CubUgly

I think Ross's strength is fostering team culture and in house communication. Now how many wins that gets you? impossible to quantify. His strength is absolutely NOT in game strategy, and lineup/defensive construction, etc.. The counter to this opinion of mine is always that they have info we don't, these 100's of decisions are mostly 50/50 coin flips that the randomness of baseball typical renders these type of decisions and their overall effect on winning and losing very minimal. While I understand and to some degree agree with that - I find a convenient response and honestly a bit of lazy and in this case don't agree with it Re: Rosse. We could list games and decisions and go case by case as we have so many times during the year and argue them and disagree and get nowhere. But in my view to summarily dismiss Ross's overall performance in game/gameplanning/construction issues as insignificant - I just can't sign off on that. So then the question becomes are there better options out there that could make us better on the margins therefore overall? IMHO without question. Could the Cubs get any of them, that I cannot answer, and we should not make a move unless we have an option we can get in our hip pockedt and we likely don't. However, the point is moot, he's going to be here for another year. The good news is he can improve, experience and failure is always the best teacher - he even stated he's going to look in the mirror. I hope he does and I hope he sees the right things.

Agreed, I'm good with 5 years - more than that I get a bit uneasy - but 5 I can live with.

Yep, this.....most teams put their worst defensive players either at first or left. With the DH you now have another place to hide them but some - even most teams of course have more than one defensively challenged player. And there is a reason they put their worst guy in left, it's because as you say - typically they see fewer balls hit to them than at most positions. Happ was tried at many positions and was below average at all of them - even left, but they left him in left long enough to where he at least became one of the best at a position of mostly bad fielders being hidden in LF - at least last year - this year he regressed back to where he was the year before there, but still probably better than many - so bad is relative. So, Soto probably - for the near future - stays in left/DH role wherever he is. But if I had Soto and could move him to first and put someone else in left who could hit and this helps the team win more games....horsefeathers with the salary . Can move him back down the line if that becomes a salary cap issue. Do what's best to win games in the now.

I predicted 81-81 so not all that far off from what happened, how we got there was not totally expected. Honestly, probably should have been better, for every game we won that we were fortunate to - in my opinion we lost at least two we should not have for many and varied reasons. The roster was flawed and compromised early - that's on Jed...and that issue was compounded by the fact that Rossi doubled down on that in my view and played the pieces (Hosmer/Mancini, etc) way too often and in positions on the field and in the lineup that just really made no sense way too often. We hung on to those two way too long. Then we got hot once we got rid of them and started using Belli at first more, got the bullpen stabilized and went on a hot streak. The bullpen got worn out late and that was really a big factor. I thought at the time of the trade deadline we needed one more lefty bullpen piece. How hard we tried and how close we came to that I have no idea but I see that as a key mistake. Overall a real roller coaster emotionally - high highs and low lows. Anyone here can tell you I'm not a big Rossi fan. I think he's a good culture guy. It's hard to define how many wins that got us but I would concede it's worth some. And I know I've been told here the bench coaching and decisions on the margins are subjective too and I agree but in my opinion he cost us more than the average manager in that regard.

I agree, I told my wife when they brought him in last night - in the 4th - that's way too early to bring in someone who it's obvious is not ready to hit at this level. As for the bunts, seems whenever there's a question of whether to or not Rossi seems to go to the bunt, it doesn't seem to be the 50/50 coin flip situation for him - it's seems to me to fall much higher on the bunt side with most baseball metrics would say it should be the other extreme.

Yeah, after witnessing in person Morel cost us a game in left in Houston this year that's a hard no. I agree part of Morel's defensive issues are never playing in one spot for any significant period of time, that won't be fixed at this stage of a season. Bottom line most teams put their worst fielder either in left or at first base. It's why Dave Kingman, Soriano and Schwarbs played left. It's the reason that Yelich - as bad of a fielder as he is - was the finalist for GG in left with Happ last year. Having the DH allows some leeway now, but still there's always gonna be someone out there who is not great defensively anywhere but you have to get his bat in the lineup and the DH is already taken. Happ improved significantly defensively last year, as he was flat out not good the year before. He's fallen somewhere in between this year. Whatever then numbers say he's botched some plays that really have not been that difficult, plays he made much more often last year.

The Pirates have kind of reminded me of the Cubs last year down the stretch - having a good September.

I've debated the Rossi factor all year with folks here and elsewhere, with my opinion being that even when his options were limited by the personnel he had earlier in the year (specifically the first base issue) that he still lost us games on the margins with very questionable lineup decisions and playing folks in positions on the field that set them up for failure. I have not changed my stance on that...I think if there was a WAR for managers his would be among the worst. Now I know I'll be told you can't quantify that....that there is info they have that we don't....that there are 50/50 decisions they have to make constantly that really are a coin flip, that baseball is just weird, etc., etc. and I concede all of that, but after one concedes all that - you can't exclude the manager from all responsibility - good or bad. I think Rossi is a good culture guy and that counts for something. I think game planning, lineup decisions, both who plays and where and in game strategy - there is ample room to criticize.

To crush to balls like he did last night while getting just one look at live pitching in the last 2 weeks is pretty impressive.

Boog keeps saying MLB average on balls hit over 95 is .500. Not saying I question that - but I ain't seeing it with the Cubs.

Yes, it's a glaring difference Re: Hendricks and it's obvious....and surprising. I mean, I get the new rules change the landscape but he's not coming close on his 1-2 throws he gets and he used to get guys fairly regularly.

Me too, seems the "we are going to play the guys who got us here" quote has been used by Rossi more than once, and specifically when asked about Canario not playing.

Well, I know we don't "need" one but we could darn well use one where before the D-back series I would have been just fine with 2 of 3 in Colorado.

Our pitchers ain't helping with this either.

Yeah, we crapped the bed against the D-Backs. Gallen has been good most of the year but had scuffled pretty badly the 3 games previous to the one against us and their bullpen had been pretty bad all year, and we can't even scratch out a run. We just needed 2 runs to win each of those games Friday and Saturday and could not do it. Struggled against a bad pitcher on Thursday. Just can't have that with the stakes this high. I would have taken 2 of 3 vs. The Rockies a week ago but now we've put ourselves in position where you feel like we need a sweep.

I'm thinking they weren 't sure how good Wicks was gonna be.

Yeah, folks just kept talking about how bad the team was on here and elsewhere - all the while the underlying numbers were screaming that they were not. We had some unfortunate decisions of hoping a couple of washed vets would bridge us to next year at first and it took a while to figure out and use the bullpen, plus Fulmer got much better and honestly, at least IMHO, Rossi just flat out lost us some games early I don't think most managers would have with certain lineup decisions and a couple of in-game decisions. But we figured some things out, got rid of the guys Rossi kept thinking he had to play, and we figured out the bullpen issues for the most part and hey....this team ain't that bad!!

Touche - I won't judge you. I'm still gonna go though.

Again it's all relative, I'd have to dig into the 6 to 9 you just can't look at it in a vacuum and say it's a big drop, which is what was done IMHO in the original article, As for the Ricketts i have enough issues of my own to correct before I tee off on anyone as a human being. I'll leave that to the rest of you.

And playing first AGAIN. Just cause you got away with it the last 2 times don't make it right.

Totally agree, it's cool to crap on the Ricketts - so one is usually safe in doing so and no one looks below the surface at arguments that blame them for anything. As you point well, attendance in different eras is a relative stat and in comparison to the rest of baseball it's not that much of an outlier as was presented. I live in another state and I assure you I'm definitely NOT among the "richest of the rich", but I attended 3 series at Wrigley this year and loved every minute of every visit. My gameday experience has not been diminished. Some of the Rickett additions I like, some I don't like at all but those have not scarred me to the point where it affects my enjoyment even in the slightest.

It should not be surprising, the media that covers the Cubs and are paid to ask questions to him leave a LOT of questions unasked.

I think your concerns are warranted. in this respect - I have no issue with Steele coming out to pitch the 8th. I have a huge concern with no one warming up at the start of the inning. The DP was awesome, Steele is a DAWG! but we've seen scenarios a few times this year in similar circumstances where we were not so fortunate and not having someone warming to the laymen like me....seemed to be a no brainer. But, what do I know? The theory that a pitcher should not pitch 30 innings past what he pitched the previous year is a Tom Verducci theory. I think Tom Verducci is a good baseball guy, But I can tell you his theory is NOT universally agreed upon. That's a whole other discussion. But not having someone warning is a legit issue for debate and IMHO Rossi should have had someone warming.