Agony and Ivy

Rogers blows. He loves when the Cubs struggle more than when they dominate. I chalk that up to the class of fan that believes he knows what he's talking about

Contreras does not suck at this baseball thing.

That wasn't even a bad pitch.

Alleged 9:05 central start time

Jesus Christ. Multi run leads never seem to be easy in the 9th

Ian Happ is fast but he runs like Hunter Pence and I don't like it.

Is the camera on balls in play darker or is it just me?

If we would've paused as the ball went past Teheran and we took bets, I would've bet $100 Phillips makes the horsefeathering play because horsefeathers him

Teheran's scoreless streak against the Cubs now at 34255 innings

I mean if the Orioles say the Cubs can only have Britton if they take Jones too, then sure sign me up. If not, I really don't want his awful defense and .301 OBP anywhere near this team I mean that's a slight exaggeration. While he's not a big OBP guy (career .317), he's been a decent fielding CF during his career, and Wrigley's CF was small enough to convince people Dexter Fowler was really a good CF all along or something. Doooooongs from up the middle, plus nice and low commit as he's a FA after next year. Even excluding the defense he's following up a 2016 season wRC+ of 96 with a 90. That makes him what? A 1 win player for almost $18m?

He's awful. Striking out a career low and walking a career high. Eddie Butler is just as good. There's a whole lot of data being ignored in this take of Teheran. Why is it a good idea to ignore alll other info about Teheran except this season's results? This is particularly the case when the Cubs just traded for a normally healthy and quality SP who was underperforming. I like Teheran a whole lot unless his arm is injured this year. Normally he does a whole lot of stuff well, and he's all of 26 this year with a long track record of pro success. Again, Quintana and Teheran aren't in the same universe. If Quintana had just continued what he was doing this year he would've ended with a more productive season than any single season in Teheran's career.

Quintana and Teheran aren't even in the same conversation, and I would argue that Teheran has always been pretty worthless. -0.2, 0.2, 2.5, 3.2, 1.2, 3.2, -0.1 Those are his fWAR in his career. Combine his less than mediocre track record with his declining velocity and he's a hard pass. Those first two seasons have a combined 25 IP, they're irrelevant. He's also consistently outproduced his FIP, his full seasons by bWar are 3.2, 3.9, 1.5, and 4.8. His velocity hasn't declined. He's been a very good pitcher for a number of years, if you don't like him for whatever reason that's okay but if you're going to resort to histrionics like comparing him to Butler or saying he's 'always been pretty worthless' it undermines the point. If anything, now is the ideal time to explore trading for Teheran. His trade value is at its lowest, and he doesn't bear the weight of saving the rotation since they've already added Quintana. He's extremely durable(11th most IP since he entered the league, right with Hamels and Verlander) yet is still only 26 and you have him for 2.5 seasons. He out produced his FIP in a pitcher friendly park with non juiced baseballs. His K% is down to 16.7% and his walk rate is up to 8.9%, that's not histrionics at all. I'll cede the velocity point since it's just his 4 seam and it's not even down a full tick. He's always had a dinger problem and now he's got a walk and a strikeout problem to go along with it, which are things I don't like in pitchers for some reason. But he does dominate the Cubs, so maybe they could trade for him before the game tonight?

Quintana and Teheran aren't even in the same conversation, and I would argue that Teheran has always been pretty worthless. -0.2, 0.2, 2.5, 3.2, 1.2, 3.2, -0.1 Those are his fWAR in his career. Combine his less than mediocre track record with his declining velocity and he's a hard pass.

The Brewers face Gio, Scherzer and Roark according to ESPN..... I was just going off something from one of the game threads. I don't even know when they play. Your biggest takeaway should've been that we're about to get dickslapped by Sean Rodriguez and all his intangibles.

He's awful. Striking out a career low and walking a career high. Eddie Butler is just as good.

Sean Rodriguez finally activated after losing an arm this offseason. Just in time to spark the Braves on their playoff run. We can't catch a single break, while the Brewers won't have to face Scherzer in their series with the Nats.

Yeeeeeeesss pleeeeeeasssseeee I'll take Adam Jones too I mean if the Orioles say the Cubs can only have Britton if they take Jones too, then sure sign me up. If not, I really don't want his awful defense and .301 OBP anywhere near this team

If you want some fun, you can go read Szymborski's interactions with Braves fans yesterday when he said it was a mirage. Basically, Braves fans chalk up the differential to Bartolo and Dickey being terrible, but can't come to grips with the fact that Freeman/Adams/Flowers have all played above their heads. I enjoyed reading it.

Not sure how folks feel about Teheran, but he could probably be had for less than what Beane wants for Gray I'd imagine, given his rough season and also inconsistent history over the last couple of years. But his age and contract fits in well with what Theo is after. And he doesn't have the injury history that Gray has. I've never really liked him at all. He's currently at -0.1 fWAR and projected to be worth another 0.9 WAR. He's pretty bad and I wouldn't want to give up much of anything because the Braves won't be paying his contract.

It really is stupid that we're worrying about the Brewers. Picked up a game on them and the Cardinals lost. Today was a good day.

This isn't going to end well today. Vogt is about to dong and tie this stupid game

It's the Phillies so it might not even last an inning, but it would be really nice for the Cubs to be rewarded for this weekend by picking up a game. Pfffft the Phillies lockdown bullpen has this horsefeathers on ice now.

Phillies just hit a grand dong to take a 5-2 lead because the Brewers bullpen is so good.

Man Bryant just looks lost at the plate....

Was Kaplan the one who said they paid too much for Quintana?