Chicago Cubs Thread - The Ricketts are too poor to pay players

[hrubes20]

17 hours ago, Blazer026 said:

Who the hell is Tyson Miller lol. Starting our 2nd game tonight 

Yeah, the SP depth is getting tested already.  Quintana is on the shelf still.  Chatwood hit the shelf.  Alzolay took a liner off his forearm down in South Bend and was unavailable.  Rea was brought up to be in the pen as a reliever.  It's pretty rough.  Hopefully Alzolay is fine to go in the 2nd half of the doubleheader tomorrow.  (And also hope the bats wake the **** up)

As you probably heard on the broadcast, Miller was a 4th round pick a couple years ago.  He's got BOR starter's size and stuff, but his command is very iffy.  He's not worth a roster spot until he can improve on that.  I have him ranked in the 25-30 range as a prospect in the system.  

Silver lining in the terrible recent stretch has been the bullpen.  Get rid of Kyle Ryan and bring up Burl Carraway and we may actually have something here.

[hrubes20]

I've had enough of the Dan Winkler experiment.  Also the Kyle Ryan experiment (the current 85 mph version).  Once we get a SP back, send them both down to SB.  

[Blazer026]

Well I think it’s time for me to finally say Happ is a better option than Almora in CF. Almora is a great 5th OF though. Love watching him out there, batting however is a different story. 

[pwny]

Welp. Time to see if Kimbrel has this all figured out. 

[pwny]

The hit batter was bad, but those three other strike outs were A+. Hopefully he figured out the mechanical issues. Hit 98 on the gun. Three straight scoreless outings for him. Not ready to say he’s back, but these last two outings have been vintage Kimbrel. 

[hrubes20]

12 hours ago, pwny said:

The hit batter was bad, but those three other strike outs were A+. Hopefully he figured out the mechanical issues. Hit 98 on the gun. Three straight scoreless outings for him. Not ready to say he’s back, but these last two outings have been vintage Kimbrel. 

I even saw a 99.  No idea if he's back to what he was, but the past 3 outings are easily the best he's had in a Cubs uniform.

[pwny]

1 hour ago, hrubes20 said:

I even saw a 99.  No idea if he's back to what he was, but the past 3 outings are easily the best he's had in a Cubs uniform.

Yup, 99. My mistake. Yeah. The one two outings ago, when viewed solely by itself looked like it was maybe just an okay outing. But especially the last two, he’s looked like an ace.

I know they said that they looked at a bunch of film and thought everything wrong was mechanical and had a lot to do with an inconsistent arm angle. So hopefully that’s all it was and we’re getting the pitcher he was supposed to be. 

[pwny]

I whiffed hard on my assessment of Vogelbach. I thought he was going to be a star and was frustrated we gave up that much for Monty. I legitimately believed he was more valuable than Torres. 

[Blazer026]

2 hours ago, pwny said:

I whiffed hard on my assessment of Vogelbach. I thought he was going to be a star and was frustrated we gave up that much for Monty. I legitimately believed he was more valuable than Torres. 

Then we traded Monty and I thought we didn’t get enough. Hasn’t been good since we traded him, but I was livid at the time 

[hrubes20]

On 8/23/2020 at 9:23 PM, pwny said:

I whiffed hard on my assessment of Vogelbach. I thought he was going to be a star and was frustrated we gave up that much for Monty. I legitimately believed he was more valuable than Torres. 

I always knew he was a DH only, but I too thought he would hit well enough to be an everyday DH.  LHPs eat him up, though.  

On 8/23/2020 at 11:41 PM, Blazer026 said:

Then we traded Monty and I thought we didn’t get enough. Hasn’t been good since we traded him, but I was livid at the time 

He wasn't good when he was traded, either.  I will always have a soft spot for him for getting the last out in Game 7, but he was straight dookie his last year for the Cubs.  

[Blazer026]

Welcome back to the rotation Quintana lol 

[hrubes20]

Kimbrel is broke again.  It was a fun 2-3 outings while it lasted.  

Also, yesterday was fun.  It was the first time in baseball history that all 3 starting OFs on the same team had multi-homer games in the same game.  

Not Fun:  Javy and Willy are completely lost at the plate.  

[Blazer026]

Pretty happy with the deadline moves. About what I expected. 

[hrubes20]

16 hours ago, Blazer026 said:

Pretty happy with the deadline moves. About what I expected. 

I love the Maybin acquisition, if only because it meant that Almora got sent down to South Bend.  He is just unplayable as a hitter at this point.  

Martinez was a good addition for DH against LHPs.  This team has been abysmal against them.  

Chafin was a solid addition, assuming he gets healthy in time for the playoffs.  Osich would have been fine last year as a LOOGY, but is not nearly as attractive now that there is the 3 batter minimum rule in place.  

The price for all of these guys was next to nothing (PTBNL or cash considerations, which almost always means no prospects of note), so it's no big deal if they all fail to have any positive impact.  

[hrubes20]

I keep waiting for Happ to turn back into a pumpkin, but here we are, almost 400 PAs since his minor league demotion, and he actually keeps looking better.  This may actually be the real Ian Happ now.  It looks like we sacrificed KB/Rizzo/Javy to get this version of Happ, though.