UMFan83

Every day around this time I convince myself that the offense will get going again, the slumps are not forever and they are clearly better than they’ve played. And then the next game starts and we’re popping up mistake pitches over the heart of the plate and it feels like we’ll never get it going. Even though the Brewers don’t even matter for us anymore their continued historic play makes it even worse as it just feels like the universe is conspiring against us for some reason. Then I think about what a cesspool Chicago sports has been for going on 8 years now and I wonder what we’ve done to deserve this. We did get 4 championships in the 2010’s which is better than most cities can say in a given decade but I think we’ve more than made up for that by having 2 total playoff wins (4 if you include the White Sox in the last 8 seasons). I don’t think the city deserves another playoff missing collapse so hopefully the Cubs get it together soon and make it, even if we just lose 2 straight games scoring 1-2 runs like we did in 2018 and 2020.

The Brewers being up 12-0 in a game started by Skenes might be the most predictable thing ever

5 balls and 1 strike in that strikeout by PCA

PCA is struggling so badly that teams are repeatedly pitching around CARSON KELLY to face him

When I saw that he was posting in the food thread I expected it to be something like “hey guys I finally got around to eating at this McDonalds place everyone is talking about and I’m going to spend the next 2 weeks making posts reviewing everything on the menu”

Will you feel that way after the Cubs don’t reinvest that money or reinvest like 60% of it in middling SPs they think they can fix and pocket the rest for Vance 28?

At least we can still say that the Cubs are the most recent team to beat the Brewers even though we haven’t played them for 2 weeks. 26-4 is tied for the best 30 game stretch in MLB history

Oh my sweet summer child

Cubs getting blown out, Reds blowing out the Phillies and Brewers beating Skenes, perfect night.

No

Look people can hate on Assad for a variety of reasons but playing a top 3 offense in the league on the road in his first start of the season mid-August is a tough assignment

Which game will the Cubs randomly score 8 runs in to make the offense look decent and avoid the sweep?

Cubs only hit through 3 innings is a routine GB to the SS that was inexplicably thrown late

Of course he throws 50 pitches and doesn’t give up a run.

Suzuki fail

The Cubs were in 1st place 15 days ago. Now we’re the 2nd place team that’s farthest away from being in 1st. Thats wild

Anyone interested in joining a fantasy football league this season with NSBB Legends like IMB!, David (AI functionality turned off), raw and other high volume, low quality posters like UMFan83? This is our 3rd season and it's been a pretty competitive league. Small buy-in, fairly standard positions and scoring. NO KICKERS though. Looking for 1-3 teams to join, drafting in 2 weeks. Let me know if interested.

My kids would giggle and say something about "67". I still dont know what it means though

I feel like there are 2 parts to processing: pre-snap and post-snap. Pre-snap can likely be fixed with good coaching and repetition. Post-snap is harder to fix. But if he can be able to read a defense prior to the snap, the post-snap processing will maybe limit his ceiling a bit but his physical gifts will still allow him to be a very good QB IMO. Josh Allen was criticized quite a bit his first 2 years for having slow processing time but obviously managed to become an elite QB. Cam Newton also struggled to go through progressions for much of his career but his speed and size allowed him to overcome a lot of that and become an effective QB. It's not a great sign if Caleb is struggling to go through progressions, late on reads, etc but there's a reason he was the 1st overall pick, he has elite traits that could allow him to overcome this if it continues to be an issue. I'm not really reading much into anything preseason anyways, he's basically going through boot camp trying other erase everything he learned as a rookie and trying to run what is a pretty complex offense. Unlike Nagy and Eberflus, it doesn't seem like they are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, Ben Johnson has stated repeatedly that the offense is being build around Caleb's strengths and based on his track record I trust that he will follow through on that.

From September 18-September 25th we play 7 straight games against the Reds and Mets (right before ending the season against the Cardinals). Really hope those aren't meaningful outside of seeding.

No I completely hear you. I'm in the same boat. The worst thing is, out of the 4 major Chicago owners the Ricketts are maybe 1st or 2nd in terms of best ownerships. But they still suck and it's pretty clear that they aren't going anywhere anytime soon and not going to change how they operate. But at the very least they put us in a better position to be decent year over year than Reinsdorfs teams and probably the McCaskeys.

I am not sure. I mentioned just as speculation what if it's one of those things where he can get surgery or play on it at less than 100%. Surgery would cost put him on the shelf 6-8 weeks but playing through it still gives us a guy getting on base 38% of the time. Perhaps they thought he could play through it and be fine, but he's struggling and now its too late in the season to have surgery. Of course this is all just speculation, his bat speed has gone way down starting July 1st but he injured his finger June 1st and had one of this better months. Maybe he played on it and hurt it worse at some point? Or maybe the finger isn't an issue at all and he's just in a bad funk.

Reading on twitter that the Statcast broadcast was breaking down Tucker’s hitting before and after the finger injury and it seems like he’s had a significant decline in bat speed and other areas that would suggest he’s not 100%. How long would it take to heal that finger? Is it one of those things where he needs surgery that will keep him out 2 months but can play through it if it doesn’t hurt him so he’s grinding it out? (Seems counterproductive when you are trying to earn a $500m payday) Because the Cubs need superstar Tucker desperately. You can see how teams are pitching the Cubs knowing that Tucker is not hitting like himself. We go back to having a lineup that has several good to very good hitters but no one that teams have to gameplan around.

Likely even with this slump he's going to be worth 6 wins this year. It would definitely be a bad thing to lose a 6 win player for nothing.