Stratos
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Everything posted by Stratos
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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.
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Assad has been huge in the 2nd half. He really helps out the pen.
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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.
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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.
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- david ross
- jed hoyer
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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.
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Shaw, maybe Horton.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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...
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Morel benched again because he's been terrible. He hasn't changed one bit from last year. Both seasons he started off hot, but up big numbers, then pitchers adjusted by spinning soft stuff away and he hasn't been able to adjust All he wants to do is pull the ball and swing as hard as he can on every pitch. He could be a superstar if he learns to lay back a bit and hit some balls towards CF. Very excitable personality, over anxious, guess that's part of his package. Oh well.
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The Cubs lost today because the pitching is lacking depth. Smyly should not be starting, and shouldn't have pitched more than a couple innings. The pen only has a few good options and they're all gassed. Ross didn't have good options today, not his fault. The Tigers scored 8 runs on them. Cubs need to win games where they score 6 runs. Hoyer didn't add enough pen depth in the offseason and didn't add anyone reliable at the deadline. Stroman is out. Cubs need to think about bringing up one of the young SP in the minors to replace Smyly.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Can we also appreciate Madrigal's basket power? LOL
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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.
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Turning into the 2nd best Cubs team ever LOL
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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.
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Michael Barrett punched a lot of people. But to be fair, Pierzynski and Zambrano are very punchable people.
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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.
