As a Cubs fan, thanks for Cuas. Dude is elite at walking batters.
***Official 2023 Chicago Cubs Thread***
- Thread starter BigJCy
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But on the plus side, every appearance you get to hear the story about him being out of baseball and a truck driver before switching to sidearm and making a comeback.
Thank goodness we won the WS in 2016 else the drought may still be going right now. It's amazing how fast that team fell apart when it looked like the Cubs were going to have a big window to possibly win multiple championships for a while. Pitching fell apart a bit and we made a bad trade with the White Sox for Quintana. 2018 bullpen was a mess and we had Chatwood in the rotation and Cole Hamels who couldn't stay healthy so bottom part of the rotation had issues. Really the main issues after 2016 at first was probably with inconsistent pitching and not bring in quality arms then around 2019 or 2020 we started to see the drop off in production from the core position players.
Problem is the Mets are still butthurt every trade conversation for Alonso is going to start and stop with PCA. Is that worth one year?
I still find it funny if they really are butthurt over the Javy deal that they can't do a reasonable trade after that. That's a front office issue if they have buyer's remorse. The Cubs have made plenty of them over the years, the more recent one we got fleeced on was trading for Quintana and sending 2 of our top prospects Eloy Jimenez and Dylan Cease who wound up finishing 2nd in the Cy Young voting last season. In 1998 we trade Jon Garland to them for Matt Karchner and Garland wound up having a pretty nice career. Hasn't stopped us from making more trades with them. The Darvish trade with the Padres is still hinging on Caissie being good because the other 3 players in that trade have not panned out. Josh Donalson for Rich Harden didn't turn out too great either. If you really wanted to go back in history for worst trades of all time 1 name says it all: Lou Brock
I really think losing guys like Fowler and Ross after that season really hurt from a talent and leadership standpoint.
Dex was a key table setter at the top of the lineup and we let him walk for Almora who was a bust.
Then Ross retired and we had Contreras running the staff which was a huge downgrade in defense and pitch calling. That was pre-DH though so they had to get Contreras's bat in the lineup somehow.
I agree though, that World Series was vital or alot of this fanabse could be jumping ship the last few years with how frustrating its been.
In hindsight losing Fowler wasn't a huge loss as far as productivity goes. He got a 5 year/$82.5 mil deal from the Cardinals for AAV of $16.5 mil and his productivity and health spiraled downhill after his 1st year of that. He was a 4.0 WAR for the Cubs in 2016 and after that finished his career out with seasons of 1.8 -1.4 1.4 0.0 and -0.2 Cubs got 2 very productive years out of him. Ross was 39 so knew he wasn't coming back going into that season. Lost a lot of leadership for sure losing those 2 that was missing on that 2017 team. The biggest mistake the FO made when things started to head downhill with that group was not committing to either adding proven but high price pieces to fill in the holes in the roster or start trading off some of the core pieces sooner when they were at peak value. I still think they made out pretty well at the deadline with those 3 guys but I imagine had they traded 1 or 2 of them a year or 2 sooner what kind of prospects they could have got back.
Another bad trade of the past I just thought of, Cubs traded DJ LeMahieu and Tyler Colvin for Ian Stewart who was a huge bust while LeMahieu has had a pretty solid career.
KidSilverhair
Well-Known Member
I think if they get Ohtani, they’ll be riduculous with asking price. If they don’t, I think they’ll go full sell and won’t be silly in asking price. Could very well be wrong, though.
Am I crazy for being kind of "meh" on Belli for that number? Just concerns me how bad he was the few years prior and that the regression could be there once he gets a big deal.
I'd be way more comfortable in the Dansby range. $30M AAV for a guy on a bounce back year seems like trouble. If $210M is the number add an 8th year for tax purposes.
The problem with the team is they lack star power and have too many holes.
At the plate they basically have Bellinger, Suzuki, and a plethora of guys who are "solid" and do a lot of small things well (Hoerner being the best of the lot). Third base is an offensive black hole, LF (Happ) is power deficient, and Dansby has been pretty bad the entire second half. The result is a feast or famine offense that has been fairly unreliable the the last month to month and a half of the season.
On the mound you have Steele, a legit number 1 calibre starting pitcher, but after him you have a bunch of question marks. Hendricks is solid but has a hard time early (finding his stuff) and late (when he starts losing it). Stroman is realistically a middle of the rotation guy while a guy like Taillon is horrible. With young arms like Wicks showing they are at least serviceable (and better) starters than Taillon, it's time to cut that loss and get whatever you can.
The bullpen is really a complete ******* mess. At times they pitched well but like others have said the reliable arms were ran into the ground and the unreliable arms largely stayed unreliable. Too many injuries, too much uncertainty, and not nearly enough reliability when the games counted.
It's hard to figure where this team is right now in a way, but that's tempered by the farm system which, for hte first time in years, has quality prospects in the field AND on the mound.
I honestly have no idea how it will shake out but I do hope Ross is gone.
At the plate they basically have Bellinger, Suzuki, and a plethora of guys who are "solid" and do a lot of small things well (Hoerner being the best of the lot). Third base is an offensive black hole, LF (Happ) is power deficient, and Dansby has been pretty bad the entire second half. The result is a feast or famine offense that has been fairly unreliable the the last month to month and a half of the season.
On the mound you have Steele, a legit number 1 calibre starting pitcher, but after him you have a bunch of question marks. Hendricks is solid but has a hard time early (finding his stuff) and late (when he starts losing it). Stroman is realistically a middle of the rotation guy while a guy like Taillon is horrible. With young arms like Wicks showing they are at least serviceable (and better) starters than Taillon, it's time to cut that loss and get whatever you can.
The bullpen is really a complete ******* mess. At times they pitched well but like others have said the reliable arms were ran into the ground and the unreliable arms largely stayed unreliable. Too many injuries, too much uncertainty, and not nearly enough reliability when the games counted.
It's hard to figure where this team is right now in a way, but that's tempered by the farm system which, for hte first time in years, has quality prospects in the field AND on the mound.
I honestly have no idea how it will shake out but I do hope Ross is gone.
Because it’s no longer in our hands. We need help from Miami or Arizona AND the Cubs need to win out basically. Whereas not even two weeks ago we had full control of our fate.
The Cubs are only half game back of the Marlins though. That’s not some insurmountable hill. They are right there. They could pass them tonight.
Sure but Miami has been playing winning baseball and the Cubs have just been finding ways to lose games they have late leads in. Miami owns the tiebreaker too.
Marlins currently up 4-3 in the 8th and the Cubs just loaded the bases for Milwaukee in the 5th with no outs. If Miami wins and the Cubs lose tonight there’s almost no way the Cubs can catch and pass them.
Marlins has the tie breaker. If Cubs are tied with Marlin, Marlins will take the last wild card spot.