squally1313

lol can you imagine being on the other side of this

It’s the permanence of the decision that is making me lean towards staying the course for right now. That and it still being a small sample size, to me. You can’t get Hendricks back if we run into more injury problems or Assad stops becoming an extreme FIP beater or browns 14 effective innings actually weren’t totally predictive.

He has a 134 wRC currently.

I don’t think I’d agree that replacing Kyle with Ben brown would lead to less innings pitched by the bullpen. He’s not stretched out and he doesn’t have the track record. You’re also making the bullpen worse by removing brown. there’s obviously the argument that he’s just cooked and going to be a 9 ERA guy now. I’m not as convinced as some other people here. And I don’t think the paths forward without Hendricks that are available right now are worth cutting him.

If morel is going to continue to do his hot and cold thing (and that’s being generous to his overall performance this year), can we maybe not lock him in to the top half of the lineup every day?

Justin Steele is still not really anywhere close to returning, Ben brown has never thrown more than 100 innings in a year, and we’ve got a serious weakness in the bullpen that is at least exasperated by the fact that guys like Brown and Assad were forced into the rotation due to injuries. Feel like everyone has decided to take every chance to pile onto Kyle after 5 (horrendous) starts coming off a 2.5 fWAR year, but it’s not exactly like we’re just overloaded with healthy effective pitchers at the moment. Do we want Colton brewer pitching the innings brown threw last night? Who replaces brown in the rotation when he maxes out in 2 months? Feel like we should at least consider those questions before eating $13m.

Can't ask for much more than that from Taillon. Sure, it was the softest of landings, but he cruised. First pitch strike in 17 of 18 ABs, no walks.

115 wRC from Nico currently, and his wOBA still has about 20 points to go to catch up to his expected wOBA. In terms of overall value add v salary, he might be the most valuable player on the team

Taking a slightly different angle on this than 1908....what do we think the relative value of a MLB PA is vs a AAA one? Like, if we agree that present day Canario is behind Happ, Belli, Seiya, and Tauchman on the MLB OF depth chart, and we want to maximize the possibility that he improves and jumps one of those guys, is it better to have him as a 5th outfielder getting 4-5 PAs a week with the Cubs vs getting daily starts in AAA? Mastro had gotten 13 PAs this year. Does someone like Luis Vazquez get more out of that role or the 66 PAs he's gotten so far this year in Iowa? I really don't know, but I think ideally when you have upper tier prospects that project to be MLB starters, you bring them up as starters, not back of the bench guys.

I'm very much team 'managers don't matter', and feel like all of us paying close attention to the team could point to multiple instances of questionable decisions. But I also feel like an outside observer would see the Steele/Taillon/Seiya injuries, the slow Cody start, the 13th in team offense/23rd in team pitching....and then their 11-7 record and be like 'man, Counsell is doing it again'. Think ultimately it's too small a sample size to make any conclusions, but even with multiple collapses we're finding ways to keep ourselves in a really good spot through a tough stretch. Would be nice to bank a few low stress victories this weekend.

Mainly just following along in here, but given the state of the bullpen that kinda felt like a quick pull for Wicks?

I don't know if it's all that Bad that our two worst regular hitters are consistently locked into the 3 and 4 spots in the lineup, but it probably isn't Good

oh look at this, it's The Quickest Baseball Game ever! who would have ever predicted this would be the case

I would have assumed he was the sacrificial lamb in case this game went sideways, and he still might be, but weirdly looks like he was the closer for Iowa and hasn't pitched more than 2 innings in an appearance yet.

Yeah, obviously you want your FO to be smart enough to predict Kyle being probably washed up and move on accordingly (something they did really well with the rest of that core). Lot of other nuances at play there, his history and longevity with the club, potential budget uncertainty, a pretty thin overall pitching market in general to your point. The one I keep going back to is Sonny Gray, who's been a pretty reliable 3+ win/150 inning guy for the last 5 years now. Obviously he's a mid 30s pitcher, but feel like he signed so early that no one was really that concerned about his name coming off the market. I remember being generally against just stacking 3ish win guys at $20+m a year, especially if they lock themselves into a position/rotation spot that blocks a Shaw/PCA/Horton/etc. But here we are three weeks in with three lingering injuries to Steele/Taillon/Seiya, plus Merryweather sapping the bullpen. Things would have, unfortunately, worked themselves out (if the money was even there in the first place).

Agreed generally on the concept of stacking up guys with proven track records of eating innings. Seems like there were a couple easier 40 man spots to open up, and then there were more creative routes (Alcantara, Mervis, Davis trades). Hendricks v Montgomery was never really the decision though. Hendrick's option was picked up in November, which at the time all the crowd sourcing sites were projecting 5/100 for Montgomery. Sure, the way it played out, of course you'd make that choice. But there was no way of knowing that the market for Montgomery would have collapsed. (slightly more realistic version: give the Bellinger money to Montgomery)

64 bullpen appearances in 17 games puts you at just under 4 per game on a macro level.

This is fair, and maybe my point is better said as 'in terms of the larger data set, this is not a unique to the Cubs situation'. People here live and die with this team and hone in on games like last night or the Padres game while games like Monday (5 innings, 1 ER), Sunday (3.1 scoreless), or Saturday (3.2 scoreless) just get swept under the rug. It's human nature, but I mean....we were 21st in blown saves last year. First place? The WS Champion Rangers. The Orioles, 2nd in overall bullpen value last year, we're 4th. I still truly believe this is an average bullpen that has hit a really rough stretch of luck over the last 50 or so games, and I think the way to make that elite is building through the farm (and needing your starters to pitch better/longer), not throwing money at guys in their 30s.

Big picture, Adbert is a weird case because he's so unique from the rest of the bullpen and their problems because he just flat out doesn't walk anybody. His stuff isn't overly filthy, he doesn't have the double digit strikeout rate, but he doesn't give free passes and (until this year) keeps the ball in the ballpark. Which is the small picture point of his struggles this year. One, he gave up 6 home runs over 77 innings in 2022 and 2023, and has given up 3 in less than 9 innings this year. A 3.12 HR/9 rate won't continue for any pitcher, but especially not for someone with his larger data set. And then, yes, blown saves are the ultimate metric, but those being tied to 3 outings with a one run lead and giving up a solo home run (and nothing else) is about the most 'unfair' way to rack up three blown saves.

A couple things here, now that I'm tired and somewhat regretting the tact I took last night. 1. The reason I get frustrated with complaining about bullpen construction is that I've yet to see an actual alternate plan that would have solved anything. I look through the list of relievers who signed sorted by AAV, and yes, with the benefit of 3 weeks worth of 2024 data, you can piece together an alternate reality offseason where things look better. But I mean....$19m/year for Hader until he's 35? The Kimbrel experience again? Robert Stephenson hasn't pitched yet this year and basically has 40 innings of Tampa magic to point to as any recent success, and he got 3 years. Chapman? Reynaldo Lopez got a 3 year deal after being equally as effective as Neris last year. Which is a long way to say that I don't see this as some fatal shortcoming/deficiency in the front office as much as it's crapping out on a dice roll two years in a row (maybe! it's only the middle of april). I also don't think we're alone in having this problem (16th in overall bullpen value since the beginning of last year), and trading for these guys is really hard. To use Jason Foley, the trade value site has him as more valuable than a Triantos, Rojas, or Assad (you'd need roughly 4 Matt Murtons). Do we want to trade those guys for 70 innings a year? 2. When I think about sustainable ways to build a bullpen, I basically see two paths. One is to either have an endless amount of money or a sufficient amount of cheap/controllable offensive and starting pitching talent that you can just throw 8 figure contracts at multiple dudes with track records and tilt the odds of success in our favor. We're not in that situation, which is a Ricketts problem and/or a Jed problem, but not necessarily a Jed/bullpen construction problem (at least to me). The other is to just have, to use an old term from around here, 'waves' of arms that throw upper 90s that moonlight in the pen until they find a third pitch or (to be blunt) break. I've been told it's coming, and maybe it is. But also, maybe it's guys like Assad and Brown and Horton in the near future who would be filling those roles if not for the injury struggles in the rotation. Those guys not being full starters just adds to the weight that needs to be carried by the pen that just lost a couple key options. 3. To use the 45 game sample you cited (basically September 2023 + this year)...the overall numbers are bad, yes, but 23rd in total value in no way lends itself to 'historic horsefeathers' right? Like, there's being a bad hitter and then there's being a bad hitter and having a .100 BABIP. This is really bad sequencing luck, playing an unsustainable amount of close games, etc....it's fine to say we have a bad bullpen based on the larger data set available. To take 'we are blowing leads at a historic frequency in this selective sample' and conclude 'our bullpen is a historic disaster' is probably skipping a few steps. Not saying this is you, specifically, but seem to be getting a lot of that around here. This is already far too long, but will just add that this was somehow all David Ross' fault last year, but definitely not Counsell's fault this year. And that after all this we're 4-4 on what is tied for the longest road trip of the year against three teams with playoff aspirations. If you want to see real problems, wait until this home stretch coming up, where we have two teams that also in theory were going for the playoffs this year and are a combined 10-23 to start the year.

Fangraphs chart has to be wild. Three three run leads blown if I’m reading the line correctly.

Jordan wicks no pressure but going to need at least 8 innings out of you tomorrow.

If the solution you’re going to keep calling for is “spend 9 figures on a bullpen but also make all the other signings we made in the offseason” then I’m going to keep being annoyed that your suggestions are completely unrealistic and don’t add anything to the conversation.

I’ll take Neris and Imanaga instead

I did not think it was still legal for hottovy to make all of these mound visits