Cubswin11

How do u define “tried?” A team like Memphis was “trying” this year and they paid a to keep guys but then Conley and Gasol got hurt and they finished with a bottom ~3 record.

“Tanking” might go away but there’s always going to be shitty teams in the NBA. You need stars to win. Idk what the Bulls, Mavs, Magic, Kings, etc all could’ve done this year to be good.

It’s not going to stop “tanking” because for about 1/3rd of the league it’s pretty hard to be remotely competitive. The talent level either isn’t there or their coaching/FO sucks. But yeah there’s still some incentive to finish the worst, iirc, just don’t get as heavy odds for the 1 pick to do it. Also I’m going on the record that this upcoming draft mostly sucks and the best guys are role players at best. There isn’t a single franchise player in it and no perennial all stars.

Despite playing 18 of their games in Coors, they're 13th in the League in runs per game. That's raw, without taking park factors into account at all. Their team OPS+ is 80. Yeah they suck. Their position players had a historically low wRC+ going in to the series in Wrigley a week or whatever ago. I don’t think much has changed since.

Something called a Tyler Saladino hit his 2nd HR of the season just now and has a 1.222 OPS. Seems about right.

Bow down to our new fielding overlord [tweet] [/tweet]

They r such frauds

We needed 3 pitchers between last year and the offseason so Eloy was good as gone, imo. Q was a better target than Cole for a lot of reasons and was available last year, Cole maybe wasn’t and who knows if the Pirates deal with us. Then nobody else has been traded, Stroman’s shoulder is toast, Archer has a 6+ ERA and I’ve never really liked him, who else was reasonably available? Sure would’ve been great to jump in on Sale but the timing might not of been there and maybe they don’t trade him to us.

Drop Pollock Add Lorenzo Cain (don’t be afraid to have a similar fate as Pollock)

The Cubs wanted defeat but couldn’t close it out. Nice win fellas!

Javy’s broke again

Why is Darvish out?

I thought we were over left handed batters box swinging Javy

He’s top 8 in defense for OF this year, lol. I know that was kinda luck but that was a damn good throw and catch/tag

It really is annoying they are getting out to another good start because they aren’t that good and a .500ish team. But I guess let them have their early season fun and get their hopes up again only to end up in the low-mid 80 wins.

Past David walking out of Wrigley

I saw a highlight of him the other night and my god that dude is THICK

I’m hoping one of the HS guys still has a TJS injury and falls

Adbert will just come up and kick ass in the rotation

I posted the Yu thing somewhere in here. I think it’s that his slider is just a completely different pitch so far. He’s throwing it way harder (like 88 vs 83) and not commanding it/hitting different parts of the zone he’s ever hit and it’s getting hit hard or he’s walking the world with it. The movement I think was still okay. Edit, here’s the article. Think it comes down to guys gotta stop being idiots and walking everyone and get more in the zone. But who knows what they might be working on, scouting reports, just poor performance or health.

[tweet] [/tweet]

Let’s get a W

Yeah, I was just gonna share that in here as well. I'd honestly feel a little better if it was a dead arm period and this isn't just who he is now out of nowhere (though he's thrown 200+ innings if we include the postseason for five straight years, and we know pitchers break, so who knows). Making matters worse, this is a horrible week to give a guy rest with the 7 games in 6 days. But I do think it's at least partly factoring into his command issues as you said. And giving up a homer to the first batter with your 90-mph fastball has to only put that thought into your head more. He probably doesn't trust his stuff right now, for good reason. His walk/9 numbers are over double what they were with the Cubs last year. His walk percentage is well above any season. His whole game is locating his fastball on the edges or elevating it, and mixing in the curveball. He can afford to make more mistakes at 92-94 but at 90-91 a lot more are gonna get cranked. And hitters are catching up to the pitches on the corners and letter high now more at 90 mph. So naturally he's just nibbling/getting further and further off the plate. It's definitely concerning, but hopefully it's just a dead arm or early-season weirdness where it takes time to make the velocity jump (like we've witnessed with Arrieta and Hendricks). I’m maybe thinking too that weirdly being back on regular 4-5 day rest could help. He seemed to be really screwed around with especially early on, he had the crazy Braves horsefeathers weather game then think another start right after that or before that with like 7-8 days rest.

This is legit something I’m at least a little worried about. https://twitter.com/mj99_1/status/996156885475741701?s=21 His margin for error goes down a ton at 90-91 vs 92-95 and maybe the horsefeathers command is a result that he knows his velo is down so he’s nibbling more. Either way hopefully it’s just dead arm or something minor and not more severe. Hopefully Darvish comes back fine and if Q is rocky another start or 2 he can get the 10 day DL break.