Stratos

No excuse not getting another adequate reliever at the deadline. Yeah you have to overpay, so overpay. Cuas is a project not someone reliable right now. The pen looks totally gassed. Someone is going to get hurt. If Alzolay or Leiter go down the season is over, and you can't expect them to throw this much through October.

Morel is 3rd in baseball in pull%. He's trying to yank every pitch down the LF line into the bleachers. Teams/pitchers aren't stupid so they're all throwing soft stuff low and away and he swings through it every single time unless they make a mistake and it falls over the heart of the plate. He whiffs on 43% of breaking balls. He needs to change the approach. Swanson isn't much better in pull %, and he's even more ineffective against non-fastballs. He gets 52% FB, should be more like 20% LOL.

Wisdom helped cost them the game on defense. He shouldn't play the infield ever. I think he's a DH, and maybe a corner OF. He's strong but his hands aren't quick enough to catch balls in the infield, just like they aren't quick enough to react to good pitches as a hitter. Madrigal has extremely quick hands, he can catch anything and hit anything no matter how fast the ball is moving. Reaction speed is the most important tool for a 3B i think, not arm strength.

Can we also appreciate Madrigal's basket power? LOL

I think the rest of the season will come down to how much the Cubs rotation holds up. They haven't had "good Stroman" in months so they have succeeded without him before, but they needed a mega-hot lineup to do it. The pen just has to keep being lights-out, and we need some luck in the pen, some guys after Steele having a good month and a half like the 2nd half of last year.

Turning into the 2nd best Cubs team ever LOL

These guys can play. These are ballplayers, they never quit. Sox are 14 games back in 4th place and Robert Jr is bat flipping. You're not Jose Bautista and your team sucks so GTFO. BELIEVE IN 2023.

Michael Barrett punched a lot of people. But to be fair, Pierzynski and Zambrano are very punchable people.

He's been pitching well but I think he's a BORP. His stuff isn't very good. He seems to avoid HR though...so far I think his good fortunes will run out, just like Hendricks and Smyly. With Taillon they signed another SP with below-average stuff, but to a long deal. If they're going to turn Taillon into Gerrit Cole or Gausman i hope they hurry up because there's been no sign of improvement on his stuff this year. His breaking stuff is ok but his fastball is legit terrible.

Sox pen just beat our pen. Oh well it happens I guess. Nice to see Suzuki hit another HR.

Pete Crow-ArmstrongCade HortonMatt ShawKevin AlcantaraBen BrownJordan WicksMoises BallesterosMiguel AmayaJackson FerrisMatt MervisHaydn McGearyOwen CaissieJames TriantosJefferson RojasDaniel PalenciaDerniche ValdezBrennan DavisAlexander CanarioCristian HernandezMichael Arias

Shaw could play 3B or DH, plus 2B, and I guess SS in a pinch. I doubt Madrigal is going to block him at 3B unless the Madrigal hitting revolution keeps up, which I doubt enough to block Shaw.

I agree with your description about the Moneyball approach. I never said sabermetrics was all about walks and homeruns, but but I think Theo's approach did overemphasize those 2 stats to the detriment of others. Theo did value OBP but I think undervalued the batting average component of it and didn't care enough about K%, and the hitting philosophy of the organization even throughout the minor leagues reflected that. My main point was that sabermetrics undervalues things that either don't show up or can't be isolated easily in statistics, like a catcher's ability to gameplan, or leadership and team culture. I'm not anti-sabermetrics/analytics in any way whatsoever, but if you only look at analytics and ignore or undervalue other intangibles then some things important to winning can be missed, and I think the Theo/Maddon teams after 2017 reflected that.

2016 yes, but they were a terrible baserunning team some of the last few Theo years.

Yeah 2016 was a very good team obviously. I'm talking more about the later 2018-2020 teams. Walks are good but some of those hitters had clear areas of weakness which were eventually exposed that they couldn't often adjust to which over time became easy for many opposing teams to gameplan for. Schwarber hard stuff up and in, Heyward pound him inside, Russell soft stuff away, Happ fastballs up out of the zone and breaking balls low out of the zone, Baez just don't throw him anything near the strike zone, KB sliders low and away. Cubs still have a few guys like that (Morel on soft stuff low and away, similar with Swanson, plus Wisdom and Suzuki) but I think they've improved on it. We've seen guys make adjustments too, like Happ changing his approach since last year, Madrigal seemingly swinging harder and changing his launch angle since going down to AAA, Nico recently hitting balls with more lift.

Hoyer deserves a lot of credit for building this team with a different culture than the Theo/Maddon group, putting an emphasis on teamwork and a team-first attitude (along with Ross and the coaching staff/players he's brought in) and bringing in players who are proven winners and great competitors. Swanson is the kind of ballplayer you can build a team around because they can help set the culture and expectations of a club, not just being the guy with the best WAR. They've also put more emphasis on fundamentals and built one of the best baserunning and defensive teams in baseball. They like hitters who put together good AB's, and have moved away from the walk+HR approach under Theo and seem to emphasize better all-around hitters. They also prioritize catchers who can gameplan and work with a staff over offense. These are the kinds of things that teams (like the 90's Braves) used to emphasize a lot more decades ago, so it's interesting to see things come full circle after the whole sabermetrics revolution and this org putting more value on things that don't necessarily show up obviously on stat sheets. He hasn't always been perfect (ie: Mancini contract) but I've been a big supporter and defender of Hoyer's and like the way he approaches things generally, including free agency and contracts.

- signing users up by default for your newsletters to be sent to our email is annoying and not a good way to ingratiate yourself to new users. - new threads created in the forum whenever a new article is posted is a turn off and clutters up the Cubs talk sub-forum. I'd suggest putting those threads in their own section of the forum. - Too many threads in the Cubs talk forum. Also, all that's needed is a single gameday thread, or at worst a new thread every series or every month. The fewer the better IMO.

I'd hit Happ maybe 2nd and put Nico towards the bottom of the order.

Someone tell Wesneski to throw 70% sliders. They're just sitting on that BP fastball.

I think he's just not very good at visually picking up different pitches so he's a pure guess hitter, which is why he let's meatball pitches go by, or does those weak emergency half-swings like he's been doing lately. How can youput a good swing on a meatball fastball when you're looking eg. curveball?

Definitely not right now. Low margin for error with his stuff.

I'm not talking about points in favor or against. I'm just saying we can't make an overly simplistic argument like "he's 25 years old so he should be in the MLB by now". Guaranteed the Cubs aren't going to evaluate him like that.

I don't think age matters as much with Mervis as with other prospects given he was mainly only a pitcher his 1st two seasons of college, plus barely played his last year of college due to COVID. The Rizzo comp only shows that guys may need a couple of season in the MLB until they hit their stride. I hope they give Mervis a good amount of playing time next year but they also need another option available. Maybe that option ends up being Bellinger.

Can't see PCA up this year without an injury happening. I think they'll do the 2023 Mervis thing with PCA next year. Might use Tauchman in CF next year to start, or sign an FA to a 1-year like Kevin Kiermaier. Will be interesting to see what they do with 1b/Mervis this offseason and next year. I could see a similar strategy as last offseason, though hopefully whatever 1B they sign plays better, someone like CJ Cron. Maybe Amaya plays winter ball and works on 1B. I could see the Cubs bringing back Gomes next year.

I very much enjoyed watching the Cubs not just beat the Reds the last 2 nights, but humiliate them. They went BP on their pitching staff and exposed their defense. Pretty sure they broke Nick Senzel's brain. Inserted all sorts of doubt into their heads.