Stratos

In the new article forum could you pin the articles posted from the last 3 or 4 days or whatnot and then unpin them after that and let them float? Or permanently pin them all based on order they were posted? User-created topics are going to be fewer obviously as long as the articles are there covering the same topics.

Overall, as a PSD convert, I'd like to thank the veteran posters and mods/admin here for making us feel welcome to the board. I am actually a lot happier here as I find this site less toxic since PSD had hands-off moderation and insults/bullying etc were allowed and frequent and problem users not often dealt with. No site or community is perfect, but I've been posting on many different baseball and Cubs message boards since the 90's and i'm mostly pleased here. I'll just use Hunter's above comments as a jump off point for mine: 1. I agree, but i'm also getting a bit more used to the articles. I do agree with others that having multiple threads on the same topic is problematic. I'd say i'm only interested in a minority of the articles, and many of the ones I do read are enjoyable and filled with good info. Personally i'm probably interested most in deep stat/analytics breakdowns, not only players but trends on the team, where I may not personally have access to those stats or have the time or sometimes knowledge to research them myself.. I appreciate the work and the effort to make content for the site. 2. Thanks to this comment i just discovered the forum has a dark mode! Thanks!! 🙂 3. I like game threads in the main talk forum. I agree it would be a lot more organized in its own forum. Maybe a link to the game thread at the top of the main Cubs talk forum? Big thanks to the mod for keeping older game threads around for a few days before archiving and killing those discussions immediately., which was a big frustration of mine. I think having the current game thread plus the last 2 or 3 game threads in the Cubs talk forum is a good compromise between clutter vs discussion. 4. I agree that pure political talk should be kept to any political section we may have here, it derails threads and becomes toxic.

Let's hope Neris and Alzolay get on track. The location on Neris' split has been terrible. He was locating the fastball today which was good. Get most of the rotation healthy and the pen has potential to be strong with guys like Assad, Brown, Wesneski, Thompson etc. Wieck has been pitching nicely in Iowa too so far if they need a LHP. If/when they get Steele, Seiya, Bellinger back this team could go on a run. We won't even need Mervis to hit at that point with Tauchman playing his balls off again this year and PCA looking pretty solid and comfortable so far. Having an OF bench of Tauchman/PCA/Canario is very strong (though PCA probably plays fulltime whatever level he's playing at).

He doesn't look very confident, like last year. Maybe we can call him Nervous Mervis. Sometimes he just doesn't put much conviction in his swing. PCA looks a lot more relaxed this year, and not trying to impress as much.

True but a pick really isn't that hard most of the time. His success rate must be pretty bad. He came up as a 2B, wtf. Noticed he has one of those massive 1B gloves. Maybe it's a little too big/heavy for him LOL.

Cubs offense 3rd in MLB in OPS at home, 22nd in OPS on the road. Still struggling a bit overall vs RHP. 2nd in MLB in OPS vs LHP. Nice HR by Morel but man has he looked horrible the last few weeks with the bat. Encouraging growth defensively.

Probably. I can't recall in my life seeing an MLB 1B so bad at picking balls in the dirt.

If they can get more SP healthy they may need a couple of these SP guys in the pen to eat some innings or piggyback to avoid what you're saying. Having just 5 SP healthy at any one time isn't going to cut it IMO unless all the vets are the ones healthy. Nice to see Keegan do well so far too. Good thing is if we include Keegan and Smyly we have 10 SP/longmen on this team when all healthy by my count, plus Horton.

Maybe Hendricks has osteoporosis and he's slowly shrinking in height,

That's crazy he cracked his ribs and can do that stuff, good news though. What's the update on Wicks? It says "strained forearm" but that could mean anything including elbow.

I don't get it either.

When he calms down from the nerves and gets a bit of success and stops pressing I think he'll probably be fine. He has power, a pretty good eye (as he also showed in ST), and a decent hit tool for a power guy. There's no reason whatsoever to be concerned about him at this point.

Tauchman is the best hitter on the team so far this year. Something like 150 wrc+. Morel is doing better defensively, glad to see that.

The odd clever organ song is fun at Wrigley but maybe they should throw in some of the old organ standards more often.

Just tell him to bunt 100% of the time LOL. Maybe it works 35% of the time. I'm not counting on much offensively, but there's really not much choice but bring him up. You could stick Tauchman or Canario in CF but we still need another OF on the bench and we have 40-man issues. He can contribute defensively and hopefully does better on the bases. He may always struggle with contact issues, and at times chase issues. If we can stay at .500 by June i'm ok with that at this point. This could be a grind until some of these guys come back. We're lucky to have the depth that we do. It could be guys like Hosmer and Ortega filling these spots.

5 guys hitting lefty in that lineup. Good stuff.

Mervis over Canario vs RHP is an easy call. Canario and Wisdom in lineup vs LHP unless Madrigal plays 3b where Morel then DHs. I think I saw Cubs are killing LHP so far.

Needing lefty bat I guess for DH if Tauchman is playing in the OF with guys hurt

Dave Otto vs young Harry Caray.

I suppose. Maybe they can use Smyly to piggyback. Go righty then lefty

The problem is Hendricks has said he has no idea what is wrong with what he's doing, so how do you fix it? He just isn't inducing swing and miss, that's a problem. You make contact and balls will fall in. On Baseball Savant they're hitting over .500 on his fastballs, and the xBA is still over .400. His FB sucks, it's getting around 6% whiffs, that's horrendous. It was bad last year but not this bad. The change-up has lost some effectiveness as well. I'd keep running him out there for now, having him on a short leash, and having another SP like Brown ready on his start days to piggy back.

The HR/FB is 33% and the BABIP is .387. He's been crap but I think some of it is clearly bad luck. He has 16.4 H/9, he can't keep that up, that many bloops won't keep falling in.

If you've got 1 out and the tying run on 3rd and a K guy on the mound i'd put in the guy who can put the ball in play, preferably in the air. That's probably Bellinger there, who hit LHP well last year and killing them this year. Amaya bunt is a whatever. Seems like a GDP guy to me.

Late come from behind losses are the worst losses.

Easier to win 1-run games coming from a team with a boss bullpen. Jed has put most of the payroll into position guys, has gone discount shopping on SP, and doesn't want to spend much on the pen because of "randomness". I get it, player-for-dollar wise it probably makes the most sense, SP get hurt all the time so spending lots there over the bats doesn't make as much sense, but this is just how it's going to be until we develop our own pitching and relief arms or lady luck is on our side again with the pen JAGs.