Transmogrified Tiger

They hit their fair share(looking at you Happ), although there is a selfish and possibly illogical part of me that thinks a deader ball benefits the Cubs since their power hitters are generally hitting the bejeezus out of their home runs. Mostly this is taking a frustrating game to make the point that it really dampens the aesthetics to have random fly balls carry out all the time. I mean, you just had one of the most demonstrative players around completely unsure what was happening and the ball was 5 rows up on a day that isn’t terribly windy. Deaden the ball, and lower the mound as a counter-measure if you have to, give me offense that is actually earned instead of winning a game of fly ball dice. The Cubs should have less pitchers that throw BP fastballs down the dick. If you want to make that into an actual argument, I think you can tie it to the Cubs’ emphasis on durability. It’s no accident they’ve had such good fortune with pitcher health, and part of that is that they haven’t emphasized SP who throw 100 mph crazyballs. The downside of that approach is that even though those pitchers(Lester, Hendricks, Quintana) are good in the aggregate, they’re going to be more prone to bad luck if the environment is different. They did change their approach a bit this past offseason with Darvish and Chatwood though, Chatwood is particularly successful at the ‘can’t hit a home run if I never throw a strike’ philosophy.

I would much rather watch a season’s worth of pitcher’s duels than this blernsball nonsense that essentially becomes a game of home run roulette, especially at Wrigley. You're just saying that since capitalizing on cheap dongs is the one thing the Cubs inexplicably can't get in on. They hit their fair share(looking at you Happ), although there is a selfish and possibly illogical part of me that thinks a deader ball benefits the Cubs since their power hitters are generally hitting the bejeezus out of their home runs. Mostly this is taking a frustrating game to make the point that it really dampens the aesthetics to have random fly balls carry out all the time. I mean, you just had one of the most demonstrative players around completely unsure what was happening and the ball was 5 rows up on a day that isn’t terribly windy. Deaden the ball, and lower the mound as a counter-measure if you have to, give me offense that is actually earned instead of winning a game of fly ball dice.

If MLB is pretending the ball is the same, it’s not getting fixed. Wait until they make every stadium use the humidor and every game is 3-2. Exciting times ahead. Getting shutout from here on out is going to be a blast. I would much rather watch a season’s worth of pitcher’s duels than this blernsball nonsense that essentially becomes a game of home run roulette, especially at Wrigley.

I am so sick of watching home runs that were barely squared up or skied way too high carry out, please fix the stupid ball already

Agreed. And over 30 pitches at that. Now he’s unavailable tomorrow He hadn’t pitched since Tuesday.

Really puts Rizzo’s HR(to LCF no less) in perspective

How do you fail to make contact with a bunt on a center cut 91 mph fastball

also, this is a good time to be thankful replay exists, because players wouldn't even try those slides because umps were so conditioned to just call guys out when the throw beat them there. Thank you, instant replay.

the body control is just insane, I pulled back a hand like that in a game last year and ended up flopping onto my back like I was Tommy La Stella or something

it's just real nice when you're on the right side of 'unheralded rookie scorches everything for a few months because no one has the book on him yet'

what type of trashbag OF shift was that

More 0 and 1 walk games and Rucker will be just fine, but he's been surprisingly bad so I don't want to go too high too fast. I drive the Rucker bandwagon but not off a cliff.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHC/chicago-cubs-salaries-and-contracts.shtml FA's by year post-2018: Wilson 2019: Strop, Zobrist, Cishek, Smyly, Duensing 2020: Hendricks, La Stella, Morrow, Quintana, Chatwood, outside chance of Lester's option being declined 2021: Lester(if not the year before), Rizzo, Bryant, Russell, Baez, Schwarber, Montgomery 2022: Contreras, Edwards, Almora

[tweet] [/tweet] Javy at leadoff and no Zobrist against Shields' changeup seems like a suboptimal idea, but when you're hot you're hot

The NL Central is about to be 15-2 since Tuesday morning

Yes, the house of cards we've constructed assuming Chatwood is not going to make playoff starts being the 5th starter on a team with a better SP rehabbing TJS is quite unstable. Even in the negative outcome he's not starting til the NLCS and making a max of 2 playoff starts. It's okay that you forgot that he'd be out of the playoff rotation as the 5th starter.

so you're saying he's an innovator

And cost us at least one winnable playoff game Chatwood is only going to make the postseason roster if a SP is hurt

Kris 'but what if his power is gone' Bryant now with a .316 IsoP.

I don't have strong opinions on Casey, but you can make the argument that on a team that has no short term path to superstars, they need someone stronger tactically than him. As an example, this piece focusing on Korver and Love mentions how Casey didn't stop leaving Valanciunas on that tandem til the series was over, despite their pick/switching action running them ragged. http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/23445056

So what type of monkey's paw outcome have you unleashed here, Chatwood throws a no-hitter but tomorrow gets arrested for human trafficking?

DC United dropping the better part of 20 million to add Wayne Rooney is...exactly the type of thing that will keep them at the bottom of the league

MLS games are pretty fun, they're the closest I've seen to taking the college sports atmosphere/pageantry and translating to pro sports. And the Fire are among the weaker gameday environments in the league too. Do they want to try to move Chicago Fire there? Are they trying to turn this team into an MLS team? That's certainly not going to help the conspiracy theory among Fire fans that their absentee owners want to move the team.

Machado broke out offensively in 2015, the same year TLS was traded to Chicago. Since then, LaStella has a .346 wOBA against RHP, Machado is .361. Ultimately the point here isn’t so much about La Stella or Machado, it’s that the Cubs are so deep that they aren’t going to benefit very much from the positional flexibility that Machado(or any other target) provides.