Bertz

Between a ton of non tenders in addition to normal churn, this winter will have a lot of upside arms available. Depending on your thoughts on Mills we have either two or three open rotation spots. Love what Lester has done for this franchise, but I have no interest in having him back unless he miraculously finds 2-3 MPH under his pillow like Kershaw did this winter. He's neither safe nor an upside play. I think way to go is probably something like: - Trade for a pretty good #3 (Jon Gray?) - Sign a vet who had a bad 2020 to a pillow contract (Kluber, Quintana, Minor, Ray, etc.) - Battle Royale between Mills, Alzolay, et al Although who the hell know how much money is going to be available to the FO. Is even something as modest as the above going to be an option?

It's deep too, which is important with the no offdays playoffs this year. In that context I'd rather have 6-7 good relievers than 2-3 awesome relievers. And for Game 3 of the Wildcard round I'd lean on the pen. Give Lester (or hopefully Q by then?) three innings and then go with the parade of relievers.

From Rosenthal this AM

My guess is that they will keep expanded playoffs, but not these expanded playoffs. They're probably gonna do the plan from February where the top one or two seeds get a bye and you do the whole choose your opponent thing. It still sucks, but I don't think the lack of incentives to make good teams better will still be there like they are this year.

I'm still dumbfounded that they didn't bring in Brad Hand just because it wasn't a save spot. When your team's on a 6 game losing streak. In 2020. Jesus.

Brad Hand not pitching this inning is ludicrous. Make them pay

If Jeffress isn't going to miss bats he needs to throw strikes He clearly has cojones for days, and I appreciate what he did in the first few weeks of the season, but now that the pen isn't a dumpster fire he shouldn't be getting such high leverage duty

But also

OMG

Rizzo's slow, so I understand generally erring towards holding him, but Naquin was moving to his left and I don't believe has much of an arm.

HOLY HORSEFEATHERS I didn't think he had any chance

KB is now at the point in his slump where he's taking his horsefeathers at bats with him into the field. Cool.

Reds are up late and Brewers are up big, so all three teams chasing us are likely to be within a game of each other at night's end

How do we feel about facing the Cardinals, rivarly bragging rights aside? For some reason Flaherty, Hudson, Wainwright looks great on paper but doesn't really terrify me, especially if we can neutralize one of them with Darvish. The only hitter that truly scares me is Goldschmidt. They have other solid hitters but not ones that scare me. Of course they are probably saying the same thing about our lineup... I wouldn’t mind playing them at all. They aren’t that good and they will have played all these games here leading in to it. They likely have to be playing and trying hard through the final series too so it’s possible their rotation/bullpen can’t be entirely lined up and rested. I think I’d rank preferred opponents in round 1 as: 1. Giants 2. Cardinals 3. Rockies 4. Marlins 5. Mets 6. Phillies 7. Brewers (I don’t want to have to deal with their nonsense, despite them being the worst team listed here). 8. Reds (Bauer, Gray, Castillo in a 3 game series wouldn’t be fun). Yeah this looks right. Maybe quibble a bit with the exact order, but I think in a three game series those first four teams and those second four teams are very different levels of scary. Regular season the Cards are maybe the best of those 8 teams, but they have less top tier talent to leverage in a short series and will be at the end of their death march. They are clearly in the less scary tier IMO. The Marlins are surprisingly relevant in that first round. They suck, but Lopez and Sanchez is actually a pretty good 1-2 punch.

Yes, give me all the extra innings for the Cards and Brewers this week

Were we guaranteed to lose a tiebreaker if both teams won out? I think so. We're 4-6 against both the Cards and Brewers, and the first tiebreaker I believe is H2H record.

That loss finally puts the Cubs back in control of their own destiny

With 2 weeks of the season left: - The Cubs have 12 games - The Cards have at least 18 (2 extra against the Tigers if necessary) - The Brewers have 16 - The Reds have 14 If the Cubs go 6-6, in order to take division 1 from the Cubs: - The Cards have to to go 14-4 - The Brewers have to go 14-2 (and have a better in-division record) - The Reds have to go 14-0

Really enjoyed how animated JD got in the 9th. While there's a lot about this org that truly sucks the guys in the booth are so so so good

That first stop was a 3 and out, they were hardly gassed It’s not a question of gassed or not. They made the stop and went right back out there. That is deflating and entirely on the offense. They're adults, this is a super meatbally opinion

TOP is basically even right now, and the Bears gave up TDs on both sides of halftime (when they're plenty well rested). The offense sucks, but the defense can't blame them today. thr last thing I saw was the defense stop the lions in 2 minute offense then bears use 5 seconds to give it right back. That’s the game, and that’s all on offense. You can’t expect a defense to make back to back two minute stops. That first stop was a 3 and out, they were hardly gassed

A bad offense will make a good defense look mediocre and so on and so on. I can't wait for rust to be the excuse. TOP is basically even right now, and the Bears gave up TDs on both sides of halftime (when they're plenty well rested). The offense sucks, but the defense can't blame them today.

The first week or three have a lot of weird things happen every season; I'd expect that to be especially true this year with the abbreviated pre-season. If the defense is truly this mediocre though, we're looking at a top 5 pick.