UMFan83

people are acting like Soler is HR or nothing and that the rest of the time he has horrible ABs. Soler has actually improved his approach quite a bit this year to the point where I am much more confident in him having a good AB regardless of outcome than Heyward, especially against a lefty. And people do hit HRs at night at Dodger Stadium. Yes its hard, but if anything its an advantage to have an extra bat in the lineup that does have the strength to knock one out.

The 5th best hitter on the best offense in baseball is objectively valuable. Assuming he's hitting and healthy, sure, but he's not hitting, and he's terrible defensively, and we're playing in a park with a very large OF. You are basing him not hitting on 6 playoff ABs - one start and 3 PH appearances?

Does this broom also grab a bat in Heyward's spot when facing LHP? The argument is whether the downgrade in defense is worth a 200+ OPS bump on offense. Maybe its silly to overreact when guys are slumping but we've all read the articles about how Fowler, Rizzo, Zobrist and Russell are hitting a combined .110 in the playoffs this year. If you are looking for an offensive boost, replacing Heyward with Soler is definitely a legitimate option. I thought I'd get more flack for benching Russell in my overreaction lineup. If the assumption is that none of Fowler, Rizzo, Zobrist and Russell are going to start hitting, sure, but I'd rather bank on the guys who were consistently good all year coming good as opposed to counting on Soler not giving back whatever he might give you at the plate in the field. Yeah and that's a fine argument against it. But the argument started by suggesting there was no offensive upgrade between Heyward and Soler, or a marginal one. I think its a large enough upgrade against a LHP to overcome his defensive deficiencies

Soler was objectively the 5th best hitter on the team this season, despite the overreacting to a 6 PA sample in this year's playoffs. In between 2 month stints on the DL, sure, maybe. But the fact that we may as well play with 2 OF and a broom with a glove on it propped up in LF when he's out there sort of matters. Does this broom also grab a bat in Heyward's spot when facing LHP? The argument is whether the downgrade in defense is worth a 200+ OPS bump on offense. Maybe its silly to overreact when guys are slumping but we've all read the articles about how Fowler, Rizzo, Zobrist and Russell are hitting a combined .110 in the playoffs this year. If you are looking for an offensive boost, replacing Heyward with Soler is definitely a legitimate option. I thought I'd get more flack for benching Russell in my overreaction lineup.

Probably because Soler did outplay Heyward this year (at the plate), has a crapload of power that is kind of missing from this lineup outside of Bryzzo and Javy, had an .864 OPS since Aug 1st (not including 0-6 in the playoffs so far, too lazy to do the math) and had an OPS against lefties that was 230 points higher than Heywards in 2016. If you want to argue that its not worth benching Heyward against a lefty because of the drop off in defense, that's fine. But saying that he'll probably be just as bad at the plate as Heyward against a lefty is silly. check out their splits against the dodgers and at LA. Heyward has outhit him in both instances. Now, why exactly, idk, and sample size, but it seems to me that playing Heyward might make as much sense for his bat then his D. wtf cares about team splits? Neither of them even faced Rich Hill this year. If you look at Heywards career numbers against the Dodgers they are actually terrible. So even entertaining whether splits against a team mean anything, Heyward has a sub-600 OPS against the Dodgers for his career, and did not face the Game 3 starting pitcher for the Dodgers this year. So unless you are suggesting that Heyward is comfortable staring into the San Gabriel mountains as he bats, but only discovered them this season, that is a useless argument

Probably because Soler did outplay Heyward this year (at the plate), has a crapload of power that is kind of missing from this lineup outside of Bryzzo and Javy, had an .864 OPS since Aug 1st (not including 0-6 in the playoffs so far, too lazy to do the math) and had an OPS against lefties that was 230 points higher than Heywards in 2016. If you want to argue that its not worth benching Heyward against a lefty because of the drop off in defense, that's fine. But saying that he'll probably be just as bad at the plate as Heyward against a lefty is silly.

The Bears suck, but I think there should be a thread each week to lament on their suckiness in preparation for their next sucky performance. I've confirmed that the game is on Thursday night which is absolutely disastrous for the people that are concerned with the NFL ratings slip because this game will compete head-to-head against the Cubs clinching their first pennant in 70 years for viewership in Chicago.

Here is my complete overreaction lineup for Game 3: Fowler, CF Bryant, 3B Rizzo, 1B Zobrist, 2B Baez, SS Soler, RF Contreras, LF Montero, C Arrieta, P If you really want to mix things up but keep OF defense somewhat decent, switch Contreras for Almora and hope that he can have some good ABs.

Did Joe mention anything about the strategy postgame? I am trying to figure out the logic behind it. Perhaps Joe wanted the Cubs to 'feel out' Kershaw and see if there was an fatigue or lack of command on his pitches. But it should have been obvious fairly quickly that he was sharp especially early in the count. Which makes Contreras just sitting there purposely taking until strike 1 in the 3rd inning more perplexing. He almost looked annoyed that he was being asked to take and instead basically telegraphed his intentions (although I don't think Kershaw would be able to recognize this in a way that would alter his pitch). Heck, given how often Kershaw was getting ahead, Contreras should have been free to swing away after going up 1-0 in the count. I hate playing arm chair manager because I'm sure there was sound logic behind whatever Joe was doing, but it just felt like the Cubs went up there trying to drive Kershaw's pitch count up, which if we know anything about Kershaw when he's on, you are more likely to drive his pitch count up being being aggressive and getting some baserunners off of him.

All the Cubs pitchers have higher FIPs than their ERAs partially because of reasons we already know. You would know better than I would how that translates to evaluating Arrieta vs. Hill but I sense you are trying to make us all worry about an Arrieta/Hill matchup. I'm not saying we should worry. I'm saying it is silly to confidently state a pitching advantage. At best it looks like a wash. Arrieta really has been meh for awhile no matter how much we wish to deny it, but he does have a durability advantage. Yeah I'm not saying we have a decided edge or anything, but I don't feel particularly fearful of facing Hill right now, maybe I'll look dumb but I just don't. As for Arrieta, even in his bad stretch since the end May, he's had several dominating starts mixed in, most recently 3 starts ago against St. Louis. If he is locked in he can still be 90% dominant Jake. If he's not, as I said earlier I like being able to throw Monty and even Rob Z in there for multiple innings to either shut down the lefty lineup or force Roberts to put righties in.

Also, on top of all of that there was a note in the LA times today (I think....was an LA based publication) that there are concerns that Hill's blister issues may be re-emerging. He has had constant blister issues since joining the Dodgers, missing a start as recently as September 25th, and from doing some quick googling may have been part of the reason he was ineffective in the NLDS. Sorry guys you aren't going to make me scared about an Arrieta/Hill matchup.

lol that 5 game sample is timed nicely to avoid mentioning the 7 no-hit innings he threw in the start before Well my argument is that he hasn't pitched 100+ innings in a season or at least in high minors/majors in several years I believe. His performance of late hasn't been nearly as sharp as it was for most of the season. Could be a statistically irrelevant blip, it could be arm fatigue, it could be the league re-figuring him out, it could be a combo of things. Either way, I'm not overly worried about a Rich Hill/Jake Arrieta matchup. Does it mean we are certain to win? No but I don't feel like we are at much of a disadvantage at all.

Based on what? How good the two have been at pitching respectively in 2016. Hill has like a full run advantage in FIP. All the Cubs pitchers have higher FIPs than their ERAs partially because of reasons we already know. You would know better than I would how that translates to evaluating Arrieta vs. Hill but I sense you are trying to make us all worry about an Arrieta/Hill matchup.

Congrats Rich Hill on your great 100 innings and change where you managed to pitch over 6.1 IP exactly twice. Are all the innings catching up to him? Well in his last 5 starts he has a 4.83 ERA and has averaged 4.1 IP per start. It's stupid to feel good or bad about any game in this series where Lester or Kershaw isn't pitching. Extremely good chance that Hill won't pitch more than 5 innings and if Jake isn't super sharp he won't be going more than 6 either. This game will be decided by either a dominant God-mode Jake performance or the bullpens. If its the pen's, I still love being able to bring in Montgomery to either mow down their lefties or force Roberts to replace his lefties with righties to make it easier for Edwards and Strop later in the game.

Cubs win this one and then all the sudden everyone is wondering if we will sweep in LA instead of being swept

I'm still mad about that strike call to start Bryant's AB in the 9th. Bryant has a good history against Jansen so I thought he had a good chance to do damage. Then this happens: Maybe Bryant still strikes out, or maybe he pops up or some other failed result. But once that was called a ball the odds of a successful AB dropped drastically.

Meh, I wouldn't be officially worried unless they went down 3-1. I think we will win Game 3 but if we don't we have probably the best Game 4 starter in the playoffs (people will say he was shaky in his last start, boo hoo, in his 9 starts before that he had a 2.34 ERA) going against their rookie starter who we already hit hard once this year. If its 2-2, we are looking at a best of 3 series with HFA. Until the Dodgers win a 3rd game, I am not going to worry too much. However if they win that 3rd game I'm going horsefeathering apocalyptic, y'all better watch out.

Not sure if being pessimistic or optimistic. Gonna guess based on the poster optimistic How do you feel about arietta and lackey right now? Real confident? Then we'd get Kershaw in LA in game 5. It's likely we take one of those games but if someone gave me odds we go 0-3 in LA I would definitely take it Why would Kershaw pitch game 5 on 3 days rest if the Dodgers were up 3-1 in your scenario? Look my brain is constantly trying to feed me pessimistic thoughts but this team has passed the test so many times I won't let one loss change that opinion. Come on this team hasn't made a believer out of you yet?

Man that's as frustrating as it gets. Rizzo hits one long gone but foul. Baez hits one that is a HR 67% of the time. Agonz HR wasn't even hit that hard it seemed like. But before I start complaining about terrible luck, we had 3 total base runners in the game and none past second and they stranded a lot. Hopefully the bats get hot in LA. I know we've scored our share of runs but it really doesn't feel like we are firing on all cylinders. I'm gonna be a pessimist and predict only 2 wins in LA. I wouldn't put it past them to win all 3 though

Not sure if being pessimistic or optimistic. Gonna guess based on the poster optimistic

I booo this post No unacceptable for him to give up a walk and nothing else. I mean I get piling on him for his off the field horsefeathers but booing him because he's not a baseball cyborg and actually might allow a baserunner when he pitches is stupid.

Ok come on top of the order let's walk off and go to LA up 2-0

Here comes a squeeze

Javy would have gotten him out