mul21

I mean I think we can all internalize that there are no guarantees, and that goes both ways. We've seen that very clearly this year with how the now-departed FA's have performed in their new orgs. Plus in the case of Happ himself his career has been very up and down(needing an Iowa stint after 2 years in MLB, his constantly evolving defensive home, etc) so the degree of confidence we can have about him individually isn't greater than normal either. Rizzo & Schwarber are top 10 in HR, Contreras & Happ are top 20 in OBP, all were/are pretty obviously unwanted past their underpaid years more waiver claims & trade flyers, next year's versions of Rivas, Frazier, Schwindel are probably going to tank the offense again to where competition is inconceivable and we'll think to ourselves, again, "hey if we put better players in these black holes then we could have something" Rizzo would have half the number of HRs if he wasn't playing at Yankee Stadium, the Cubs clearly had no idea how to fix Schwarber. The rest I agree with and really don't want to give up the birds in hand when we don't even know if there is a bush let alone if it has any birds in it.

Yeah, that call was garbage but Heyward has to get the ball out of the infield there. he's just so awful.

The Bears dont have any of this. They have cap space, but instated of committing one way or the other Poles has chose the center lane of blah I mean, yeah...that's the point of what I'm saying. He didn't go full rebuild because he potentially has a QB and didn't have the draft picks. And he didn't go all-in in free agency, because he potentially doesn't have a QB. There's a chance Fields is great. If he is, then 2022 will be a step in that direction then you commit to him. There's a chance Fields is not great. If he isn't, then 2022 will be a step in the wrong direction, but you aren't magnifying that by having committed to him by spending a ton on players to surround him with. Think of what the Dolphins will be if Tua isn't good this season. Think of what the Eagles will be if Hurts isn't good. Poles doesn't want to become that. This logic confuses me. "Let's be bad everywhere to make the QB prove he's worth supporting" makes no sense at all. I get not signing one final piece that you overpay for to get you to a Super Bowl in this situation, but having Swiss cheese for an O line and the sisters of the poor at WR just keeps you that much farther away from contending. We all know this doesn't happen in a one year switch flip so being completely barren of good players at important positions just seems really short sighted to me. You get as good as you can everywhere and if the QB doesn't work out, you go find a new one.

Lower back according to Ross. Doesn't sound real good.

Arenado isn't perfect I guess.

They've actually looked like a real baseball team since the AZ series (outside of the last Cinci game and Madrigal). Maybe Frank really wasn't fully recovered from the back thing and Morel has certainly injected a burst of energy into them.

I think it's time to start cutting bait with some of these fringy guys and uncomplicate that situation. I'd be fine with Hermosillo, Leiter and Norris getting sent Packing to make room for guys with an actual future.

I keep seeing this. Is he making a bunch of nice defensive plays or something? Really haven't watched much of the Cubs at all in the last week or so. The thing I've been most impressed with is his ability to really work an AB. I've watched him work an 0-2 count full several times while fighting off 2 strike pitches to get a hit, take a walk or make solid contact at least. He seems to have a very good baseball IQ as well. Not Javy level anticipation but very good.

The walks he's already taken gives me hope. He's not just up there completely hacking. He's run several 0-2 counts full and gotten either a hit or walk out of it and almost did it again last night when he K'd to end the game.

Kyle getting hosed by soft contact and the wind.

Probably not a great joke for a PSU fan to make.

Do you mind translating what you wrote about Palencia? He thinks Palencia is too old for his level and should be ignored until he does similar things at a higher level.

What Tim said. Several "Javy but less freakish athleticism" comps. But maybe the less athleticism part causes him to make adjustments/approach changes quicker than Javy because he won't have success without doing so.

Stroman and Robertson don't count as Covid IL guys and maybe that's where Heyward is headed as well? That gets you to 40. Edit: This appears to be the case for Heyward as there's no designation on the IL listing.

We stinks.

His ERA over his last 18 starts is about double what his career ERA was before entering this stretch. It’s beyond a slump at this point. He’s not putting the ball where he wants it. He got very screwed by two hits that had a less than 70 mph exit velocity last night. He's out of that 6th inning with the game tied and a 4.5 ERA for the game if not for some terrible BABIP luck. I'll freely admit the dingers are a big problem, but he was mostly fine last night.

The Nationals fixed Schwarber and Rizzo has 3 HR if he's playing almost anywhere other than Yankee Stadium. Meh.

McShay either hates everything the Bears did in the draft or is way more optimistic than anyone else I’ve seen about the Velus Jones pick. He chose that as the Bears best pick of the draft. I tend to lean toward option one even though I can see the upside on Jones.

I think they do, but they're far more afraid of getting caught for those things than they are anything else. And now that it seems like a certain segment of the population is actually being held responsible for those things because they don't have as much power over others as they have for years, it's suddenly a persecution problem instead of an even playing field problem, as with most other things in this country. Those people are the reason religion was invented and was so instrumental in keeping people in line for thousands of years.

maybe pessimistic/skeptical is a better word than adamant, but yeah for sure, i underestimated his otherworldly tools to help allow him to survive a broken approach my hot take here is mostly that it's probably not good that most of our top hitting prospects are aspiring to be Shaq Thompson Would you rather have Caissie demolish the ball in the Arizona backfields, put up a good not great ~110 OPS+ at MB, or get his ass handed to him at South Bend? The former are certainly better for us all throwing around high fives on here, but do you think they are actually better for his development? I think you'd rather see a guy put up a 110 OPS in MB because at that point he's seeing some success but also isn't at a point where he's dominating so much that he doesn't have anything to work on. I mean, he's a 19 year old kid from Canada, so he's probably slightly behind the curve of a lot of southern US born players the same age anyway. I don't think slowing down his overall promotion schedule is a problem in this case if it bodes for a higher likelihood of future success.

I said the exact same thing to a buddy last night. Why the hell are you shifted to the left side if you're throwing nothing but fastballs on the outside corner to a RH hitter. Makes zero sense.

I was listening to the radio broadcast during the game Sunday and Coomer was talking about his front side flying open and the way he was laying it out, it sounded like this isn't the first time he's seen this from Steele this year. Probably something that would affect both velocity and the larger thing Coomer mentioned, location of the fastball.

If they already know it's not going to start on time or there's certain delays ahead, I'm not sure why you'd stay with the scheduled time when that's just going to cause issues with pitchers and guys getting warmed up/cooled down.