Cubswin11

We obviously don't have a Corey Kluber, but Tomlin was and always has been hot garbage, and this was back when Bauer was trying to pitch with 3.5 fingers. It's obviously past the point of worrisome that none of Lester/Hendricks/Quintana has shown much sign of a rebound to career norms and we're coming up on the middle of August, but I'd take the best two of those three and Yu to line up against the Indians three. The difference in bullpens is obviously that they had an Andrew Miller who could go multiple innings and dominate (he pitched the second most innings in the playoffs for Cleveland), whereas we have 3-5 guys who would probably be considered better than anyone else Cleveland had in the bullpen. It's going to fall on Maddon to press the right buttons multiple times in a game if we're going to need 4-5 innings out of the bullpen. Given his history....that's pretty concerning. Dammit. You had me feeling a lot better until the end there. He still might screw up (likely will with the usage/situations) but at near full health there won’t be an awful/bad option in the pen in the playoffs. Joe won’t have a Rosario/Duensing/Bass etc to go to.

I'd rather some combination of Zobrist, Heyward and/or Baez bat in front of Rizzo instead of Russell/pitcher Yeah, Baez ostensibly SHOULD be able to hack it as a middle of the order guy, but he's such a weird baseball freak that who knows. Give me Heyward-Zobrist-Rizzo-Baez 1-2-3-4 more often than not. I want Rizzo back in the middle of the order. Get Zobrist/Heyward/Schwarbs/OBP guys in front of him damn it. Stop the charade of Rizzo lead off hitter, joe

Russell is absolute ass

3-4 in games starters went under 5 innings, but were 3-1 going in to the WS by my count (4-4 and 4-1 if you include Drone Boys bloody finger game). And those last 3 WS games vs us they went under 5 IP the SP were going on short rest, I believe. They weren't in the DS/CS games. horsefeathers, I don't think the Cubs have 3 starters right now that even stack up to the 2016 Indians, and I think their bullpen would end up easily as cooked at minimum if they tried to bullpen it for a deep run this season. Hendricks is likely their best option, and he's essentially 2016 Bauer. Yeeeeeesh. The Cubs basically need Yu to come back as Classic Yu. Their rotation was Kluber, Bauer, Tomlin and Merritt (who the horsefeathers is Merritt?), fwiw. I think their bullpen did get burnt out but they also were throwing SP on short rest by the end, which I don't think we'll do no matter what (which hopefully saves some innings/helps performance but obviously we still need to win and the SP need to perform). And yeah goes with out saying Yu being Yu will be huge and then need one of the lefties at least to figure it out to a competent level. We obviously don't have a Kluber level guy now but we have guys as good as the version of those other dudes in 2016, if not better. We also have maybe 1-2 extra guys in the bullpen that are better than their options were but they had more high end options in Miller and Shaw at the time.

Yeah, I keep going back and thinking about how Verlander more or less stated openly he wanted to play here. Assuming we didn’t have to give up Eloy for him - this teams pitching staff would look entirely different with Verlander and not Q. Yeah that's a big miss looking back on it to do that and not Q, but who knows if Verlander gets the boost here he did in Houston with whatever they are doing with the pitchers there. Verlander has been quite Cobs like going back to about June now, though. 4.06 ERA and 17 dongs in 12 starts going back to June 8.

Interesting. Thanks for pulling that. 3-4 in games starters went under 5 innings, but were 3-1 going in to the WS by my count (4-4 and 4-1 if you include Drone Boys bloody finger game). And those last 3 WS games vs us they went under 5 IP the SP were going on short rest, I believe. They weren't in the DS/CS games.

I’ll look in to this, give me a few minutes

horsefeathers you BABIP Gods

It just sucks there were no other options available last year to trade Eloy for. Q was the best option and we needed him. I still stand behind the deal as being necessary and the process of it being good, Q needs to be better. And it’s a little ridiculous to call this a complete bust of a trade already.

Eh, I’m fine with him being our game 1 starter/best playoff option. Hopefully some of Lester, Q, Hamels, Yu rise above him though. You're a braver person than I am. Dude is still giving essentially a dong a game. Today has all the makings of a '18 Hendricks Special: go 5-6 innings, giving up 3 runs and netting a half dozen k's so that at first glance it looks like a plain ol' QS and that he's not That Bad, despite having put his team down right away yet again and basically pitching from back on his heels the entire time. Like, it's not bad, but it's really not good, either, especially when that's really what he's showing is his realistic best case scenario. Oh I agree. It’s far from ideal but I can live with it and think we can still win games and he still can shut teams down as he’s shown a few times recently. My hope is Chavez, Monty, Smyly, Hamels (whoever is in the pen as longish guys in playoffs) are ready to come in right away and these SP have short leashes so like right now I’d hope one of those guys are ready to go come the 4/5th inning here if Hendricks allows a guy or two (maybe someone like Kintzler or Strop come in, in the inning then you go to a long guy for ~2ish innings).

Schwarbs ball was hit at 109 MPH, the nats hits are at 77, 83, 87, 96. Stupid sport. And now Harpers 20 hopper gets through

Since that start in San Franciso where he claimed he found something he’s been mostly quite good His point still stands: Hendricks has been just OK since then and he's now the anchor by default. That's not good. If post-SF Hendricks was expected to be, say, the 3rd best starter the Cubs have? Great! Eh, I’m fine with him being our game 1 starter/best playoff option. Hopefully some of Lester, Q, Hamels, Yu rise above him though.

Damn, thought that was gonna get out

Since that start in San Franciso where he claimed he found something he’s been mostly quite good. 3.5 ERA, ~3 FIP, 2.8 xFIP, 9.5 K/9, 1 BB/9

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Yeah I am not expecting 100% KB when he comes back. But they are clearly hoping and waiting that maybe happens. Even when he was dealing with this and playing he at least was hitting like .260 and getting on base at a decent route, the power was just gone. So that still is kinda a useful guy but obviously not what we want out of him. I trust they won’t do anything to put future health in jeopardy either by rushing him back.

There's no "really bad" news coming on this. Theo already said last week that most of the pain has been successfully treated and is only being felt at the extreme ends of his range of motion. Worst case IMO is something like they'll say horsefeathers it and he'll play the last few weeks + the playoffs with whatever lingering issue there is. I don't see how or why they'd suddenly say he needs surgery or something and shut him down for the season. yeah you're right there's nothing "really bad" about our best offensive player being out indefinitely with shoulder soreness that plagued him for a good chunk of the year. Him being out is a bad situation but they’ve done two MRIs and have said there’s really nothing wrong. It’s just soreness he has to get over it. It’s annoying and sucks but it doesn’t seem like it’s really that bad or could be that bad of an injury other than the time it’s taking to get over it. Bad news would be surgery , he has to make career altering swing change, shut down for the year etc. to me.

I get more annoyed with the “If the Cubs sign Bryce how can they afford to re-sign Hendricks, Russell, Schwarber, etc.”. Who cares he’s Bryce horsefeathering Harper. Sign him now and figure horsefeathers out later.

Much like our drunken manager is trying to find meaning in art this year I feel like this picture is analogous with the season. Legend states that you see one of two color schemes in this picture of a dress and not the other, you are neither right nor wrong with what you see. This year there are those of us who think everything is mostly fine with the Cubs, since they have the best record in the NL, and lead (or nearly lead) the MLB and NL in many statistical categories. While there have been pitfalls of the starting pitching sucking we think it will mostly be fine and are betting on track record and some other trends and maybe some blind faith. On the other side there are those of us who think this team sucks and it's unimaginable this sucky bunch of sucks has sucked it's way to a division lead and best record in the NL while everyone outside of Javy, especially the pitchers, sucks and is irreparably broken for eternity. In summation we are where we are and have done what we've done, let's get on a heater and rattle off a bunch of wins in a row to go on a win streak and finish this season off right!

He had some sort of injury and walked off with a trainer. I think he didn’t get warmed up fast enough but Counsell brought him in anyways because Knebel was so bad.

I would be surprised if Eloy becomes 70% of Harper. me too. it's probably going to be at least 170% I think you left off a zero or 7

I think the Padres have hit in to more double plays this game than Almora has all year

They look the same to me. Cubs, Dodgers, Royals and Jays all look the same colors to me too.