Hairyducked Idiot

Huh? So one error (albeit a key one) means he was horrible? .333/.333/.750 with 2 doubles, a home run, and 4 of the 6 RBIs That's horrible? He also put the ball in play in a 3rd<2 situation.

4-on-4 OT is relatively new, it's meant to increase the chances of scoring in OT. It's only active in the regular season. The penalty has always (at least as long as I can remember) ended on a goal, unless it's a major (5 min) penalty. They've never done multiple OTs in the regular season. It used to just be a tie. But in the playoffs, they've always just kept playing until the first goal.

I think we can "get by" with what we have on offense (if bringing back the league's best offense is "getting by.") We'll just have to hope that Pie and Fukudome can be productive lefty hitters. I really, really want to see some starting pitching depth. Good starting pitching depth. I am very worried about the arms of Zambrano and Harden.

A proven playoff hitter like Alex Gonzalez would have been nice...

So do we want the Angels to avoid the sweep and keep our new record, or do we want the Cubs to avoid infamy?

But to be honest, another lefty wasn't going to be the difference between winning in the series and scoring 6 runs in 3 games. I still suspect our right-handed lean is a weakness, but it's not a decisive one in a series like this.

Let me add: For a 101-win team (or a 96-pythagorean-win team if you prefer), the 2003 Braves had a pretty mediocre starting rotation.

Pass. I'm a Cubs fan, I want to talk about the Cubs and the experience of being a Cubs fan on a message board for Cubs fans. The fact that you want to read way too much into it and generally be pushy about what people are and aren't allowed to talk about is not my concern.

I never said I "knew the Cubs won't win." I said I knew the odds were against it, though better for them than any other team. Other than that, fair point, but you don't think that this specific way of losing was especially unfun? definitely was very unfun. honestly i'm just annoyed by your continual over the top melodrama. you spent a week flooding every postseason thread around about how the odds were stacked against us and it didn't matter so just enjoy the ride it was a good year blah blah blah and now you're flooding every post-playoff thread with the cubs broke me i'm thinking about quitting i can't take it any more. just hit the road, you're not breaking any hearts Better idea. If you don't want to hear what a specific Cubs fan has to say about the Cubs, you put that fan on ignore and move on, instead of misrepresenting what they say and telling them to leave.

I never said I "knew the Cubs won't win." I said I knew the odds were against it, though better for them than any other team. Other than that, fair point, but you don't think that this specific way of losing was especially unfun?

I'm so confused. Is this team good?

Cubs 2009 - Gambler's Fallacy FTW

Please, spare me. Finding out that you have a breaking point doesn't mean you don't care enough. Your breaking point may be further along than mine, you may may never come close to reaching that point, and that may all make you a 'better' fan than us, but deep down you have a breaking point, too. I've been perfectly honest in saying that I'm about 85% certain that I'll be back, but I am weighing my options. The reality is that I'd be throwing away 25 years of emotional investment in the Cubs, and that if I jumped ship and the new team won it all, it wouldn't feel nearly the same. And if the Cubs ever won, all those fans who stuck with it will be a lot happier than me. But quite frankly, rooting for the Cubs has become so unfun that it may be worth it. People keep trying to equivocate, saying "the best team doesn't always win," but that glosses over the sheer statistical improbability of what keeps happening to the Cubs. No team had ever been swept in the division series after winning this many games (though the Angels might break that record tonight). They've lost 9 straight playoff games, all by multiple runs. They've lost six straight potential pennant clinching games. There's a point where the whole thing jumps the shark, and entire seasons become not fun anymore, and even if they did win the WS it'd only be after 7 months of worrying and discounting and it wouldn't even be that fun. The unofficial fan system says I'm honor bound to stick with a team I don't like because of a fluke of geography that caused me to align with them before I was old enough to understand what I was doing (and dang it, I was born right in the middle of Cubs and Cardinals fan countries, so it could have gone either way...), and I'm questioning that system. If that bothers some people around here, when I'm doing nothing to hurt them in any way, when I'm not flooding the boards or even creating new threads, so be it. But the fact that "never-die" fans think they are so cool is that there are those of us who die eventually, and if that turns out to be me, I wish you all well.

As pointed out above, certain right-handed pitchers have better splits than others. Although *unproven* at this point, it's possible that the Cubs' offense could struggle against exceptional right-handed pitching and clean up against weak right-handed pitching.

It would be great to have another lefty bat, but RH hitters should be able to hit RH pitchers too. Most ML hitters have faced RH pitching 85-90% of the time from Little League, Pony League, HIgh School, College, and the minor leagues. I'll give you that Lowe can be hard to hit, but that doesn't explain games 2 and 3. Billingsley is better than Lowe, for Game 2.

Emotional utility. If the Cubs bring back the exact same team next season, there's a 20% chance they win the NL pennant and we're all very happy, an an 80% chance they fail and we're all utterly disgusted at seeing a team with the same core fail three years in a row. If they blow it up and replace everyone, there's a 10% chance they win the NL pennant and we're all very happy, and there's an 90% chance they fail but it at least feels exciting and new. The average happiness fans get from the second scenario is higher, though each fans' mileage may vary on the percentages and the levels of happiness each scenario brings.

Every team has weaknesses that they'd like to address. If the pitching health holds up, the Cubs will be a playoff team again next year, with or without the Hendry-induced flaws.

You are right that he is untradeable, so no point in discussing how wrong you are on the other stuff. That'd be where we somehow find another lefty bat. Pie would be nice for defense, but we'll see what the offseason brings. Stuck with him. Probably stuck with him, not a ton of better options out there. Someone with an arm would be nice. Our 1B is a well below average hitter for his position and is one of the worst #3 hitters in baseball. Stuck with him. An incredible assumption that I find very unlikely. Shoulder problems like Harden and Zambrano are having don't just go away. Most bullpens are. They've got a couple quality arms, that's plenty in most games. If you need your bullpen in the sixth, you probably aren't in good shape anyways.

There's always got to be a tradeoff between excitement and rewarding the best. Honestly, even a 7-game series isn't enough to give the best teams a decisive advantage. A 13-game series probably wouldn't be enough. Anything short of a 30-team league playing 150+ games and awarding the title to the team with the best record at the end is a bastardization.

Please be kidding. What would you have them do?

I'm not here to improve your life. As far as my own? We'll see, I'm still working that out. Besides, if there's anything certain types of fans love, it's fans they can feel superior to. I'm providing an example that loyal fans can feel better about themselves for their not being me.

Joe Sheehan is absolutely right. Other than finding a left-handed bat to make them slightly less vulnerable to these bad matchups, and doing a whole lot of praying over the shoulders of Zambrano and Harden, the Cubs don't need to do much of anything.

This is how I tend to think, but unfortunately it will never happen because of $$$. Why not just go all the way and eliminate the WS too? The fairest way to decide the champion would be to have all 30 teams play a massive round-robin, best record is champion. Anything short of that is just adding a random element, and I see no reason why 2 playoff teams are better than 8.

Is it that much worse than rotating?

The Cardinals have been to the playoffs 7 times since 1990. They've won at least two playoff games in every single appearance. The Cubs have been four times, and been swept three. This isn't about the crapshoot, it's about the sheer impressiveness of the losing.