How are you guys feeling a month into the new season? My Cubs could be tied for first place after tonight, and despite a rash of injuries and a terrible bullpen, are a fun team to watch so far this year, and have the best home record in baseball. We brought our number one prospect up (Pete Crow Armstrong) and he hit a homer for his first MLB hit today. If they can ever get everyone healthy at the same time, I think we should put Bellinger in LF and make Happ the DH, where he can spell just about everyone other than catcher.
The Mets are better then I thought they'd be. I had them pegged for a 95 loss season once Senga went down. I still want to see our young players up here and playing regularly as im more excited about them then a team whose ceiling is probably 81-83 wins. Guys like Vientos need regular AB's and Butto and Scott should get regular turns through the rotation. When Drew Gilbert gets healthy (he was doing really well towards the end of last year and early this year) and Luisangel Acuna starts hitting consistently in AAA I want to see them up at the MLB level. We have a bunch of players like Alonso, Severino, Manaea, JD Martinez, Bader, Quintana, Houser all in the last year of their contracts (Manaea has an option)...some of those can be traded. I'd like to hang on to JD because he's a good influence on the younger hitters. He already helped Pete with his swing and he's hitting better since he said something about a week ago to Pete about pulling off the ball.
The Cubs have just been rocked by injuries at a constant rate this year, to the point that 57 games into the year, they've yet to field their #1 lineup a single time, or have their top five starting pitchers throw games in a row. Their healthiest player, Morel, has missed 12 games so far. That, and the bull pen flat out sucks, which is not a surprise. The team is alive because three of the starting pitchers have an ERA of 1.61 or less, and that's with our ace Justin Steele missing all of April and coming back rusty off of the DL since then. But, big picture, this was not expected to be a team that contended for the WS this season, and we have eight of the top 100 prospects in MLB, and another who was but was recently bumped down a little. To the extent that it will be interesting to see where they try to fit them into the lineup when the time comes. I like Bellinger, but he has an opt out in his contract after this year and they'll probably let him walk and promote from within.
Obviously, Imanaga is 30 years old and not a typical MLB rookie, but this is still super cool and impressive.
The Cubs offense has been very bad, but its the bullpen that's been their biggest problem. Its just disgusting.
I can relate. The Mets have blown 11 save opportunities this year so far, most if them in may. The good news is we have looked like an actual MLB team the last week or so.
https://www.si.com/mlb/mariners/new...m-history-after-sweeping-rangers-01j0k8ehnzjt I've been saying for 3 years now that the Mariners and the Dolphins are on parallel trajectories, baseball takes a little longer to turn things around, but I'm telling you boyz and girlz. This is the year. The Mariners are going to win their division, so are the Phins. We'll see where we go from there.
Happy Bobby Bonilla day, @Boik. Just one more decade to go, lol. Imagine if the Dolphins were still paying someone like Keith Jackson or Irving Fryar every year, because that's how long this has been going on.
Whats really crazy is the Mets aren't the only ones still paying Bonilla....Baltimore is too. There's a bunch of players still being paid. Griffey Jr had a 57.5m deferment that just finished today. The Mets are still paying Saberhagen, while Baltimore is still paying Chris Davis. Matt Holiday is still being paid by the cards. And about half a dozen I left out. Plus guys like Shohei who will be cashing checks in to his 50s lol.
Since a few days after I started this thread (May 1), my Cubs have the worst record in MLB. I'm going to Chicago for the first time since 2008 this month, but I'm not going to drag my kids to a game and pay $400 to watch these bums.
MLB Pipeline has updated their midseason prospect list, with the Cubs (7) and Mets (6) having the most top 100 players. The Cubs, unfortunately, don't really have any elite hitters in the system, despite this though. Even if all five of the position players they have ranked between #30 and #66 pan out, they're all 1-2, or 6-9 types on a good MLB team, most likely. And several of them are real question marks defensively to boot.
That doesn't mean they don't have value or aren't elite. They're just not 3,4,5 hitters by your definition. But I think most of us would classify guys like Trea Turner or Francisco Lindor as elite or close to and they're not 3,4,5 hitters either. The Mets would have 8 imo if Jonah Tong hadnt been omitted. Even in high A hus stats are impressive. Blade Tidwell is a glaring omission. The Mets historically crap out pitching like waterfalls and Tidwell and Sproat are next up along with Scott.
Oh sure. I'm a huge Turner fan and always have been. But the Cubs don't have anyone in the pipeline like him either. Their best hitting prospect, Matt Shaw, projects as a Dustin Pedrioa type in the best case scenario.
Last year, the Dolphins took Cam Smith with their highest pick in the draft. Tonight, the Cubs took Cam Smith with their highest pick in the draft. And he's from Miami. Different dudes, of course, but the odds of that seem small, lol.
With the Pirates and O's both breaking their drought the same night, that now leaves my Cubs with an unfortunate streak that's 31 years longer than the next worst team. But we're used to that kind of thing.
If it makes you feel better, having Burns start over Skubal was robbery lol. The Cubs don't really make sense though. They are aggressively committed to being decent but not good. Like, you spent all that money on Counsel and then make your roster worse for him? Mind-boggling.
Ownership unfortunately only cares about making money, and the team only needs to be decent for that to happen. They haven't spent on a top free agent since buying the team, and have let most of our own players walk too.
Yeah that's why I found the Counsell move so odd. You pay top dollar for a manager and then give him jack all to improve the team? Why not just stick with the mediocre salary of Ross.
It boosted fan interest and ticket sales. Counsel is cheaper than a top player. The Rickets aren't going to go totally cheap and put out a team that obviously sucks. They're going to give fans just enough hope that if things fall right we could win a lousy division. But they're light years away from competing with the other big market clubs, and the franchise is now a cash cow for them.
Cubs trading for Isaac Parades, that feels like a really solid move to me. I don't know a ton about those prospects, but it doesn't seem like the Cubs gave up any truly elite talents here, which seems a good deal considering there was some pretty widespread interest in the dude. As a sort of Tigers fan, I still think the Rays were incredibly dirty in the trade that got them Parades for Austin Meadows. Dude played a handful of games then mentally collapsed and hasn't played since. No way the Rays didn't know what was going on. Waiting to see what, if anything, the Tigers do. They have some interesting short and long term guys.
As a Cubs fan, it's a very surprising move. The main piece is Christopher Morrell, who's the same age as Parades, also plays third base, but has mostly not lived up to his potential so far. Big power but horrible contact, athletic but awful defender. The Cubs seemed to give up in him as other than a DH. Hunter Bigge is a mostly unproven reliever who I honestly knew very little about until recently. Ty Johnson is a low level prospect who wasn't in or near the Cubs top 30 prospects. As for Parades, the guess right now is that he's the Cubs third baseman for the next few years, and this is basically getting a head start on the offseason, which I approve of. He's immediately the 3 or 4 hitter in the lineup. A good step one, with several more needed if the offense isn't going to suck again next year.
The Cubs, at 17-9, have the best record against the AL among NL teams. Unfortunately, they're 34-47 against the NL.
Alex Bohm of the Phillies is on pace to hit 46 doubles this season, as the league leader. If he hits that mark, he'll become the 10th different Philly to hit at least 45 in a season since 2000. My Cubs have only had two guys hit 45+ since 1936 - Mark Grace and Derek Lee, one time each. And Wrigley is a very double-friendly park. On that note, I had the pleasure of touring Wrigley last week on a very beautiful day, and it was a fantastic experience. We had access to the dugout, visitor's clubhouse, pressbox, and the Catalina Club, which is where the rich folks with connections watch the game. Unfortunately we didn't get to go onto the field, because the team's front office was having a get together out there that day. Years ago, I toured Three Rivers Stadium as well, but that tour was far less impressive than this one.
With the trading deadline in the rearview mirror, I took a look at the MLB Draft Lottery odds, which is something I hadn't paid much attention to. Apparently, due to the weird rules they've set up, the White Sox, along with the A's, aren't eligible due to being selected multiple years in a row, which surprised me. My Cubs currently sit with the 6th highest odds, but have just 4 more wins than the #3 team, so a lot could change in those slots over the last two months of the season. It does seem likely that Colorado and Miami will hold onto the top two odds positions, which count for almost 50% between them. Since hiring the current front office structure, the Cubs have had mostly good success drafting in the top ten, and almost no success if they don't. The franchise also hasn't had a position player drafted outside of the first round make much of an impact with the Cubs in the last 40 years, which seems mind blowing.
Mets trade deadline was meh with adding Blackburn and a 100 mediocre relievers. Gonna have to mash our way to the postseason. The good news is a month ago we were 17.5 back from 1st place Philly and now 8 back.
The Cubs, while winning 5-1 vs the Cards, threw 44 pitches in the top of the 8th inning today, and not a single pitch was put into play, as they walked five guys and gave STL two runs. There were some really bad calls by the ump, but it was mostly weak, scared pitching, and ugly baseball. STL's earlier run also came on a bases loaded walk, so they have three runs, none of which came on a hit.
Mariner's are continuing to mirror the Dolphins. Off to a blazing fast start 10 game lead on the division, then got banged up and let the Astro's catch up at the break. But they actually made some moves and brought in some help for the offense to go with their world class pitching and are going to make a run at the division and maybe make some noise in the post season.
I started this thread on April 25th, right before the highest point in the Cubs season, and then its all been downhill since that point.
Its crazy that the Cubs have now scored significantly more runs this season than Atlanta. They had a weak stretch of their schedule put on their plate, and absolutely took advantage of it, going 12-3 against the last place Blue Jays, 4th place Tigers, last place Marlins, last place Pirates and 4th place Nationals. Now they host the Pirates for three more before they have to play the Yankees and Dodgers, but they've clawed their way back to 3.5 games out of the WC, and have 10 games against the Rockies, Athletics and Nationals coming back up after that. So, left for absolutely dead not long ago, the Cubs are playing their best ball in a long time.
