imb

that wouldn't be crushing enough, they'll win just enough games to not win the division anyway, in real talk, if they win tonight and the pirates lose, we're like, totally ok. as frustrated as i am *during* the games, i'm pretty serene right now i will go a step further and guarantee that if we win tonight the pirates will lose

the amazing thing is that every tweet they found is legitimately hilarious in its new accidental form

Here's a fun question - what kind of contract would you feel comfortable giving Baez when he hits FA.

nothing in sports will ever come close to 2016 for me, but this end-of-season disaster followed by running the table in the playoffs and inexplicably winning the world series would probably come as close as possible.

This feels like a HUGE unspoken thing; how many people actually think Baez: Baseball Freakshow is a realistically sustainable scenario? Outside of the general miracle of him being who is, it's double miraculous he's been able to stay healthy given how banged up his style of play must leave him. People seem super casual about him taking over at SS and that being set for the forseeable future, when that doesn't seem like a sure thing at all. It's crazy the Cubs went from, "LULZ, what are we going to do with all of these baller middle infielders?!?" to, "holy horsefeathers; our MI is the bizarre baseball monster that is Javier Baez and the corpse of Ben Zobrist sometimes," in, what, less than 3 years? I will refuse to doubt Baez until he proves doubtable, but it is dubious that he is the only person in the history of the world to have his particular skillset. I will say that his patience has ticked up the last couple months (13 walks the last two months [lol that's an improvement]) so maybe he can Sammy Sosa himself into 50 walks next year?

for the offense it's easy - Harper signs, Heyward moves to CF and platoons with Almora, Happ is moved for relief help, Bryant comes back healthy, Contreras remembers to put some loft in his swing. That's it - they're a top 5 offense. The pitching is the real worry to me. If the offense is great it doesn't matter as much as far as the division is concerned, but they're not going to spend any money there and there are no internal options. You're really just hoping you get Hendricks' second-half surge again and that Darvish and Quintana bounce back all year.

im a little surprised theo hasn't resigned yet but it is the lunch hour

He's included at the very top

insert the "prove me wrong" meme here I'm not necessarily calling my shot here, but it doesn't take an insane amount of doom-bonering to kind of squint and see that we might be on the edge of a cliff. We are going to wrap up 2018 and start our offseason with - 3/5ths of a rotation (Lester/Quintana/Darvish) who we can't count on. - Hendricks, who we know will suck for at least two months. - a closer who can't pitch more than once a week without breaking. - an outfield featuring a LF with the same wRC+ as Denard Span and Mallex Smith who requires unsustainable defensive success to be anything more than a 2.5 WAR guy, a couple of CFs who amount to 12 feet of sh!t, and a RF with declining defense whose "fixed" state is a bottom of the order slap hitter. - an IF with a 3B who looked primed to be our generational guy and whose ultimate 2019 ceiling is a question mark, a 1B who is probably hitting his decline phase (but still really good,) a SS who despite his power numbers will need to continue being the only guy in baseball history to slide/tag/run the bases like he does in order to remain a 5 WAR player, 97-year-old Zobrist who has been resurgent but who can't be counted on for 4 wins again next year, and a catcher who forgot how to hit for several months. Our coaching staff somehow lost a fat racist and got worse. The hitting coach is either (best case) ineffective or (worst case) actively harming the offense. The pitching coach got here and coincided with several career-worst years and season-ending injuries, and our head coach is trump-loving buffoon only a fraction less-bad than our wife-beating former shortstop. In the minors there is nothing. The only thing resembling an impactful starter strikes out about 7 batters/9 in the upper minors and lost the season to a lat injury. There's a catcher who has best been described as being "pretty good at defense," and a bunch of guys you can wish-cast on while forgetting for a moment that none of them are anything resembling "cant-miss" in an organization where more than half of our previous "can't-miss" guys missed. Our international signings have been ass. For all of Theo's "we'll just restock" rhetoric, they haven't proven the ability to do that without a bunch of top-5 picks. It's likely that in 10 years no one will miss Eloy or Cease, but guess what, we won't miss Quintana either. I reserve the right to delete and/or edit this if we play well in the postseason.

oh no what will we do without him for one game

the power i wield is somehow unbelievable

I can’t see a single scenario where I spend one minute watching this game

I'm sure I'm wrong, but I sort of feel Duker knows this team is dying and isn't winning the division, too. oh he does and he doesn't want to face the music

bitch-ass duke sucks

0.5

f'umps

wow i really thought being at SS would .... deflate his .... offensive numbers

Russell and Chapman and Lackey? Who else? Im 100 percent against Maddon at this point.

i cant believe how many people associated with the cubs' world series win I actively hate.

im not gonna come down too hard on rizzo here, it could be a weak quote or defense of russell because rizzo is a bad person, or it could be a guy trying to say nothing and stay out of it and word vomiting a little bit.

i don't know what rizzo's feelings are, but i don't see anything wrong with that quote Besides offering an opinion and then admitting that he has no idea what he's talking about? duuuuuuuuuuuuuude we are through the looking glass with you lmao

what is it exactly about alzolay that people like

the cubs cannot let this slide

somehow justin bieber

The Braves noise is imo due to a couple obvious factors * young team with good mix of offensive/pitching talent * about to win his division already without him * could be one 6-win player away from the top seed in the NL So from his perspective they would seem to align perfectly to suit him. From the team's perspective they may be willing to completely break the bank to sign him given how much talent they already have on cheap controllable contracts. This could all tie in with the recent-ish seemingly accepted idea that machado is going to bring in a bigger contract than Harper. If you buy that, maybe atlanta is letting people know they're willing to make that not so.