squally1313

Just put like a 9 second timer on there and let them throw 20 pitches over 3 minutes for each round. Or give them 4 minutes if you want to bake in bad pitches. Agree that it's impossible to actually appreciate anything besides someone hitting four or five in a row, and even then you're just seeing the swing and not really tracking where it ends up.

I have not watched more than a few hours of the Cubs this year, but there is a definite irony to people coming into the literal game thread on the message board about the team playing to be like 'lol what are you guys doing here'. It's incredibly easy to just...not make those comments, especially here of all places.

Feel like people said the same thing about Panarin

That is not at all what I expected that dude to look like.

I didn't mention Contreras because I don't have high hopes he'll be on the team on opening day 2023. If anything, he's the Shark of this current team, to painfully stretch the analogy. Suzuki, who I admittedly forgot about, has had about a month of star performance, a month of garbage performance, and 6 weeks of injuries. Jury is definitely still out. I'm fine with Rodon. Maybe we hit the lottery with Steele/Thompson/Kilian, but that shouldn't keep you from spending the money you have on the best pitcher out there.

I feel like that would put the team to roughly where it was in 2007 (when the team added Soriano and Lilly), which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does not feel like something that would be sustainable for more than 2-3 years. I don't know, maybe a WS ring and three straight NLCS appearances made me unrealistic, but I just don't get the warm fuzzies when I think about this current group. I think it's a combination of a couple things: 1. Lot of ways to skin a cat. May be conflating this conversation with the 'Win in 2023' one, but if that's what you're talking about, trying to compare this to something like 2014 isn't exactly apples to apples. At this point in the season, the team basically had Rizzo and Arrieta having breakout seasons, Hendricks showing up late in the year and looking like a potential piece, and then Shark having a good year that we turned into Russell (and Hammel), who was still a couple years away. The rest of the roster was putrid, as reflected in the 73-89 record. Now, you could argue that we don't have a Rizzo/Arrieta at this point, or if we do they're about to be shipped out in the next few weeks. But, to channel Don Draper, that's what the money is for. I think you could argue this current roster could end up showing up a few more complementary players (Hoerner, Madrigal if he figures it out again, Happ if he stays, Steele/Thompson) than what you were looking at going into 2015. And also worth noting that 2015's team won like 97 games, which is not a requirement, and brings me to my next point. 2. You don't need to be the Dodgers to win a World Series. I wish we were, and I know if you look at the Dodgers or Yankees (though I don't think we'll ever spend that much) or Astros to an extent it seems pretty hopeless. But we could be the Braves. Definitely could be the Nats. Could probably be the Red Sox. 40% of the teams make the playoffs. I wish there was a stronger correlation between best team over seven months and World Series champion, but there hasn't been, and it just got weaker with the new rules. Find a way to 90 wins by 2024 and I'll be fine.

This is so horsefeathering embarrassing.

I get your point on the injuries, but also the main reason (or at least a main reason) no one expected us to compete is probably pretty related to the fact that those four pitchers have put up 1.7 fWAR in 193 innings so far this year. If these are our top 4 pitchers, health wasn't going to be the deciding factor on whether we were good or not.

I weirdly don't disagree with most of this, but it's disingenuous to throw in the big market/zero payroll part because DFAing him, as far as I understand, wouldn't save them any money, outside of some team bizarrely (understatement) deciding to pick him up and taking on a small part of it. I think that's actually where the frustration comes in, that it seems like they're just going with sunk cost fallacy here. And obviously Ross' answer there didn't help.

Nitpicking a little bit here, but it's not like they found an extra $200m lying around that they were previously hoarding and decided to distribute it out to the top players because of Liv. I think the goal here is for these new tournaments to become pretty big draws in terms of TV revenue and whatever else, even if they do have to figure out how they want to go up against football in the fall (smaller fields might allow them to have everything wrapped up by early afternoon?). I assume based on those big numbers above that they are making money on most of these tournaments. If the Tour itself has to come closer to breaking even for a couple months as an incentive to get these guys to stay, probably makes sense on their end.

Morton, in case anyone else was confused too.

Yes, which is also like...better than the alternative? Might as well have them steer hard into the real terrible performances, drive off fans, wake up the front office, etc. And really, it's going to get worse. Miley won't be here, Steele/Thompson/Kilian are all going to be on an innings limit, whatever effective pieces are left of the pen are going to get shipped out, and that's just on the (already terrible) pitching side.

I know this is all so stupid and dangerous. But it’s also fun as hell, like…going to six flags or something. Musah looks incredible.

Are you guys telling me I'm going to have to learn the difference between Thompson and Steele?

I simmed 20 times. The highest the Cubs drafted was 2 to the lowest was 10, the mode was 6 and the median was 7. Sounds like a perfect spot for an 18 year old with bad hips! ETA 2027 here we come.

I crack up at the "reports" that the Cubs will be in on Judge, Correa, Turner, etc. I guess these sports reporters don't remember who owns the Cubs. Can any of those guys pitch, because that's what this team needs. If you paired this lineup with the best pitching staff in the league, do you actually think they would be a good team? The team has holes everywhere. To be clear, the 17th best offensive team per fWAR and the best pitching staff in the league would be a good team. At this point, I don't really have any idea how to build a pitching staff, but we're about 500 innings short of a good starting rotation currently. Hope on Kilian, sign a couple bats that create logjams for our offensive prospects, trade them for pitchers who have already shown success, profit?

Eh, Gomes and Higgins gets you through this (lost) year...Gomes is a pretty safe bet to put up mediocre production next year if nothing else falls into your lap, so that gives you almost two years to sort it out. It's been a relative luxury having him, but a lot of contenders just plug in veterans at that spot.

4th place, 10 games back, negative run differential... Nice to get the Brewers a couple times but... Look, pitchers get hurt right? So just a matter of time for Burnes and Woodruff to go down. Hader pitched twice in one day the other day, so that TJ surgery is imminent too. Devin Williams just has one pitch, it's fine. So there goes the Brewers. Then you just need Arenado, Goldschmidt, Mikolas, and somehow still horsefeathering Wainwright, and hey, the path is wide open. Really, we'll have to collapse to not win this.

Houston's catchers are currently putting up a 124/214/211 slash line. Padres are 238/291/322. Doubt the Sox would be an option with Grandal and also just being the Sox, but currently getting 176/261/229 from that spot. Tampa is at 188/211/339. Mets are 222/257/304 Even someone like the Yankees, 10th in fWAR from that position, are slashing 217/267/316 This is all compared to Willy's 277/395/514 so far. Yes, his defense is suspect, to put it lightly, but he's basically doubling the production of all those teams with playoff aspirations right now. Factor in his clubhouse attributes, postseason experience, etc....someone is going to want him to be their starter down the stretch. With Higgins not falling on his face and Gomes still around somewhere (I think?) definitely think they should keep limiting his innings behind the plate (15th in baseball so far in innings caught) to avoid a major slump.

Yup. They projected as a 75-80 win team, and the underlying #s (I.e. controlling for their horsefeathers 1-run game record) think that's exactly what they've been I think the projections for 75-80 wins were made by Cub fans. They were on a pace of 50-52 wins last year after the sell off and they're on a pace for 64 wins this year. As for their 1-run game record, that's what happens when you aren't a very good team. These guys suck, don't get me wrong, but...that is not how you analyze this kind of stuff at all.

Mid term elections coming up in November I assume.

Said another way, on Saturday morning, he should not have been on the major league roster. As of 5 minutes ago, he should not be on the major league roster.

Lol remember Contreras calling him the best players he's ever played with.

Contreras is 30. Since 2017, his first year as a full time member of the Cubs, he's third in PAs for catchers, behind Realmuto and Grandal (who both put up roughly twice as much value in that time frame, but I digress). He's been catching in the organization since 2009. I love the guy, though realistically we're talking about a guy who maxed out at 2.6 fWAR and was not Kyle Schwarber in terms of postseason awesomeness. But someone is going to give him 4-5 years, and it should not be us. You can’t make team of replacement players. Maybe you make a bullpen out of them, but not an entire team. So we should overpay Contreras because the rest of the team sucks?

we won't have to worry about Willson [glow=red]possibly being on a bad contract[/glow], because Yan Gomes will be a garbage starter there on the relative cheap :D same fortunate luxury we enjoy this season not having to worry about an expensive FA costing too many dollars because we only risked 4 mil on Andrelton Simmons, it's just good fiscal management =D> There's just...no one here worth paying. There were absolutely free agents out there last offseason that we should have paid, and didn't. I don't want Contreras at $20m a year putting up a 650 OPS being the excuse for why we don't sign FAs in 2024. We clearly aren't going to throw around the kind of money needed to build this team into a contender from where it is now through big contracts. Thankfully(?) it's hard to imagine the guys at the upper levels of the minors who are pretty highly regarded and not 30 year old randoms being worse than what we have, and I'm hoping that when we're 20 games out by July, we start to see a lot of them. We need pitching for sure, and similarly I hope we see Kilian and...hopefully more by the end of the year. Figure out what we have, and fill the gaps.