Elrhino

Cubs are clutch, Giants huge chokers.

Javy bomb time, when the mortal coil is ascended and immortality is officially achieved.

10 strikeouts and 2 hits allowed by Matt Friggin Moore.

Javy singlehandedly prevented 1.0000 BABIP for the Giants tonight. True story.

Hayward does not need to be playing tomorrow, or the rest of the playoffs after that if the Cubs advance for that matter. If he doesn't like it, he should definitely opt out of his contract ASAP.

He look, a slap single by the Giants. Shocker.

Gotta love a sport where Conor Gillaspie can produce about 50 Anthony Rizzo's in the postseason.

Postseason baseball is the most meatballiest meatball that ever meatballed.

Smoltz has no time for Baez latin flair, taking away from valuable Lackey fiery white veteran guy superlative airtime.

Irrationally optimisitic Rizzo is not going to let Ross outhit him in this series.

I'll put aside the incident from December involving his girlfriend. I don't know what happened there ... will never know, because police didn't press charges and evidence wasn't brought out in court. It certainly doesn't look good, to say the least. I certainly wouldn't condone what has been reported. But all the other stupid stuff that's been linked to him .... yeah, nothing surprising there. He's not like other kids in Latin America who get put into baseball camps as teenagers, put through the minor league systems in America for several years and given time to acclimate and adjust to being an American professional athlete. He's not even like other Cubans like Abreu who come to America in their mid-late 20s (or 30s in El Duque's case). Chapman lived in abject poverty in Cuba until he defected when he was 20, signed with the Reds and handed a $30 million contract at 21, and spent a whole whopping 3 months in their minor league system before being called up to the major leagues. All of his family, friends and support system were still left behind in Cuba. He has to be the face of the franchise in Cincinatti when he can't speak the language and probably didn't know where Cincinnati was on map a few months earlier (no one does). Meanwhile, every poor life decision he makes is reported in national media. I don't know too many people who are handling that well. I know it's all cool to be "more morally outraged on the internet than thou" and all, but I think his situation is a little different than some American suburban brat who's a pain in the ass in little league because he's been told he's entitled to everything his entire life.

I forgot how dominating Rondon's righty splits are this year (.379 OPS against). Strop's aren't too bad either (.445 OPS against). Being able to use those two strategically against righties will be lethal.

This is probably the ESPN Article people are talking about .... http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/10397127/cincinnati-reds-closer-aroldis-chapman-pines-life-left-cuba-espn-magazine

The difference between Chapman and Rondon as a "closer" is probably overstated. The difference it makes on the rest of your bullpen as each guy moves one spot down the pecking order and upgrades the previous option is probably under rated. If the depth of your bullepn gives you confidence to pull a struggling starting pitcher an inning early which prevents a problematic inning, it's as effective as stopping a problematic inning. I think Maddon will be in the situation of having to find work for Grimm, Wood and Edwards. There's no sense in sticking with struggling starters who are getting high in pitch counts in the mid innings.

how much do you think this increases the chances the cubs win the WS this year? how much would any move have increased our chances? I think this increases it as much or more than any other single possible move we could have realistically made. And small percentages mean something when you're dealing with zero sum outcomes where results are either catastrophic or wonderful, like a highly leveraged situations late in games in the playoffs (or vote differential Presidential Elections). It may be a "2 month rental" but October 2017 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> All games from 2010-2014 Combined. The franchsie has moved past the stage of Theo making trades involving low risk, high ceiling fliers where the only thing it costs if the aquired player flames out is whatever it took to trade for him. We have to trade for low risk/extremely high ceiling players now to improve this team. You're not going to get those kinds of players at a discount.

Yeah the trickle down effect is Travis Wood, Trevor Cahill and Justin Grimm are now essentially mop up guys. Which is pretty incredible because in the last 16 months or so all 3 have been incredibly effective at various points. Also a trickle down effect in a quicker hook for struggling starters getting high in pitch counts. Particularly if there's an opportunity to pinch hit for them in a leveraged situation.

Especially given that the Montgomery for Vogelbach trade was universally loved. Gleybar and Vogelbach were blocked and brought more value as trade chips than players. A guy who's destroying AAA brings back several years of cost control for an extremely shakey career middle relief loogy. A Low A Ball prospect + garbage brings back a rental of a future Hall of Famer generational talent. I don't see the huge discrepency in cost to baseball value to a World Series Contending team in the two trades to warrant such polar extremes of reaction. Vogelbach is still held in much lower regard because he has no positional value, while Torres (as a SS, at least) is near the top of the defensive spectrum. Then there's age. Then there's the fact that Montgomery has a lot of team control left. I know what the differences are in the prospects and players, saying the differences in the trade pacakages haul they netted us doesn't warrant such drastic extreme polar reactions. Torress has to bring elite defensive SS glove because he'll probably never make it as an MLB hitter at any other position. He brought us a Hall of Famer in return. While Vogelbach was destroying AAA, traded to a AL team who can put him at DH, and brought us back a player who just might not be good at baseball. I don't really care at all about Warren, McKinney, or Crawford. You can throw 4 other pieces of other garbage in the trade and make it an "8-1" trade, it doesnt' change my opinion about the price of the trade at all.

I can't say that I would rather have McKinney than Cease. Sure McKinney will be higher on the prospect lists and Cease is a complete wild card, but he is also a rarity in the Cubs system. mckinney is literal garbage so of course id rather have cease than him but jesus christ the wailing and gnashing of teeth over these children in LOW A BALL is really amazing. Especially given that the Montgomery for Vogelbach trade was universally loved. Gleybar and Vogelbach were blocked and brought more value as trade chips than players. A guy who's destroying AAA brings back several years of cost control for an extremely shakey career middle relief loogy. A Low A Ball prospect + garbage brings back a rental of a future Hall of Famer generational talent. I don't see the huge discrepency in cost to baseball value to a World Series Contending team in the two trades to warrant such polar extremes of reaction.

If this trade falls through, "Well, whatever happens at least we still have Billy McKinney in the system" is not going to cross my mind when Grimm is called on to pitch pitch in a critical moment in the playoffs.

if the point they're trying to illustrate is that there are a ton of situations that can and will happen where upgrading from, say, strop to chapman won't make a difference, they're right. but [expletive] it. But the upgrade from Grimm to Strop is significant.

I don't mind the proposed trade at all. I don't think the cost per tangible baseball improvement ratio is really that much more than the Montgomery for Vogelbach trade.

Yeah, but after he was buried behind a couple of other QBs at UT they moved him over to TE because he was such a highly recruited athlete they wanted to find someway to get him on the field and utilize him. It's just amazing to me that a guy like that can't even become halfway servicable at 1B.

It's always a bit baffling when such a seemingly gifted athlete can be such a butcher on defense. I think the ultimate was Adam Dunn, who was a highly recruited, scholarship football player at the University of Texas at quarterback and tight end.

lmao people are so pissed because the Cubs are awesome. Also, I know typical Chicago sports radio drivel, but I heard multiple people on the score speculate that the Cubs might end up being accused of tampering and losing draft picks. I'm pretty sure that until a FA has signed on the dotted line, clubs are able to freely speak with and negotiate with a FA. Idiots. Pretty funny listening to a team that waits until the end of February to address their needs in FA accuse another team of jumping in late.

The Orioles just come across as so unsympathetic. It's not like they rolled out the red carpet for Fowler, professing their undying love, and he left them standing at the alter. They were trying to bargain shop at the end of the offseason with players who were already coming at a discount, negotiated through the media to try to gain more leverage and then took a hardline stand at the slightest bit of give and take negotiating with the players.