Jason Ross

Man, I can't count. I just told my students how I failed Algebra 2 three times today.

Freddy on short rest is better than fully rested Fred.

I think they did it for exactly this reason. They knew Priester and Q are bad matchups. So they tried to go BP game Monday and steal it, then back to Wrigley and the wind for their two bad ones. Save Freddy for 5 if needed.

Lefties in the inning: HR, BB, BB, Single.

Damn thought he got that down.

He's been meatballing the cutter to LHH's since August and he's throwing it 13% more. Wrote a whole thread on it.

Guess what pitch that was?! GUESS WHAT horsefeathers PITCH THAT WAS?

That sets up a weird situation. If we want to claim that it wasn't "ordinary effort" to make that play, all infielders should do is pretend they can't see it in the future and get a free double play.

William Contreras' single had an xBA of .000

It's an adjustment. However this isn't entirely true; he hit really well on the outer third over the last about 10 games in the regular season showing a really strong approach adjustment as pitchers had moved to the outer third in the plate over the month of September. It hasn't been a good playoffs for him in that regard, but I do think part of this is "young hitter + really good pitchers + very amped up"

Some of this would check out; the pitch Vaughn hit has terrible data over the last four years. It is not a pitch hitters do well on (location, pitch, handedness...). I found a single instance of a RHH hitting a HR on a LHH sweeper in that spot. I still don't think they're cheating illegally. Them gaining that advantage? Yeah I'd buy that.

This is a league spray chart on regular season games from 2021-2025 on sweepers (the pitch Imanaga gave up to Vaughn) and the location of the plate in which it was thrown, while also being only thrown from LHP to RHH. It's a pitch location that is rarely hit for home runs (just one instance) and is almost always an out. To clarify where the pitch was, it was #7 - well off the inside of the plate - it was not a strike: Your initial point might be to somehow blame Imanaga for that. That because he's so good at allowing home runs, his sweeper which has graded out better than league average in shape since coming into the league, was super easy to hit - but that's just not accurate. His pitch to Willson Contreras is much worse. I'm not going to defend him on that one. But three of the runs scored on that swing and it was pretty damn lucky. This idea, again, that this was some fireable offense is exactly what was said prior; it is hyperbole.

I'm hoping that a big moment early can help give the crowd some juice.

God I hope so. 9pm est starts for Cubs/Brewers are stupid as hell.

Ah, my bad. I was going to say - Brock is kind of the dude here haha. Probably wouldn't get much help. I'll admit, I don't think there's any cheating occurring. I think the Cubs are just not playing well. But hey, I'm here for the gumption.

One of those people is he who owns the site, so I'm not sure much help will be coming to you in this regards, my friend.

You're good! I want to defend Shota where and when I can. His pitch to Contreras was much worse.

I have issues with Hoyer, but one thing people will find a hard time really finding is money Hoyer spent poorly. The worst contracts he's handed out have been to like Trey Mancini and Tucker Barnhart. He's given out very little bad long term money and the Cubs have finished with 83 wins+ three years running. The issue in those years really isn't his inability to determine value, but what I would say is too strict of a value proposition. He tends to draw hard lines in the sand and it leaves the Cubs a player short.

I'm going to disagree a little here. Vaughn's home run was on a sweeper in and off the plate. It wasn't a strike. It was middle-middle, but sweepers off the plate there are not Here is a spray chart of sweepers, in the same hitting zone from LHP to RHH since 2021. It's not pretty. Credit to Vaughn.

Every MLB team is capable of spending more money than they do. As a fan of the Chicago Cubs, I first-and-foremost want the Chicago Cubs to act more in line with what they are capable of. Money spent doesn't guarantee outcomes, as you pointed out, anecdotal evidence of the Mets not making (and the Reds and Brewers making it) exist. But spending money generally gives you a far softer floor than not, and teams who don't spend money tend to yo-yo being horrible and good far more often.

The World Series was really cool! Wrigley Field looks nice! I think these are base expectations for an ownership; maintain a baseball field and put the Chicago Cubs in a position to win baseball games. The field update isn't one of simple generosity, as it's turned him into a real estate mogul and made him plenty. And the WS should be more attributed to the Cubs FO and players. I can't entirely take these things away from him. But I'm also not going to say I like him because of it. Was it better than previous owners? Sure. But I think two things can be true at once; I don't like Tom Ricketts and think he's not nearly as invested in making the Cubs a good baseball team as he should be. He has put forth more effort than some previous owners.

From reports, it wasn't that Tom vetoed Bregman. Reports are that the money was there to sign Bregman and the reason he went to Boston was the opt-out after year-1. The Cubs offered an opt out after year-2. This was the biggest reason why he isn't here.

I'm going to premise this with this: I hate Tom Ricketts and I think he sucks. But I don't actually blame the budget fully here. The reality is that while I blame PTR plenty (ex. post covid-sell off, the 2017 budget drop, the fact he refuses to blow through an LT line ever) I don't think that budget reasons are ally a cause for how much we're seeing Hoyer keep the prospects. Frankly, regardless of budget, you don't need as many DH, 1b, and OF'ers as the Cubs kind of have right now. For example, what is the pathway for Jonathon Long to play with the Cubs? He's a 1b, but the Cubs have Busch. He didn't hit LHP particularly well despite being a RHH, so platoon at 1b isn't really in the data. He can't play 3b, LF or RF with any real MLB ability. At DH he's going to compete with Caissie, Ballesteros, Suzuki in some capacity. Yet, here we are. You can play this game a bit for most of the prospects, particularly, the offensive ones. I think a lot of this reason is that Hoyer has placed X value on Long, similarly, with Caissie, Ballesteros, etc, etc. and the value prop for Hoyer is that he has to equal out that value prop in a deal. There seem to be a lack of ability to get a bit irrational, either with money or prospects to make the thing really happen. And in part, I commend him for it! It's why his worst deals are like, Tucker Barnhart and Trey Mancini. But also probably why the Cubs will lack the ability to win a massive FA or swing a massive trade because to make those happen it's usually a requirement than some irrationality comes in. He can grab pretty good trades; Parades two deadlines ago, Kittredge. Even Tucker kind of falls short of massive in that he was a one-year thing on paper.

Exactly. And even if we want to say "well the SP market was insane" (I tend to believe the price on Cabrera and Alcantara, from what Zumach has said, is within a price I would have paid, but let's for a moment assume that's not the case) then you pivot to RP. Let's say the Cubs had, Bednar instead of Taylor Rogers. Do you just BP game it on Game 1 instead? With the rest the Cubs BP had the day prior, and the next day, Bednar, Palencia, Thielbar, Keller, Pomeranz, Kittredge is likely enough to find 27 outs. But when you're missing Bednar and instead have four versions of "long relief in losing games" (Soroka, Rea, Civale, Brown) it begins to limit the BP-of-death ability. Honestly, I think Jed Hoyer is a pretty good guy to have run a team, but his biggest flaw IMO is that he tends to stick to strongly to his valuations.