IST: Cubs V Cubbie North

[chibears55]

I agree that the top starters need to go 7, although some of that has to do with Maddon's philosophy and you take the good with the bad with that caliber of manager. As far as how hitters slumps are affected by blown leads? It's about environment, it's a lot easier to come out of a slump when your team is winning than when your team is losing 7 out of 10 and blowing leads left and right. It makes you press and the one thing about baseball is that unlike most sports trying harder only makes things worse. This is a bad baseball team right now, they may not stay a bad baseball team in fact it's likely they'll get better as the talent pretty much screams .500 at you, but there isn't any help coming (with teh exception of a couple injured pitchers coming back) unless this team is say .500 or better and in the WC race come July.

We can agree to disagree about the slumping hiiters and blowing leads scenario. .

Chris Coghlan hitting .135 the last 12 games has nothing to do with blowing a lead late in a couple games..


I still see this team playing .500 ball as is..

I do expect to see improvement to the rotation at some point via trade. .

I expect the offense to be a roller coaster ride as Soler Bryant and Russell adjust and learn..
How bad the slide is will be determined by weather or not the vets in lineup can stay away from long slumps.

I think the bullpen will be fine overall once everyone returns and they dump jackson and coke..

A little weary with the bench as I was in ST..
Their fine defensive replacement but just dont see anyone I can feel good about coming through with a big hit late more often then not..

 

[CSF77]

They need 1. The thing is they still have Turner on the mend and it he gets it together soon he could become the next Arrieta (with team control as he is hitting Arb)

I question Wood and Hendricks long term but I'm against running a starting staff where the lowest paid is making 10 mil per. (Arrieta is going to get a pay hike)

The best bet is to have the 1-4 set with proven pitchers that are high end. Then the 5 is a guy that is cost controlled and can go into the pen if needed.

That said they need a bat in LF and that is where resource should go if they are going to make some deals.

2016 they are comitted to 82 mil. This year they upped it to 120 mil and we should expect that to continue. If they did trade for Hamels. Say they did that and paid Baez, Schwarber, and 2 arms. I personally think that is a quality offer. Then they pull a 2nd trade for a full time LF. Montero is under contract until 2017. Castillo is in the same boat. 2017 Arb3. So they still have 2 years set at catcher. It is not a major concern with Schwarber. Adding a vet bat in LF removes the need to move Schwarber off position.

So adding 2 vets to the team and letting Turner and Hendricks fight for the #5 makes plenty of sense then. Turner becomes a F/A 2019. Again plenty of control.

 

[SilenceS]

This is some long responses. My point. Sunday's game against the Brewers we were lucky to be in. We played like shit and got lucky and didn't win. The Brewers batters peppered the ball everywhere. Luck doesn't last and things equal out. My main problem Sunday was the Brewers we're pumped when they tied and took the lead. The Cubs looked. Like they were sleep walking. They should be young and hungry. I would like to see more of that. They have shown flashes then have hung their heads. Soler broke one bat Sunday and almost broke another one in frustration. The vets need to show them how to not get to high or to down and play with passion. It waivers sometimes and it's a long season so I'm not hating on it. I'm just saying the game was played by zombies. Not youth


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[beckdawg]

I don't disagree with any of this but bullpens are very difficult to predict. Going into the season this bullpen looked to be on of the strongest in the game but overwork (some of that is on Maddon), injuries and frankly some guys being just plain bad have hurt. There are different ways to skin a cat. Agreed that the Royals win a lot of game because of their bullpen in large part but that shouldn't be where you win games. They've just harnessed that dynamic. They did it last year too which is why no one thought they could maintain in and yet they have. None of that really pertains to the Cubs situation. The young hitters are by definition going to be feast or famine, the way this team was and/or is going to compete is on the basis of pitching. I agree that Lester and Arietta have not been dominant and they need to be more often than they have been but their numbers are solid. Wins and losses don't have much to do with a pitcher. I think this team needed a lot of things to fall in place to compete, above average starting pitching, good to great middle relief and a shut down closer first and foremost among them. Otherwise you're counting on rookies not to slump or have long stretches of mediocre play and that doesn't happen ever. I'm hard on Wood and Hendricks because their inability to go deeper in games taxes a bullpen that can't handle it and also limits the margin of error that the three solid pitchers have in their starts.

The most important thing for this team, this year is to play meaningful games in August and September so that when some more pieces are added the young players have been there before. Playoffs were probably far fetched to begin with but certainly a good goal for the team to have. In order to get to those meaningful games this team needs to be .500 plus or minus a game or two in July or they'll be sellers not buyers and the last couple of months will be pretty demotivational for these young Cubs. They need to be buyers and learn how to compete.

In my opinion, the bullpen will shape up when Ramirez returns. He was often the answer last season to 6th-7th inning situations you had to get out of. Right now you can't really do that. Well maybe Grimm can but there's not a number of options. That leaves guys like Rosscup and Coke to what they really should be which is lefty specialists. It leaves Jackson to the long relief Villanueva role.

As for the hitting issues, I agree they will have ups and downs but as a whole the team has to be able to come through when someone is down. When it comes down to it, if you're scoring well below average in half your games it's going to be difficult to win more than half of your games.