UMFan83

Victor Caratini will be at Wrigley this weekend to open the season. He'll be in a Brewers uniform though

Peacock gets in on the exclusive streaming games trend and will broadcast a weekly "Sunday Morning" game starting at 10:30 am CT. The Cubs are on the schedule once - on the road against the Phillies

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/33645791/2022-mlb-predictions-expanded-playoffs-world-series-mvps-cy-youngs 1 of the 38 reporters chose the Cubs to win a wild card spot! Suzuki was also the consensus choice for NL ROY

Everton is definitely going down now, just looking at their remaining schedule. Why did I hitch my wagon to this horsefeathers show 15 years ago?

I think Boras and the Cubs are good with each other. Certainly he tries to get the best for his clients and he sometimes will offer a lot of public rhetoric, but that is posturing and I don’t think he’d keep a guy from signing with the Cubs. But when Correa changed agents it was reported that Boras would have to split the commission with the previous agent. When he signed essentially a one year deal speculation was that Boras was happy about that because he’d only have to split this year and then get all of the future deal. Whether that was a factor, I don’t know. I guess I don't understand why Correa would be down for that. I don't know what the Cubs offer was so maybe it wasn't the type of numbers we were talking about, but it seems like there's more chance for his value to go down after this year than go up. Some players just like betting on themselves though

No love lost between Scott Boras and the Cubs that's for sure. I'm also wondering which side is leaking that. Is this a "see we tried" leak from the Cubs? I don't see why Correa would take essentially a 1 year deal from the Twins over a "huge offer" from the Cubs because his newly signed agent is butt hurt over previous clients

lol, in The Ringer's preseason power poll. They never resist the chance to rip on the Ricketts cheapness

Isn't it supposed to snow here tomorrow and Friday? We might end up being the last 1st game of the season.

Found the optimist

I’ve seriously never seen a team that gets blown out almost literally every single time they play an elite team, much less a team that will end up as a top 6 seed. Something bizarre is happening. I’m sure the heavily concentration of their hardest games coming at the end of the season when they struggled with health plays into it but how is it possible that we never seem to even be able to catch a team on an off night? I mean to compare we are 1-20 assuming we don’t come back tonight against the top 7 teams in the league by win percentage and 44-13 against everyone else. I’ve never seen a disparity that bad

Thank you again to T-Mobile for acquiring Sprint. Still have to deal with a shitty network but at least when it works I get MLB.tv

Also saw this today regarding summer friendlies:

Seems like a lot of room for them to be wrong. Schwindel will probably turn into a pumpkin but he has a high ceiling based on what he showed last year (though his defense will weigh him down from a WAR perspective). Hard to say what to expect from Nico and Madrigal considering how oft injured they are, and stupid no-vaxer should be a WAR machine defensively depending on how much he plays. None of these projections like Wisdom's profile (and neither do i lol) but he has some upside. The OF actually projects fairly well. And finally I'm assuming that the bullpen is ZIPS least accurate position group to project. The Cubs have built adequate to good bullpens from table scraps for years now. The only thing I trust more than the Cubs ability to build a solid pen is the Ricketts ability to do the wrong thing. Schwindel had an xwOBA of .329 last year, 31st out of 56 first basemen with at least 200 PAs. And like you said, offense is his calling card. Simmons has not been a 'WAR machine' defensively the last two years, but hey, maybe at 32 he'll get some of that quickness and arm strength back. He's totally healthy in spring training right? Wisdom, 40.8% strikeout rate. And yes, the last couple of years by the time September rolls along our bullpen seems fine, but that's after it had sucked most of the year and then for whatever reason by next spring we end up back in the same spot. Simmons finished 3rd in baseball in dWAR last year (per BR, haven't checked FG). About as much of a WAR machine as you can be defensively. He sucked in 2020 but a lot of people had off seasons. Good point on Schwindel, never really looked into his numbers to see how sustainable his performance was. I assume flukey but I think he's started the spring continuing to hit well so I felt like there was upside.

That catching tanking seems really light. Contreras/Gomes combined for almost 4 WAR last year which would be too 3-5 at the position. Zips projects them for 3.6 WAR, it’s a top 4-7 catching set up in MLB, imo and should be good for 3.5-4.5 WAR or so on a reasonable projection with a little more ceiling potential. Seems like a lot of room for them to be wrong. Schwindel will probably turn into a pumpkin but he has a high ceiling based on what he showed last year (though his defense will weigh him down from a WAR perspective). Hard to say what to expect from Nico and Madrigal considering how oft injured they are, and stupid no-vaxer should be a WAR machine defensively depending on how much he plays. None of these projections like Wisdom's profile (and neither do i lol) but he has some upside. The OF actually projects fairly well. And finally I'm assuming that the bullpen is ZIPS least accurate position group to project. The Cubs have built adequate to good bullpens from table scraps for years now. The only thing I trust more than the Cubs ability to build a solid pen is the Ricketts ability to do the wrong thing.

It wasn’t an “oof” of surprise, it was an “oof” of ESPN reinforcing the awfulness of the roster. Their rosters at AAA and AA aren't in great shape either. It's Davis and a bunch of relievers and not much else. But don't call it a rebuild. They're in such a weird situation. It's not really a rebuild and its definitely not really a retool. Like mentioned its probably a high floor team (though could get derailed with injuries due to lack of depth - Miley already scheduled to miss 3-4 weeks is not a great start), but they also have the ability to add like $70m in salary like nothing and still not be top 5 in baseball. If the team shows potential maybe they go nuts at the deadline because as critical as I am about the Rickett's insane cheapness I'm confident they are using the Jerry Reinsdorf playbook of "I'm willing to spend big money if the team is a contender".

Why oof? That's right in the range I would expect them. Lower end of that range but still in there. Like the article points out the Cubs have built a high floor/low ceiling type of team IMO. It's hard to really project them so I'd expect most "experts" would go conservative on them.

Honestly this is the best owning of a rivalry since the Red Sox came back from down 0-3 to beat the Yankees.

I think AKME is good at maneuvering within the cap but a lot of our capital was eaten up. Pat Williams coming back may hurt his trade value and Coby’s is destroyed with his recent play. Vuc can be an ok chip as he’s expiring and flaws aside is still relatively productive, he just needs the right situation. I mean would they consider a S+T of LaVine? I know that’s a very unpopular suggestion but I’m not sure how far the Bulls can go with their 2 best players being 1 way players. But ultimately it seems stupid to give up a 24 year old multi-time all star so we can kill that idea. I’m not saying I’m in favor of it either, just thinking about potential ways to improve the team and not get stuck in purgatory. I bet AKME takes a shot at trading for Anthony Davis also

Now 1-19 against the top 7 records in the league with a combined point differential of -269 (average of -13 per game) Our point differential in the last 3 games against those teams is -73. Yeesh Good news (sarcastic) is the next 2 games are against that group (Milwaukee and Boston). Still in great shape to make the top 6 but it’s kind of hard to care knowing what’s awaiting us and what little upside the team has in its current form.

Hmm

Hendricks with 4 HRs allowed in his final spring tune up? Hope he was just working on some stuff

I guess the other good thing about the draw is that we are matched up against Group A in the round of 16. The runner up of B will probably play Netherlands, but the winner is looking at Senegal, Qatar or Ecuador

ELO model gives us tied for the lowest odds of advancing, though I'm not sure how accurate it can be without knowing the 4th team

Speaking of FOX they have to be loving this. Thanksgiving NFL game on Thursday, USA-England on Friday, Michigan-Ohio State on Saturday.

Again I know the flaws of the FIFA rankings but here is the average fifa ranking for each group. For playoffs, I took the highest ranked team possible A: 32 B: 15 C: 22 D: 18 E: 18 F: 20 G: 19 H: 28 To compare the US group of death in 2014 had an average ranking of 14.