champaignchris
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Everything posted by champaignchris
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So what do the Cubs do in free agency with $35MM? Someone like Marcus Strohman as starting pitching. Good enough now to contribute. Young enough to still be contributing after the soft rebuild. Probably can be had for less than $20MM per year. Center fielder Maybin replacement (Bradley too expensive? Hernandez from the Dodgers?). Middle infielder Kipnis replacement (Schoop?). Dumpster diving for a catcher with up side (Zunino?). Dumpster dive for the bullpen again. Probably good enough to compete in the Central. If not, pull the plug at mid-season and trade everyone.
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Week 6: Bears at Panthers, Sunday at noon on Fox
champaignchris replied to jersey cubs fan's topic in Other Sports
I’m still not convinced this is a good or even mediocre team. I think the Bears will be underdogs in each of their next four games, with the possibility of the Vikings getting their horsefeathers together enough to make them dogs in their next six straight games until they play the Lions again. I would be more surprised that they’re 7-4 when they play the Lions again than if they were 4-7. -
That was an absolutely bizarre signing by the Bears. Actually, not the signing itself, but the signing combined with the complete absence of any sort of idea of what to do with Davis. It was one of several transactions since Pace got here where the right hand (coaching staff) didn’t seem to know what the left hand (Pace) was doing.
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I think the minimum the Cubs would have to do to stay under the luxury tax and credibly claim to be trying to compete would be to sign the following: Near starting quality middle infielder - Asdrubal Cabrera or similar Fourth outfielder - [expletive] Hernandez or similar 3/4 slot starting pitcher - re-sign Jose Quintana or similar High (-ish) leverage lefty reliever - Justin Wilson or similar I’m not the payroll expert some are in here, but I think the Cubs could spend approx $40MM and stay under the tax.
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Me, personally, my preference would be... 1. The consensus is that teams aren’t going to be generous with free agent signings. So if you’re going to splurge, this would be the year to do it... go get Springer, Semien, Bauer, Stroman, and Colome. Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead. Buy another World Series. But, since we all know that’s not happening... 2. Tear the whole thing down. If they’re not going to be a contributor come 2023, jettison them. Unfortunately that would probably mean that Yu and Hendricks have to go and that makes me sad, but you gotta do it. Restock the system. Go dumpster diving for cheap lottery tickets. Aim to be competitive again in 2023. But, most likely... 3. Let it ride for one more season. Sign a free agent pitcher. Mess around with the end of the bench and the back of the bullpen. Wash, rinse, repeat. Hope the playoffs stay at 16 teams and you can squeak back in with an 83-win team.
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Kyle is overwhelmed with excitement over his next playoff start.
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Per the Passan article on ESPN.com today, the Cardinals will play the Tigers doubleheader (or a game of it) if it determines whether someone makes the playoffs. They will not play the doubleheader merely to determine seeding. When determine seeding, they will go to winning percentage first. In your 30-28 versus 31-29 scenario, the Cardinals would get the better seed.
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On paper the Phillies are one of the scariest potential opponents in the first round, but Nola either has to pitch on short rest one of his next two starts or be held back for a game 3. Add the injuries to their hitters and their laughably bad pen and maybe they're the opponent we should he rooting for. I'm more worried about our potential opponent's hitters than pitchers. With our offense we're probably not going to score a ton of runs regardless of who we are facing. Of potential playoff teams, only the Indians offense has performed worse than ours with regards to wRC+ and wOBA over the course of this admittedly short season, and their performance has gotten worse as the season has gone on.* But if our pitching can shut down the opponent's offense, we are in a good position to advance. *yes I still hold out hope that the team's collective talent can get it together and then we are a legit scary team. If you want to face a bad offense, it doesn’t get much worse than the Reds. Although Cardinals might actually be slightly worse on the road and have a much more fragile pitching staff.
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9/16 Indians(Civale) @Cubs(Lester) 7:15 MSN
champaignchris replied to Brian707's topic in Fred Hornkohl Game Thread Forum
They were 5.5 games up in the division then and are 5.5 games up in the division now. -
I don’t want the Phillies in a 3-game series. They don’t have the pitching depth for a longer series, but in a 3-game series with Nola and Wheeler each starting one game, that leaves very little margin for error.
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I know Martinez can still be called back up and do something with the Cubs, but as it stands right now, this would be the second year in a row where the Cubs made a Mid-season trade for a MLB position player who literally does not get a hit or them.
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It’s ok on my phone. It’s unreadable on my cpu. You can’t click on anything because the whole screen moves every time an ad pops up.
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I know we’re all a little scarred by what happened last year. But if a team is going to go on another improbable 18-2 run to blow past the Cubs in the standings, they have to start it right freaking now. This shortened season is a little disorienting and it’s easy to forget how little season is left.
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How is MLB handling the fact that StL is only going to play 58 games this year? In other words, if the Cubs go 8-9 the rest of the way to finish 33-27 (.550) and StL goes 14-9 the rest of the way to finish 32-26 (.552), who wins the division?
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Yeah. That’s the thing that stood out in that article to me. Had no clue that Yu and Bauer were friends. That article made it seem like Bauer idolizes Yu.
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So we need a better Theo then? Because it took him 3 years of tanking. Or are you suggesting something that isn’t a complete gut? In that case which current Cubs are still on your roster in 2022? These are the players on the current roster that are under contract for the 2022 season: Heyward Darvish Hendricks Bote Contreras (Walk year) Almora (Walk year) Kyle Ryan Rhea Tepera Hoerner Alzolay Caratini And a bunch of less notable pre-arb pen and bench guys Possible extension candidates: Rizzo Bryant Baez Schwarber Happ seems like a pretty big omission here. He will be in his 2nd year of arbitration.
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Him and Kevin Pillar are the perpetual “why isn’t this guy a Cub?” guys.
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The Worst Defensive Play of All Time?
champaignchris replied to Cubswin11's topic in General Baseball Talk
Kinda: Technically no errors on the Rockies, just stupidity by the Cubs and poor decision making by the Rockies. It was also the game where Angel Hernandez threw Steve McMichael out of the game after singing the 7th inning stretch and McMichael threatened to meet him after the game from the booth. (Edit: I guess Hernandez didn't through him out, Randy Marsh did, but whatever) Gotta love the absolutely patented Chip Carey, “Runner coming home, play at the plate, and he is... OUT! Safe! Safe!” -
The Worst Defensive Play of All Time?
champaignchris replied to Cubswin11's topic in General Baseball Talk
Every time. This clip makes me laugh the same way as those videos of goats who scream like humans and the “dodge a wrench” scene in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. -
Javy doing Javy things is fun. This bullpen is not fun.
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Is Kimbrel’s stint as Cubs’ closer effectively over? How can the team put him back out there in a high leverage situation?
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What if they send a couple bullpen arms with the Bonilla contract?
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I hadn’t looked until today, but Lester had a .350 BABIP last year compared to his .303 career. He had a .297 the year before. His FIP was actually lower in 2019 than it was in 2018. He actually improved on his K/9 and BB/9 from 2018 to 2019 and his HR/9 was essentially the same from one year to the next despite the juiced ball. It was all about giving up more hits I suppose some of that could be that he’s lost some stuff and is easier to hit. Some could be that the Cubs defense was really bad in 2019. But it seems to me that a huge component of that has to have been bad luck.
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It’s 672 in Champaign. Hallelujah.