either outright sucking or peripherally sucking. It'd be great if Ross had the 'Devin Williams' or 'Josh Hader' or hell, even 'Josh Suter' button to press, but he doesn't. I keep hearing those dudes are coming, and maybe they are. But we had like three decent, non elite pitchers (Alzolay, Leiter, Merryweather) and a bunch of garbage. No one's going to be able to do anything with that over a 6 month period.

For the first point, my argument wasn't meant to be "1 for 1" replacements. It was more so a general statement that Rossy has been exceptionally slow to adjust to slumps and momentum of hitters. Injuries are part of baseball and that's not Rossy's fault. I'm upset that Tauchman can slump for 6 weeks and still get consistent starts in center when a better defender (and hotter hitter) in PCA is sitting right there. Apologies for the confusion. 

The bullpen management issue is much bigger. Ross has a "circle of trust" that he doesn't deviate from. Leiter and Alzolay might not have the track record or name value of Hader or Williams, but they were just as effective up until late August. It's what the Cubs have been doing for years - taking scrapheap guys and making them very effective. But no reliever can hold up under the constant duress and usage Ross has put his top 3/4 guys under. You have 8 bullpen members - you have to let them pitch to keep the other guys fresh (or keep the starters in games longer).

The rotation struggles are... yea, that's a Hoyer problem. The team needed reinforcements at the deadline and he failed to pull the trigger. 

9 hours ago, TomtheBombadil said:

Brandon’s a good writer! I do have a bad habit of hive minding the whole

Don't you go getting soft on me now, Tom. Who else is gonna take me to task this offseason when I argue the Cubs should trade Alzolay at the peak of his value? 

1 hour ago, Brandon Glick said:

Don't you go getting soft on me now, Tom. Who else is gonna take me to task this offseason when I argue the Cubs should trade Alzolay at the peak of his value? 

I’d go Merryweather first if he holds up, but if someone is giving up good players then Alzolay could work too. That’s basically The Dream for the bullpen, an arb eligible/rookie deal player or two every year with some mass appeal just in case

2 hours ago, Brandon Glick said:

I'm upset that Tauchman can slump for 6 weeks and still get consistent starts in center when a better defender (and hotter hitter) in PCA is sitting right there.

Mike tauchman might just be Jared Young but in center field, but I definitely don’t see a 6 week slump in these numbers that would give a clear nod to PCA and his .350 OBP in AAA. I think it’s ok to say that PCA is going to be really good but is not a finished product. 
 

2 hours ago, squally1313 said:

Mike tauchman might just be Jared Young but in center field, but I definitely don’t see a 6 week slump in these numbers that would give a clear nod to PCA and his .350 OBP in AAA. I think it’s ok to say that PCA is going to be really good but is not a finished product. 
 

And the "hotter hitter" argument holds no water, since he had not (and still hasnt) hit in MLB. Worlds better on D, but not on offense. Tauchman playing wasn't bad, it was the fact that he was leading off that sucked. 

9 hours ago, squally1313 said:

Mike tauchman might just be Jared Young but in center field, but I definitely don’t see a 6 week slump in these numbers that would give a clear nod to PCA and his .350 OBP in AAA. I think it’s ok to say that PCA is going to be really good but is not a finished product. 
 

Re: Young I thought it interesting the post-game comments by Rossi - apparently feeling some heat from fans.  He said and I'm paraphrasing....on playing Young..."despite what fans think there is a process to what we are doing, we saw this as a good matchup for him (Young)''.  JD mentioned after the Young homer that the staff liked Young's skillset against the starter for the Rockies.  Ironically he was 0-2 vs the starter and hit the homer of the reliever that came in. 

The primary reason this team doesn't have more wins and have undershot their pythagorean W/L record is that the bullpen doesn't have enough quality depth for the late-innings, and this has been the case since the 1st day of Spring Training and I even pointed this out then.  That's all on Hoyer.  He's been overconfident in the coaching staff's ability to turn pitching turds into gold, including with the Taillon signing also.  At some point you have to acquire talent.

Injuries are inevitable in a bullpen, guys will underperform and overperform.  They went into Spring Training with Fulmer and Boxberger as their biggest reliever acquisitions.  At the deadline they again failed to add more quality relief depth.  Cuas wasn't enough.  That meant they had to ride their only 3 good arms hard in July/Aug/Sept and into Oct.  Alzolay has had arm injury history and he has paid for the price for the high usage.  Leiter was also gassed for a while likely due to overuse.

I don't blame Ross.  PCA and Canario are AAA nobodies at this early point in their careers. there's no reason to rely on them in a playoff hunt.  Canario had a big game vs a terrible Pirates pitching staff, he hit a grand slam while Cubs were winning by a lot late in the game and the Pirates worst pitchers were in the game at that point.  That's not that impressive, and you should never expect rookies to be saviours.

Ross is a B- manager and Counsell is better, but he's not coming to the Cubs. If Ross isn't the long-term manager of the Cubs, who is available that's better? 

I agree with the OP that the regulars have needed more rest.  The players went pretty hard in July/Aug.  Summer heat must be hard to play ball in every day.  I won't blame the players for the Sept dip, they've played their butts off.

Every manager does things we don't agree with now and then but I think Ross has done a decent job.  His lineups have been pretty good, running game has been good.

Hard to blame the guy for wanting to stick with the players who brought the Cubs to where they are.  It's easy to overly micromanage the lineup and change what has been clicking when some guys get in a slump.