Stratos

PCA is not ready for prime-time, his decision-making is terrible, still a low baseball IQ he clearly needs to develop. He needs a year in AAA. They likely won't re-sign Belli but they need a stopgap. PCA can learn on the job in MLB I guess but it's not going to be pretty, seems like a waste.

He'll be rehabbing TJS with Alzolay and Leiter.

The one that whiffs on routine flyballs? Jk

The problem is it's not going to be ok if the roster sucks and the guys sitting in the pen every game can't hold leads, That doesn't change no matter how the Marlins play the rest of the way. The team is built on a house of cards and that's the way the year has went.

Palencia, Cuas, Smyly, Thompson, Wesneski etc all suck. Our situation at 3B sucks. Not much a manager can do if they have no choice but to play turds. He's not a great manager, but he's not bad.

The season is essentially over, the bullpen is toast. Even if they squeak into the playoffs as a 3rd wildcard team this pen can't hold up throughout October. This season is a repeat of 1998, shades of Rod Beck running on fumes in late Sept & Oct, Brant Brown dropping the routine flyball, and Kerry Wood being overused and abused in a playoff hunt. The Cubs' only chance is for the team to suddenly catch fire (luck) or Alzolay needs to come back 100% and Leiter become Leiter again. I'd find it more likely they both have to go under the knife within the next 6 months. Good run, the guys played their butts off, the front office didn't give them all the tools they needed. Can't blame Ross either. Most of us thought Barnhart, Mancini, and Smyly were overpaid bad signings the moment they signed and we were proven right. They could have built a deep pen with a couple of reliable relievers using Mancini's salary alone. Sidenote: Heyward has a 127 wRC+ and 2.5 WAR this year. Maybe he'll get another ring this year. Great job Cubs.

Well the Marlins are about half as bad 🙂

I don't have an issue with PH for PCA there for Wisdom. PCA hasn't been hitting RHP, he's not going to hit well vs LHP. Wisdom mashes LHP and meh velocity guys like Brad Hand. IMO David Ross and Jed Hoyer lost them this game, along with Suzuki obviously. Justin Steele only threw 119 IP last year, and even fewer the year before. He's at 173 IP right, he's in the red zone for injury and fatigue right now. When he gave up the HR to the 9th hitter Pillar and then left a pitch in the middle of the plate on the next batter and then the walk he was clearly done, he should have been yanked, he was gassed. 2003 and Alzolay hurt right now shows why you don't grind pitchers into the ground just because you're in a playoff hunt, the injuries aren't worth it. Hoyer didn't get us the pen arms we needed at the deadline, not to mention in the offseason, end of story. Having a ton of good tradeable assets sitting in the minors right now while watching the MLB staff fall apart before our eyes due to a lack of quality pen depth is INEXCUSABLE. If they built a good pen in the offseason we'd be winning this division. Ross stayed with Steele because the pen is struggling outside a few guys they can't keep throwing out there every night. Having Smyly pitching with a 1-run lead in the 8th against one of the best HR teams in MLB history because Leiter's arm is falling off is not good. Throw in a terrible bunt by Mastrobuoni and some other head-scratchers and that was a bad, bad game. Suzuki's whiff was a bad Brant Brown 1998 flashback and turning Steele into the next Mark Prior is mind-numbingly stupid.

The games all count. We could do this all day and cherrypick for any team.

Well hopefully they play well vs the Marlins.

They have a -95 run differential. That's bad.

Miami has an easy schedule rest of the way (Mets, Pirates). Ours is brutal (Braves, Brewers). Dbacks get WSox and Astros. Cubs need a sweep tomorrow badly. Pretty sure we'd lose any tiebreakers.

Assad has been huge in the 2nd half. He really helps out the pen.

I agree with the OP that the regulars have needed more rest. The players went pretty hard in July/Aug. Summer heat must be hard to play ball in every day. I won't blame the players for the Sept dip, they've played their butts off. Every manager does things we don't agree with now and then but I think Ross has done a decent job. His lineups have been pretty good, running game has been good. Hard to blame the guy for wanting to stick with the players who brought the Cubs to where they are. It's easy to overly micromanage the lineup and change what has been clicking when some guys get in a slump.

The primary reason this team doesn't have more wins and have undershot their pythagorean W/L record is that the bullpen doesn't have enough quality depth for the late-innings, and this has been the case since the 1st day of Spring Training and I even pointed this out then. That's all on Hoyer. He's been overconfident in the coaching staff's ability to turn pitching turds into gold, including with the Taillon signing also. At some point you have to acquire talent. Injuries are inevitable in a bullpen, guys will underperform and overperform. They went into Spring Training with Fulmer and Boxberger as their biggest reliever acquisitions. At the deadline they again failed to add more quality relief depth. Cuas wasn't enough. That meant they had to ride their only 3 good arms hard in July/Aug/Sept and into Oct. Alzolay has had arm injury history and he has paid for the price for the high usage. Leiter was also gassed for a while likely due to overuse. I don't blame Ross. PCA and Canario are AAA nobodies at this early point in their careers. there's no reason to rely on them in a playoff hunt. Canario had a big game vs a terrible Pirates pitching staff, he hit a grand slam while Cubs were winning by a lot late in the game and the Pirates worst pitchers were in the game at that point. That's not that impressive, and you should never expect rookies to be saviours.

He seems similar to Morel at the plate. Big swing, big power, but pulls off everything so lots of K's and lame ability to hit for AVG. Both of them plus Wisdom seem to have fallen in love with their power and so sell out on every swing. Maybe they try a 2-strike approach like Bellinger. Morel isn't going to get many fastballs to drive with 2 strikes anyways.

Shaw, maybe Horton.

I think they like Morel leading off because he'll see more first pitch fastballs and more fastballs generally, and Morel can't hit anything not a fastball because his brain only works on "super excited" speed, which includes running through a glass door and injuring himself. Hard not to like the guy and his enthusiasm though though.

I think a lot of the struggles lately even for guys like Leiter and Adbert have been the recent hot temperatures. When you sweat you're just not going to get the movement on your pitches, and command is harder. Much harder for Leiter to command that split with a sweaty hand, that's a really tough pitch to throw. Cooler day today with clouds, and we saw Taillon's breaking balls move like crazy, Gallen's FB and curve were almost unhittable, and Adbert's 2-seam was moving like crazy too Gotta give it to Assad, his stuff has been moving and locating well even in the heat. Maybe he's just more used to it based on where he's from.

Would help Leiter a ton if Hughes comes back and can be effective. If Stroman comes back then Wicks I guess moves to the pen. If Wicks keeps pitching well I wonder if there's any chance he bumps Taillon to the pen. Doubtful, they could use the lefty pen arm. They may also want to start limiting Wicks' IP?

He's just gassed and shouldn't pitch unless necessary, he needs rest. I think Leiter needs a couple of days off also, but no other lefty really to get outs. I mean there's Smyly LOL. Cubs just need to keep hitting. Unfortunately the rest of the staff couldn't keep the score down enough to let Leiter rest. With Leiter I'm wondering if some of it is the heat. I imagine it's hard to grip that splitter when it's that hot and humid lately. But it was a night game...

If you don't get enough quality pen arms in the offseason then you're forced to overpay for them at the deadline. They did neither. It is incredibly stupid, especially the former. We were always a couple of injuries away from disaster and injuries inevitably happen. I called it in February and everyone said the pen would be fine. A quality pen arm only costs a few million and we're giving away a bunch of money on multi-year deals to replacement guys like Mancini, Barnhart, and Smyly. They sign these types every year. Descalso, Villar, Arrieta. Stop giving multiple millions to players with fringe talent. Go find the next Wisdom or Tauchman or Ortega, at least they make nothing and can be cut if they suck. 10 million for Mancini and Barnhart and they're cut because sucky players that clearly lack athletic tools inevitably suck. 10 million could have bought a couple of very good late inning relievers or a very good closer.

Teams are spinning him breaking balls away and just like Morel he can't hit them. Why anyone throws Dansby a fastball is unbelievably stupid. He should only see like 20% fastball as a show-me.

Leiter and Alzolay are totally gassed. I would have went with Assad in the 9th, but Leiter pitched well the last time vs Reds. Jed failed to get enough good arms in the offseason and it screwed them early in the year, and he failed to get anyone again at the deadline. If you repeat the same mistake twice you're a fool. If the Cubs miss the playoffs it's 100% on Jed's failure to acquire enough pen talent, we lost a lot of games in April/May because of it and now it's happening again because they have to overuse these guys because Jed failed. It's outrageous. They need to send down Canario and call up at least another arm. This is a huge stretch of games right now, all wildcard contenders, it's a really tough month. Ben Brown needs to come up, he can give some innings in relief. I would consider calling up Horton for the pen at this point at least for a week until Leiter/Alzolay get some rest, unless they feel they need to shut Horton down entirely due to usage post-TJS.

He very rarely hustles or puts out 100% unless he has to. I think it's so he can play 162 and stay fresh doing so. Sometimes I have seen him coast while baserunning and it has harmed the team, but it's usually rare.