The field and seedings are finalized now that the last teams standing did the split thing and bounced the Diamondbacks in an indirect act of revenge for the Cubs.
Make your picks. Or don’t. I can’t tell you what to do.
The field and seedings are finalized now that the last teams standing did the split thing and bounced the Diamondbacks in an indirect act of revenge for the Cubs.
Make your picks. Or don’t. I can’t tell you what to do.
There are plenty of articles to link to regarding Kyle Hendricks’ desire to pitch past this season and how it won’t likely be with the Cubs. As well as no longer being an “only one team” Immaculate Grid selection, this is going to be the last piece of the 2016 World Series championship group saying goodbye. Kyle will come back to us in future Cubs Conventions and whenever they need a guest conductor, and perhaps he may one day serve as a pitching coach or some other capacity in the organization, but the days of him pitching effectively for the North Siders is over. Let’s instead remember him as he was, while we await what is to be his final start wearing the home team’s uniform.
I’ve been diligently looking for work and have some interviews here and there, hopefully something sticks soon. And I guess the timing is good for when I start an eventual new job because the Cubs’ season is over:
The Cubs now sit at 79-76 on the season. The Diamondbacks and Mets currently hold the last 2 National League Wild-Card spots with the Braves still challenging behind them in the standings.
“It was a tough year, obviously,” Kyle Hendricks said after Saturday’s loss. “Just up-and-down. It just seemed like we’d catch steam and then couldn’t maintain it.
“Just a really up-and-down year. Not surprising we’re at about .500. Just how it went for us this year. When we played our good baseball, played fundamental, we could beat anybody. But we just couldn’t put it together for the full year this year.”
Marquee Sports Network
Technically there are a week of games remaining, including the finale against the Nationals that has yet to be played as I clickety-clack, but (soon-to-be former) Cubs World Series hero Kyle Hendricks is correct in that the lack of consistency and the absolutely putrid months of May and June (seriously, what was up with that) killed the season. It’s a disappointment on many levels for a team we all thought could make some noise at the beginning of the year. At least they weren’t eliminated in like July like certain other Chicago-area teams.
As the Cubs play out the string, it was interesting to see Craig Counsell and Jameson Taillon address the fact that they were so far behind the Milwaukee Brewers (seriously, who saw this gap coming?) and how they really needed to work to catch up. Taillon reiterated the need to generate a 90-win team at minimum. Whether we expected the Brewers to be this good, or whether they deserve to be this good, is immaterial, as the Cubs could have and should have done more to address the flaws that we were all witness to during this season. I think there are plenty of positives to take into the next season, including how they did make a late season surge again (a bit too little and too late, of course), but as Counsell implied, some difficult decisions will be made as Jed Hoyer enters his final guaranteed season as president of baseball operations.
I can say with some level of certainty that guys like Kyle Hendricks (sad face) and Drew Smyly (meh) won’t be back. Whether Cody Bellinger opts out or not is up in the air, but with Pete Crow-Armstrong maturing into the everyday center fielder, Bellinger’s value if he stayed on the Cubs may take a hit, so that is worth monitoring as the offseason draws closer. I’m going to take an educated guess that the Cubs also upgrade their bench, at the minimum, and find a way to get more consistent relievers although we all know that bullpen arms are volatile.
The important thing is to raise the projection in the offseason, as this team will max out at 86 wins if they run the table in the remaining time. That is probably highly unlikely as they are hard pressed to sweep a Phillies club that needs to compete for the top seed, and a Reds team with very little to lose and some bright spots of their own, but as many have lamented throughout 2024, if a few of the saves hadn’t been blown and if a few more hits had dropped, things would be really different. So the issue is not only the projection, but luck and preparation. Whoever joins the club, whether it is a promotion from the minors, a trade, or a free agent signing, needs to be onboarded effectively. Slumps need to be nipped faster. Struggles need to be addressed with more urgency. I don’t envy the people in charge who have to deal with it.
Ricketts was selling Cubs Convention tickets pretty recently, so as we wait for the regular season to end and watch another World Series without the Cubs, let’s hope they give us something to be excited about in what we hope to be the inflection point of this “retool” period. Baseball is better when the Cubs are in the playoffs, and while I am thankful that they played meaningful games almost into the final week of the season, there is a lot of work to do to get them back into the dance.
There was probably a Tom Tango Twitter thread (or a blog even) that said that home run robberies were pretty much “routine catches” or whatever. I’m too lazy and disinterested to find it now, but after last night’s performance (particularly on defense), at least FanGraphs decided to give Pete Crow-Armstrong his due:
Despite having played just 106 games so far, Crow-Armstrong has produced 5.2 runs above average as a baserunner, which is eighth among all MLB players regardless of playing time. His 10.5 defensive runs rate fifth among all outfielders. (His bonkers Tuesday night alone was worth about a run and a half.) Extrapolating those numbers out to 550 plate appearances and 1,000 defensive innings brings the total to over 20 combined defensive and baserunning runs above average.
Via FanGraphs
If this embeds right, this is at least part of what spurred the attention:
I guess that’s routine for PCA? I mean we Cubs fans have known about him for a while now, and it’s really nice that he is deserving of the attention. Just an appreciation post, I’m sure he’ll do something chaotic and fun again before the season ends, so stay tuned.
In between searching for new employment and whatever else is going on in real life right now, I thought I’d temper some expectations and doom with some math. Funny enough, the only mention of “math” in the OV archives is one of the old comics about Joe Mather of all people, but I’m too lazy to grab something math-y from Al Gore’s internet, so this can stay and be fun. Incidentally, once upon a time when the Cubs sucked, I watched Joe Mather walk off an obviously superior Cardinals team at Wrigley, so strange things do happen in baseball.
We are at the point where we need more strange things to happen in favor of the Cubs. The problem, of course, is the prolonged slump in May and June that put them in this position in the first place (kind of the opposite of what happened last year). Having one of the first major bullpen fails that actually led to a loss after a hot streak was annoying but not unexpected. The problem is that certain clubs above the Cubs in the standings aren’t losing at the same time. Arizona and San Diego are too far away. Milwaukee has the division pretty much locked up. At 71-67, the Cubs have 24 games remaining to make up either the 10 game deficit in the division (probably not going to happen) or the 3.5 games (more like 4.5 with having lost pretty much every tiebreaker) between them and Atlanta, not to mention having to outplay the Mets, so it’s doable, just very very difficult and improbable.
The month of September has plenty of winnable games, but also a few land mines. Theoretically the Cubs can take Paul Skenes to school and then win their series against the Pirates despite laying a stinker in the opener, but that will be a tough task. Then the Yankees with a recovered Anthony Rizzo come into town, and that is not an easy matchup even if said Yankees have been struggling. Then a West Coast road trip to visit the Dodgers (not easy) and Coors (chaos incarnate) before a hopefully easier homestand against the A’s and Nationals. The last road trip of the year is three in Philly, who have the lead in their division but haven’t clinched anything yet, before finishing off the season at home against the Reds, who by that point you hope will be done.
With those 24 games remaining, the Cubs could go .500 (which would suck) and get to 83 wins, which would match last year’s surprising (yet ultimately disappointing) record, only this season we expected slightly better, so let’s not do that. Given that nobody wants to lose, the Cubs probably need anywhere from 86 to 90 wins to get that last wild card, so that’s between 15-9 (.625) and 19-5 (.792). Given their blitz through some easier competition and some of the matchups coming up, those are certainly still possible, as long as they don’t get fully embarrassed against the good teams and do what they need to against the bottom dwellers. While I would refrain from making any bets, I would also not completely dismiss this slim but still very real possibility. And even for those who gave up in June, at least you’re paying attention again, eh?
Mostly because we needed a new post, and also because this was one of the more enjoyable, albeit improbable, comebacks in recent Cubs memory, thanks in no small part to a certain random #9 hitter. The sweep was nice too.
There’s the usual thing about waiving and optioning to Iowa and trades and stuff, but since the trade deadline has passed and we are talking about David Bote, we can be fairly confident that this is the last we will see of our one-time legend in Cubs pinstripes for a while.
Per various sources (including the posts in the previous thread of comments), Luis Vázquez is going to be called up to replace Bote on the roster, while the open spot with the DFA will go to a claim for a pitcher from the Arizona Diamondbacks, Gavin Hollowell, who’s a pretty big boy with strikeout potential.
It kind of sucks for Bote, who gained his moment of Cubs fame with that ultimate grand slam and generally did his time in Iowa after that. He got one final shot with the Cubs this summer, and unfortunately he barely played, and when he did play, he couldn’t work enough magic to justify more playing time. At least he made his money and can either go back to Iowa (I feel that’s unlikely) or try to latch on with another team to play for his next job.
Fare thee well, Bote, and we will always have Wrigley.
Just so we have a new post, carry on.
It’s a Cubs off day, so that’s about time to check in on our favorite squadron’s slim chances of making a difference this season…
Given all this, I guess we continue to be thankful that most of the National League still blows and the Cubs haven’t been mathematically eliminated yet, unlike certain neighbors to the south. The road to the end of the season gets decidedly easier, though that won’t mean much if the Cubs can’t muster up a run, let alone many runs, in the games that remain. Here’s the schedule going forward for those curious…
Napkin math says they need at least 85 wins to even have a chance, which is two more than they got all last year. With 37 games remaining, that’s a 24-13 record. They should probably aim to do better than this, with some red-hot prospects in Iowa that might yet get the call in September, but as berselius says, play better and things might happen.
As pitchers continue to pile up on the injured list shelf, and seemingly a new Tommy John announcement every few days, this random thing just came out:
The league has discussed a limit to the size of pitching staffs and the double-hook DH, according to sources familiar with the discussion. There is some belief around the game, however, that one idea could be a panacea: requiring starting pitchers to go at least six innings every time they take the mound.
Source: ESPN
As starter innings have dwindled and the old-school “workhorse” has all but become extinct, the rosters have expanded by one to accommodate that extra pitcher. The issue, of course, is that any changes this drastic will take time, and that means we won’t see the teams adapting to this for at least a couple years, and then slowly we would see the new crop of pitchers move up to start eating six innings plus at a time again. Or that’s the theory, anyway.
The other issue is that because everyone knows that more velocity equals more potential outs, it isn’t like the pitchers are going to scale it back because the incentives just aren’t there yet. I have wondered out loud whether pitching salaries will take a hit as the market corrects itself to say “hey maybe we shouldn’t dump all the money for arms that are going to break,” which is admittedly kind of shitty because the pitchers initiate the action and are one of the most important parts of any baseball team, yet teams are just grinding through them like so much hamburger meat before going to the next arm that isn’t broken.
Now that this is on the table, along with computerized balls-and-strikes being considered, maybe we will get back to a type of game that we older folks grew up with, where the starter was expected to get through six or seven innings or even go complete game, where the baserunners run wild, and where it isn’t just the three true outcomes anymore. That won’t happen for a while yet, but it’s kind of funny how everything, even baseball, wants to go retro now, eh?