UMFan83

Well it was nice knowing you baseball discussion on Chicago sports talk radio. Dammit now I'm going to hear a bunch of fluff pieces and psyche myself up for a season that is likely to end poorly.

i think being a cub has caused maddon to lose what was left of his mind

Geez, I read something about the White Sox now being buyers and I thought that sounded ridiculous. Then I looked up the wild card standings and noticed that the Sox are only 1 game farther from the playoffs (3.5 gb) than the Cubs are (2.5 gb)

I wonder if someone stole that from me because I said it in the game thread last night. Edit: Hmm...it was a 23 year old Cubs fan from Arkansas. You guys know anyone like that who frequents our game threads?

Basically this Tigers sucking streak is probably the worst case scenario for the Cubs long term. We probably would have better odds getting Price as a FA than we ever will in a deadline trade, especially with the recent struggles probably making the FO lukewarm on being huge buyers

who the [expletive] cares about whether the white sox have a better record or not

Also: [tweet] [/tweet] Griggs tweets are protected so I can't verify that he tweeted that from his account directly

What davell is referencing: Would it be uncommon to pull a guy mid game for a promotion? From what I've read on Twitter yes it would be uncommon

Wait, was that for real? I thought it was a bad joke. He was in AA when we traded him like 4 years ago. If he's really still hung up over it, that's just weird. Err pretty sure he spent some time on the Cubs before he was dealt

He has his millions of dollars. I HAVE NOTHING! Other people feeling pain is the most approximate feeling i know to happiness. Not only that but he's able to have his buddies shoot people in a crowded club and rape a girl and get away with both. Too far?

Waivers ?? OMG, waivers !!! You can't put the guy on waivers, some other team might claim him !!!! The Cardinals would pick him up and he would close out the World Series for them.

Must have got stuck in bad matchups again eh Joe?

Shocker. Most web gemmed team web gemmed in a huge spot

Schwarber is struggling for the first time probably in his life

Strong groundout Starlin. Are you even trying anymore?

If they keep Baez and he shows up and actually sticks when seemingly everyone else turned into super-aggro hack machines I will no longer have any understanding of the world at all. Tbh I'd be happy with a .650 OPS instead of the .450 ops Castro has given us over the past 5 weeks

Btw in 3 ABs he has as many extra base hits as Castro has in his last 22 games. And more total bases as Castro has had in his last 6

Baez homered again

Well Rizzo was an all star last year so you'd expect that to continue only he has been sub replacement level for 5 weeks running, castro was an all star last year and had his best hitting season you shouldn't reasonably expect he'd turn into a bottom 5 hitter in all of baseball. Bryant mashed everything in the minors, Soler crushed the ball in the minors and with the Cubs last September, russell was crushing it in the minors. They just all randomly stopped hitting when they spend a prolonged period under Cubs major league coaching. It's failure, plain and simple. It's not just bad luck or "hey, they're a bunch of kids!" It's poor, overly simplistic team construction. Explain? They constructed a team expected to hit for a ton of power and get on base at least an average amount. I guess you could say that it was too prone for low batting average and too any strikeout prone hitters but I don't see what they have done so wrong. They made their long term strategy to build a farm system full of highly regarded power hitters, everyone marveled at them, and so far they haven't hit for power but whether you like it not, they weren't supposed to be a well oiled machine at this point. Heck guys like Russell and Schwarber weren't even supposed to be up yet. I know no one wants to hear the "they're just kids they'll get better" excuse but there's really no better way to put it. This was the plan that we all were on board with. If it doesn't happen this year, the expectations and pressure amp up significantly next year. Huh? How could you possibly say that? Have you blocked out NSBB for the past 4 years? Sorry the ones whose opinions I care about were on board, at least when the prospects started producing in the minors

you cant be serious The biggest problem by far this year is the offense, and they made it very clear that they were putting most of the cards in with the idea that this team, now and going forward, was going to be driven primarily by the bats. I get underperforming and that there's development, and in no way did I expect them to be some kind of offensive juggernaut this year, but to be THIS bad as a team at the plate is hugely problematic. There's a pretty big gulf between being fantastic and how bad they are hitting. So what is the problem then? Bad luck? Slower than expected development? Poor coaching? Because it's not only the rookies who have sucked this year. Most of the establish vets are struggling as well

Of course not. But he's not very good and only signed through this year, so he's kind of just an add-on at best. I wouldn't be opposed to it but I feel like a Coughlan-Bryant-Soler OF would be an absolute disaster, and fowler isn't even all that good in the field.

Well Rizzo was an all star last year so you'd expect that to continue only he has been sub replacement level for 5 weeks running, castro was an all star last year and had his best hitting season you shouldn't reasonably expect he'd turn into a bottom 5 hitter in all of baseball. Bryant mashed everything in the minors, Soler crushed the ball in the minors and with the Cubs last September, russell was crushing it in the minors. They just all randomly stopped hitting when they spend a prolonged period under Cubs major league coaching. It's failure, plain and simple. It's not just bad luck or "hey, they're a bunch of kids!" It's poor, overly simplistic team construction. Explain? They constructed a team expected to hit for a ton of power and get on base at least an average amount. I guess you could say that it was too prone for low batting average and too any strikeout prone hitters but I don't see what they have done so wrong. They made their long term strategy to build a farm system full of highly regarded power hitters, everyone marveled at them, and so far they haven't hit for power but whether you like it not, they weren't supposed to be a well oiled machine at this point. Heck guys like Russell and Schwarber weren't even supposed to be up yet. I know no one wants to hear the "they're just kids they'll get better" excuse but there's really no better way to put it. This was the plan that we all were on board with. If it doesn't happen this year, the expectations and pressure amp up significantly next year.

Yeah this is close to "worst case scenario" non-injury edition. Just about everyone has hit below projections, some significantly so.

Well Rizzo was an all star last year so you'd expect that to continue only he has been sub replacement level for 5 weeks running, castro was an all star last year and had his best hitting season you shouldn't reasonably expect he'd turn into a bottom 5 hitter in all of baseball. Bryant mashed everything in the minors, Soler crushed the ball in the minors and with the Cubs last September, russell was crushing it in the minors. They just all randomly stopped hitting when they spend a prolonged period under Cubs major league coaching.

I've never seen anything like this