2024 roster needs to take his last 3 months of the season into account. If he’s batting anywhere in the top 6, the lineup has holes
***Official 2023 Chicago Cubs Thread***
- Thread starter BigJCy
- Start date
I thought Swanson has very high baseball IQ and is a good situational hitter. I haven’t seen that this year.
He needs to be told to take a day off every once in a while. He's burned out playing this much without Albies and Acuna helping to carry the offensive and leadership roles...
I think this is the third time we’ve put Cuas in a role where we really just need outs and he hasn’t come through. If he’s proven time and time again he can’t be that guy, yet he still continues to be going out there to be given opportunities in must win games, maybe that should be added to the Ross **** list
For those who do support Ross, I’m curious what you think can be added that would “fix” this years issues. An ace, a better bullpen arm or two, and a better third basemen won’t do it
I still don’t understand why we traded for Cuas. No Pitching coach can fix his control problem. When he misses, it is not even close.
I don’t know specifics, but it is my understanding Velazquez would’ve been a minor league FA this off-season so both the Cubs and Royals had guys with similar contract situations and Cuas is who we ended up with.
From my understanding, he was expected to just be a filler arm if needed, which was the role he served, and he was really good at throwing meaningless innings, and then for whatever reason we felt it was time to start making him Clutch McGee and he just ain’t it
I'm not sure anyone wants Ross back. I just don't like seeing every move that doesn't work out scrutinized. Hopefully the FO flushes the dead weight forcing guys like Canario to get time.
This reminds me of the epic 2004 collapse. We were pushing 90% playoff odds right after the Giants series. Absolutely pathetic we are going to miss playoffs because we can't beat Pittsburgh or Colorado.
The difference is that in 2004, the Cubs were preseason favorites to win the World Series and imploded while this team has been overachieving and not initially predicted for the postseason.
CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
Right. Wild Card contenders was our rosiest sort of prediction, and that's happening either way.
I'm not at the point of calling for Ross's job yet as this roster has it's flaws and challenges to make it work every night especially when you factor in the injuries. However, if there is a chance to get Craig Counsell I'd be fine with replacing him with a known commodity. Kind of like when they replaced Renteria with Maddon, Renteria did nothing to deserve the quick hook but when you can get a proven manager available. Probably a long shot if he doesn't re-up with the Brewers he probably goes to someone like the Mets who has an underachieving expensive roster.
Per Baseball Reference, since August 4th, we’ve played 42 games. Dansby Swanson has negatively contributed to our win chances 28 times.
I have zero issues if Ross comes back if he meets these 4 simple requirements. And I get some of these are on the FO.
- Find your best team by mid-May, not mid-July. You can’t have 95 different starting lineups your first 102 games. That’s unacceptable. Unfuckingacceptable.
- Learn how to manage a bullpen, I would bet my left nut he’s in the bottom 5 in the league in this category. Cuas last night. Wesneski vs the Mets lefties. This isn’t a hindsight thing, it’s a common sense thing.
- Iowa State hits a huge 3 to extend a 12-0 run and are just down 8 for Steve Prohm to call timeout. Craig Brackins puts up 14 points in 2 minutes, McDermott pulls him to manage his minutes. David Ross (or FO) is both of these guys - he refuses to look at who is hot, what is working, and instead wants to focus on what the computer says. Play your best players. When they’re struggling, give them 2-3 days off.
- Cut the loyalty ********. If Player A is a better ball player than Player B, Player A should be playing. Period.
- Find your best team by mid-May, not mid-July. You can’t have 95 different starting lineups your first 102 games. That’s unacceptable. Unfuckingacceptable.
- Learn how to manage a bullpen, I would bet my left nut he’s in the bottom 5 in the league in this category. Cuas last night. Wesneski vs the Mets lefties. This isn’t a hindsight thing, it’s a common sense thing.
- Iowa State hits a huge 3 to extend a 12-0 run and are just down 8 for Steve Prohm to call timeout. Craig Brackins puts up 14 points in 2 minutes, McDermott pulls him to manage his minutes. David Ross (or FO) is both of these guys - he refuses to look at who is hot, what is working, and instead wants to focus on what the computer says. Play your best players. When they’re struggling, give them 2-3 days off.
- Cut the loyalty ********. If Player A is a better ball player than Player B, Player A should be playing. Period.
Let's not be too tough on him, he's still a 4.5 WAR on the season which is 2nd on the team to Hoerner at 4.9 and just above Bellinger's 4.3 and that is still 6th best amongst all MLB SS. Look at the other guys that got paid more than him this offseason Bogaerts 4.2 Turner 3.6 Correa 1.4 He's 5th at the position for RBI, 11 more than any of those 3 guys with Correa being the closest. He's also the top defensive WAR at SS too. For his first year I was not expecting him to replicate last season but it's still been the 2nd best season of his career. He's been the best bang for the buck out of the 4 free agent SS in the offseason so I'm not disappointed with him.
We can nitpick on him all we want but he's hardly the reason behind the struggles of this team. Not having good production from 1B and 3B for a majority of the year along with bullpen issues and some problems in the rotation too is the biggest thing holding this team back. Happ and Suzuki also had some bad cold spells at times this year too. The right moves in the offseason should shore a lot of that up if the front office navigates the offseason market reasonably along with the prospects that will be making their way to Chicago at some point too.
I guess my thoughts on Ross are simple. He was undoubtedly given a pretty ***** hand to start. There's no way around that. And I'm not sure his FO has done him any favors either. But with that said, I just can't think of a single thing that you can point to as proof he's a good manager. Lots of questionable lineups. Lots of questionable bullpen usage. And I don't know what role he plays in offseason acquisitions, but alot of horrid offseason signings. With that working against him, what exactly is there working in his favor?
I can't put the offseason signings on him because the Cubs pay scouts and front office personnel to do that. He may get some input in the decision making but at the end of the day if he doesn't have the GM title the blame for failed signings and acquisitions lies squarely on Hawkins and Hoyer. Anything with the in-game decisions and lineups is fair game to criticize him though. I still wonder if the front office has their thumb on the scale a bit with with some of the lineups he's put out there but we'll never know if that is 100% on him or some analytics geek is part of that process.