UMFan83

I don't necessarily hate this, but given the apathy toward the SCF involving 2 decently supported teams, I feel like the last thing the NHL needs is more teams. They have been very fortunate that teams like Chicago and LA have been recent NHL dynasties and not like Carolina and Edmonton.

Looking at teams with a realistic shot at a WC, not including division winners as I think all 3 will win the division, this is the order I'd like to see in the Division Series (most desirable to least) 1. Marlins 2. Cardinals 3. Pirates 4. Dodgers 5. Mets

Fangraphs post on the Cubs historic BABIP allowed http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/another-thing-at-which-these-cubs-are-best/ I know there is not much to be concerned with the Cubs, even so I will say with the cavet that I believe the Cubs are a fantastic team and I have no doubts about their ability to a) make the playoffs by winning the divison with ease or b) be well positioned to compete in the October crapshoot. So really the only discussion is how awesome are the Cubs: best team ever, historically great team or 'run of the mill' 100 win team. So I hope you will allow my 'concerns' to remain in that context and not take it as a sky is falling sort of thing, but it is me so I don't know if I earned the benefit of doubt. My concern is that the pitching staff will regress quite a bit as the season goes on. These numbers are not sustainable are they? The good news is that all this would do is likely take games where we'd win by 5 runs and turn them into games we'd win by 1-2 runs. But my further concern is that I still want to pick up a top-3 type starter at the deadline, and if we are pitching as well as we are now, we might not pull the trigger on an impact guy for the playoffs. So talk me off the 'historically great or only a 100 win team' ledge. Can we sustain this, is this something to keep an eye on? Also one of the commentators in the article posted this:

http://twitter.com/BBTN/status/742537933807312896/photo/1

That can't be right. Jake has given up 18 ER this year in 87 innings. Shields has given up 13 in 7. I am guessing this was posted during his start, as he gave up 7 runs (6 earned) in the first 3 innings. 2.2 IP - 10 ER (last Padres start) 2.0 IP - 7 ER (first Sox start) 1.1 IP - 5 ER (the start of last night's game) That would be 22 ER in 6 IP. He then recovered to allow 2 runs (1 earned) in his final 3.2 IP.

Quick, change the location of the final to Columbus

Again we had the ERA advantage in all 3 games and the FIP advantage in 2 of them. Sure on paper Scherzer and Strasburg are better than Hendricks and Hammel but based on performance this year they are close matchups. If the Cubs are a historically good team like we think they are there shouldn't be pre-series griping about not having good matchups IMO.

Is it really that odd of a stretch though? Basically shows their pitching has been excellent and when scoring league average runs they would go 7-1 in that stretch I guess if there's a weird thing to it its that the Cubs have had slightly *poor* luck in 1 run games, which is hilarious Yeah I guess it's not that odd just that they seem to go from blowout juggernaut Cubs to can't score too many runs Cubs overnight and back again the next game.

Weird stretch for the Cubs. 4-4 in their last 8 games, their 4 wins have been by 2, 7, 6 and 11 runs and they scored 6, 8, 8 and 13 runs in the games. In their losses they lost by 1, 1, 4 and 3 runs scoring 2, 2, 1 and 1.

Ouch 16K

Damn I want to win this one as I don't like Wednesday's matchup very much

Obviously we can still win but I'm also just happy to not get PGed

Actually quite surprised Joe is letting him stay in for now. Over 9 pitches and 2 XBH in a row with 0 outs

YESS Addy getting those big hits

Make that 20 in 5

19 ER in his last 4.2 IP for Shields

there is no way GarPax is going to trade his best player to Thibs unless he was offering Anthony-Towns and/or Wiggins

Is it bad that I'm celebrating a ground out like it was a base hit?

Look out Kerry, Roger and Randy

Relative to his age I am not disappointed at all, he's the 3rd youngest player in the NL, has less than 800 PA's above AA and has shown the ability to walk, which I think is very important when a player is struggling elsewhere. As for power, the guy has 17 HRs in just over a full season's worth of PAs. I think that is within my realm of expectations. The strikeouts are concerning, but not enough to erase the fact that he's still developing and has looked bad enough to where I am changing my long term projection of him. What I thought was bad about the post was that: 1) He immediately dismisses age 2) He apparently expected him to resemble Barry Larkin, who had a worse OPS+ in his first 2 seasons (age 22 and 23) than Russell (age 21 and 22), right off the bat 3) He is already in his head preparing for Torres to replace Addison as his SS of the future Just think its silly and overreacts to his first 750 PA that were taken at an age many players are still in AAA. But I consider you a better baseball mind than I, so if you say we should be concerned, maybe I can start to be.

Damn, I almost forgot that I should only farm Cubs Reddit for content, not actually to engage in any discussions with the posters. Someone today commenting me saying that nothing I've seen from Russell this season has changed my expectations for his ceiling.

Scherzer against RH in 2016: .149/.167/.297/.464 Scherzer against LH in 2016: .276/.372/.526/.898 Cubs batting righty against Scherzer in May: 1-10 with 0 BB (John Lackey was the lone hit) Cubs batting lefty against Scherzer in May: 6-13 with 3 BB and 6 XBH guessing lineup is something like Fowler, Heyward, Bryant, Rizzo, Zobrist, Coghlan, Russell (he hits much better against righties than Javy), Miggy

It wasn't a bad series, but wasn't great either IMO. I will miss hockey though.

[tweet] [/tweet] Awesome for Rizzo to give "tfed" one last major league experience while he's still here

Arbitrary endpoint fun OPS since... April 21 (39 G): .751 May 11 (25 G): .814 May 28 (15 G): .917 June 2 (10 G): 1.026 Also, Heyward ended his OPS at .682 yesterday, which is the highest he's ended a game at any point this season, even in the first couple of games of the year.