squally1313

This is a good thread to remind everyone that these weird ups and downs are not Cub specific, they're just baseball. The Cubs didn't even make this, tellingly. Apologies for making you click through to X, feel free to ignore.

I think, conceptually, the only way to statistically say the offense is broken is by looking at what they did in August. Like, here are some assorted sample sizes of the teams offensive production in terms of how they rank league wide. YTD: 4th in fWAR, 10th in wOBA, 4th in xwOBA, 5th in wRC June 1-July 30: 3rd in fWAR, 5th in wOBA, 1st in xwOBA, 3rd in wRC July 1-July 30: 3rd in fWAR, 5th in wOBA, 1st in xwOBA, 4th in wRC July 1 -today: 16th in fWAR, 22nd in wOBA, 4th in xwOBA (hm), 20th in wRC August 1-today: 23rd in fWAR, 28th in wOBA, 7th in xwOBA (hm again), 26th in wRC So really you've got a month of them having at least (very) bad results. Should we give it slightly more weight because it's the most recent month? Sure. Is it dumb to throw away the season based on a months sample size when we still have a brand new sample size of a month that we basically haven't played yet? I kinda think so. If we spend September with bad results/bad metrics, and I'm having to defend them as like 'we'll, they're just playing out the string, making sure they don't get hurt'....I'm going to feel worse about their chances. But, since you asked for optimism/pessimism: Optimism: We're into September and Matt Boyd and Cade Horton's collective arms are still attached to their shoulders, offensive production can turn quickly and all signs are saying that it should, and I think the talent is more than sufficient on that side of the ball. Pessimism: By far the biggest: there are 12 teams, only one can win, there is a 90% chance it won't be us and everyone who shows up in the game threads when we go down 2 runs can gloat about how they were right to be miserable all year. More specifically, we have like 5 good pitchers, and that doesn't seem like nearly enough.

FYI https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2025-standings.shtml TLDR: you're mostly right

We have to go all the way back to 2023 to find a World Series winner that went under .500 during the year against winning teams. Before that, it was all the way back in 2021.

This is since 8/1. Obviously you have to buy in on the value of the expected stats, and obviously acting like the xwOBA is going to show up just in time for the three game series, but....there's plenty of reasons to hope.

We're just....short in the rotation and short in the pen, and both of those things were pretty obvious 4-6 weeks ago. A good bullpen (very statistical based analysis coming) is going to have 1-2 consistently good arms, and then 2-4 guys who are going to run hot and cold. We've got Palencia, Keller, Thielbar, none of them elite (27th, 30th, 44th in fWAR, 15th, 17th, 39th in FIP) and then we just....bet low on Kittredge and Soroka? With....maybe 3 healthy starters at any given point? This is also not exact science, but sort qualified relievers by FIP, and in the top 100, you have 20 pitchers listed as pitching for more than one team, which is a rough approximation for being traded (or dumbly waived at some point I guess). We got one of them, Kittredge, 62nd. And did basically nothing else besides a tenth guy off the bench. It wasn't enough.

I will say, to balance out my ‘things are fine’ schtick, it remains incredibly frustrating that other teams, when choosing not to trade for a good starter, went and tried to build bullpens of doom and we were like ‘um, the worse Rogers brother? The hurt guy?’

Sure, elder mostly sucks (check his August starts though, pretty sure he just shut down the Phillies), but we put up 16 baserunners and 7 runs in 9 innings against the starters in the other two games this series. 20 baserunners, 8 runs (7 earned), 16 innings isn’t some explosion but it’s…fine?

At the risk of thread copping or whatever, I’m just not going to let the soft part of the bullpen blowing a lead in the 7th inning really concern me all that much. They aren’t pulling Cade Horton throwing a no hitter after 5 for Ben brown and drew Pomeranz next month. Keep everyone healthy, don’t ride your good relievers into the ground, and see if you can get some of the struggling arms right. And, obviously, score more runs.

Sorry what

Their 60th pathetic horsefeathers loss of the year!

In their last 9 games against playoff teams they are 4-5

Yeah that’s two piss poor efforts in a row

Is Cade Horton the best pitcher in the national league, my column

The three run home run and laser home against the brewers was like 2 weeks ago

This should be Dillon Maples, for what it's worth

We don't stand for Marmol slander around these parts

Alcantara is less of a step down than some of the options we've had in the past, which might have been the thinking behind his promotion. Give PCA a few days. I think PCA's problems and Tucker's problems are pretty apples to oranges though. Others have talked about it far more extensively/smartly, but maybe just putting PCA down in bottom of the order and taking anything beyond elite defense and baserunning as a bonus for the rest of this year.

Doesn't like striking out guys, so let's hope our guys decide to hit their deep fly balls to the alleys and not the corners.

Assume they wanted a full slate for Labor Day, and had heard the brewers were going through a bit of a death march, assuming there was some union rule about number of games in a row without a day off that necessitated the Tuesday day off v Thursday.

80 wins on September 2

Dansby maybe has a slightly better chance to throw him out but if you’re Nico you absolutely keep the ball in the infield if you can.

If I’m remembering it right, the weird slide was in the first, pre home run, so it obviously isn’t an immediately dire situation. For whatever reason it apparently takes injuries a couple hours/weeks to set in.

Well either counsell has seriously committed to this whole ‘the rest of the season doesn’t matter, keep everyone fresh’ and we’re going to see unprecedented levels of playing out the string. or there’s something wrong with Tucker, which would be very, very bad

Alright Rolddy Munoz isn’t a real person