UMFan83

fWAR for Cubs position players who have been on the team from 2022-2024: Nico Hoerner - 10.3 Ian Happ - 8.3 Seiya Suzuki - 5.9 Christopher Morel - 3.3 Patrick Wisdom - 1.6 Yan Gomes - 0.9 Nick Madrigal - 0.7 Not saying we shouldn't trade Nico but he's worth 4.2 and 4.5 wins the last 2 seasons, a bit of a dip but still on pace for 3.4ish wins if he plays 150 games. Not a superstar but hope they would value him accordingly in a trade.

I hope its a sort of 1-2 year retool with designs to bounce back up quickly rather than suck for an extended period. For one, with the draft lottery odds changing there's really not a great reason to tank for an extended period of time. But also the fact that the Bulls have not been relevant for almost literally an entire decade outside of 2 months in 2021....I can't take much more of this. They havent won a home playoff game since DRose's buzzer beater against the Cavs 9 years ago... only 3 total playoff wins since that game (3-11 in playoff games). So almost a decade of irrelevance and where are we as a team? Starting over again with 0 star players, very few tradeable assets, owe the Spurs a 1st round pick and no second round picks until 2028. How the horsefeathers is that possible? It pisses me off that Reinsdorf basically pissed away 2 seasons forcing a core that clearly was not good enough to stick together (if you believe reports) when we could have been retooling or doing literally anything else besides obsessing over continuity. I'm certain AKME aren't blameless but it really feels like Reinsdorf is really the driving force behind the push for mediocrity. I hate that I'm so emotionally detached from the team and only watch fragments of games each year and I hate that it feels so hopeless that only an extreme amount of luck (drafting a superstar) will give the Bulls any chance to legitimately compete. And the owner doesn't give a horsefeathers because the UC is packed every game despite sky high ticket prices and ****** teams. /rant

Feels like they are pretty much midway between dumpster fire and last spot in the playoffs. These moves desperately help improve the team but still think they're lacking critical depth and while Bertuzzi and Teuvo are really solid offensive options, probably still lacking a true right hand man/second option for Bedard. I could be off though, I wouldn't call my hockey knowledge extremely limited but I'm sure there's others here that have a better handle on things.

Acquiring guys who were benched in their team's most recent playoff runs is certainly a interesting trend for the Bulls.

Would not have expected Canada and Panama to be the 2 CONCACAF teams to advance to the knockouts lol. Hopefully I’m wrong about Panama but I feel like the US chances of advancing are 10% at best. Anyways, misery loves company so happy Mexico is out

So 2 series wins and 0 series ties since the first week of May. It’s July tomorrow…

And I believe both ultimately scored, tying the game. I get his frustration...while the Cubs have played sloppy in every pitcher's starts, it seems like they are especially blunderful when Steele starts. Really crazy to be 12 starts into his season, have a 3.20 ERA while averaging 6.1 IP per start and be stuck on 0 wins.

This ump really helping the nibbler

This is pure hilarity

Even when things are going ok, they still find a way to make outs on the bases. Gotta love it.

Nice to see him take a high fastball (I think) out for a HR

The importance of these games was just short of World Cup importance given the talent on the roster, the general lack of opportunities to play non-CONCACAF opponents in competitive matches and a looming World Cup hosted on US soil in 2 years. They're not going to have a legitimate chance to test themselves again against the world's best until the actual World Cup and Weah completely changed the trajectory of the tournament for the US. I think its fair to say a message needs to be sent and sending Weah home would deliver that message.

Was just thinking. How good would a bullpen like this be: ‪CL - Merryweather‬ (current IL) ‪SU - Leiter Jr‬ (current IL) ‪SU - Brown‬ (current IL) ‪MR - Almonte‬ (current IL) ‪MR - Tyson Miller‬ ‪LR - Wesneski‬ LR - Smyly With other potential options being Palencia (current IL), Alzolay (current IL), Keegan Thompson (current IL) Neris, Hodge, Hendricks (with healthy Wicks replacing him in rotation). Probably not the best one in the league but much much better than what we have now.

And yet they are somehow 3rd in the MLB in FanGraphs BsR

Not worth its own thread but Rosenthal made his All Star predictions. As you'd expect, only 1 Cub was selected - Shota Imanaga, which is funny because he actually has the 4th best ERA amongst the Cubs regular starters, but definitely a defensible selection. Among notable omissions, he lists Assad and Michael Busch. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5598561/2024/06/28/mlb-all-star-game-rosters-rosenthal/

Announcers all half were talking about how there was going to be so much added time for the entire second half. Nope just 4 minutes. What a joke.

Easiest group in Copa, had an easy pathway to the knockouts. Making the knocks should have been the bare minimum expectation with those opponents. On our home soil. Now the US has to beat Uruguay and hope Panama doesnt do what we failed to do, blowout Bolivia.

Well if that was our prep for the World Cup, we're horsefeathered

Or not

Well the entire tournament just changed for the US. Hopefully they can get a point out of this but if they don’t they are in gigantic trouble. Just a monumentally bad decision by Weah. What the horsefeathers

Anyway, if you are not a soccer fan now might be a good time to give it a try to avoid having to watch the end of this horsefeathers show (though why are you watching this crap anyways?). USA-Panama kicks off now on FOX

When the Cubs get the leadoff man on, I have no belief that they'll score. When the opponents do, its only a matter of time before they are touching home.

I cant tell if the Bulls are actually going to do a full rebuild, or maybe just a rebuild where they tell everyone its a retool (cant remember where Ive heard that before), or think that by making a few moves they can still compete for the playoffs.

This exactly. Even though we know this team is dogshit there are enough injuries to use it as an excuse

I didn't even realize he was back on the roster until he stepped up to the plate. Apparently he's been back up for over a week? And Tauchman is on the IL? No wonder I havent seen much from him recently. Miles Mastrobuoni on 5/11/24 in a game started by Paul Skenes: 3-4 1 BB 1 2B 1 RBI 2 runs scored Miles Mastrobuoni in 2024 outside of the 5/11/24 game: 2-39 4 BB 0 XBH 1 RBI 3 runs scored .051/.140/.051/.191 I know its a small sample size of 43 PA or whatever and you cant just remove a player's best game, but a .191 OPS for him this season outside of that one magical afternoon is incredible in the most negative way possible.