Javy Is Still A Cub

When Dawson got hit in the face by Eric Show and got 24 stitches he missed 3 days. Lookit Sut protect his bud! So Dawson becomes the first-ever MVP winner from a last place team, hits the most homers in the NL in 20 years and he does it with 24 stitches after having his career threatened by a beanball to the face (Sports Illustrated put Andre on the cover with "Beanbrawls" IIRC)... and his season is worth 1/3rd of PCA's if you believe WAR is the end-all be-all statistic, LOL.... Tough (non-)break for Bregman. He was not in the on-deck circle, but thankfully he's ok.

Ok, so 5% more makes him 3x more productive? Dawson on a last-place team - PCA on the best hitting Cubs team of all-time? Does that mean anything to you - i.e. getting pitched around or pitched to - or is that too much to wrap your head around? Ishmael!

Check bWar. Cheers

I'm very familiar with WAR - I don't know why you assume that I do not? I'm just a skeptic. Why? A million examples, like saying that PCA 2026 is 3x as productive as Dawson 1987 was. Saying "WAR is the proof" is saying I have to take WAR on faith - brother, I won't do that. Why? Again, a million examples which show that WAR is far from God (i.e. perfection). You're asking me to accept something which nobody can explain. Why would I do that? I'll drop the subject - don't want to perseverate in a great thread. But I also don't think anyone is going to actually try and explain how PCA 2016 is 3x the player Dawson 1987 was (or Bruce "Hi, this is me revolutionzing the split-finger fastball" Sutter 1976 through 1980, LOL) without saying: just trust the WAR. Call me Ishmael, I mean Infidel!

Pages still leads MLB in assists and double plays despite missing - what, a month? Also leads OFers in almighty WAR, still. Dawson had the most HR and RBI in the NL in 20 and 10 years respectively. And he only got 20 GWRBI, but hey - LOL - it's his fault the Cubs were a last place team. (Tell me you don't play baseball without telling me you don't play baseball....)

You think he's going to beat out Pages of LA for the GG? Pages has some better stats (because they ran on him way more than they ran on Pete), including defensive WAR. Can you win the Platinum Glove and not the GG, LOL? Pete's had a handful of misplays this year, unfortunately. Might cost him both awards.

Thank you for your help. I was the original Javy Is Still a Cub. Starting a new one seemed easier, LOL. Believing that Javy is ALWAYS a Cubs is not the sign of a distorted worldview - it is a sign of the magic of El Mago!

I appreciate the reply - although nobody appreciates having their worldview called "simple" in a pejorative sense - but you're asking me to disprove a claim WAR when WAR is the one making the claim. Can anyone justify how PCA's 2016 season is 3x more valuable than Dawson's 1987? This is neither anecdote nor conjecture - WAR is making THIS SPECIFIC claim that Dawson '87 was a third as productive as PCA '26. PCA 2026 is an incredibly well-rounded player - but that makes him 3x more productive than the awesome, dominant, a-last-place-team-can't-stop-me-from-winning-the-MVP Dawson 1987? Reminder: Dawson was the first player to win MVP EVER on a last place team. Only ARod has done it since. This is WAR making the claim - not me. Can anyone justify it - 3x more productive? Again, using other, non-WAR stats: couple dozen less SBs, 50 or so less walks, 5 more homers, slightly worse D (I mean, Dawson was an elite fielder or near-elite fielder, too, so let's certainly give PCA the nod but it's not like Dawson was Adam Dunn out there, LOL), and all while hitting on the best-hitting Cubs team in 150 years, LOL... 1/3 rd as productive? WAR is making the claim - they're the ones who have to justify it. It sure doesn't seem like it holds water....

It's not troll bait? It's a statistical analysis of a statistic: WAR is saying that PCA's 2026 season is 3x better than Dawson's 1987 MVP season. I mean... that's just absurd, right? Dawson's couple dozen less SBs, 50 or so less walks, 5 more homers and gold glove D is worth just 33% of PCA's season? Ergo, and e pluribus unum: the problem is the statistic itself. So I really don't think the problem with is my "worldview", either? Not trolling, not my worldview. Bottom line: if anyone can explain how Dawson needs 3 1987s to match 1 PCA 2026... I mean... if Dawson did that he would be in the HOF (oh wait he is). This isn't taking away from PCA at all - it's taking away from WAR.

This is why WAR is obviously such a failed stat: Andre Dawson won the MVP in 1987, bashing the most home runs in the NL in 20 years, leading the league in total bases and RBI (even though he was on a last-place team), and game-winning RBI (a stat they don't seem to care about anymore but which used to be on baseball cards and, again, on a last-place team. Hey, what's clutch? Ah, that's a phony, outdated concept, right...). He won the gold glove (one of his eight) yet Fangraphs and Baseball Reference both have him as a negative defender that year (FG for his entire career, BR has him almost neutral for his career...). LOL, the idea that Dawson was a negative or neutral defender 1987 is simply absurd - nobody ran on him, as he had one of the truly best arms of his era, even if his mobility wasn't what it used to be, thanks to Montreal's turf; he threw out lazy batters at first that year. But what's even more absurd? Telling me that PCA's 2026 season is worth 3x of Dawson's 1987 season. FG has Dawson's '87 campaign as worth 3.5 wins, Pete is at 10.4 fwar. Don't get me started on Bruce Sutter. You're saying that PCA 2026 is better than the two years Sutter finished in the top 7 in voting... MVP voting?! (He did win a mere Cy Young with the Cubs.) Ok, you'll say relief pitchers aren't as important as everyday players. Fine. PCA's 2026 campaign is worth more than Sutter's whole Cub career, even if we add in his other two all-star campaigns, one of which garnered top-20 MPV votes? Negatory. Mucho negatory. Obviously, a big part for those who say that WAR is so solid is that people didn't know how to value players back in the day. But if you're saying PCA is worth 3.5 Dawson 1987s... you weren't watching in 1987, for sure. Dawson dominated the game day in and day out - this was a terrible team and you only had to stop Dawson, but they couldn't. Or you're also saying that Sutter's '79 Cy and Dawson's '87 MVP should have gone elsewhere but... that wasn't the consensus then. Or you're saying that 1987 was just a bad year for baseball... so bad that its MVP had 1/3rd the impact of 2026's. Or you're saying something that is... I dunno, but 3x the season as Dawson's 1987 can't be right. And yet baseball's stat nerds - so uniquely nerdy and as fundamentalist as has ever existed - will believe that it is... because the stat says so. Great thread, great PCA campaign - but the WAR-love is clearly out of control.

Was any steroid-era player so vilified by his own team?

Bump

The Donald Trump of baseball, with that personality which made him so successful and also so tragic. I remember watching 4,192 live - nationally broadcast, back in the day when there was 3 national channels. To hell with Paul Giamatti's dad - Rose should have been in the HOF eventually in his own lifetime. A lifetime ban is the same type of sick revenge bloodlust that leads us to put teenagers in jail for life, or in the chair. It's just baseball. All-time leader in games, ABs, PAs, and hits. Best ability is availability. And he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated a ton and despite - as he said - being ugly! But he was a winner as a team player - Big Red Machine. And he was a winner in baseball, that most individualistic of team sports: As Pete said in that great new documentary about him (Netflix?): 4,192 will never be broken. RIP Charlie Hustle, what a life.

The Donald Trump of baseball, with that personality which made him so successful and also so tragic. I remember watching 4,192 live - nationally broadcast, back in the day when there was 3 national channels. To hell with Paul Giamatti's dad - Rose should have been in the HOF eventually. A lifetime ban is the same type of sick revenge bloodlust that leads us to put teenagers in jail for life, or in the chair. It's just baseball. All-time leader in games, ABs, PAs, and hits. Best ability is availability. And he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated a ton and despite - as he said - being ugly! But he was a winner as a team player - Big Red Machine. And he was a winner in baseball, that most individualistic of team sports: As Pete said in that great new documentary about him (Netflix?): 4,192 will never be broken. RIP Charlie Hustle, what a life. Edit: Ope... don't belong in this forum! Feel free to delete.

Oh wow, top 15 for 5 weeks of a 26-week season? That sounds like the Sooz (MLB version) so far. It's about as non-impressive as Nico finishing 18th in NL BA. Expected more from the Cubs in 2024! Got blecch from them, and blecch from your post.

The point of this thread isn't to talk about money or achieving win prognostications - it's about the sheer ugliness of the baseball which was played by the Chicago Cubs in 2024. Purists love a 1-0 nothing game. However, we had great starting pitching day after day after day but still lost 2-1, 3-2, 1-0. The daily lack of hitting just got more and more frustrating, and then it WAS COMBINED with us blowing the save and then losing (you guessed it) 2-1, 3-2. So we couldn't hit, and when we did eke out enough we couldn't close the deal. That's not pure baseball - it was pure ineptitude. Who could have faith in a lousy team like that? What season-long roller coaster? We were out of it by June. They rallied to get within 3 games of the wildcard - that lasted about a week, and then they collapsed back into non-contention. Who was fooled into thinking that was real? The offense was as perplexingly bad as in 2020, but we still made the playoffs that year; that year when everyone was an idiot in a topsy-turvy world when Jason Heyward was truly our best hitter. Hector Neris became the Nefi Perez of the bullpen: "Why is this guy still being used?" Neifi actually posted a 2.4 WAR his one year as a starter - don't insult Neifi's memory by comparing him to Neris! The high hopes for Chris Morel - aka God's happiest idiot - were dashed. Not that anything could harm his gaiety. The end of the season stat-padding for "lost at sea for 2 halves=one season" Swanson. Cool Cody Bellinger being half the player he was last season, but still getting $30 million for 3 years. He looks like he's lighting up a doobie and is just fine with his 2024 campaign - that didn't work out. How do you go from being a gold glover in Japan to dropping little league fly balls, Seiya? I guess you're just a DH, but you're not the great DH we needed.... Nico's gonna finish 18th in the NL in batting average - wow, that's really pretty good! Problem is, it's not 1983 - you only hit .276. How does a 200-lb man hit only 7 home runs all year? He's got 25 lbs on Musial?! Counsell is as dull as a cheese curd, and he hardly revolutionised the Cubs team, as promised. Soft team. No heart. Only Steele shows some fire. Needs a player like Bryce Harper to remind them they are taking this foolish game too seriously, and not taking it seriously enough. Ross had fire, at least. A hearty and lusty Booooooooooooo to this team, which will not be missed. I hope they all have a lousy offseason. Maybe go try selling insurance, like they used to have to do, to get your priorities straight and come back in 2025 not looking so very, very blecccch.

Blecch to this team.... What ugly baseball it was in May and June - blown saves or only getting 3 hits. The only truly exciting thing was PCA (Shota is too old to be exciting). If you didn't boo this team at Wrigley you offended the gods of baseball. My uncle was right: a manager is only there to keep 25 grown men from killing each other over a long season (I assume players were more testy when they weren't making tens of millions of dollars). At least Ross was amusing. The only positive of 2024 was: At least we aren't Sox fans, with their F-double-minus season. Entering their final series, I say that this team will not be missed and give them a hearty and lusty, "Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

He's still a Cub IMO.

5 days later Steele goes out and throws a complete game. Dude is nails.

That sucks Counsell said that. Every good boss knows cheerleading the employees is a key part of the job, and people who don't ever admit their frustration are annoying. People who think sports should be devoid of emotion and that they control/predict/know things down to the thousandth of a percentage point are less annoying, because who can take such clueless, ivory tower stat-gamblers seriously? If Steele is the only guy willing to show the team he's got fire definitely don't trade him. Boy, a team of 27 other milquetoasts... that sucks. Sure can't win a championship with them.

Maybe Counsell is just a stoic, or maybe he's just given too much rope and been too deferential as new bosses often are? He's definitely not grabbed this castrated bull by the horns, or gone to another player and said: hey, you know these guys better than me, how can I get them to wake the f--- up? There's a place for eggheadery in baseball, but it's still a sport - you have to get up for it and do some roughhousing. Like kicking dirt on home plate after getting ejected. Something.

Is this just Counsell's demeanour - to not show fire? I don't really know his personality, but is he another stoic Wisconsin-type? Lots of cheese and booze to tamp down the emotions? Has he gotten kicked out of more than 1 game this year? Where's Lou Pinella and Don Zimmer to fire up the roster?

I love the fire, but desperately screaming "Wake the F-- up"" - seems like a sign that things have gone way, way too far in the unawake direction in the Cubs dugout. And playing baseball in an unawake fashion is not going to lead to good results. Who knew the Cubs needed more wokeism?

Steele getting angry was a month late - but is it too late? Needed its own thread for posterity's sake. Need fire to make Steele Can you imagine this limp rag-team in the playoffs, where players actually play pumped up? They'd get steamrolled. Never too late to do the right thing: stop being lame.

LOL, Neris is like that. Where's that Steele passion been on this team? Man, that should have happened literally a month ago.