Thusly Boned

Yeah, it's not looking good for them. I see a lot of their fans saying things like "this is fine if we get Yamamoto/Snell", but that's just pure copium; they're not getting either of those guys. I see Mozeliak going after Gray/Montgomery and calling it a rotation at that point. Snell would be a reach, Yamamoto I don't see as even being a remote possibility for them. Maybe they trade for Cease, but their realistic TOR options are few. They're not swimming in the deep end of the pool.

Nah, I think the 1/2 is a more traditional, lower cost swingman. Signing Lynn and slotting him into the rotation just smells like Mozeliak move, and is totally in line with how he operates. Even if Lynn is the "1/2", I think it's less than they need. They needed two of the better starters on the market, and if this is how they are allocating their funds, I do not see that happening. Despite all their historical success, that is not a franchise that has ever spent real money on FA SP, and they aren't going to have the player capital to win trade wars this offseason. No matter how you spin it, Lance Lynn is a "settle". Aging, slowing fastball, little upside. But he'll eat some innings. My prediction is that the "major" additions to STL's rotation are Lynn and one of Gray/Montgomery, which won't be enough. If they have any sense they'll trade Goldschmidt for SP while he still has value, but I think there's zero chance they do.

Yeah, there are a lot of options on the market, and to jump on Lance Lynn this early suggests to me that they have no intention to be major players in the SP scene. If you're Mozeliak and your SP solution is Lynn and Jordan Montgomery or something, you have failed. They either need to spend a lot of money or get creative, and this seems to indicate neither. Still early, but again, I would not feel good about this start if I were a Cards fan.

Realistically, the Cards need at least two good-very good SP, and Mozeliak said a while back the Cards need "2 1/2" starting pitchers, and if this is one of those, I am more than fine with that. If I were a Cards fan, I wouldn't feel great about the message this sends; I would read it as them not being willing to play in the expensive end of the pool (which has been their M.O. with regard to SP).

I'm right there with you. I loved what Bellinger gave us last year, but my confidence he can continue that is...shaky. I wouldn't mind having him back, but at the numbers being tossed around, I'd prefer the Cubs steer well clear. I don't know if the Cubs will sign Ohtani, but I am becoming increasingly confident they'll make as strong or stronger a play as any other team, and certainly can buy that the Cubs are prioritizing that pursuit well above Bellinger's.

That seems fair, but the problem is that his actions for the rest of the season seemed like adherence to that statement, well past the point where it made sense to. If he had adjusted when things were on their way down the drain, you could more justifiably frame it as criticism of a statement made out of context, but he didn't. Everything he did after saying that sure make it seem like that is just his ideology.

I don't hate Ross by any stretch, but I saw/heard things from him last year, particularly down the stretch, that I really didn't like. The whole "going with who got us here" thing really smacked of the sort of dogmatic, old school loyalist ideology that I just can't stand. His seeming unwillingness not to use what was given him down the stretch was on clear display. There were a lot of red flags there. The bullpen management stuff was in large part due to not having much to work with, but he still rode guys into the ground rather than take chances just play the hand he was dealt. Counsell has a rep as a "player's manager" but also as being intelligent/analytical. Obviously we don't have the perspective of fans who watched every Brewer game over the last 10 years, but from what I've seen he almost always makes what seem like the best, most "obvious" decisions in the moment. I don't trust Ross to do that, particularly after what I saw last year. I just feel more confident that Counsell will be a more pragmatic and analytical decision maker than Ross on a day to day basis, and really that is best anyone can hope for with a manager, imo. Obviously he's going to do things that piss us off, but that's just a given with any manager. As far as assigning a measurable value to Counsell v. Ross, that's a unscientific endeavor. But I am pretty certain its at least a marginal upgrade, and as so many are fond of pointing out when it comes to players, it's not my money. And if the "message" it sends helps us in the marketplace at all, it will have been worth it based on that alone, imo.

I love this.

I don't care about that, even. Not much to work with right now. For me it's the body of work with the bullpen mostly, lineup construction, and in game tactical decisions. All garbage.

It's a middling team that managed to play itself into contention and was undermined by their manager. It's been said that a manager can't really do a ton to improve a team, but can do a lot to screw it over, and imo we're seeing that. I'm not furious really, as I don't think this squad had/has much postseason run in it, but looking to the future Ross isn't the guy I want to be calling the shots if we get some actually well constructed teams.

No question about that, but Ross has managed to bungle things pretty badly. I think you have to cut him loose so he's not in a position to screw things up when we have legitimately good teams. We can see how his mind works, and it's not great

Chill out Sulley, it's not that bad

Our playoff chances were lost in that stretch against Colorado, Arizona, and Pittsburgh (where almost every pitching matchup heavily favored the Cubs), no doubt. And Ross steadfastly doing his "sticking with the guys that got us here" schtick.

And yet didn't call for the obvious safety squeeze earlier in the game. It's like he's optimized to make bad decisions.

I was fully prepared to see the Cubs lose 2 of 3 this series, or even get swept, but not quite this way. And horsefeathers Ozzie Albies, that guys just never fails against us.

That lineup is a murder machine

Ross is addicted to his guys. It's disgusting. I really don't want to hate Rossy, but we're getting there.

Now that I am looking at the exit velos, it seems like a fair bit of bad luck. Still really annoying, though.

Between this and Lyon Richardson, it's been a pretty aggravating run against pitchers we should be demolishing. This and Sunday's game are the ones the Cubs need to win.

To Happ, the Reds are usually about the same thing. I was just thinking it's odd that he hasn't done more damage this series

I'd sure like to have seen more help for the pen, but I'm largely all right with how this went. I think we've got a punchers chance, but there are a lot of holes, and I don't think the roster is strong enough to have justified going all in.

Wait, what the who?

My impression is that for whatever reason the Cards are really reticent to trade Goldschmidt, and would actually like to extend him beyond next year, which makes zero sense to me. Of course that may just be posturing, but to me that's guy you trade right now, as his value/production will only decline. Of course there's the notion that they won't be able to sell a rebuild to the fans there, which is why we probably won't see both he and Arenado go, even if that would be the right move.

I think he'll be good, but I don't think we ever see god mode Yelich again, unless he figures out some new sign stealing scheme

Going back a while, but I remember Hank Gathers and Reggie Lewis essentially dropping dead on the court, so I got the idea in my head at a relatively young age that it could happen, but you know how it is when you're young, death is still and abstract and you don't really feel it. To that point, I was pitching once ages ago (as a teenager) and had a vicious comeback liner actually take the hat off my head without hitting me directly, and I am definitely more disturbed by it now than I was then. An inch or two different, or a nanosecond slower on my reflexes, and who knows. I think of stories of people/kids getting felled by commotio cordis, and it's scary. We think of young athletes at the pinnacle of physical fitness as being impervious to stuff like this, but at the end of the day we're just a complex mess of meat and electricity, and there can be a wide array of underlying flaws and weaknesses that we aren't and will likely never be aware of, and may just need the right trigger. But you can't really dwell on it or it'll paralyze you. I think it's important to realize, commotio cordis is pretty rare. It takes the perfect storm of a bunch of different things happening at once. A hard hit, to a direct spot in the chest, at the exact time between heartbeats. The heart beats, rests and then beats again all within fractions of a second. But it's crazy, I played football in MS for 2 years, HS for 4, and 1 year in college and I never missed a practice. No broken bones, no head injuries. And it wasn't just me toughing out things. I legit never got injured. So, I wasn't really worried at all. I am a little more worried about my son, which is why when he wanted to play youth football at 6, I got into coaching because I wanted to be there and make sure he was doing things properly and being as safe as possible. I didn't want to trust anyone else to "protect" my son. He broke his wrist in football this year and I was like, "oh well, it happens". Sure didn't want him to be in pain, but bones heal even if sometimes incorrectly. Head injuries can have long term effects, but they don't typically kill you on the spot. I feel like I am more worried about a fastball to the face while he's at bat, or a line drive to the face when he's pitching (really hate him pitching). I am more worried about an elbow to the face in basketball and breaking an orbital bone and messing up his vision, or now his teeth now since he got braces right before Christmas. I'm guessing because I played football. I come from a huge football family. Nobody has had anything happened that has ended their career or threatened their life. And I have heard stories of people being really messed up from a baseball to the head. Of course, there are football players that get paralyzed, but I supposed I rationalize that by saying, "oh it's because he put his head down and hit with the crown". But that's probably stupid of me to dismiss. It's statistically rare for sure, as is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which I guess is the leading cause of death in young athletes. Especially when you consider the sheer number of players that churn through these sports (esp. a violent and high turnover league like the NFL). But still the knowledge that these things can happen shouldn't be forgotten. We're all becoming more aware of the mid-long term toll of playing football, but it's honestly kind of astounding that we don't see more serious acute injuries in football, given the forces at play, and how chaotic it can sometimes be. I played some amount of football, baseball, basketball, and track and field from sixth grade through high school, and never had anything worse than broken fingers, bruises, and hyperextensions, and though I played with people who had far worse, I took it for granted at the time, less so today (though I did write off football pretty early after a series of hits, because I knew I wasn't nearly good enough to justify the beating). I think part of that is just getting older and growing out of the complacency of youth, but also I think that generally speaking we're becoming more aware. That said, I think the reckoning around the health risks to players and health of former players the NFL is facing is just getting started, really.