UMFan83

Sad, but also not surprising. It was pretty glaring that coming into the season we had a collection of good players but no great players and while we have a great collection of talent in the minors we also lacked that surefire elite prospect. Jed should be well aware of this talent gap issue. That said, 3.0 fWAR is a glaringly low especially when the Cubs had 4 returning players with fWARs over 4.4 in 2023 (Swanson, Steele, Nico, Bellinger).

They are 6 games behind the Braves in the loss column with 30 to play. Of course hoping for a miracle comeback like any Cub fan would be but almost certainly nothing they are doing today is costing them a playoff spot at this point.

Damn 1st pitch HR off Assad.

Why the heck is Nico Hoerner hitting 5th?

This group is all bunched together. It will be interesting to see how they finish the season: .665 - Nico .656 - PCA .651 - Swanson .647 - Amaya

Sorry for discussing baseball in a baseball thread yeesh. fine shota has prevented a HR from hit in 97.6% of his batters faced in August Happy?

Shota has allowed 8 HR in his 5 August starts, and at least 1 HR allowed in each of his last 7 starts. 13 of the 15 runs Shota has allowed in August (earned and unearned) have come on home runs. Not to bring too much negativity into a game we're winning handily but its something worth pointing out. As long as he keeps guys off bases for the most part its all good but the HR ball is starting to become a bit of an issue for Shota.

Holy horsefeathers that was a mammoth blast. Wow PCA is a dude

And not surprisingly the Marlins have begun to claw back

I know they’re winning but you cannot fail to score with 2nd and 3rd and 0 outs with the top of the order due up. Not being able to add on in great situations like that is the kind of horsefeathers that has cost them game after game this season and why we’re playing out the string instead of fighting for playoff positioning.

I hate that my cynical brain's first thought upon seeing that Seiya has 2 home runs today is "when is the oblique injury coming?"

PCA last 24 games (82 PA): .299/.333/.546/.879 4 doubles 3 triples 3 HR 10 K (12.9% strikeout rate!)

There's definitely some of that built into my post earlier. I mean think about it, we've had maybe 2 fun legitimately good seasons over the past 14 years and in one of those we went 3-5 in the second half of the year and missed the playoffs (2012). It's really hard to even visualize the Bears being good even when you know the roster is good.

Feels like we’re throwing out quite a few runners on the bases these days

Attaboy Isaac

That's exactly why Counsell put Miller in there. He just didn't have his best control today I guess.

So much for that miniscule walk rate from Miller. 6 walks in 46.2 IP this year, so of course he walks the first 2 batters today and walks in a run.

Paredes now 1 for his last 29

He hasn't been great per say but he has a respectable 4.37 ERA over his last 10 starts averaging 5 IP per start. Batters have a .664 OPS against him over that timespan. In comparison, Taillon has a 4.78 ERA over his last 10 starts, averaging 5.1 IP per start and hitters have a .724 OPS against him. I get it, Taillon is signed for a few years and is younger so should be expected to perform at a higher level than Kyle I just don't want it to be lost upon Cubs fans how Kyle was able to turn his season around and actually pitch effectively for an extended stretch.

I definitely think the Bears can go 10-7 or 11-6, but I still have my fears/doubts about an Eberflus coached team. As a reminder, last year this team: blew a 28-7 late 3rd quarter lead to the Broncos blew a 17-7 4th quarter lead to the Browns blew a 26-14 4th quarter lead to the Lions needed a final second FG to beat the Vikings after intercepting Dobbs 4 times and allowing 10 points needed a late Eddie Piniero FG miss to beat the 3-14 Panthers I know the team is different, I'm super excited about Caleb and the revamped offense. There is a positive energy around this team and I'm here for it. But I still worry that we're going to find ourselves in these situations again this year and not sure how we'll respond. Also we need to wrap Montez Sweat in bubble wrap because if he gets hurt, yikes. But despite 90% of this post being negative, I still am more on the 10-7/11-6 train. I just won't be shocked if we're 2 weeks into the second and everything feels a little too familiar.

It does look like a light SOS, but I wouldn't say its easier. I believe last year's SOS was 5th worst in the NFL.

This is perfectly said

Shockingly, only the negative outcome will be considered in my head

This really isn’t based on any logic but I hate going undefeated in the preseason because it reminds me of how the 2 teams to go winless this millennium both went undefeated in the preseason. If the Bears go 0-17 you’ll remember this post 😂

Yes, there's a point every season where the fanbase thinks Happ is a worthless player who should be DFA'd and then the season ends and his numbers are fairly consistent from year to year. But we have the memory of a goldfish so when Happ slumps next year we'll do the same thing. There was at least one prominent poster (cant remember who) who adamantly insisted Busch needed to be sent down to Iowa in the middle of his slump/adjustment period in May/June And PCA was pretty much considered a bust in terms of his hitting as recently as 3 weeks ago. Now we're doing the same thing with Paredes. I mean I'm not necessarily criticizing people, I've been known to be overreactionary in my 20+ years of posting at NSBB. It's really frustrating when a player sucks for 6+ weeks, looks completely lost, you almost forget what it looks like for them to square up a ball, etc. Nothing guarantees that they will turn it around but looking at past performance should give people comfort when talking about someone like Paredes. Maybe he won't turn it around and this is the start of a run that leads to him being out of baseball this time next year. But history suggests that its very unlikely that's the case. Though have to say, this is certainly concerning to hear him say if you are hoping for him to turn it around in the near future: Feel like normally when you talk to a slumping hitter they typically project confidence of a turnaround. Jarring to hear him say he doesn't feel good and is lost out there.