Javy Is Still A Cub

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

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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.

I figured the Yankees would be interested - they got the bucks.

Watch them make this type of trade. Or watch them stay mediocre.

Yeah it really isn't. They need a couple three superstars and not just 9 decent players, as you suggested earlier. You can't run out PCA, Bellinger and Busch regularly and be an elite team - lacking the superstars elsewhere -and the Cubs are proving that. So, yeah, it is right - trade to get the masher, ace and stopper we don't have. Cubs have so many trade chips and instead of trying to game the market and squeezing out every bit of value they should just pay for the few keys spots they need.

The bottom line is that you trade Bellinger or anybody else on the MLB roster to get the superstar masher, ace or closer you need and without which you're never going to be an elite team. Bellinger, Busch and PCA really can't co-exist on the same team - one of these guys has to go in a trade described above. If you trade for a 1b like Guerrero you have to send Bellinger or Busch out. The good news from the original post is that Bellinger, Busch, PCA and Caissie have all met expectations - so trade one (preferably not PCA or Caissie) already!

So if he's going to go - and all the other pieces around him are improving or ready - is it time to trade Bellinger? Why not?

It's gone pretty well for the Cubs, at least as regards this scenario: PCA has played so well he's forced his way into MLB. His bat is still iffy, but not on this club recently. Busch has been solid but not spectacular, which is a win. Trending for almost 3 WAR and out OPS-ing Bellinger for $26,780,000 less. Caissie is doing so well he'll have to be put on the 40 man and probably will be called up this fall to have a cup of tea (he's Canadian). "So Where's the spot for Bellinger," I repeat? He's playing well enough to be appealing to other teams but not so good that he's not expendable for the Cubs. The Cubs still don't have what they need to make the jump to a dominant team - a superstar masher, a superstar ace and a superstar closer. To me Bellinger remains a part of their 231 trade chip list to fill those actual needs. Like the Busch trade did. Use these chips to make the only trades this team needs: for a superstar ace, hitter or closer... still.

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Jones was beyond incredible, so I'd agree. He was the first guy to make the "nonchalant" one-handed at-the-heart-level "God, these routine catches are boring" catch, IMO. Look at this PCA catch - this is a CF picking it 2 inches off the ground backhanded like a SS does a GB, and doing it like it's nothing. You just don't see that play made like that, ever. Yeah, Wrigley Field is probably the easiest CF to play in MLB, so he's kind of a waste there, but the Cubs play 81 games outside of Wrigley, too.... https://www.mlb.com/cubs/video/daniel-palencia-in-play-no-out-to-nolan-jones

So if it's June and PCA, Busch and Caissie are all raking - what's Bellinger for? Why hold on to him? PCA is the CF of the future - that is No Doubt the band, because his defense looks like Andruw Jones and Jones was the best defensive CF of his generation. If Busch gives 15% less offense but for $26,780,000 less - let him handle 1b. The likely timeline for Caissie to be an effective regular is late 2025, but what if the dude is just a natural and can outslug Bellinger at DH, and slug is something this team needs? Or, what if the Cubs trade for an actual full-time masher DH like Alonso (but why buy aging Mets now when: Caissie?)? So Where's the spot for Bellinger? I don't see Belli as a longtime Cub UNLESS he gets hurt. Can he bring back a lot on his type of contract? If he's raking, too, there will always be trade demand for that. The Cubs have a great squad this year in that they're so very deep. They could have 6 players hitting at least 20 home runs, 1 player off the record. They have 4 pitchers who can be pegged as #2 or #3 (no hating on Hendricks permitted, ingrates). All they're lacking is a superstar masher, a superstar ace and a superstar closer. The Busch trade was an excellent example of using trade chips to fill actual needs. The Cubs still have 231 trade chips - Bellinger is definitely part of this trade chip list. Now use these chips to make the only trades this team needs: for a superstar ace, hitter or closer.