UMFan83

It's funny because the offense has struggled in certain key areas over the last few years, but this year it seems like those same struggles on steroids and unrelenting. K rate is 30%, 7-75 coming into today with RISP, struggles against non-fastballs. We've seen this all before for 5-7 game stretches but they usually show signs of line. This offense has been flatlined since game 1

I'm 99% sure those are two different stats. My bad that's the record in a shutout. 18 is the NL record I think. 20 is the MLB record? Still doesnt sound right. LOB stats are sometimes calculated by the number of runners on base for each hitter. So like if the Cubs load the bases with 0 outs and then strike out 3 times, thats 9 LOB. But I believe the record you are referring to is LOB to end an inning. So in the previous scenario the LOB number is 3 instead of 9 because 3 men were on base when the inning ended. The maximum LOB in a 9 inning game would be 27.

How bad of a pitcher would you have to be to get lit up by the Cubs offense right now? We know that virtually anyone in the major leagues can shut them down. How about a middling AA pitcher? Maybe rookie ball? 3rd starter on a middle of the road northern state high school team?

We'll always have Spring Training 2021

I was thinking eh i havent turned on a Cubs game in like a week, its a bit slow this afternoon at work and the Cubs got the first 2 runners on, I'll put the game on in the background. 3 straight outs later and I think I've gotten my Cubs fix for the week.

I have to see the Cubs score more than 5 runs in a game before I can believe its even possible for them to score 9

If Theo is to believed from his exit press conference, Jed was always the guy pushing for change and moving on from guys and Theo was the guy who held on too long/was irrational about players/too attached. So at least Jed may realize what mostly all of us have the last 1.5-3 years and knows a team offensive profile like this doesn’t work moving forward. Sure but he did very little to change that dynamic this offseason, even despite a partial teardown by trading Yu for nothing of value over the next several years. If they were going to try to go with a "put all our faith in the pitch lab" strategy, why wouldn't you try to also change the dynamic of the offense when it was a well known weakness heading into the season. The more I think about it the more I realize that some of those signings the Cubs did make seem like they were made to be flipped at the deadline. The one thing the Cubs do have right now is a lot of attractive trade pieces for July and I think thats what were going to see happen in July. Sure they hoped that they could scratch together a quasi competitive season in a weak division, but assuming it didnt work out they were going to go into July ready to deal.

It comes down to this for me... Theo declared the offense "broken" nearly 30 months ago and they still have 7 of the 11 top players by Plate Appearances from 2018 on the team. They switched out Schwarber for his statistical clone in Pederson. And they switched out Zobrist, Russell and Almora for the far less talented trio of Sogard, Marsinick and Duffy. And they still have the same hitting coach. This is basically the same group of players that has gone through bizarre extended offensive droughts in each of the previous three seasons, including scoring 1 or 0 runs in 10 of the last 21 games last season. Why are they expecting an improved result? Not to mention that 3 of those 7 remaining guys are either going to walk after the season for a draft pick or get a very depressed value at the trade deadline. The FO can claim they were broke and couldnt add guys better than Descalso, but the opportunity was there if they wanted to shake up the team to get a ton more value after 2018. I'm not saying its easy to trade guys like Bryant or Javy, I'd have a hard time pulling the trigger too, and if the market sucked and they accepted a deal to trade lets say Kris Bryant for .75 on the dollar they would have been torn to shreds. Hindsight is 20/20 and we didnt know KB would deal with injuries that affected his performance, or that Javy's breakout was apparently a mirage. But even acknowledging the difficult situation they were in, they admitted the offense was broken but kept putting their faith in that same offense. No one player was the problem and each of them individually provided a good amount of value. But they combined to create an easily exploitable offense. This much was well known and obvious to even baseball idiots like me. They really misplayed their hand.

Did you ever think maybe being a biased Packers fan could play into your opinion? I've only seen the clips on twitter so I dont have the full picture. but he seemed ok but a bit awkward

I hate my favorite team so much

Has anyone ever traded for an all star and then immediately go 3-10 after? The Magic were 4-19 in their last 23 games coming into tonight. Unreal

Every other team in baseball has had at least 2 games where they've scored 6+ runs except the Mets (who have done it once and have only played 7 total games) and Cubs

This offense defies explanation. You'd think in 12 games you'd have at least one "baseball is random and mysterious" offensive breakout game. All the other bad offenses in baseball have had at least 1-2 so far. But the Cubs still haven't gotten even 6 runs in a game.

Best content I’ve seen the Cubs Twitter put out in awhile

Woo hoo 6 hits, the 3rd highest hit total of the season for the Cubs

Doesn’t help that the strike zone has shrunk to the size of a postage stamp

Is it just me or do the Cubs hit a lot of late go ahead runs at Miller Park or whatever it’s called now? There was the game last year with Heywards blast, the one where Rizzo homered against Hader but then still lost, the one in that critical 2017 series (though was only for the tie).

Damn that was slow KB

Is it bad that I checked the score, saw we had 3 hits and then briefly thought “oh that’s not too bad, 3 hits in 6 innings!”

I thought we were applauding the "bats bats bats" drafting strategy since pitchers are hard to develop and are always hurt? Yeah, in terms of wasting resources to try and develop a bunch of homegrown starting pitchers; that was, rightly, very "horsefeathers pitchers." But their intention was never to essentially develop NO pitchers, starters or relievers, which is just barely what didn't happen. Right...you’d think you’d stumble into a 3rd/4th starter or back end bullpen arm by accident over the span of 9 years. Sure give them kudos for guys like Hendricks who they partially developed and give them credit for having decent pitching staffs the last couple of years with mostly junk (in the pen at least) but it’s crazy how little they got out of 9 drafts pitching wise

Lets be honest, the rebuild didnt start until Theo took over. Jim Hendry was still trying to cobble together a decent team with tape at that point considering he was trading for Garza and signing guys like Carlos Pena to fill holes. Hard to find a point in time outlook of the Cubs roster/system at a given time but thinking back to the 2011-2012 offseason when Theo took over, it felt like our team was made up of overpriced declining veterans, and scrap pieces. The few exceptions were guys like Starlin (happ), Jeff Samardzija (hendricks), Cashner and I guess Sean Marshall. They had to run out the clock on players like Soriano (Heyward) until the years remaining on the deal were small enough to get anything of value. The biggest differences are the Cubs farm system was beyond abysmal in 2011 vs average now, and the payroll will drop sharply rather than gradually like it did between 2011-2014. So maybe you're right. I just don't think its a good idea for Jed to be looking at all the payroll clearing up this offseason and thinking he can spend the Cubs back into legit contention. I mean I want the Cubs to spend the money because horsefeathers the Ricketts but I dont think spending a bunch of money to build off of a foundation that's pretty bare is wise. I always get the first Theo/rebuild year messed up. The system may be just a average right now, but it really is pretty close to a top 10 system and is only going to get stronger/grow. The basis for new rebuild is so much better/higher now. And there should be a lot of money to spend. FO are smarter now too, I don’t see Jed giving our Pujols type deals or whatever to horsefeathers us spending in to a rebuild. There is a path to matchup the prospects coming up and reasonable/smart spending and trading for the rebuild and not get stuck in payroll hell or whatever. I don’t know enough about the Cubs system to comment too deeply (maybe I should start paying attention again) but I feel like “just wait it’s about to be a top 10 system” is something that fans of any system that’s in that 11th-25th range are saying. But you could be right, it’s obviously had to accurately rank systems given the lack of milb the last 2 years. And I doubt Jed only targets 17 year olds during any sell off the Cubs may have

Aging curves are getting younger and prospects are emerging at younger ages, the COVID year and this year may throw a wrench in that to a degree but it’s not crazy to see that all of Davis, Amaya, Howard, some of the Yu trade guys and some recent draft/IFA guys are ready to go within 2 years. Plus whatever we get in any sell off trades this year/offseason and any draft picks/IFA (if they really suck there’s extra IFA money and higher picks) guys the next 2 years. Plus there’s guys like Strumpf who won’t be a star but could be a solid player ready soon and there’s a lot of pitching closeish. I don’t think it will require a 2010-2014 type suck fest this time. Conceivably it’s just this year and next year of a semi tank/suck fest. There’s legit star potential in Davis, Howard, some of the Yu guys and Hernandez. Lets be honest, the rebuild didnt start until Theo took over. Jim Hendry was still trying to cobble together a decent team with tape at that point considering he was trading for Garza and signing guys like Carlos Pena to fill holes. Hard to find a point in time outlook of the Cubs roster/system at a given time but thinking back to the 2011-2012 offseason when Theo took over, it felt like our team was made up of overpriced declining veterans, and scrap pieces. The few exceptions were guys like Starlin (happ), Jeff Samardzija (hendricks), Cashner and I guess Sean Marshall. They had to run out the clock on players like Soriano (Heyward) until the years remaining on the deal were small enough to get anything of value. The biggest differences are the Cubs farm system was beyond abysmal in 2011 vs average now, and the payroll will drop sharply rather than gradually like it did between 2011-2014. So maybe you're right. I just don't think its a good idea for Jed to be looking at all the payroll clearing up this offseason and thinking he can spend the Cubs back into legit contention. I mean I want the Cubs to spend the money because horsefeathers the Ricketts but I dont think spending a bunch of money to build off of a foundation that's pretty bare is wise.

I think how the pitching does this year will tell us how long of a dip there needs to be. With reasonable estimates for Arb raises, the Cubs have an ~$85M payroll heading into next next year. That's less than half of even this season's depressed payroll. So even with the PTR factor, there's something like a hundred million available to Jed this offseason. That's not enough to build a playoff caliber team on its own, but if the pitching is in mostly good shape it IS enough to build a playoff caliber offense on its own. But are we going to rebuild an entire offense by throwing money at FA? Maybe taking on salary in a trade? I just feel like the situation is not the same but similar to where we were in 2012. There are no franchise cornerstones to build around once Rizzo, Bryant and Javy leave. Our biggest assets are guys like Contreras, Hendricks and Ian Happ and you'd think the latter 2 are the closest thing we can call to franchise cornerstones due to being youngish, not sucking, and under contract for multiple seasons after this year. We can use the pitching lab to cobble together decent staffs (taking your example as an assumption), but I can't see us building a championship caliber club with FA money and very little young cheap talent. I mean there is literally 1 position player in the Top 30 of the Cubs farm system that is currently above A ball. Doesn't seem like we should expect anything there for awhile.

This has been my experience and one I anticipated happening if the time ever arrived that the Cubs somehow won a World Series. For me, I knew that my passion would wane a bit because it was the one thing I wanted to experience, and one thing that seemed like it couldn't actually happen. It's like beating Tyson for the first time on Punchout. What I didn't expect is that I would be this passionless before the contracts of the core were even up. I've found this team to be horribly boring the last couple years and then ownership was the cherry on top. I also am pissed at myself that I've actually started to not like any of these players that won the only championship I cared about because of the train wreck this has become by the end. I'm really happy now that Dexter left, because I only have fond memories. This sums up how I feel well. It's hard to describe to fans of other teams why 2018-2021 has been so unbelievably frustrating without sounding spoiled but its like the frustrations over underperforming expectations, combined with the political horsefeathers, the acquisition and enabling of bad character players, the ownership crying poor at the tail end of a designed competitive window, almost no help from the minors, FO proclaiming the offense is broken and doing virtually nothing to fix it. Now the window is going to end with a whimper - either WS heroes being traded for $0.25 on the dollar in July or them walking away from the team in November leaving us nothing but a compensation pick. At least our farm system has risen to "average" so maybe we get some production out of it soon, and we should have money to spend, but if all the cornerstones of the franchise leave this offseason, its hard to see us avoiding another multi-year rebuild. In fact its probably better that we do as opposed to throwing money at cobbling together a 78 win team.

2018 was fun for 5 months until the Brewers went nuts in September. They won 95 games though. That’s a fun team. The rest I agree with. 2017 was a slog outside of the last 2 months or so. Of course, it did have the benefit of clinching the division on one day in St Louis and then, IIRC, knocking the Cards out of the playoffs the next day. The NLDS win against the Nationals was super fun even though we couldn’t hit for horsefeathers (sound familiar?). But I have always thought that expectations were the reason 17 and 18 didn’t feel as good as they should have. They averaged 93.5 wins those 2 years and made the playoffs but we believed they were a 100 win juggernaut with young players that would still be improving. Obviously that was not the case