jumbo

gameday wasn't lying, huh? Unbelievable

100% agree. I'd rather add LaStella than Utley. I'd rather add Baez than LaStella. Plus I don't want to give up what it takes to get Utley, unless it's Concepcion or something equivalent

This is reasonable/fair. I think fans are ready to credit Theo for this team because they believe the plan he has been executing is starting to produce results. It's hard not to speculate that things are on the upswing and the team is destined for repeated playoff appearances. Obviously how the future plays out answers the question. Out of curiosity, rather than just say "let's see what the results are to judge Theo," how many playoff appearances do you expect for the Cubs from 2016-2020? I know you could say, I'm not going to guess at numbers, but based on what you'e seen and your overall impression what is your answer? To answer your question, I think 3 out of 5 is a good over/under. I think the upswing thing is the appeal of narrative. We love to explain our sports teams in terms of stories, and the "We were bad, then we were patient, then we got better, then we got great" is an easy story to understand. Getting better, or more importantly getting great, for 2016 and 2017 looks pretty tough to me. Not impossible. It's pretty easy to see how it could happen. All you need is a couple of breakout offensive seasons from our ubertalents and the top half of the pitching staff to stay healthy. But I think the downside is real too: On offense, the only guy who is young enough to make me really sure he'll be noticeably better in 2016 is Russell. The rest are in that iffy range of just barely pre-prime where the median of the curve is not much improvement left at all. For the pitching, I think the question is just how often are you going to get 150+ healthy, productive innings from your top 4? It's not something that's going to happen every year. And we're going to need it to, because there is just stone cold nothing coming up the pipe. The first wave of pitching prospects was supposed to be ready by now, and it's looking like a pretty substantial bust. In the meantime, the Cubs have been one of the most overachieving teams in the league by Pythagorean Wins, and there's two *really* good teams in the division that have pretty good cases to still be pretty good next year. The narrative says the Cubs are betting on the future in 2016. We've seen what betting on the future looks like this year: it's a messy, unpredictable affair. Sometimes it shows up as Kris Bryant playing at a 5-fWAR pace, and sometimes it's thinking you've got the middle infield settled with double redundancy only to have three of your four highly talented young guys become sub-replacement simultaneously. I think three is a very fair response. I'm somewhat of an optimist, so I'll be truly disappointed if we don't take the over on that. It's easy to ignore the downside risk. I agree that Russell is by far the most encouraging player this year as far as future breakouts go. Soler hasn't shown the discipline he was reported to have had. Castro is not the perennial all star he once was and may be jettisoned. Bryant, Schwarber, Rizzo at least appear to have rock solid futures (positional concerns notwithstanding). Baez is not the high risk high reward example that everyone thinks he is, there is much more downside risk with his contact issues. But the big four/five/six are a pretty terrific core to build around. As far as the pitching staff goes, I'm less concerned than you are. Yes, there will be injuries and unexpected failures in the pitching staff, but many teams don't have a good option at four or five. I think free agency has always been the plan for short term starting pitching, despite the draft strategy. Lester, Arrieta, Hammel, Hendricks are pretty solid for 1-4 for the next few years. Even with injuries, the FO has shown pretty good ability to identify plug & play starting pitching, and I think they'll make a significant addition this offseason to bolster the depth so that only a #5 is needed to be added down the line. Bullpens are such a crapshoot that I am comfortable sticking with Strop, Grimm, Ramirez, Rondon and adding to them with a solid FA piece and then whatever may come from Black, Edwards, Rivero, Rosscup, Johnson, Paniagua, etc to fill out the group, along with whatever retreads they pick up year to year. It may seem like success seems to come to easily, but I'm just not going to sweat the 6th and 7th guys in the bullpen, fifth starter, twelfth and thirteenth bench options. The bulk of a successful team is there and anyone could fill in around that.

I'm intrigued by Bryan Robinson's hyperbolic oxygen chamber

This is reasonable/fair. I think fans are ready to credit Theo for this team because they believe the plan he has been executing is starting to produce results. It's hard not to speculate that things are on the upswing and the team is destined for repeated playoff appearances. Obviously how the future plays out answers the question. Out of curiosity, rather than just say "let's see what the results are to judge Theo," how many playoff appearances do you expect for the Cubs from 2016-2020? I know you could say, I'm not going to guess at numbers, but based on what you'e seen and your overall impression what is your answer?

Nastier than what Strop was throwing...

Awesome What is the scale for the gameday "nasty factor?" Strop was around 50, which made me think he was making average pitches (100 scale), but then I thought it may be the 20-80 scale (slight improvement). I think the whole nasty factor thing is dumb as [expletive], but after seeing so many games this way, I'm curious

Cots has us at 82 when you include dead money, maybe that's just differences in allocating bonuses, etc. Assuming there is no 3 year extension that the Cubs like do you dare offer Fowler the QO? I would. Second half Fowler is worth a multi-year deal to someone, right? Hard to believe that Coghlan is still under team control next year Travis Wood arbitration amount, as a reliever, can't increase past say $8M? He has to be traded to a team as a starter before he gets paid that to be a long reliever. I like Denorfia but I'd be suprised if he comes back. I'd like a RH hitting platoon masher who could back up Rizzo - maybe a better younger version of Mike Morse... C: Schwarber, Montero, Ross IF: Rizzo, Russell, Castro/Baez, Bryant, LaStella/Herrera OF: Coghlan, ______, Soler, _____, ______ SP: Lester, Arrieta, _______, Hammel, Hendricks + Wood, Wada, Turner BP: Strop, Rondon, Grimm, Ramirez, Rosscup, Edwards? Based on who's coming back, your list seems pretty dead on. I hope we can stick with a 12 man pitching staff next year.

Yes, by OPSing under .600 this season, he's definitely done that. Yes, everyone knows he's had a terrible season. Talking about DFAing or releasing him at this point is dumb. Some dingleberry on the score (Rosenbloom maybe) asked if the Cubs should let someone claim Castro on waivers and give him away, a la Alex Rios with the Rangers/Sox a few years back. Unbelievable

I hope that guy didn't get paid to write that. It was nearly incomprehensible.

Is this a [expletive] joke?

How do you imply that someone is "an ostrich looking bitch?"

The hitting just needs to develop. It might not be this year, but regardless we knew that going into the season and we knew there would be growing pains. The pitching is where the Cubs haven't really invested. Where would you even upgrade on the Cubs offense? My best answer would be left field, but Coghlan has been one of the Cubs best on-base guys. Soler has been better since coming back. Unless you're talking about upgrading at shortstop, I'm not certain what improvements are even possible outside of possibly LF. You've gotta remember - the Cubs two most reliable hitters have been in a funk the last 20 games or so - that makes a big difference but you know those two will come around......and we can hope Castro does, but that one isn't as much of a certainty. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Upgrade the offense? LH CF to platoon w/Fowler 2B SS Play Schwarber at C

Cubs traded: Dempster ||| Garza Rangers traded: Villanueva, Hendricks ||| Olt, Grimm, Edwards, Ramirez I still can't believe in two trades this is what the Cubs did. It's pure "can't predict baseball" that Olt is so useless out of everyone and also pretty surprising how successful all the Rangers Pitchers have been for the Cubs.

This. I hate listening to most golf commentators/announcers because many of them savor the opportunity to make fun of his bad rounds, delivering on some payback for Tiger being a dick to them at some point in the past. If the golf community would simply report on the relevant players and let him fade away with his game (or resurface when appropriate) it would make MILLIONS of golf fans happy. I think there are a huge number of people who revel in Tiger failing, and not all for good old schadenfreude. But that comes with a sport that demands attention to the individual rather than a team. Asking people to ignore it would be like asking them to ignore the Yankees going from a string of dominance to a huge drought. That is going to be a story, and trying to play the "why is this news? why is anybody reporting this? why are we paying attention to this guy?" is disingenuous and/or naive. Tiger Woods struggling is news because it's Tiger Woods struggling. Anyway, somebody named Danny Willett is now 9 under while the Johnsons are each 7 under. I don't think they should deny that he exists or anything. If he's in the mix every story will be Tiger related, and everyone should expect that. If he's not in the mix, then rattle off the leaders/top ten and add "Tiger Woods is 45th" and move on. I don't think there are that many all or nothing Tiger fans anymore, but I may be wrong about that.

This. I hate listening to most golf commentators/announcers because many of them savor the opportunity to make fun of his bad rounds, delivering on some payback for Tiger being a dick to them at some point in the past. If the golf community would simply report on the relevant players and let him fade away with his game (or resurface when appropriate) it would make MILLIONS of golf fans happy. Some will certainly miss the "Tiger watch" format, but not as many as the networks think. During the US Open I went to the channel with four video feeds at once and as soon as I tuned it Tiger was on three of the four screens. It just happened that he was on the featured hole cam, but he was also in the featured group feed and the main network feed as well. All this with a full field in the first or second round.

I want to invite you to my poker game... I love to dream that they'll beat Green Bay but over the course of my lifetime I've conditioned myself to expect to be humiliated by them no matter what. I would definitely give you wacky odds on the game if you were a betting person

My god is Frazier a gooney looking sob

http://cubsrelated.blogspot.com/2015/07/anthony-rizzo-vs-anthony-rizzo.html

Wow, I can't believe you won that. Hope it was a great time

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Tim First, if I haven't said so yet, I, too, am a fan of the new software. Especially the mobile site but altogether terrific and a great improvement. I wanted to mention that when I go to new posts the page loads and the the screen jumps up (to old posts) after loading images like tweets or gifs. Not a big thing but I thought I'd mention it.

OK. Carry on then

Has anyone commenting here played the course?

Holy shite