Sports
Bleed Cubbie Blue: Twas the night before Cub Christmas, 2025
I don’t know what is worse as a Chicago Cubs fan. The frustration during the season when the players don’t perform as expected or the frustration during the off season when the front office don’t perfom as expected.
Today is the five year anniversary of one of the Chicago Cubs worst mistakes in the post World Series era when they did not tender a contract to Kyle Schwarber. The Cubs could make up for that mistake by signing him as a free agent, but I doubt they will do it.
Cubs Took A Loss On Kyle Tucker Trade
Bleed Cubbie Blue has a survey asking Cubs fans whether the trade for Kyle Tucker last year as a success for the Cubs as GM Carter Hawkins claims. The writer of the post suggests that it was, and to do so he uses the results for each player involved in the trade.
I think the post misses one key point in the analysis, which is the value of the players at the time of the trade and take that in to account along with their actual performance. While the Cubs traded three players to the Astros for Tucker, the deal really came down to two players, Tucker and Cam Smith.
At the time of the trade Smith was the Cub’s top prospect in the farm system, which made him one of their most valuable young players. If Smith had stayed with the Cubs he likely does not make the major league roster whereas the Astros immediately put him on their roster. So I think the real comparison is another year of Smith developing for the Cubs versus Tucker’s performance for the Cubs this past season.
When a team trades away a top prospect they are giving away the potential future value of a player, usually in return for something needed now. Did the Cubs need another bat? Yes! Did that bat have to be Tucker in right field, particularly when you had a good hitting right fielder on your roster? Probably not.
In my opinion, when Tucker signs with a team other than the Cubs, the Cubs will have lost on the trade. Had the Cubs kept Smith they still had value in the bank for future years and they lose that future value no matter how you slice it. From a Cubs fan perspective, if you had told me we would only have Tucker for one year, which was very likely at the trade time, and the team did not advance to the NLCS I would have said that one year of making the playoffs was not worth losing Smith. From a Cubs ownership and management perspective, making the playoffs and the extra revenue that generated made the Tucker signing worth it.
I’ve enjoyed watching all of the Chicago Cubs games I can watch using the MLB “At Bat App” since it’s beginning. For the number of games and the one year price, it has been a good deal. Sadly, it looks like that is not going to last because in a few years the “At Bat App” will go away in place for ESPN’s crappy app. And I bet they’ll double the price. Because greedy capitalism means we can’t have anything nice.
Kyle Hendricks is retiring from pitching in Major League Baseball, he played a critical role in the Cubs winning the World Series in 2016. He is now on the MLB coaching clock.
Great win by the Chicago Cubs last night to force a division series deciding game on Saturday night. They finally score in more than one inning of a game in this series! Both teams could employ bullpen pitchers to start the game and that will make it interesting. I do have a bone to pick with MLB for making the Cubs/Brewers game the late starter last night rather than the Dodgers/Phillies in LA, that made no sense.
I think that Craig Counsell has done a poor job of managing the Chicago Cubs in this NDLS against the Brewers. First, he should not have started Boyd for game 1 on only three days rest and second it is absolutely wrong to not start your hottest hitter, Michael Busch even when going against left handed pitcher. How do you justify starting PCA who clearly has difficulty with left handed pitching and no start Busch. Pat Murphy was Counsell’s bench coach and I am beginning to think he did more the managing than Counsell when he was in Milwaukee. His performance does not justify being the top paid manager in baseball. David Ross could have equally managed to the two losses that have occurred in this series.
Game 1 of the NLDS between the Cubs and Brewers was over for the Cubs before the first three Brewer outs of the game was recorded. Starting Boyd on only three days rest went very badly. Obviously the Cubs need to flush this game and win game 2 on Monday.
The Chicago Cubs managed to hold on to a 3-1 lead and beat the San Diego Padres yesterday to advance to the best of five game NLDS against Milwaukee. It should be a fun series starting Saturday.
The Cubs got shutout yesterday in the second Wild Card game, so today there is an elimination game with San Diego. Got to score runs to win a baseball game. Because the Dodgers won their series, which was the only sweep, the Cubs/Padres game starts at 5 PM today while the Tigers/Guardians game starts at 3 PM.
Wild Card Game 1
The Cubs won the first wild card game today against the San Diego Padres. I do believe it might be their first ever wild card game win. The 3-1 win was due to the pitching staff, in fact as I watch the other games played today, the old adage of good pitching beating good hitting seems to hold. The sharpest example was in Cleveland where the hottest team in baseball the Cleveland Guardians was beat by the coldest Detroit Tigers thanks to the game’s best pitcher, the Tiger’s Tarik Skull.
I see the Cub’s have announced they are starting tomorrow’s game with an opener as recent closer Andrew Kittredge will start the game. My guess is that Shota Imanga will follow Kittredge but I wouldn’t be surprised if Shota only pitches one time through the Padres line up. Counsell can’t blow out pitching because there might be a game three if they don’t win, but the Cub’s want to win this next one while they have the advantage of elimination game pressure on their opponent.
The Chicago Cubs play their first Wild Card game for the 2025 MLB playoffs this afternoon, which is their first playoff game in many years. Looking forward to seeing how the team performs. I am not expecting much success in the playoffs this year, and I am mostly happy for the young players to gain experience with playoff pressure. Winning championships is part experience, part talent, and part luck, you need them all to win a World Series.
The Chicago Cubs have clinched a Wild Card spot in the playoffs, what remains is to determine whether they have home field for the three game Wild Card series that will be in October. My buddy who is a fellow Cubs fan doubts the Cubs will have success in the playoffs. I see no reason why they can’t win a three game series at Wrigley, however I think what is most important is that the young Cubs players gain playoff experience. How well the Cubs will do depends on how well they play during the next two weeks. In recent years the best MLB teams haven’t won the World Series, it’s been the hottest teams.
Turns out that Kyle Tucker had a small fracture in his hand, which likely the cause of his broken mechanics at the plate. It seems to me the job of a baseball manager is to prevent players from being their own worse enemy. No matter what the player is saying, the manager has to make the right decision and I don’t think Counsel did in this instance. Further, the GM and President have to also know this is happening and step in when needed. A total failure by the Cubs organization in my opinion. Ricketts must have also known this and still rewarded Hoyer with an extension. I am sure the hope is that by sitting Kyle now he can be right for the push to the playoffs in September.
The best thing about baseball is that until playoff series deciding games there is always tomorrow and a chance for the team to redeem itself. Yesterday the Cubs won and continued to avoid a three game series sweep and thus keep avoiding long losing streaks, which are the real deal of a major league team. The team’s weaknesses are real and could be exposed in the playoffs, but avoiding being swept and winning a majority of the season series ought to be the path to the playoffs. On August 18 the Cubs will play their last four games against the Brewers for the season, and in some ways that will be their last best shot at controlling their own fate.
I wonder if Tom Ricketts can be embarrassed? First he extends Jed Hoyer’s contract before the trade deadline, then the lone pitcher Hoyer trades for to help a severely depleted starting rotation pitches two innings before being injured, and there were concerns about that pitcher’s velocity decrease prior to the trade. Finally, the Cubs hitters have gone cold as ice and have dropped to four games behind the Brewers for the NL Central lead. In fact, the Cubs now only have a 2.5 game lead in the Wild Card. Most likely Kyle Tucker, for whom Hoyer traded away a top prospect to the Astros, will leave at the end of the season. Factor all these recent events with the over all failure to win the National League or the division under Hoyer’s leadership sums up the very questionable decision by Ricketts to extend Hoyer before seeing whether the Cubs win the NL Central this year. Instead Ricketts rewarded mediocrity and sent a message to the team that he is not committed to winning.
Same Old Cubs Ownership
Hoyer can rationalize his trade deadline decisions all he wants the bottom line is he did not get the job done, and no improvement to the starting pitching rotation has been done. Assad better perform when he makes it back to the team after being out all season. I don’t doubt that the additions that he made will help, but it was not enough.
Truth is, the real failure was made during the off-season by not signing more high quality players. I doubt that Tucker wants to stay in Chicago, in fact if I were him the lack of signings sealed the deal of going to another team; the Cubs can and will be outbid for his services . The consequences of Hoyer’s failures is he lost one of his top prospects while getting no closer to the World Series just to make the playoffs.
Yes, the Cubs likely will make the playoffs as a wildcard team, but they probably will not advance out of the divisional round and winning championships is the measurement. Why Ricketts extended Hoyer before seeing how the team ends up this season tells me that he is more concerned about making money than winning a World Series. An owner expecting nor less than championships would not reward mediocrity.
So far, not impressed by the Chicago Cubs trade deadline deals. Ricketts extending Hoyer before the deadline and not at the end of the season tells me all I need to know, the problem is ownership. Cubs ownership is reverted to being happy enough in collecting the money off the team than in demanding championships.