Cubswin11

Excellent, I think

It all comes down to the contract for me if we commit multiple years I won’t like it The only way I like it is if it's for multiple years. Given how likely it Kimbrel is a bust this season, a 1-year deal would be utterly stupid. Guy averaged 97 on the heater last year. He struggled in the 2nd half but there was no indication he just got old and bad. Let me reiterate, I don’t want a Melancon/Jansen type deal. I’d be fine with a 1 year guaranteed then player options for 1-2 years for him to stay if he wants or like a 3/45 type deal with an opt out.

It all comes down to the contract for me if we commit multiple years I won’t like it

So there’s potentially “finalists” [tweet] [/tweet]

It’s Levine, who is bad at words, but he might have let it slip Zobrist retired or plans on it. [tweet] [/tweet]

Get Will Smith or Doolittle too

horsefeathers pitchers

Almora and Bote are solid defenders though, which Gonzalez definitely isn't. Batting 5th, playing RF tonight (over Almora, with Heyward in center). I guess we'll find out soon enough. Edit: I also have zero problems with David Bote's .289/.364/.500 against RHP in 129 PAs this year. I didn’t realize Bote was hitting so well vs RHP, damn. CarGo’s presence at least knocks Descalso down in the pecking order to more the LaStella role.

Meh, he most likely sucks but he still put up okay numbers vs RHP last year (believe over .800 OPS though don’t know how much that’s Coors related). If he plays 2-3 times a week vs RHP maybe he’s productive. He’s likely taking Descalso/Bote/Almora ABs away vs RHP, the bar ain’t that high.

I think this is about what he gets, $6-8 mil base for the year with incentives for saves or games finished that could take it to $10-12 mil then a 2 year player option for next year and 21' for around $30 mil total. Or two consecutive players options like $13 mil for next year and $18 for 21 or something like that. Just horsefeathering sign him though, then make a trade (even if it's just like Tony Watson). Kimbrel/Strop/Cishek/Watson/Brach/Kintzler/Chatwood/1 Iowa shuttle or IL spot of Ryan/Carl/Maples/Wick/Norwood/Barnette/Cedeno/etc. is a solid pen.

Apologies, I was on vacation for the last 10 days or so (it appears the Cubs were as well) with spotty internet at best. Can keep me on the list for the next time around, which hopefully isn't for a while. Looks like I picked a good time to avoid this train wreck, time to turn it around fellas. #WeAreStillGood

That Darvish wasn't actually getting better? Agreed. Given the circumstances he came through today, he went in to the game knowing he was going 6-7+ and 100+ pitches in horsefeathers conditions. He gave us a chance and we won.

How so? I've read reports that his current injury is still lingering from when he hurt it running to first last year He hurt his other hamstring this time vs the one he hurt last year, I’m nearly certain. He also hurt this currently hurt hamstring in spring, iirc.

Never in doubt

How so?

Never in doubt :flythew:

To be fair to the Cubs, I wouldn't necessarily call this a "misdiagnosis" because hairline fractures can be very difficult to discover. Sometimes a person doesn't even realize they have one or had one -- they just endure the pain (which can vary from moderate to severe). Nico probably started swinging the bat in light workouts and started noticing the pain from swinging in his wrist, but otherwise felt fine. This news sucks, but he should be fully healthy in like a month. Plenty of time left in the season at AA and we were never planning on calling him up this year. I also seriously doubt we'll include him in any trade package. That's the silver lining for me. Highly doubt he gets dealt for bullpen help now. I doubt Hoerner would’ve been traded for bullpen help, I think the FO is too high on him, if he gets moved it will be for a controlled SP or bat. I’d say the same about Amaya but with Willy back to being good there is some redundancy there and I’d be more willing to move Amaya for “just” bullpen help (but it would have to be like Doolittle, Treinen or something elite and controlled for another year+).

Bote has been garbage for a while now, might be worth it to give him a breather for a few days and maybe work on some things with the coaches/video guys to get right. He also still is dealing with the broken toe, maybe they want him to get off the foot for a few days.

Yeah the Len and JD part is huge and glad they’re staying. There’s like $50-60 mil coming off next year (Hamels, Zobrist, Morrow, Cishek, Pedro, Kintzler off top of my head). The whole bullpen pretty much needs to be rebuilt (I’d rather we throw like $30-40 mil at this with multiple options vs just one guy) plus another starter needs to be added and between the money coming off and whatever bump we get that the article mentions there should be enough money to do an extension or 2 and do a decent level signing or two as well.

[tweet] [/tweet]

We are 3-4 games clear of them in the loss column as of today. I’m willing to give them some slack on the pen until after the deadline. The high priced options have all kinda sucked so far this year, it’s not like Andrew Miller is killing it. Bullpens are volatile and I kinda like the throw horsefeathers against the wall strategy and think we ultimately have some good shake out of it then address the needs as you see them in season up to the deadline (hopefully we can make a move or two soon). Kimbrel isn’t a silver bullet and it would be dumb to give him Melancon/Jansen money and he had some major red flags last year. citing the "loss column" in may is pointless. they are 1 game ahead of them, not 3-4. Citing the standings the May is even more pointless. Being up in the loss column is always important, they can’t make up losses on us

We were and they had to play like .750 baseball for 30-40 games to catch us, can’t do much about that. We went 49-32 July-September last year. I’d bet that doesn’t happen this year and if we win 92-95 games like we should we’re gonna win the division. at a certain point i'd like for the "we are way better than the brewers" stuff to actually show up in the standings. every little annoying little setback is just allowing it to continue. we should be past the brewers. they should not be a concern to the cubs with the pieces we have in place and the resources to make it better. It showed up in 2017 and pretty much for most of last year until they didn’t lose for all of September. If they’re gonna go win 95 games, like last year, it’s hard to blow past them regardless of what we do. Most years aren’t like 2016.

It’s frustrating but all bullpens lose games, Hader gave up a walk off Dong this weekend. We literally won a game this year because Taylor horsefeathering Davis hit a grand slam. This horsefeathers evens out. We are better than the Brewers, it’s only May and we have a 3-4 game lead in the loss column. Pedro is back soon and hopefully we add at least one solid reliever sooner than later on top of him (sounds like we’re gonna looking in to it already) and another one around the deadline. we were better than the brewers last year too. it means nothing if they can't actually be better than them in the standings. a lot of that is the brewers over-performing, and some of that is our cheapness. you'd think the front office wouldn't want to dick around with clear flaws on the team costing us games early in the season. i know that because they talked about it after they blew it last year. We are 3-4 games clear of them in the loss column as of today. I’m willing to give them some slack on the pen until after the deadline. The high priced options have all kinda sucked so far this year, it’s not like Andrew Miller is killing it. Bullpens are volatile and I kinda like the throw horsefeathers against the wall strategy and think we ultimately have some good shake out of it then address the needs as you see them in season up to the deadline (hopefully we can make a move or two soon). Kimbrel isn’t a silver bullet and it would be dumb to give him Melancon/Jansen money and he had some major red flags last year.

It’s frustrating but all bullpens lose games, Hader gave up a walk off Dong this weekend. We literally won a game this year because Taylor horsefeathering Davis hit a grand slam. This horsefeathers evens out. We are better than the Brewers, it’s only May and we have a 3-4 game lead in the loss column. Pedro is back soon and hopefully we add at least one solid reliever sooner than later on top of him (sounds like we’re gonna looking in to it already) and another one around the deadline. we were better than the brewers last year too We were and they had to play like .750 baseball for 30-40 games to catch us, can’t do much about that. We went 49-32 July-September last year. I’d bet that doesn’t happen this year and if we win 92-95 games like we should we’re gonna win the division.