UMFan83

Yeah, of a ton of things to be upset about with the Cubs management, not resigning Lester seemed pretty logical. Yeah, as bad as our rotation has been I'd still prefer all 5 of our guys to Jon going forward Really? For $2.5m more than we paid Trevor Williams we could have gotten Lester who couldn’t pitch much worse than what Williams has given us.

Rizzo hits a sacrifice fly off Lester to Schwarber, scoring Contreras

The Bulls are such a bad tanking team. They came into the night with 26.3% odds of keeping their first round pick and thus drafting in the top 4. They won a meaningless game against the Bucks G-League team while the Pelicans and Kings lost, taking their odds down to 19% or so. In isolation whatever but the Bulls have consistently done this during their rebuild but this time it’s not the difference between picking top 4 and 7th, it’s the difference between top 4 and not having a 1st rounder

Another case where replay is not being decided on indisputable evidence. He was probably safe but called out on the field and there was no way you could prove the ball wasn’t in Rizzo’s glove before the runner touched the bag. Doesn’t mess with the result of the game but still adds a run to Kyle’s era

If he can get through the 9th on 3 pitches he has himself a Maddux

Tweet has been deleted. Pink hat guy passed away Lmao and he’s actually still alive. Disregard. Fairly irresponsible to tweet that given his audience on Twitter

People were asking where he was earlier this year... https://twitter.com/crawlyscubs/status/1393980959515717635?s=21

And we lose

I usually ignore Bears offseason workouts and don’t pay attention until the season starts. Fields has never had me this hyped for the Bears I can’t get enough of reading about this horsefeathers. And finally a video of him throwing in Bears gear:

Perfectly placed single Bloop single Walk Infield single perfectly placed. Damn you BABIP gods

Lol this could be a brutal inning. 2nd and 3rd 0 outs and a run in already

Never expected to get anything close to this level of production out of Duffy. And I realize his OPS is in the low-.600s but he seems to actually get horsefeathers done in key spots. SSS though

I’m running out of patience too. Whatever they thought they could fix...hasn’t worked. It’s still only mid-May but he’s not showing progress.

Here’s an article about Mitch’s rookie first minicamp practice: https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/bears/ct-mitch-trubisky-1st-practice-bears-spt-0513-20170512-story.html Definitely not as effusive of praise as Fields got yesterday but pretty positive sounding overall. Same general themes: very accurate, quickly learning the playbook, ability to take snaps under center, etc

I was gonna just keep posting in the Indians game thread for laughs but couldn’t help myself Cubs up 4-0 in the first game of the series

Guess the wrist is ok

I don't care if its fluff and the same things were said about practices from Rex and Mitch, I'm buying in.

Yeah, considering how freaking terrible he has been for pretty much his entire Cubs career, he's come through probably more often than he should have. 4 identified clutch hits in ~ 2,400 PA’s in 5+ years for a premier FA signing. Not bad. Like I said, it’s probably not a good thing that they easily jump out at me because they were 4 times he’s actually come through. That said there are more big hits and relative to his overall performance I’m not sure if he is particularly unclutch. He just hasn’t been good much of the time so he doesn’t come through all that often, but maybe statistics show otherwise. I don’t think he has had bad ABs in clutch situations like where he’s trying too hard and swinging at junk. I think he has a tendency to take strikes earlier in the count as he’s trying to work the count in his favor to get a pitch that he won’t roll over (though he often rolls over it anyways).

That’s exactly what they are doing And every NFC team has 9 road games this year so there are no competitive issues like competing for a playoff spot against a team that had 9 home games

The alternating H/R thing is so bizarre, I don't think I've ever seen that before but ultimately it doesn't mean much. The very toughest games seem fairly spaced out which is good.

This was the Cubs 7th straight 1 run game, and 9th out of their last 10. Incredible. Cubs are 5-4 in those games

Probably not great that I can easily pick moments he's come through because they stand out that much but 4 quick ones I can think of: -Walk off single against the Mets earlier this season -Go ahead 3 run HR off of Hader in the 9th of a game the Cubs were trailing -Walk off grand slam against the Phillies in 2018 -Game winning single in Jon Lester 1 hitter against the Giants in 2016

Up and down the roller coaster we go

So the Bears are tied for the biggest underdogs of week 1? lol

Now that the Bulls are 99.9% eliminated from playoff contention, where we do they go from here? Admittedly I didnt watch them a ton but I follow whats going on fairly consistently. Our 2 best players in terms of on/off court numbers are Thad Young and Garrett Temple, both guys who are short term. The Bulls have been 4 points worse when Vuc is on the court (though likely hurts that most of his time has been without Lavine). Furthermore they are 12 points worse when Patrick Williams is on the court. Concerning but he's shown flashes and is super young. His ceiling is still there but its still a lowish probability ceiling. If I'm reading correctly, the Bulls are about $15m under the cap next year but only have 9 players under contract (will lose Lauri, Theis, Temple, Valentine). They do not own their first round pick in 2 of the next 3 years most likely. They aren't in a terrible position at all but not in a great one either. How do the Bulls get better? They can run it back and hope that the team gels around Vuc-Lavine and hope Williams takes a step, they could mix it up a bit since most of their assets have some value (unlike the dying days of the Butler era). Still think their best chances of success are either: they get lucky and get a top 4 pick this year, Patrick Williams makes a giant developmental leap, and/or a star forces their way to Chicago.