Jump to content
North Side Baseball

Stratos

Old-Timey Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    4,162

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

 Content Type 

Profiles

Joomla Posts 1

Chicago Cubs Videos

Chicago Cubs Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

2026 Chicago Cubs Top Prospects Ranking

News

2023 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

Guides & Resources

2024 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

The Chicago Cubs Players Project

2025 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker

2026 Chicago Cubs Draft Tracker: Picks & Bonuses

Blogs

Events

Forums

Store

Gallery

Everything posted by Stratos

  1. Stratos
    Cabrera's fastball sucks, but one tweak there could really help him, like it did Brown. Brown, Boyd, Cabrera, Imanaga, Peterson. That rotation has potential to be at least be average to solid. With this offense that might be enough. Teams have won a WS that way. They add another SP and it could be above-average if mostly healthy. The key is to keep guys like Taillon and Rea from starting as much as possible, which comes from guys being healthy. They could use another arm or 2 in the pen. They could use another guy with shutdown stuff like Palencia. We saw how huge the pen is in the 1st 2 rounds last year. If we had a good pen the rotation wouldn't even be as much an issue.
  2. Stratos
    Best sucky pitcher in Cubs history?
  3. Stratos
    We do have a surplus of prospects to deal from. The MLB infield is locked up for several years. We need 2 corner OF next year and one of them could be Shaw. I suspect Shaw might remain a supersub. .Rojas/Ramirez could move to the OF or 1 of them to the bench, but we also have Kepley, Conrad, Hartshorn for OF longterm, plus Alcantara. Ramirez, Shaw, Alcantara, and maybe Kepley could compete for the OF spots next spring. They could also sign a vet like Conforto on a short term for depth. We also a bunch of have other prospects below any of those guys we can deal, like the Cole Mathis variety. I think they keep Mo because he could catch next year.
  4. Stratos
    Yesterday he passed his fWAR total from last season.
  5. Stratos
    Must also suck being an ump in that stretch of weather. They might get a couple of mins break between innings.
  6. Stratos
    That's a good question. He might take a while to get going. Not enough MLB data yet to conclude anything.
  7. Stratos
    Given our budgets, Id much, much rather we spend our big money on position guys than pitchers. If your 4 WAR 30 million AAV SP goes down to major injury it can sink a teams' season. That's too many wins on the IL. I also would avoid first round picks on pitchers unless the pick is too good to pass up. I have issues with Theo and Jed's philosophy there. You can use rounds after the first for pitching. Get some interesting arms and spend money to build the best pitching development system possible. I can.nitpick but don't really have much of an issue with how Jed runs the org, including FA, or the draft We've run into some really bad injury luck on the pitching side this year. If Horton didn't go down and Steele was close to returning and overall injury rate was average elsewhere we'd have a darn good team.
  8. Stratos
    Wouldn't pitchers just want more and more Ks? I don't see that working.
  9. Stratos
    Well it would either decrease injuries or increase them. The has to be a point where the costs of making out velo outweigh the costs. As it is now, many SP still don't try to throw as hard as they would as a reliever.
  10. Stratos
    I think the pitch clock has likely had an affect on injuries too due to less recovery time between pitches and innings. Agree with @Bertzwhere roster limits or other rules might have to come into play. Something like 11 pitcher roster limit would help lengthen SP outings, but not sure if it would help relievers much. The fix is probably coming from systemic aka rule changes rather than players or teams. Players will always search for an advantage and take risks, like with PEDs. I feel bad for the pitchers who feel the need to do this. At a certain point it becomes a bit of a workplace health and safety issue if you're being asked to slowly rip your tendons apart.
  11. Stratos
    The explanation for the glut of Cubs pitcher injuries this year is " this is just the reality in 2026". That's likely very true, but is it an acceptable excuse? If we're doing something the rest of the league is doing, and the result is better velo/stuff and lower ERAs from pitchers but they're unable to stay off IL, then maybe it's time to reevaluate the wisdom of that entire strategy. At what point do the benefits not outweigh the costs? Improving a pitcher's ERA by e.g half a run or a full run is great, but it's not useful if they aren't healthy and the roster is filled with replacement- level pitchers. Would we rather have Steele and Horton putting up e.g 3.80 ERAs instead of Cy Young. numbers but avoiding multiple elbow surgeries? It makes sense for the pitchers with borderline talent to take the risk, but what about everyone else? Will teams & players start taking the gas off the throttle a bit?
  12. Stratos
    "The mighty Caissie has struck out" (a lot)
  13. Stratos
    At this point I'm hitching my wagon to the idea that the Cubs should spend 90% of their payroll on position players and then build their pitching staff out off cheap replacement nobody's. Not really, but maybe teams get to that point soon.
  14. Stratos
    Oh yes, back when replacement players hit 30 bombs lol
  15. Stratos
    I checked and Kepley has 39 SBs in 68 games in high A this year.
  16. Stratos
    He beat 1998 Sosa?
  17. Stratos
    Yes fair enough. Problem is what performance we have to put up with on the hope he might get on a roll. His margin for error seems very low.
  18. Stratos
    He has a 6.31 FIP and a -0.7 WAR. Sub- replacement performance. And that's in April/May before the weather really heats up and the wind gets going.. The guy has a 5.31 ERA even with a fantastic defense behind him. You could even make a decent argument we're better without him. I like the guy a lot but he sucks. His stuff is batting practice and his 4-seamer is so terrible he's done his best to abandon it.
  19. Stratos
    But if we moved him down in the order where he belongs based on performance we might risk bruising an athlete's fragile ego. Teams can't overcome such adversities. He's hitting .195 with 81 wRC+ in June btw. With his well-below average running speed (when he chooses to run)
  20. Stratos
    I guess they pushed his start back? Based on days was scheduled for yesterday's game or today I think?
  21. Stratos
    I can't remember the last time we had a worse pitching staff on the active roster. Gotta give them some credit this series for the grind. Same with the hitters vs an impressive Brewers staff.
  22. Stratos
    I get it but he has to pick his spots. You're down a run with a guy on 2nd vs the division leading team you're trying to catch in the standing. Unless you're actively hurt, every single player on the team needs to run out any play in that situation, including the catchers.
  23. Stratos
    The Pope from Chicago will grant this team sainthood because this is a miracle.
  24. Stratos
    What did the our training staff put in the player lunches to give him appendicitis??
  25. Stratos
    Maybe Rea's arm will explode tonight
×
×
  • Create New...