BigSlick

*whispers* same

Someone hit a donger because it's been 21 innings since the Cubs have had a lead

Never mind

Pound them this inning

I can only follow online and I'm glad to see my bafflement is justified

This is really neat. It's also a good thing to point to when people say Soler has been unlucky because...uh...he's just been really bad (and a little unlucky). Predictably Heyward has been pretty darn unlucky, and amazingly, David Ross has been robbed of a bunch of hits. (He's looked like a completely different player this year) Fowler is gonna slowly come back to earth, which is sad, but :hello: thanks for those 40 games of Luck

Counter point; the closer role is overrated so if Nathan miraculously comes back and isn't a dumpster fire the trickle down effect is Rondon pitching in higher leverage spots which is a good thing. I don't care when they pitch, it could be the 7th, 8th, or 9th inning, if they're bad, they're bad

delicious as much damage as they can cause to the rest of the NL, the better. Then they'll go away, never to return, this summer.

Joe Maddon's kryptonite, if he has one, are old over-the-hill closers. He loves em. He loves them waaaaay too much. He did this at Tampa, and he did it a little bit last year. He got burnt by Jason Motte, he kinda got lucky with Fernando Rodney who didn't pitch long enough to come back to earth. This doesn't concern me too much, but its something I'm keeping in the back of my mind.

I wonder how lopsided a situation would have to occur before the Commissioner comes in and just doesn't approve a trade, like when Chris Paul to the Lakers was vetoed on extremely flimsy grounds. I don't think Trout to the Cubs would create such a situation, but it did kickstart a process in my brain thinking about how such a situation would come about.

Seal Boy's been good but strangely become a K machine after not striking out to start his first 30 or whatever at bats

Oh well I guess Heyward got his first homer so there's that

Wow.

sports is gonna sports so hard

Don't speak too soon lol

Lol I'm gonna ironically join onto the "the Cubs are magically worse against bad teams" bandwagon because it's funny + totally random

Lol what is it about Montero that raises the ire of randos? He's a totally useful player I'd take Lucroy on this team though of course

Cuz brothers pitching against each other is cool and notable We need this game to happen like, yesterday

yeah thats why i said he lost to his brother

On my bornday, Greg Maddux lost to his *brother* Mike Maddux on the Phillies, giving up 6 runs (all on singles, damn BABIP)

Oh my god, I'm listening to yesterday's Spiegel & Goff show and the callers and Spiegel are basically killing Goff. There is a caller asking about "super star egos" and Spiegel is prospect hugging so hard that its ridiculous. Spiegel wouldn't do it for just Baez, Soler, Schwarber and Contreras, which is BANANAS. Jesus, it makes me very grateful for this place.

Yeah sending 6 cost controlled players for one player with a huge salary is definitely something to figure in, especially since my dreams of the Cubs having unlimited payroll by now or in the near future are not to be

I'm almost, *almost* at the point where I'm not sure it makes sense to trade for Trout if the asking price includes our best 4-5 minor leaguers and one of Russell or Bryant, etc. The reason for it isn't value, you probably still make out on the positive side comparing collective WARs, but the diminishing returns on adding to a team that is already so absurdly good. Like we've gone over in the General Baseball forum, adding additional wins to a 100 win team team doesn't really influence its ability to win in the playoffs *that* much. Maybe I'm thinking about this poorly though, I dunno. If it does guarantee the Cubs winning the division for the next 5 or so years then, well maybe it does make sense. It was useful for B&B to go over some of the rare superstar in their prime trades (many of them were in or leaving their primes) and how lopsided those trades were though. Like the Miguel Cabrera trade, jeez. It is virtually a guarantee the team getting the young superstar wins, and the team getting the prospects loses. So if it was just gutting our farm system, I would do it, no question, that would be easy. To get a slight net return on wins while passing some of our regulars? I'd probably still do it, but I'm not sure its all that valuable in terms of *winning* the World Series. (at least for the 2016 Cubs, hard to project forward beyond that because we don't know what our pitching will look like)

Well if you believe in regression to the mean, I'd rather read that the Cardinals are hovering around .500 despite still getting average or above average luck. Well they'll likely get slightly better luck with runners on (for both batters and pitchers) but they're also 8 games back and are an inferior team. Or maybe they wont, its kind of gambler's fallacy to think just because they've been unlucky they'll be *more* lucky, most likely they'll just get average luck from here on out, which still means the past 38 games have damaged their team, which is good.

This is the feel good article of the year: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-cardinals-missing-magic/ Short version: the Cardinals magic hasn't just ran out, but its going in the opposite direction to start off this season.