David

did we ever ask leon if he likes thick onion gravy?

He was like 2nd in DRS at SS in all of MLB even with his missed games, unless he has some degenerative issue in his shoulder/arm he’s the SS of the next decade roughly no questions asked decade seems a bit much not even to mention the position being discussed and the plantar fasciitis which doesn't really get better

And you probably get better gals than us too!

i'm not sure if it was theo's willingness to pull the trigger as much as it was the ability to beat the astros without dealing from the MLB roster.

he has two years beyond this year and would be really nice to have. i rescind your pass. he had a vesting option for 2020 which was based on finishing high in the cy race which he had waived in order to approve the trade.

apparently the windy city bulls got ben gordon lol

They had me worried with how they were hanging in in the first half The second team is horrific currently. They're not going to be in any danger of running into wins as long as some of those guys are seeing time. But, I can see Lavine coming back healthy, Dunn not totally sucking, and Portis or Niko coming in and making this team bad, but not the truly horrible needed to be bottom 3. Agreed.

They had me worried with how they were hanging in in the first half

i don't know how some of you guys have the energy to respond to these meatball opinions with walls of text anymore hell, i don't even have the energy to do what cubsclapp/blogfines does on twitter

Did the Indians have enough to take the Cubs to 7 games last year (let alone get there)? It's the MLB playoffs. Of course they can. And yeah, I mean, to answer your question, they have Verlander, Keuchel, McCullers, and Morton, which is very not bad.

Would arguments for Russell be lower than any of them? Starting to wonder if the FO likes Baez at short. I don’t see any indication by what they’ve done or said that would suggest they like Baez more than Russell at SS. This (posted above) would be the closest thing to that... [tweet] [/tweet]

This seems like a...questionable example to end with. Especially since it's not true. Well, not immediately following a loss in the SB, which is the only way that would be an interesting tidbit because I'm pretty sure coaches who have lost in a Super Bowl have been fired in later years before.

[tweet] [/tweet] anyone know when the FO suggested Bosio would return or is he just making stuff up? if it's based on Theo saying it was up to Joe what coaches returned? because that's not that.

Turns out Otani hates him so much that he's willing to sacrifice potentially over a hundred million dollars to get away from him. We lose.

I'm pretty damn sure one of those guys gets traded this winter...and I agree in thinking that Happ is most likely. On top of Theo pretty much saying he would (about as explicitly as one could possibly expect, at least), he also made it reasonably clear that their intent is to acquire 2 starters, in saying that they expect Montgomery to be in a swing role again next year. Obviously, they could sign two, but I'm not sure that's their preferred avenue at this point.

yeah, a lot of people still don't realize jake was god mode in 2014

my inclination is that it'd be more abnormal for him not to, with a few exceptions. by and large, i think managers pick their staff. especially ones with any sort of cachet. but i also don't think this as just a joe maddon decision. theo could have wanted him out while still leaving it up to joe.

I would guess he'd bring back the least(assuming we're limiting this to Schwarbs, Almora, Baez, Happ) i mostly agree except with almora being last.

a ton of the baseball media guys are carrying his water on twitter.

found this on jim hickey https://www.draysbay.com/2017/10/5/16417124/tampa-bay-rays-jim-hickey-pitching-coach-retrospective

These were Theo's comments on Bernstein and Goff a few days ago (before Game 5) that had me suspecting this might be a possibility. http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2017/10/19/theo-epstein-takes-blame-for-cubs-pitchers-wildness-notably-in-bullpen/

This is going to sound like a rationalization, and to a certain extent it is, but I think the variability of pitchers leads to pitching coaches getting a bit more credit than they deserve. I mean think of the pitching coaches that many fans are aware of for their success outside their own team. Off the top of my head I can list off Bosio, Rothschild, Searage, Cooper, Warthen, Maddux, past guys like Duncan and Black. On the other hand I don't think I could name 3 MLB hitting coaches. Surprised you didn't include Mazzone. First time I remember a pitching coach being a thing.

It's like you don't know how playoff baseball works. The Indians last year went 2, 2, 4, 1, 3 in the ALCS and 6, 1, 1, 7, 2, 3 in the WS before Game 7. So two good offensive games out of 11. We had a terrible series against the Mets in 2015. They also had 4 very good pitchers going. Those guys shut down a lot of teams. Last year we had two bad games against Kershaw and Hill but in the other 4 games they scored 8, 10, 8 and 5. Giants series they scored 1, 5, 5 and 6. WS was 0, 5, 0, 2, 3, 9, 8. Two bad games against Kluber and an inexplicably bad game against Tomlin. This year they got Strasburg twice, Scherzer, Kershaw twice, Hill, Darvish and Wood. When the worst starter you face is Gio Gonzalez, you faced a tough slate. These things happen. Sometimes Kershaw shuts you out and sometimes you light him up for 5 runs to advance to the WS. I completely understand the random nature of baseball and the crapshoot of the playoffs. But I'm open minded to the fact that there might be ways to improve performance in the playoffs- high pressure situations against better pitchers. I don't completely discount the possibility that "clutch" hitting may exist and certain players might have better success through a better approach or better coaching. Sure. It's easy to throw up your arms, point to all the runs scored against crap pitchers in 13-1 regular season games and say oh well. horsefeathers happens. We were just unlucky. But I hope the team doesn't feel that way. I want them to try and figure out how to get better. If there's one team that struggles under the postseason pressure, it's gotta be the one with a bunch of 25 year olds who have been to the LCS 3 straight years.

aside from hickey, mike maddux should be available. and then there's warthen (lol)

don't know if it's a good move or not or if it'll change anything, but the walking too many dudes thing was a season long issue