Sports
In Hindsight
The Cubs have been playing better since the All Star break and have got themselves to 1 game below .500, making the series against Cleveland that starts tonight important. The Cubs have a favorable schedule for August so they have a chance to put their record well above that .500 mark and make the Wild Card race interesting for their fans. Right now the Cubs are 3 games out of a final Wild Card spot but their are four other teams ahead of them. All the Cubs have to do is keep winning.
After The 2024 Trade Deadline
Officially the All-Star game is considered to be the half-way mark of a MLB season, but the real mid-season milestone that matters is the trade deadline. The actions taken by a team by the trade deadline indicate whether the team management thinks it can make the playoffs, if they do then they will try to make trades that help the team win in the current season, otherwise they start work on the next season. Jed Hoyer’s comments that he was focusing on 2025 was indication that Cub’s management doesn’t expect to make the playoffs this year.
Last season the Chicago Cubs were surprising buyers at the deadline, having gone on a winning streak that convinced Jed Hoyer the team had the shot at a wildcard spot, but that didn’t happen and David Ross the scapegoat. Now this season, after signing Craig Counsell to the highest salary of any MLB manager the Cubs are last in the NL Central with a 51-58 record and they are seven games out of the last wild card spot. In short, the Cubs are likely not making the playoffs this year. Are they going to fire Counsell?
Even though the playoff positioning is different between last year and this year, a fair assessment is that the team is really no better than the year before, nor the year before that or any other year up to 2016. What we have is the same problems of unreliable hitting and pitching from the bullpen. The fact that the 2024 team’s starting pitching has been so good is as much an indicator of how much MLB has changed since 2016 than anything. It used to be that teams with strong starting pitching were winners, but the game now does not rely so much on starting pitching to win games.
The sole purpose of starting pitching in the game today is to not lose the game in the first five innings by not giving up more than three runs, the bullpen is expected to now win every game by not giving up any runs. If that weren’t bad enough, hitting is a completely lost art in baseball, with hitters needing only a .244 batting average to be considered good. The game has come down to this, pitching keeping the opponents from hitting home runs until your own batters hit two or more home runs.
The Chicago Cubs line up has been made up of the similar type of unreliable hitters for nearly a decade now, which is a clear indicator to me that the front office’s idea of what is a major league hitter is out of sync with reality. As long as Hoyer is running the Cubs they will not be any different, and so it’s on ownership to recognize the insanity of continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result.
If I were the owner of the Chicago Cubs, now that the trade deadline has past, I would fire Hoyer immediately to signal that it’s time for a change. Take the time to review and interview people over the remainder of the season to find the right replacement to have your new front office in place before the off season begins in earnest.
Forty years go today the Chicago Cubs signed Rick Sutcliffe and the team would go on to the NLCS for first time in my life. Unfortunately, in 1984 the Cubs blew a 2-0 lead of a five game series against the San Diego Padres, losing three straight in San Diego, so they did not go on to the World Series when they would likely have lost to the Detroit Tigers.
On this date the Chicago Cubs’ record is 32-35 and they are 7 games behind Milwaukee for the NL Central division and a half game behind the last wildcard spot. In short, about the same record and standings as they had last year. The Cubs didn’t need to make Craig Counsell the highest paid manager in Major League Baseball to achieve this level of mediocrity, they did that fine under David Ross. It should be obvious by now the real problem is the front office.
Good morning Cubs fans! Welcome to Eclipse day. Our Cubbies have played three series and won two of them. We could have won all three of them if you consider how well Justin Steele was pitching before his injury in Texas. So far the lineup as produced runs and the starting pitching has been pretty good. My only disappointment yesterday is that the rain disrupted Imanga’s start against the Dodgers, which I was looking forward to seeing. Hopefully they continue to play well during the road trip this week along the west coast.
Today is the Chicago Cub’s home opener after they completed the first series of the season with one again and two loses against the Texas Rangers. Texas is the defending World Series champion and therefore is one of best teams, so not getting swept is a bonus. In fact, the Cubs came within inches of maybe winning the first game in the tenth inning when a foul ball hit by Christopher Morel just missed being a grand slam. Steele was keeping the Rangers lineup in check before he pulled a hamstring fielding a swinging bunt. Despite this, my reaction after one series is that the current Cubs lineup seems no better than last year’s, with the same unreliable hitting, amplified by bad fielding.
Pugnosticating The 2024 Chicago Cubs
The Chicago Cubs have completed the 2024 Cactus League spring training “season” and will start the 2024 MLB season tomorrow at the Texas Rangers. As many questions exist about the 2024 team as did for the 2023 team, so it is hard for me to expect them to be too much better than last year. Will Greg Counsell as the new manager make a difference? Perhaps that is the main question going in to this season.
One cannot read much into what happens at spring training, although I attended spring training games in 2016, which is when the Cubs won the World Series, and have not attended a spring training game since nor have the Cubs returned to the World Series. Read in to that what you will.
I saw a text message from my buddy first thing yesterday morning, telling me that the Cubs had signed Cody Bellinger. It’s a three year for $80m deal that gives Bellinger opt outs after each year, so it is basically another one year contract. In other words, we will likely see this drama play out next off season. Regardless, the Cubs now have the appearance of a complete line up, it is a matter of whether they meet expectations.
Go Cubs Go! First day of MLB spring and the sun is shining.
