squally1313

Between Lester's typical early season struggles and the fact that this game was over about 1.3 seconds after it started, I'm not going to worry about him today. Get your five innings and let Montgomery/Wilson mop up.

Fixed

Can we resign Lackey just to finish this game

Despite me having not seen it, this was a good call to start the year. We should be sure to schedule some easy targets for the summer doldrums...Seinfeld, Office, P&R, before coming back strong at the end of year with the classics.

Let's take a moment now to acknowledge all the opening day starters that, per ZIPS 2018 projections, would not make the Cubs starting rotation: 1. Jose Urena 2. Jake Odorizzi 3. Kendall Graveman 4. Homer Bailey 5. Chase Anderson (LOLZ) 6. Clayton Richard 7. James Shields 8. Ty Blach 9. Felix Hernandez Let's take another moment to acknowledge all the opening day starts that, per ZIPS 2018 projections, would be luck enough to take the fifth spot in the Cubs rotation: 1. Jordan Zimmerman 2. Dylan Bundy 3. Cole Hamels 4. JA Happ 5. Garrett Richards 6. Julio Teheran 7. Danny Duffy 8. Patrick Corbin

Might have to dive into Sopranos as well, given that we usually ride these shows out until the Cubs start playing shitty, which I don't really expect to happen until the World Series hangover of 2019. Go kick ass SB, f uck cancer

Hey Sofa get your horsefeathers together and put up the gam thread. Also thank you very much for organizing this.

Urena, Miami's opening day starter, is a righty, so that seems like the likely lineup, unless he gives Zobrist the start at second. Don't know if Maddon has come out with anything for the lineup against lefties...based on last year I'd like to see Almora and Schwarber essentially platoon (with Happ shifting back and forth), but they might want to give Schwarber ABs against lefties too. Almora has had a pretty terrible spring, especially as the player getting the most ABs (52 ABs, .173/.204/.346). I know Spring stats don't mean anything, but the way Schwarber and Happ have hit might give them most of the starts to begin the year.

I know he uses deception, but didn't realize he's going this far. Should be a fun year.

Also with a secondary assist on a play at the plate on a real nice play down the line in left (Javy with the perfect relay throw, per usual).

Fangraphs Positional Power Rankings are always pretty interesting. Cubs came in 6th for Catcher, which didn't seem too outrageous until I saw teams like Oakland (3rd) and Houston (5th) ahead of us. However, Rizzo (with a little push from 21 projected first base PAs from Bryant, which, lol) came in first at first base, which seems a little generous given that Joey Votto exists. The one stat that stood out was that the Astros' 5th place catcher rating was their 6th best ranking of all the positions. Not something we need to worry about until around Halloween, but they're going to be really good. https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2018-positional-power-rankings-catcher/

I would hate that selection. He might end up being good, but it seems to me like its much more likely that he's a inefficient high volume scorer. But when you haven't tanked hard enough you are left a draft position where there isn't a high floor high ceiling guy available most likely. I've said it before, but if that's the way the top 7 fall out, give me Mikal Bridges. Best case scenario is Trae Young ends up as a smaller Jamal Crawford. Would be pretty much unplayable against any upper level point guard, and really don't want to waste that pick on some volume shooter backup PG.

With five walks and two home runs in five innings? Don't think so. I couldn't possibly care any less about his spring training numbers. That doesn't mean he deserves the spot (and that is absolutely in question due to his control), but those numbers mean less than zero to me. I mean, seriously, you just cited a 5 inning sample of spring training stats. To be fair, the beginning of this conversation was prompted by Grimm's 4 spring training innings.

The thing that's been 'nice' about Dex and Jake is that pretty much everyone knew and understood that the Cubs weren't going to resign them at the end of their contracts, nor should they have. Jake walking off the mound in Game 4 down 3-0 in the series had that extra meaning because pretty much everyone there knew it was their last time seeing him in a Cubs uniform. Beyond that, even though Jake resurrected his career with the Cubs, they both somewhat felt like hired guns compared to this core of players we've watched grow up through the organization. Both of them were fun as hell to watch, but losing them is nothing compared to the eventual trade of one of the core guys you see popping up in everyone's signature around here. That plus the relative suddenness of a trade will be gut punch.

Probably the wrong thread, but at this point Happ should be starting every day. Platoon Almora and Schwarber, give Zobrist 100 games between days off for Russell, Baez, and Heyward, go from there.

I know very little about basketball, but Lavine, Dunn, Lauri, Bridges, and Portis seems like a pretty fun line up to watch develop over the next couple years. Uh, do you want Miles or Mikal? I personally prefer Mikal Bridges and was hoping to grab him with the NO pick, but that has no chance of happening now... I meant Mikal. Obviously he is a step down from group listed below, but he seems to be picking up a lot of positive hype lately, and it'd be nice to add someone with his skill set to go with Dunn/Lavine's driving ability and Lauri's ability to stretch the floor.

I know very little about basketball, but Lavine, Dunn, Lauri, Bridges, and Portis seems like a pretty fun line up to watch develop over the next couple years.

Eh, he's easily the lamest member of the core of this team. I'm fine with it.

Pippen always struck me as a prick in a lot of the ways Jordan was a prick (as mentioned above), but just easier to hate because you know...he wasn't Michael Jordan.

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/22653874/jon-lester-chicago-cubs-trying-jordan-pippen-bounce-unorthodox-attempt-solve-throwing-problem Get ready for ESPN to go nuts over this the first time Lester hits Sunday Night Baseball.

I'm not willing to write them off just yet. It's been pretty obvious that Kane, Keith, probably Toews to a certain extent have been checked out for about a month now. They were just 24 hours removed from a third period comeback at LA where they put Kane and Toews together and they did whatever they wanted. I'll admit I have started worrying about Keith...I've accepted Seabrook's decline, but if we lose Keith as a top pairing guy too, that's probably something we can't come back from. But there are plenty of examples of 'washed up' cores making one or two more late runs. The Ducks won the Cup in 2007, and made the conference finals last year with essentially the same core. Penguins have as many miles as the Hawks do and no one is writing them off yet, even though we were pretty much even on points until Crawford went down. Kopitar looked washed up last year (52 points, -10), and now he's back to over a point per game. I'm hoping this group goes into their long offseason realizing the end of this run is very near (if not here), and gears up for one, ideally two more runs. We've got all four of them through 2023, and I don't think anyone denies that the last couple years are going to be ugly and largely just nostalgia based. But I think this team can still compete, this year just got away from them really quickly.

Hug watch?

Fun fact, Zips has Paul Blackburn, yes, that guy, as being more valuable (1.2 WAR in 138 IP) than both the Brewers fourth (Gallardo, 0.7/122) and fifth (Guerra, 0.4/99) projected starters. But yes, the rebuilding is over. Lol, I'll take that bet. Blackburn was a pretty mediocre pitching prospect, and I doubt he improves at the big league level. I'm NOT high on this worn down version of Gallardo obviously, but I like Guerra. We're talking about Junior Guerra right? He was really good in 2016, and I'm not sure what happened to him last year. Seems like he was injured most of 2017, but IF he's healthy I would take him over Blackburn all day. Haha that was definitely meant more as a shot to the Brewers (and surprise at the Blackburn projections). But worth noting Blackburn put up a (seemingly lucky) 3.22 ERA in ten starts this year. Zips seems to like his control and GB rate, despite his horrid K rates.

I still get him mixed up with the other guy we also got in the supplemental first round in 2012. Paul Blackburn? What? That guy? :-k Fun fact, Zips has Paul Blackburn, yes, that guy, as being more valuable (1.2 WAR in 138 IP) than both the Brewers fourth (Gallardo, 0.7/122) and fifth (Guerra, 0.4/99) projected starters. But yes, the rebuilding is over.