Clem Fandango

While funny that the cards have to go through the rigamarole of sending Wainwright through free agency, this seems like something both GM's and agents should have been well aware of.

If this is some kind of clandestine operation, they're not doing a very good job of by putting a dude in a suit in the visiting team's camera well with a camera and an audio signal booster

Other than me never learning from past mistakes, I see nothing wrong with it. The inclusion of the wiki page this year was very nice, thank you for doing that.

that was my first thought as well, but then who are you getting to do the same thing for less? My dead grandfather could replace Tommy. We wouldn't even know he was gone.

Depending on the level he was feast or famine. MiLB profiles have splits for minors if you want to look them up

I agree, but this year they proved that Schwarber or Happ were the only primary options, and if they don't add someone to fix that this offseason, we're probably getting that again. Which is gross.

They don't have to, but they do, and that's the problem. You have the option to play two people against lefties. One of them can't hit or get on base vs. lefties. The other one can't hit but can get on base vs. lefties. Why start the one who can't do either of them well? As you alluded to earlier, this is probably Joe just being stupid about matchups thinking he needs a righty against a lefty, but if they go into next season with the intent to make Happ and Schwarber the LF platoon again it's objectively better to just start Schwarber full time instead. Now if you said they're gonna start Bryant vs. lefties in LF and do an IF of Bote/Baez/Zobrist/Rizzo or whoever then yeah fine, please horsefeathering do that that would be fantastic. But if you're not, leave Happ out of the equation and either let Schwarber play or get a platoon bat that actually fits. Harper solves this problem (among others).

Rizzo had about 500 PA in his first couple of seasons and only just turned 23 after that second season; Schwarber already has over 1200 under his belt and is going to be 26 before next season. That .250 OPS chasm between facing lefties and righties likely ain't getting much better at this point. You're mixing his SD season in there, I was using strictly his first two Cubs season. You are also using total PA's as an excuse to say he can't hit LHP when he's only had 250 total PA's, which is less than half a year's worth, vs. LHP over the course of 337 games. Rizzo had 323 PA's vs. LHP in his first two Cubs seasons, over a total of 247 games. I'm not necessarily advocating for him to be the full-time starter, and to be honest I don't personally believe he can do what Rizzo did and flip a switch and hit better vs. lefties than righties like Rizzo did in 2014, I just think the "Kyle can't hit LHP" statement is not completely true. He sucked the worst during his first taste of MLB pitching in 2015 over the course of 50 whopping PA's, and as a result, he's been doomed to be a career platoon guy in the Cubs eyes. That's silly. Especially when you consider he obliterated LHP in the minors (.976 OPS in 2014 and 1.008 in 2015). I understand the Cubs were committed to Rizzo and let him adjust because it was during a rebuild and they could afford to play him, and Schwarber is on a team that is a perennial contender and they can't afford to hurt themselves because they need to win... but if they're playing someone worse than him, and don't have the option to play someone better, why sit him in the first horsefeathering place? And if the Cubs FO is going to give all this lip service about how much they love him, then they need to let him right the ship vs. lefties if the alternative is Ian Happ. All that said, I don't mind trading him at all, but when the return is a bullpen arm or something less than what we expect no one reserves the right to complain since the FO killed his potential value by making him a platoon player. A Harper acquisition will either a) make him expendable or b) make platooning him logical... but even then Harper doesn't exactly obliterate lefties either. A .796 OPS vs lefties is good, but not the world-beating performance we'd expect from someone like him... but he's a far greater option to platoon Schwarber with than what we have now, especially when you consider his recent performance vs. lefties (.830 OPS last two seasons). Still... #FREESCHWARBERASLONGASIANHAPPISTHEALTERNATIVE

Schwarber started 115 games in LF. 10 of them were vs. lefties. People who started in LF when Schwarber didn't: Ian Happ - 27 games Kris Bryant - 10 games (all in September, and likely because of the Murphy addition & Russell subtraction) Ben Zobrist - 10 games So Ian Happ was the go-to hitter to hit lefties instead of Schwarber, right? Ian Happ vs. LHP: .202/.291/.317/.608 Kyle Schwarber: .224/.352/.303/.654 Also, his .352 OBP vs lefties was 6th best on the team for players with 50 or more AB's vs. lefties. Happ's .291 OBP was the worst. He may not hit dongs vs. lefties, but at least he can get on base. Getting Zobrist or Bryant out there obviously makes more sense, offensively, but their value is obviously being better used at other positions. He's a "brainy" enough hitter that he should be able to make adjust and commit to being better vs. LHP. Hell, RIzzo sucked his first two years and then he excelled at hitting lefties because he made adjustments to do so. Schwarber spent a lot of time trying to fix that this past offseason but wasn't given the opportunity to prove himself. If you're going to platoon him with someone who is worse than he is, just keep him out there and let him figure it out or get someone who is, I don't know, actually better than he is vs. lefties (like Bryce Harper, maybe?). #FREESCHWARBER #ORATLEASATPLATOONHIMWITHSOMEONEWHOISNTIANHAPP

Schwarber will never put up monster seasons because the FO will not let him hit against LHP. The Cubs have committed to him being a platoon left fielder. His value is not nearly as high as we all want/perceive it to be.

Can anyone point to actual tangible or documented evidence of players altering their swing mechanics because of Chili Davis or is everyone just looking at offensive results and assuming it's his fault the players who sucked this year sucked because of him and him alone? Serious question.

He was never given the chance. Hard to get better at hitting lefties well when you only get 91 PA's against them all year.

The Cubs are doing that thing where they suck butt. Stop sucking butt.

TIL Bryant's Disco Ball has me on ignore Hahahahahahaha. Nice. My apologies for omitting you.

Frank Thomas was the best. When I was a kid I cheered for the Sox when they were playoff caliber because of him and the fact that I also had a blind loyalty to all Chicago sports teams. I feel that for Cubs fans it's less about hating the Sox and more about hating Sox fans who take the rivalry way too seriously. The Mad Men "I don't think about you at all" exchange is the perfect representation of the White Sox/Cubs rivalry to me.

I just don't know if either Machado or Bryant would be cool with that move, Machado has already been pretty adamant of bing a SS only. I don't think the Machado to SS thing was him being like "I WANT TO BE A SHORTSTOP FOREVER DAMNIT!" and it was more "I want to prove I can play shortstop so I can maximize my profits this offseason" He probably won't give a horsefeathers where he plays as long as he gets his money.

his current wife? I didn't realize he'd gotten married since all this stuff with Melissa came out. I like how he's such a huge piece of horsefeathers but he still has this dumb young southern mentality of "I put a baby in you, time to get married now"

*looks up Anderson's B-R page*

PTR trying to flim flam his way to quicker renovations

HELL YEAH

ride him hard and put him up wet Pretty sure this is also how Trump described Florence.

(I've used this gif before for the same context, but this gif is too perfect not to use for every single bit of rival injury news)