RealGM

season starts tomorrow with pittsburgh

the nl central is projected to be the worst division in the league, with all five teams projected to be around .500
maybe someone (hopefully the cubs) can beat up enough on the other mediocre teams to take the division (and probably get trounced in the playoffs)

not terribly excited about this season, the team seems to be in a weird place. trying to be a contender and rebuild at the same time and not doing either particularly well, so we're just treading water

Agreed. The trading water feeling has me kind of meh, which is unusual as I'm normally excited.

Nice to see the old Arietta even if it doesn't last.

bryant is having a great year, are we going to trade him?

with how bad the division is we'll probably be in the playoff race the whole year

unreal, javy is a dang wizard

the awareness to stop short and draw the first basemen into a rundown, crazy. on the initial watch it didn't occur to me either to just turn around and step on first.

and we're on a hot streak, tied for first place!

no hitter!!!!!!!! (is that going to bring anyone out of the woodwork?)

also read this, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/which-mlb-teams-should-be-making-midseason-deals/

apparently we should be buyers at the deadline. didn't realize our bullpen was the best in the league and the starters are the second worst. anyone have a halfway decent starter we could get?

I know they’ve said they will spend money at trade deadline if they have a chance but I wonder.

this 6 game losing streak isn't timely, especially with the brewers on fire

It’s getting ugly. Schedule lightens up a bit so maybe there’s a run before trade deadline. Though don’t know if that’s going to be fools gold.

its a free fall, what the heck happened? all the goodwill used up for the no-hitter?

karch34 wrote:It’s getting ugly. Schedule lightens up a bit so maybe there’s a run before trade deadline. Though don’t know if that’s going to be fools gold.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/31785478/chicago-cubs-looking-overhaul-impressive-six-year-run-president-jed-hoyer-says
karch, looks like an 11-game losing streak did the season in. we're probably selling at the deadline

feels like its a big deal, end of an era. this is the core that us over the hump, supposed to be a dynasty but things didn't work out. as the article says, life comes at you fast

Yeah I had today’s game on and was telling my wife I thought there would’ve been one more title or at least WS visit by this time after 2016. You sell some long term pieces for short term gain but felt like we went small market not keeping Chapman, Fowler, Darvish, Castellanos, etc. without anything in pipeline. I honestly feel Fowler leaving got rid of our small ball manufacturing of runs which was the beginning of the slide. I’m sad because there’s a lot of those guys that got us over the hump and ushered in a new era of relevance (even if it didn’t work out in the end) that are likely gone.

yeah, we haven't really had a solid, consistent leadoff option since fowler left. its also really wild how inconsistent the offense can become (lack of a good leadoff probably contributes). there is all that talent but they all seem to go cold at the same time

the lack of financial commitment is interesting as well. i recently read rich cohen's the story of a curse, and for a decent part of the drought ownership was fine (he said) with losing because the fans still came out and the team made money. this is getting into conspiracy theory territory but i wonder if the ricketts didn't want the fans to get too used to winning so they just let the team slowly degrade. the curse is over, another world series is in the bag - we should be good for several decades right??

chicago should be a large market team right? why don't they open up the wallet more?

well the fire sale has begun, joc pederson traded to atlanta for minor league first baseman bryce ball (i like the alliteration)

i read somewhere that the team is looking to try and resign baez and rizzo, we'll see how that goes. i suppose trading players on longer deals would result in more prospects than trading a free agent (of which half our team is)

I think Baez and Rizzo are the most likeliest to stay but who knows. Feel like major change is coming.

i hope hendricks stays too, i really like him

and rizzo is gone



this one hurts, rizzo and hendricks were my favorite players of the would-be dynasty era. tough to see him go