Cubs take another step backwards with series loss to Mets on Ryne Sandberg day | CHGO Cubs Podcast
[Music] this is the chgo Cubs podcast my name is Corey I am joined as always by Dr Brendan Miller look at that we are coming to you on Sunday it is June 23rd and the nine game home stand has come and gone Brendan we called upon it to be the moment for the Chicago Cubs to turn things around show us what they’re made of really cement that they were going to turn this season around and what we get is two series losses a series win over the Giants earlier this week uh by the thinnest of hairs and a series loss here to the Mets uh four and five on this nine-game home stand as we mentioned before uh all against teams that they are right in the thick of it with for that uh NL Wild Card race and uh Brendan as as we talked about a lot in terms of not taking care of your own business the two teams you lost series to on this home stand the St Louis Cardinals and the New York Mets guess who now sitting a couple games ahead of you in that wild card race both of those teams so not not good enough for this homeand I don’t think but let me know how you’re feeling tonight that’s the annoying aspect of this entire situation they’re playing poorly underperforming but they’re still technically within this bulk race where seven teams are within two three three games of that wild card spot and it’s early right of course it’s early but the trade deadline is four to 5 weeks away from heating up and those discussions of who’s on the deadline who’s not on the market who is on the market are going to continue to be unclear and we’re in this Purgatory State the only thing we can do is hope that a lot of the trends we’re watching end up manifesting into offense some of the good Trends and some of the bad trends like shas’s recent Funk a God’s inability to go past four or five innings that it doesn’t go to a point where it makes the entire roster worse if the offense does start to emerge it’s a difficult situation it’s frustrating I feel to some degree we’re in purgatory right now Corey yeah so uh we got a lot to talk about tonight uh welcome in the Sunday edition of the chg Cubs podcast appreciate you joining if you’re watching live on YouTube Hello hop in the chat let us us know what you’re thinking if you’re listening later on your podcast feeds or watching later on YouTube drop a comment uh we appreciate you happy to have you here especially after Sunday Night Baseball always happy to have uh folks tuning in and prolonging their evening with the Chicago Cubs it’s a choice Brendan you and I you know sort of I guess make the choice this is the choice we that it’s uh it’s yeah we’re all making a a conscious effort here to continue our our time spent with the 2024 podcast with me for the past 9 years no one forced you to do that hold on I’m not doing the show by myself um so I I do want to here’s the thing Brennon and I were talking before we came on we’re going to talk about the home standand about these series you know we’re we we on the Sunday edition we look back at the week that was I think we’ll include the entire home stand but we’ll specifically look at that U early week series against the Giants this weekend against the Mets um but I do we have spent a lot of the last few episodes kind of doing the whole like this team needs to be better we complained about the offense in the off season and now we’re seeing wins is not good enough y y y so I don’t want to have a full hour of kind of the same general team discussion roster building stuff we’ve done it in Great depth in great length you know the whole chdo Cub’s team but also specifically Brendan and I and I I I do want to talk some specifics Jameson tyone was really good again possibly his best start as a cub maybe not that you know that one in New York but this yeah this was up there and and a different tyone even that he’s been good all year but the peripherals weren’t matching necessarily his results the start this weekend on Saturday though like let’s talk about that want to talk about Javier Assad another short start his erra in the month of June not where you want it to be he’s approaching some innings territ so talking about those things Mark ligher Jr hitting the injured list uh which is great just what everybody wanted the three guys you relied on all year last year as your only reliable members of your Bullpen all injured so good luck to everybody involved um want to talk about that we’ll talk about some other stuff drop what you’re uh thinking in the comments to start though Brendan I I’m seeing a lot of similar sentiments in our YouTube chat and in the comments here people are kind of they’re I don’t want to say they’re giving up because as we’ talked about a lot it’s a weird spot this team is very frustrating the games are sometimes excruciating very predictable in a lot of ways but there they sit two games out of a wild card spot now granted everybody but two teams in the National League is basically in that wild card race there’s two teams at the bottom and everybody else is separated by two or three games but it’s always a weird discussion to Square when we’re watching it and then you know we’re like okay well this is awful they’ve been one of the worst offenses in the league for almost you know two calendar months but they could be a playoff team I I don’t really know how to square it but what I do want to start with though is this this was a niname homeand I saw it earlier in the YouTube chat from Lou TS saying uh 9 and 11 in their last 20 against teams under 500 and you saw basically that ENT higher thing throughout this niname home stand now the Cardinals are over 500 now they were not when you played them at Wrigley Field though so this whole home stand was teams under 500 right in that same spot with you in that wild card race and outside of mercifully pulling off that last game against the Giants which somehow they flirted with losing even though they carried a what 5-1 lead through most of that game yeah you were an inch away from losing all three series and so instead of planting your flag playing Better Baseball and using this nine game home stand to kind of push you towards the month of July and feel a little better feels like a wasted opportunity Brendan this this was an opportunity to win some series and Play Better Baseball and you didn’t really do that and instead what you did is let a couple teams and the Cardinals and Giants uh excuse me the Cardinals and Mets come in and kind of do just that but over you in your own ballpark in front of Ryan Sandberg no less uh as his statue is unveiled you know the 1984 team there and you know you laid a big egg on Sunday night the sentiment is growing to pass the point of what’s going on to kind of acceptance that this team is kind of what it is that it was built with flaws yeah it was built with the possibility of what we’re seeing happening and I feel as if as a fan base we’re kind of getting to that point where if it turns around that turnaround is going to be surprising yeah they were 9 and 11 in their last 20 games with teams against uh under 500 unacceptable of course unacceptable but what can you do at this point we’ve been talking about this team in the same light for two months so the question then becomes yes those opportunities were missed but what needs to happen to capture the future opportunities that are still there even if it appears as if them capturing those opportunities are unlikely so when I watch these games I’m zoning in on Cody Bellinger on SE Suzuki on Christopher Morell those three guys I’m happy that Michael Bush is continuing to play well I’m optimistic Danby Swanson’s emerging from that lower early and Funk but really I need those three Sluggers in the middle of the order seya Cody and Morel do hit dramatically better than their current output right now Bellinger at 330 weighted on base average seya around a 350 weighted on base average and Morel now inching towards around a 310 weight on base average which with his multiple home runs it’s not good enough the entire team can go through a Dansby Nico and so on they can bat below Five Below League average or slightly towards that line but what can’t happen is your perceived Big Boppers three four five hitters not perform at those expected levels until that happens the frustration with the other players is moot I need to see now not in two weeks 3 weeks four weeks I need to see now Bellinger seya and Morel perform as those three four five hitters and they that might not even be realistic that might not even be what their roles are for them but the situation is those three guys have to hit at those levels to be talking about those opportunities in the distance and immediate future being captured yeah I mean look we talked about this all offseason one of the main concerns was that you were taking some calculated risks the Michael Bush trade and the decision to give him a long Runway at first base or DH or wherever he happens to be playing looks to be paying off he’s he’s had a very nice season for a guy getting his first extended run of Big League time uh it might have dipped under you know tonight but he was hovering around an 800 Ops like it looked defense looks much better good play this week yeah the Christopher Morell situation both on offense and defense calculated risk he’s 24 we’ve talked about that in depth for hours I feel like throughout this season PCA coming up another calculated risk he’s 22 years old he’s never gotten extended run at the big league level and he was getting it you know because of injuries and because he got hot in Triple A but you saw last year he struggled at the plate you knew there was going to be adjustments to be made so you’re taking all of those risks if you’re going to do that the known Commodities must be known Commodities and really outside of Ian hap who has gotten hot and pushed his numbers to I believe even above his career average levels it’s it’s you can look and and and this isn’t a blame game but if you’re going to take those risks and you’re going to allow guys like Morel or PCA or even Bush when he struggled after his red hot start to have that appropriate time which they need as guys that are young or guys that are getting their first Long Leash at the big league level Cody Bellinger has to be the guy that you’re paying him to be it it doesn’t work otherwise Dansby Swanson he’s pushing those numbers back up there but all this season has been below the norm that he’s put up throughout his career which is only above barely above League average anyway at the plate same with n who’s been dealing with injuries and things like that but those known Commodities must be at that level or greater or this plan kind of falls through which is why we didn’t like the plan and said that this was too risky and we’re not happy that they were taking this many risks and relying on unproven things it’s frustrating but again as we talked about I think it was three three weeks ago maybe we did our kind of like big look it’s not surprising this was always one of the possibilities and the EB and flow of it isn’t really that surprising I do I am seeing a lot of this in the YouTube chat brenon and I I I don’t have like the numbers to kind of like dig into this and maybe it’s something that we can do I do agree with a large portion of the chat though like this team does feel like it lacks fire it feels passive at the plate I feel like we watch a lot of called strikeouts on hitable pitches uh I feel like every time I’m in the studio like Cody and I and Luke and and Ryan are remarking about how many hitable meatball pitches they seem to just stare at or foul off just not seem super prepared to attack on and you know I know you were tweeting about it the other day you know the the bad calls from the Umpire they kind of just go okay back to the Dugout like getting ejected doesn’t solve anything throwing trash cans isn’t the answer but I it is interesting to read in the YouTube chat so many people sharing the sentiment unprompted we weren’t even on the air yet that they feel like this team is kind of flat and just like passive and not there’s there’s just a a fire that maybe seems to be missing uh from this team and I don’t really have the answer as to why that is or what that is I assume it’s because they’re you know they’re playing poorly and they’re they’re they’re not having a great time but it does it does kind of feel that way and then you know you just look at some of the traits of this offense like on Friday they struck out 13 times uh in that game on Sunday night they struck out 14 times it’s a lot of strikeouts Brendan and you’re looking up and down the order I think right now you have one hitter with an Ops over 800 I think it’s Michael Bush but I’d have to look I don’t know man you know it it feels like we’ve been spinning wheels on a a very similar discussion for weeks and I had hop that this home stand would turn things around I had even hoped that the game on Saturday might turn things around but it does also feel like every time this team has one of those games where you think okay they finally played like an easy nice win all facets of the game felt pretty good and it’s just an egg the next day just a total egg that they lay and you feel like they don’t ever build any momentum I don’t know man I I’m not going to judge their fire or attitude it’s it’s subjective when you have dozens to hundreds of millions of dollars at stake personally that’s a huge incentive I guess it it more is one of those things where we’ve watched teams in the past and this is all anecdotal right but we’ve watched teams in the past that just feel like they have more of a Vibe do more of an energy like those teams won World Series Cory those are the teams you’re referring to sometimes it’s easy to confuse five for talent and ability and right now this team do have the consistent ability they don’t have neither of those things right I I I think a more appropriate way of distilling how I feel and how you feel is process the process needs refinement now as a preface I wish there were more ejections I loved when big Z came out of the Dugout during benches clearing events with belts I love Chris Bryan holding back Lou Panella I loved Anthony Rizzo going to a ro you mean Joe Madden I’m sorry you know older dudes I loved how R the trapman was screamed at by Rizzo in Cincinnati I love all that I wish we had more of that from a selfish fans perspective but I’m careful to recognize that is largely meaningless so what what matters is process now to your point about them missing pitches on hitable accounts staring at pitches that seem uh like they’re meatballs I I think that’s reflective of an ongoing process that is going through different iterations SE Suzuki is a perfect example last season in the second half when seya was around a 400 weighted on base average that came with more aggression undeniably so yeah he said it we saw it in his swing rate and his spray m now if you look at this season I’ll show a chart right here when we look at se’s swing rates when ahead of the count in 1 and 2 counts on the left is the second half when he had a woba around 400 what you’re noticing is that around the entire Zone there’s more of a conserved effort to swing a more pitches center cut of course that’s what you want now if you move your eyes to the right you’re noticing a less concerted effort to swing center cut but you’re also noticing a concerted effort to swing at pitches all over the strike zone yeah in one sense say is more aggressive this year but it’s not selectively aggressive that explains why se’s Chase rates which is in the top 10th percentile doesn’t match his walk rate which is around niic Horner’s walk rate because what we’re seeing here is say is being more aggressive but he’s being aggressive ahead of counts against pitches that are not particularly suitable for damage and that’s that ongoing iteration process and quite frankly that is in part due or in part responsible from the hidden infrastructure that is reflective of Dustin Kelly and all the good work he’s done but this is too slow of a process because this type of slow process means less runs from your cleanup hitter or your three hitter this was the calculator risk you’re talking about and right now we’re seeing this effect of 2024 competitiveness it’s too slow Corey yeah yeah I don’t I don’t know um and that’s the most disappointing thing because you were very high in seya I’m still high in seya if you look at se is hard hit rate bat speed bat length Chase rate every single feature you want in a hitter seya possesses it’s so frustrating when that talent doesn’t produce runs because most times players who show these features are the best hitters in the league but for some reason with seya it’s taken three seasons of these weird adjustment phases and I understand why the front office made that calculated risk the risk is it’s going to be still slow and it has been too slow yeah um comment here from uh our guy Steiner maath as always love the name at some point gentlemen fans don’t care about hearing all the advanced analytics we care about results and this team can have all the shiny analytics to drool over they aren’t producing yeah I mean I think that’s the this you know we had a good weekend a good week I think but I think that’s the Christopher Morell conversation basically in nutshell um longterm for the organization and kind of projecting things out for a 24-year-old you like a lot of the process but the 2024 Chicago Cubs need results now and as we’ve talked about they’ve been hitting him lower in the order which I’ve been saying for weeks now despite loving Morel and believing in what we’re seeing we’ve been talking about how him hitting cleanup and not getting the results it really hurts the team whether we believe in the long-term process or not but it’s true like when you’re this far into a retool you got to start seeing results that’s why so many people us included are are asking the questions of is Jed’s seat kind of hot what is Tom Rickett’s thing about all this etc etc and the reason is because you need results at some point fans don’t care that you’ve garnered how you know eight top prospects in MLB pipeline’s top 100 that’s great it’s good news fans are glad to hear it but if the results don’t come at 1060 West Addison I don’t think people care that they have the E 56th rank Prospect who’s 19 playing in Tennessee does anybody care no the Cubs the Chicago Cubs major league baseball team needs to win games well yeah my apologies to Greg hus who’s probably be like I care stop coming at me hey yeah um but you’re right but the and just speaking back to like the because I know we have a super chat too but like this one uh from our our uh friend in the chat Tyler when the crowd was roaring you feel the vibration tonight it happened it happens all the time at rly field and every hitter falters Cody Bellinger a big moment in the game tonight crowd on their feet fouling pitches off and ultimately strikes out I I saw that sentiment a lot on social media like the fans are in it every pitch they’re filling the ballpark they are willing this team to try and do something and it just isn’t there and you know that common sentiment that you know it just feels like as fans as a fan base what we give to this organization it just feels like we deserve better and I know you said this I think a few weeks ago like we just deserve better than another like well maybe if they all get hot at the right time they can sneak into the wild card kind of thing like I think we should be aiming for higher than that like at this Point uh as a franchise but I want to read this Super Chat uh appreciate that braxon vulk says it looks like they don’t want to be there all I was saying Brandon is it’s a Common Thread from a lot of our our YouTube chat and I see it on social media too I I never question effort from the players and I I I would go back on really anyone and defend that we don’t know you know sometimes people will see a guy jogging to first base on a ground out but I never question the effort of these players they put in a lot of time uh training and rehabilitating their bodies they’re traveling all over they’re they’re trying but it does feel like there just is a they’re a little they feel flat Brendan and of course it’s easy to say sitting on the couch and um I know you said it it you know doesn’t inherently matter I I think to a degree though you know and there’s certain players one of them the Jersey hanging over my uh right shoulder here like certain players and teams have that kind of attitude about them that this game you know they’re going to leave it all out there and I’m not again I’m not questioning the effort but some players and teams specifically just have an energy about them that their their business is serious they’re going to fight for every call every pitch and there’s an energy about them and I I this team just doesn’t have that it doesn’t feel like they have that I understand that the the the cobs front office hired a manager to keep the status quo to keep the emotional imbalance that’s natural throughout the season more balanced than the next guy this was what they they want it I on the other hand you’ve heard me talk about this for years now I think you should leverage unique emotional circumstances because that brings about different ways of thinking and different adjustments when I express frustration with the manager or player not going absolutely ballistic what I’m really saying is I wish that happened because it changes how you perceive different situations it changes how you think about different situations so I’m always going to believe that it’s different than than judging their effort level again yeah when you have for Cody and Bellinger he has a$ 200 plus million contract at stake the other guys too the entire young pitching staff they are playing for arbitrated contracts in the next one or two years at millions of dollars to judge effort is a little unfair when that much money is I’m not that’s what I mean and I’m not saying you are at all and I I don’t feel like a lot of the comments are either I think it’s just a perception I’m just trying to cover all my basis over here because there there are there is there is uh criticism that there’s certain players who just don’t have that ever they just don’t care we heard this about Manny Ramirez and maybe I’m a little bit more uh biased because we heard this about Aris Ramirez for years and that that stung me because he was he was my guy and he should be getting all of his praise that we see today it was a horrible take from a bad take machine um I I am I’m biased in trying to defend these guys when when I have that memory in place get let me do the ad break here cuz we’re going to head of the place then I’ll throw it back to you okay Mando 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may need my Shady Rays to read these ad breaks Corey Shady Rays get ready for the season ahead with quality Shades built to last our friends at Shady Rays have you covered with premium polarized Shades that won’t break the bank I wear Shady Rays daily because I have uh an array of different colors I like the light brown colors during summer they have hundreds of other options to choose from colors Styles so you’re bound to find the perfect pair to match your style exclusively for listener Shady Ray is giving out their best deal of the Season head to Shady ra.com use code chgo for 35% off polarized sunglasses try for yourself the shad five stars by over 300,000 people all right Brendan uh yeah so I want to get into some of the the player specifics but you know also just again speaking on kind of finishing up on the home stand and all that reading a tweet here from our guy Cody delmendo uh Luis srino 177% K rate has struck out seven guys this month in the three prior starts uh 10 against the Cubs tonight does just kind of feel that way you know you go back to uh some of the pitchers that they faced in past weeks you know several times guys coming in with four and a half ra five ER and they just don’t do that much against them uh it feels like a uh feels like a thing have a seeing the comment on the screen from Dr Drew Mets fan here the whole month of May the Mets were a mess the Mets can turn it around so can the Cubs says uh they’re a fan so that’s why they’re here appreciate you joining in um we don’t have Grimace that’s the problem um we don’t have our Grimace to turn the season around so if anybody has any suggestions um of fast food mascots that the Cubs can invite to the ballpark to turn their season around that would be great um yeah all in all just on the home stand and then I kind of want to talk about Javier Assad since he pitched on Sunday night four and five on that home stand just it’s it’s not it’s not good enough that was a real opportunity and uh we saw more of the same lackluster offense blown games um I mean that game on Monday Brendan you and I haven’t been on air since that happened uh I went to that game I went solo to the game on Monday and I remember the the feeling when nerys give gave up the go-ahead home run to Tyro Estrada I I I tweeted this and I think I texted you this but like it it was so predictable that it felt fake I felt like I was like in a simulation almost cuz I was like there that that’s not possible like that he walked a guy catcher interference and then gave up a a three-run home run to blow this game like there’s just no it it felt genuinely fake at how predictable it was and it was just another one in the pile of games that they’ve given away and screwed around and it just was a it was a disappointing homeand and now of course you look at the Cub schedule they are probably already on a plane to San Francisco so that’s always fun you play Sunday night baseball and then have to immediately turn around and fly out to the West Coast uh where you’re there for four games then you’re back in Milwaukee to face the Brewers then you have the Phillies the Angels the Orioles and then the Cardinals again before the All-Star break there’s some good teams in there Brendan this is a tough road trip you’re going out to the West Coast then to play the Brewers in their park you got to play the Orioles who have a great offense like this is a tough portion of the schedule and why I think there you know was so much emphasis on this nine-game homeand and to leave it with only one Series win and a four and five overall record it it feels disappointing well when you spell it out like that my first thought is well this is going to be it they’re going to go to the West Coast the losing is going to continue the starting pitching staff regression we’re seeing from Assad despite unbelievable efforts to start the season and show to imanaga reversion back to reality perhaps all this is happening with more injuries in the bullpen more blown saves more uninspiring efforts from the bullpen and an offense that continues to be lackluster and inconsistent to me this signals this is it we’ll be doing this podcast in two weeks we’ll be 10 games below 500 that’s my that’s my first thought I hate to be that negative but it’s hard to not be optimistic when this continues it’s a legitimate concern I mean there was a reason again I don’t like calling things must win or things like that when it’s June and again even as we sit here after this on say there’re two games out of a wild card spot now I do see sometimes when I say that some of the comments are like well what’s the point of getting a wild defending the front office in Tom rickets yeah the only reason I say that is because if they’re within Striking Distance of a playoff spot I don’t see the front office selling I don’t see ownership it’s too early for that discussion right so but I’m just saying I’m not sitting here like please get the third wild card I I need it like I’ve said a million times my standard is higher than that I only bring that up to contrast we’ve talked a lot about the issues this team has but their place in the standings is their place in the standings we can’t really uh we can’t change that that is what it is so we have to look at things through that lens because that’s how I believe this team is going to operate another Super chat from Mr Cub DB Swanson 7 appreciate the Super Chat says first Brendan dress pretty sharp I do like your little jacket running running light jacket it’s a little brisk out here you know I’m cold out here you know uh second that in addition to Brendan being dressed sharp second this team makes me want to Scream one through nine looks defeated thank you for your hard work football almost here it’s a bad sign Brendan when uh folks are looking forward to the Chicago Bears to spare them how they feel about the c f on I’m I’m well aware that things look better uh for the Bears I’m not much of a football guy but historically relying on the Chicago Bears to save you know your mental well-being tricky business uh but hey where we are so I I do want to talk about um I do want to talk about Javier Assad so because I think it’s an interesting discussion it’s an especially interesting discussion when you consider uh what we saw from shoda Mark lier Jr hitting the Isel you know Kyle Hendrick being back in the rotation with the wick situation and Ben Brown and all this stuff so these are this is all stuff that’s that’s going on um so I think it it it all plays a role into a bigger conversation about the um starting staff and the pitching staff as a whole so Sunday night against the Mets uh obviously not a great one for Javier Assad four and a third seven hits four earned runs one walk no strikeouts gives up a couple homers ER in the season sitting at 34 which is nice uh the counter to that though the erra in the month of June after the game tonight 4.7 and I think the bigger part of the conversation Brendan now I want to start this conversation by noting Javier Assad has done nothing since being brought up by the Chicago Cubs but exactly what they’ve asked him to do and I he is a huge part of I I don’t know if I would call it success over the last year plus of the team but they would be in a way worse spot without Javier Assad and I want to make that very clear they’ve asked him to start they’ve asked him to pitch in short relief long relief go up go down Etc Etc he has done it all he has accepted the tasks and done them all extremely well the conversation though Brendan I think quickly becomes you look even going back just to the month of May he has thrown uh a full six Innings twice on May 5th against the Brewers and May 15th against the Braves the rest of these outings are mostly under five in and they’re not all small pitch counts even uh you know the four four and a third against the Mets on Sunday night 90 pitches five against the Giants 92 pitches uh four and 2/3 against the Rays and Tampa 90 pitches so it’s it’s it’s an interesting discussion because the the bullpen is its own problem and then you try to square what well would you rather Assad deliver these kind of short starts that are often very good the one thing he’s done you can go up and down this game lck he keeps the team in the game the the the starts have not been as effective as they were in the beginning of the year but he’s still not going out there and giving you outings where the team is out of it by the time he leaves the game they’re almost always in the game when he pitches but when you’re dealing with this many Bullpen problems and you’re also pushing up you he as we talked about he is a guy you have to monitor how much you’re throwing him how many pitches he’s throwing how many innings he’s throwing etc etc it becomes an interesting conversation Brendan now guys are still hurt are they coming back I don’t know but you talked when Hendrick was going through those struggles particularly at the beginning of the year that it was very valuable for the team to continue trying to make it work with him because he’s a reliable guy to potentially go deeper into games and eat those Innings which is valuable and if you can get Effectiveness out of him that has a lot of value because of what it allows you to do with other members of the team now it’s only been two outings but Kyle Hendricks has looked a lot better that Friday against the Cardinals and his last start was vintage Kyle Hendricks so it doesn’t mean he’s back but it was an important thing a lot of people wanted him DFA he’s washed he’s completely useless blah blah blah and all I think you really did was preach patience with that and it at least for these last two outings it’s paid off I’m curious what you think about Assad specifically as we’ve turned the calendar to June and the results are not quite as pristine as they were in the beginning of the year and what do you do with a guy who has been so good for you and this pitching staff but is really looking at four to five innings for all these starts and what that kind of means for the rest of the pitch pitching staff it’s a deep breath I mean they don’t have many options Corey the injuries to Wix to Brown to Horton are extremely unfortunate yeah when we were talking about hris in April after his awful start to the season not dethane hendris was a reserve for the worst case scenario for depth we’re seeing the worst case scenario right now if Assad is moved out of the rotation to the bullpen which should not happen right now because there’s no other alternative then you legitimately don’t have a starting picture to fill that role other than Hayden wisneski or Drew Smiley there’s no one coming from Triple A dude you may have Dan St come up but that’s it this is a starting rotation God help us if hendrickx continues to show the same bad signs prior to being removed from the starting rotation there’s not many other options the best case scenario is Wix comes back and he’s fine that Brown’s neck the injury the concern from the benign lesion is not as problematic as it appears which seems right now encouraging and that’s the case and at some point within the next four five six weeks then you can start to maybe mess with his stting rotation but there’s no other solution the concern or the question with thead was how longlasting is his pitch repertoire as a starting pitcher how long can he last with an 85% contact rate 10 percentage points more than League average and is all the discrepancy between his FIP and erra and the ability to get Runners out when they’re in scoring position how sustainable is that for a period of time it looked as if he might be breaking those uh uh computers because he was doing it for so long dating back to 2022 but there comes a point where you start looking at how many innings he’s on Pace how many innings he’s accumulated and now some of the runs he’s given up and those initial questions start to percolate back up the big concern with Assad is he’s on Pace for 170 Innings last season at the big league level 109 innings in Triple A 14 Innings he’s on Pace to exceed his Innings limit by 45 Innings right now he’s already at 83 Innings and it’s not even July he’s only 26 Innings away from his big league total last season so the worst case scenario is well Wix can’t come back because the injur is persisting Ben Brown’s neck is not healing at the expected rate that you want HRI continues to perform poorly and now you’re stressing out a young arm and Assad inching towards an Innings limit that he was never designed to reach at this point and those are the broken processes that we’re talking about because ideally you have reinforcements Beyond those injuries we’re seeing and they’re not there right now you’re not seeing that rapid promotion from the lower levels either to supplement some of these concerns this is a huge issue Corey my biggest fear is that if the offense does emerge back to showing signs of Health as it was in the second half of last year that’s a starting rotation is going to be on fumes with the bullpen that’s already on fumes and at that point there’s nothing you can do yeah I I I think even the the the Assad kind of the bigger situ situation is is similar to some that we’ve we’ve talked about on the offense where instead of being able to look at him and be grateful for how he’s done and the many roles that the Cubs have asked him to be and things like that it it ends up basically where just more of the burden is put on him and it’s just like well we need you know we need him to go deeper into games and all that and it’s like well you know maybe he’s not suited for that and but but the fact that the the rest of the the bullpen has been so bad and that you have to look at things like that it’s like that’s not Assad’s fault he’s done everything he can and everything that they’ve asked of him but you can’t just put that burden on every player that is doing their job because half the team is not doing their job the mark lighter Jr thing is a bummer uh he had clearly not been as effective as we’ve seen him throughout his time as a reliever um but this is also you know we talked in the off season that you know really the main move was bringing nerys in and you know hoping that other guys took steps up guys like Luke little and then as we talked about you know maybe Hayden wineski would be in the pen we knew that there would be these guys in kind of these flexible roles but last year everybody felt everybody knew they didn’t do enough at the trade deadline as it was happening and you were running alai Julian Maryweather and Mark lier Jr into the ground and now you don’t have any of them again Al’s hurt he wasn’t effective when he was in there Julian merryweather’s hurt he’s working his way back but that’s a slow process and then you have to hope he’s nearly as effective as he’s been for the Cubs throughout his tenure and lighter wasn’t he was hit or miss splitter wasn’t effective in a lot of those outings and now he’s hurt and so now it’s on the rest of these guys to pick it up Colton Brewer’s been pretty good uh for this team so far Hayden uh excuse me uh Keegan Thompson obviously picking up the save the other night like he shown some flashes of of being back to the Keegan we saw when he first came up but you’re putting a lot of pressure on these guys who have not had these roles before exceeded in these roles before uh so that is yeah the mark lier Jr news is is not good it’s not going to make things any easier uh for Craig councel and Tommy HBY and and this whole bunch no all right the second break here we’ll come back around continue this lovely discussion you know every Sunday I look forward to talking Cubs baseball with you Corey every Sunday it’s such a joy in my life to talk about this team okay uh Lucy’s nicotine 100% pure nicotine always tobacco free it’s available in pouches gum 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vehicle at the perfect price because with rais price promise the numbers you’re hearing now are the same prices you can expect to shop in store and online that’s because raise price promise means no price changing no add-ons no hidden fees so if you’re in the market for a new vehicle then you have to check out the team at Ray Chrysler Dodge Jeep and RAM because they are the only team we recommend visit them today on Route 12 in Fox Lake and for more information visit Ray cdjr in Fox Lake or rayc djr all right Brendan uh let’s talk I I I I saw it in the uh I saw it in the the chat a little bit and I know I tweeted this uh during Sha’s start on um Friday that the entire year these numbers probably changed after sha start I didn’t I didn’t look it up since but going into that start on Friday all year they had had the fifth best ER from their starting pitchers all season in the month of June I think it was the second best ER in baseball not National League Baseball so top five All Year from your starters and we’ve talked about it you didn’t pay that off enough these guys have been so good they’ve been near perfect I mean you almost had an entire rotation of guys with a sub three er at one point which is astounding you had shoda for Two Plus months as the best pitcher in baseball and you didn’t pay that off enough you the the way you paid that off was being a handful of games under 500 and blowing half those games or giving them no run support in the others sometimes both sometimes blowing it and giving them no run support and now you’re looking at things and you have outings like that with shoda he’s going to have blowup starts it happens guys not everybody’s going to be perfect Javier Assad has been great for you for over a year he’s going to have outings where they’re shorter even than his norm and he gives up a a few home runs and so the the game gets away from him a little bit these things are going to happen but he didn’t take enough Advantage when this starting staff was one of the best in the league and they might continue to be but when you don’t take advantage of stuff like that you can’t look at them when they have non-competitive starts or blowup starts they’re going to happen they limit that they limited them to almost never happening through the first few months of this season very rarely did we look at these games and say oh yeah the starting pitching took them out of it it’s a handful of those Hendrick starts the one sha start in Milwaukee like steel once when he came back from the aisle otherwise this starting staff has given you a chance to win every single night and you didn’t pay it off and there might be some regression there and if the rest of the team the offense and the bullpen doesn’t step up well that’s going to look pretty ugly guys like that’s just how it is so it it’s frustrating because this starting staff has done such good work and it it didn’t get paid off and if they do run out of gas in certain cases or there’s injuries or they just have more of these blowup starts that kind of regress things back to the mean it’s going to look bad if the other facets of this team don’t pick them up and it’s it’s just pretty frustrating but it’s not a certainty they do we talk about shoda and his poor start against New York and the concern is well he’s not used to going every fifth day from a different League you don’t really have the Precedence that he can last a 162 Game season every fifth day but you don’t know for sure if you want to be optimistic Sha regresses but his mean is that which was better than you and I expected a sub 3.5 erra guy Ste the optimistic Outlook is he’s just as good as we saw last season where he’s a sa young candidate then you match those two you see Ton’s stability now which dating back to his like last 200 Innings he has a sub4 ER and then you get positive performances from guys getting healthy Ben Brown Jordan wicks KY Hendrick comes back into play so it can work out it’s not to say this is Doom and Gloom but when signs of reversion and or regression take place it just makes you spiral because underneath that possibility is a foundation of a weak offense that hasn’t shown any consistent signs of positivity that’s why I need to see that positivity just to offset some of that concern that might happen with their rotation yeah and I you know I I do like this uh YouTube comment from iof Ghost front office knew you had a staff that had some guys that would only go five or six Innings and you didn’t build a strong enough Bullpen I agree and we said that I think throughout the offseason that you had some unknowns and at the time we didn’t know shoda was going to be as good as he was but you knew there was some unknowns you knew there were guys you were going to be pushing up against their Innings limits and asking them to take on roles that maybe they hadn’t before and you didn’t Shore up a bullpen and now the three guys you ran into the ground quite literally last year to try to make the playoffs and failed they’re all hurt the guys you brought over aren’t effective nerys is a a complete mess and has been really the whole season and you’re sitting here asking these questions like we shouldn’t have to ask like how does Assad going four or five innings affect the rest of the team you should have you should have planned for that the question really is quite crazy we’re talking about can last 175 inions that was never of course not yeah never a question two months ago yeah it’s crazy how we’re at this point I I do want to ask you you know we did see uh a really good well I’m curious are we going over an hour today by the way it’s fine I don’t know the the outing on Friday from shoda nothing jumping out at you any any thought on that I mean he was throwing slower he throwing a mile so something to monitor yeah perhaps he well he said he did that on purpose so it’s not like injury concerns he like he legitimately said he wanted to reserve his stamina so he also uh followed up that saying he needs to just to paraphrase change his process and not let that happen again so if he’s saying he did that on purpose then I have to believe him now if that velocity dip was not because of an intentional effort then I’d be concerned but I’m not concerned because he said he did that on purpose no well and I and I’m not either I’m just asking you you’re the pitch doctor uh but yeah like I said he had been basically the best if you know if not one of the best pitchers in baseball to start his career here and we were in June he’s due for a clunker it happens warm day at Wrigley these things happen uh and you know I trust him to kind of take those results not to say it’s a good thing but you know sometimes you do need to figure out okay this is what a team is planning to do to me the second time they face me now you can go and compare the the two different times youve pitched against the Mets see how they attacked you and you you learn from that it’s it’s part of coming over from Japan coming over from a different league and adapting to the major league schedule and Major League hitters like part of that is going to be going through those games taking those as you always say Brendan data points and using them to get better which I expect shoda to continue to do I’m curious what you think about Jameson tyone um Jameson tyion was really good on Saturday um like I said one of his best St uh starts as a cub and we’ve talked about him too like important he’s on a four-year deal he gets paid a pretty decent amount of money when we’re looking at the payroll and we’re talking about them pushing up at the luxury tax things like that like Jameson tyion needs to be good he needs to be a reliable member of this rotation give this team good starts uh and perform and I think we’ve started he’s been really good for this team this year like I said the peripherals uh from his first several starts kind of felt like he was due for some more uh not as good of results as he was getting uh but the start on Saturday felt a little different than that seven Innings six hits one run no walks 10 strikeouts the one run coming on a solo home run it was a warm day at Wrigley wind is blowing all around that was a really good start from Jameson tyion so I know he’s someone you have watched for his entire time as a cub specifically last year because some of those starts were so confounding to figure out what was going on and what the problem was what did you see from tyion on Saturday was it different than what we’ve seen earlier in the year from him and how much confidence do you have uh that he can kind of continue with the overall you know right now he’s got a 2.9 ra how confident are you that he can continue to deliver starts like this for the Cubs for the rest of the season I’d be surprised if it’s still a 2.9 ER in August I would like to see him get more whiffs contact rate still worse than League average which means if this continues then some nonsense happens base hits fall runs come in that being said I have expectation that he can be League average which is what I’m ask him to be and what the front office is paying him to be now there’s a larger discussion and the discussion is the Cubs paid him 17 million per year not because they wanted League aage performance but because they invested in improving him and changing his repertoire to get him Beyond just a two- win pitcher a completely different conversation I agree with that type of assessment if you’re critical of tyone that being said the way he’s adapt is quite impressive comes into the Cubs as a sweeper as a result loses his foram Tommy hod he said that cutter then started to be used more now he’s using a cutter once every four pitches he initially started his career in Major leue Baseball as a north to south guy now he’s east to west throws a sweeper around 20% throws a curve ball around 20% and now a cutter around 24% and a for seamer in between and some stinkers every now and then the cutter is interesting because that is a unique pitch type now if you give me two minutes here I’m going to show a graph that looks kind of weird but I’m still going to do it anyway I know I’m going to get screamed at cuz it’s not easy to read graph but it’s kind of interesting okay so so bear with me here so great lead in it’s kind of a confusing graph here’s what this all means if you look at the top you see red dots and blue dots the further away from the center of all these dots the more unique the picture is now you’re seeing Hayden West neski and you’re seeing Jameson tyion these are their Cutters their Cutters are by definition outliers by all their statcast metrics this means that compared to our normal cutter the ones that wisneski and tyone throw don’t look like any other cutter they are faster with more horizontal break and they cross Home Plate at angles that are that are unorthodox that cutter is having success for tyion he has positive run value on that pitch his most valuable pitch type this season the cutter that outlier trait me means that there’s some uncertainty in projecting him in the future in an optimistic fashion so I say okay maybe he can’t be a a 2.9 earray guy I don’t know that for sure I would bet that he’s not but when you get pitch types that don’t follow the normal distribution of pictures then you don’t really know for sure now before I throw it back to you on that same topic of wisneski when I was making those graphs I was shocked that tyone his cutter was in the same territory as wisneski from stat cast metrics because they have different release points and they have different vertical breaks on their Cutters but they share velocity the angle at which they release the ball and the angle at which the ball crosses home plate and horizontal break then I started to think okay well this is interesting so in reality the pitch is crossing home play almost exactly like tyon for wisneski but there’s one difference it’s in the vertical break if Ton’s having success with this pitch and wisneski needs a pitch P to offset lefties kind of makes sense for wineski to figure out how Ton’s using this pitch and learn and mold that pit shape with his mechanics in mind to at least match some of the characteristics of tyone that means it’s convenient for the Cubs to use tyone as a reference for wisneski all this is to say tyon success is significantly contributed by that cutter that cutter with every stack cast metric in mind is most similar to Hayden Wes’s cutter with a few different traits that are different but those traits could be molded to match the effectiveness of tyon cutter that is how you get Beyond these projections when you find ways to outperform your initial projections so I need to see the Cubs capitalize on developing guys like wisneski and I’m disappointed that Triple AAA guys come up double A guys don’t come up and you don’t get the supplement arms that you need that other teams consistently show like the Dodgers if you’re going to criticize the pent infrastructure this is where you criticize it the lack of supplement arms has hurt this team over the past couple years we need to see development emerge and one guy I hope emerges like taion has is is wisneski uh so we do have our guy Cody dendo in the chat uh like me apparently says you’re sending him graphs at almost 2 in the morning I don’t remember that what did I send well Cody’s not a liar so and you do it to me so I believe him you didn’t you didn’t respond to my graph last night by the way it was a good graph it was the one I just showed you what I just showed yeah that was a complete accent by the way Tyler in the chat asking uh do you think wisneski should use his cutter against lefties rather than his slider his so the cutter has more depth it drops more than your typical cutter so that’s a concern where it might actually look like a slider and then that can get eaten up I ideally yes but when I bring up the similarities when I say okay tyon is using this cutter and wineski has a cutter that kind of looks like his in many different features what I’m saying is can wisneski somehow change the shape or some tweak to at least reflect how tyone goes about its business so I’m saying there’s an entry point to improving because have an unexpected similarity with tyone I’m not saying do this just throw more Cutters I’m saying learn from a reference because when you just objectively ask the question which Cutters most resemble tyion the top four guys among those top four in all baseball is wisneski so that was a surprise to me yeah so I I do want to ask you uh I’m curious your thought uh when when we were doing the show on Wednesday after the Cubs won the series against the Giants uh I remember talking to our guy Ryan Herrera who was out at beautiful historic Wrigley Field for all chg.com and he mentioned a I I asked him you know earlier in the year and some of those starts that went poorly Kyle Hendrick in the post game said I feel like my stuff feels pretty good feel like I only made a couple bad pitches and you would look at the results and I think a lot of people were like are you sure about that like the results don’t look that way but he seemed pretty confident in that when I asked Ryan if he thought that you know when they talked to Hendrick did he Express that he was doing something different did something feel different like what what clicked in this start and maybe that outing against the Cardinals that was not clicking before and he credited Miguel Amaya and his game calling and and at least giving some credit to uh uh some of the say again strategy pitch call yeah and andess and calling pitches maybe I think he used the word unexpected uh and just changing up the sort of sequencing that maybe Kyle would have gone with on his own you’ve been watching Kyle Hendricks for a long time you written about Kyle Hendrick you podcasted about Kyle Hendrick you made endless graphs about Kyle HRI should we all buy that or is Kyle being nice to his catcher you you very passionately argued for being patient at least a little bit with Kyle more so because the velocity looked good the stuff looked pretty good and the value to the team if he could figure it out at all was pretty significant versus just ditching him at the you know first sign of regressing and and things like that so I’m curious like when you hear that like do you feel that way do you feel like the stuff was always pretty good it doesn’t matter how Miguel Maya was calling like what do you think about about something like that yes and no I mean to clarify the reason I didn’t want a DFA hris was because I thought there was a possibility that young pitchers would not perform as you want them to perform whether it be the injuries or unexpected results and that’s what’s kind of happening right now so I wanted Hendrick to be that fail safe his stuff has continued to look exactly the same his stuff now looked exactly the same as it did in April no difference the change that he’s made is curveball frequency using this curveball more using this curveball 20% of the time that’s a massive increase in frequency when if I remember correctly when he was coming out of the pen he was leading with the curveball in terms of pitch usage that pitch used to be a get me over pitch the start at bats or to show a curveball when you’re ahead of the count just to keep BS off Balan that pitch is now being used in two strike counts that’s crazy he got strikeouts with that curveball so in one sense I think he’s right that Amaya did call a good game he did call 20% curveball in a start that was unique for Kyle so Maya deserves credit for that at the same time the question I always had was if Kyle continues to show case to stuff then in more starts is there some stabilization to happen and I think there’s two truths in that that being said though there’s always other question whereas has the league adjusted to Kyle’s stuff that even if the stuff is good in his mind that the hitters are better these days and they can now adapt to that stuff I don’t know the answer to that but right now the Cubs have no choice and because Kyle’s now throwing a curveball more that than he had before it does make me more optimistic that this is a change that is to his benefit it maybe a change that makes him at least a starting pitcher for this team for the foreseeable future yeah I mean look at this point if you could uh it you just need him to be serviceable as a fifth man in this rotation that’s it yeah to stay alive that way when the injuries stop from the bullpen lighter comes back Merryweather com comes back yeah Brown comes back Wix comes back that at least you have that option in place I’m not asking for him to be a consistent guy yeah well I think with Hendrick too like at this point given the injuries and you know just where the team is at you’re really just asking like I said when I say serviceable what I mean is there’s a a space between even what we’ve gotten from Hendricks the last two outings and what we’ve saw at the beginning of the year there can be a middle ground like we don’t have to watch every start and go that was vintage Kyle Hendrick the other day against uh the Giants it it was five and 2/3 two hits one run just one walk and eight strikeouts ton of whiffs I think he got what 14 whiffs in that game if I remember correctly it it was a a great his change up looked great fading down in away to those left-handed hitters beautiful stuff from Kyle Hendricks but there’s a middle ground like not every start even has to be that it’s just really as long as we’re avoiding the one in a third of an inning and giving up six runs and three home runs over you know that short period of time a middle ground might be fine for this team I think it was Tyler earlier in the YouTube chat talked about how you know the compounding of so many of those short starts earlier in the year those short non-competitive starts the team is out of the game the offense is behind the eightball in the first two three Innings and you’re eating five six Innings of the bullpen every every other night it you’re looking at what that effect is that that does play a role in things and we’re as you said you were reading through like Assad’s numbers we’re only in June like we’re not we’re not even through the the allstar break here folks like some of these pitchers are going to need rest they’re going to need space they’re going to need downtime some of them are going to have to be moved to different roles cuz otherwise you’re just going to blow them out completely like you’re seeing with the entirety of the back end of the 2023 Bullpen it’s like some of this is not like super crazy when it happens it’s I I don’t think a lot of people would look at how they used lighter last year and even how Council had to use lighter to start this year because of the volatility in the bullpen and you say yeah Mark ligher Jr’s on the iil like nobody’s going to hear that and go what no way Mark lier Jr no way he’s hurt get out of here like of course yeah so on that note uh I believe there report from our guy Ryan Herrera at the Ballpark uh was Justin Steel in game one on Monday night against the Giants Kyle Hendricks in game two and then if I remember reading the Tweet correctly he said Council said we will figure it out from there so Gods speak all right uh but Steel in game one Kyle Hendricks in game two Justin steel has looked great in his last several starts hopefully he can continue that and at least for now like one of the better places I think for Kyle Hendricks to to pitch can give up some uh deep fly balls it’s a ballpark that plays very big a lot of fly balls die at that warning track so hopefully even if uh he is not as fine-tuned as he was against the Giants this last time I don’t love him very quickly seeing an offense for the second time in a row in you know less than a week but it’s a a better ballpark than most he done it before in playoff series very important playoff series by the way can you give me an example Brendon oh I can give you an example you know in 2016 you know yeah they they go on I’m unfamiliar they had won the World Series in 2016 oh in in the World Series he pitched multiple times I don’t know if you knew this oh okay incl including game seven against the same Cleveland team and it’s the first time hearing of this they they won that game seven believe it or not yeah the guy behind you by the way pit in that game too oh John ler John Lester correct yeah right okay um quick aside we’re over an hour so things get a little weird with Corey and Brendan when we’re over an hour um well and hey I you know I see it in the in the chat from our guy Tyler like we of course we want more like I here here’s the thing and I’ve told this story on air before but I I went to game seven in Cleveland and I do remember um you know which game Sorry we just keep it the bit the bit rolls in on itself yeah um I do remember I’ve said said this before to whatever deity entity spiritual situation you happen to believe in I put out into the universe that if they won this game as far as it related to sports you’re not going to hear from me again I’m not going to ask for anything I’m not going to wish I’m not going to pray I’m not going to dream give me this one and so and a you know even this many years later I feel like I have to respect that I put it out to the universe and I feel like I have to respect that have you respected it is this your fault is this your fault no I I no cuz here’s the deal cuz I do agree with the the sentiment and we’ve said this when we’ve talked all through the offseason our frustration was rooted in the idea that you have not won a real playoff game since 2017 you haven’t made a real playoff series since 2018 as we always say I don’t care about 2020 I don’t care what they were able to do for 60 games doesn’t matter to me it it was great at the time it was nice whatever but in the context of everything else the front office I you they don’t get rewarded for that it was a completely different thing out of context from everything else you now have a president who’s in his what fourth year hadn’t won I and I like honestly I I feel like it’s not a big deal but like just to phrase it in a certain way Jed Hoyer hasn’t won Jack [ __ ] Bron W it’s getting late working yourself up I am a little I am working here we go I didn’t expect this uh I think it was basball junkie earlier asked if there was alcohol in this C there’s not I have nor more wine tonight I wish I did yeah but but it is it is just one of those things where yeah man like we want more that’s that’s what I was saying earlier and and I know again you talked about this and I I think it was a clip that we put out on Twitter or uh you tweeted about it Etc and it’s with the the fan base just deserves better I saw so many people tweeting about it uh throughout this weekend especially during this Sunday night game like the fans are so like if there was a way for fans to will a team to perform and to do better and to come through in those moments the Cubs would be undefeated because the fans at rley field are so into every pitch every rally every moment and you can tell that the fans know the limitations of this team when they I was at the game on Saturday with my brother uh and when they scored those five runs in the first inning Standing Ovation because the fans know they were like thank heavens they were able to put up a crooked number to start this game when they have those moments even if it’s the fifth inning it’s 3 to2 and there’s a runner on third or the bases are loaded the fans are in it to try and will it to happen cuz they know it might be their only chance to score and it’s just frustrating that like I said we’re sitting here having the same conversation week after week you and I at this point we half the time we come on we’re like well what do you want to talk about because we’ve talked about morel’s under the hood stats we’ve talked about where he should play positionally we’ve talked about Dansby and Cody Bellinger needing to you know hit better and back to their career Norm or the back of their baseball card what we talked about this ad nauseum man and it’s frustrating in year whatever of a retool to be sitting here discussing like I said well if the offense can click and these guys get hot and they go on a run they can sneak into the third wild card by half a game it just the bar is on the floor at this point and it’s just disappointing that’s all I can say um it’s just a disappointing situation to be in and instead of as we’ve talked about looking at how shoda has performed as a free agent signing so much less than some of these other pitchers and especially Yamamoto who came over from Japan and was seen as the more prized free agent signing instead of looking at that and having that catapult them to the top of the National League or uh dreaming on what Morel can do and if that came to be it would push their offense to one of the best in the league we’re just sitting here and trying to figure out who’s going to blow tomorrow’s game or which you know mid pitcher they’re going to strike out 12 times against and leave 15 people in scoring position and stuff and it’s it’s frustrating that’s all so when the Cubs won the World Series by the way um Theo gave speeches gave a commencement speech at Yale there was a segment in one of his speeches where to paraphrase he was describing the top to bottom organizational success and the effort and he made a point saying success is at those lower levels when there’s that Scout traveling from one city to the next city to the other city and that one coach in instructs just working with that catcher to improve and go through the system and surprise everyone that’s how you succeed an example of that was Wilson con Cher’s trajectory in 2016 a guy who didn’t have the top tier Prospect status but ultimately was hitting home runs in a World Series playoff time right now the Cubs top to bottom the organization the effort might be there but the execution is not so the question in the process is why isn’t those unexpected performances or or development percolating up to the Cubs and providing value why is it that the pitching feel feels so taxed in the bullpen and right now on the staff why is this happening and so when when I express displeasure with the front office it’s not judging them by saying oh they should have spent more money which maybe yes they should have it’s not judging them by saying oh they’re just not trying they’re they’re stupid yada yada yada the displeasure is more of a shared disappointment because they’re not executing the development’s not robust enough maybe the analysts aren’t diverse enough in their techniques maybe the coaching infrastructure needs to be changed the process whatever it is however generalized you want to say it has not yielded results I understand the intention how they were going about building this team I share their disappointment and frustration that it hasn’t worked frankly we need results we need to get back to the point where top to bottom those developmental changes are percolating through the system as Theo described in His World Series champion speech and you know I see it in the chat too but there there was the the sort of pervasive belief at the time that the Cubs were setting standards they were the industry standard in certain areas of the game of baseball they were the gold standard in certain aspects and you know part of that was their acceleration of young Prospect timelines and being aggressive with those things and even just the the general premise to tank and get those players and and build it up and and time it all that way and it you and I have talked about especially in the last several years but like it has not felt like that in ages I mean the two biggest the two biggest Innovative features that you’re describing number one was the international signing process they blew past those penalties and said to hell with it I’m going to go get gber Torres I’m going to go get the guys I can use to trade for Miguel Montero that was the first thing the second thing was as we know drafting hitter’s first round hitter hitter hitter Theo said we can always buy pitching at in that environment in that market as you’re pointing to John leester that was true they bought all their pictures and they got somewhat fortunate with Jake aretta that was the market in which they lived completely different environment now and the reality of baseball changed for Theo for office where it turned into a developmental necessity that the Dodgers capitalized on and the asers capitalized on while sharing those foundational tra Theo innovated yeah it’s just it’s just a bummer that you know when for sure I want to get back to when we look at the game of baseball now I think people would obviously look at the Dodgers as the gold standard of that kind of marriage of development and spending money and an ownership group that wants wants to win and yada yada um the Astros able to win multiple World Series kind of continue from one base of that first core continue developing adding those guys like Kyle Tucker yordon Alvarez Etc and being able to win again the Atlanta Braves for their sort of shrewd ability to extend those young players and build a roster kind of shockingly of their own like players but then capitalize on those moments to go get Matt olssen and make the the tough decision to move on from Freddy Freeman etc etc it’s a bummer that the Cubs aren’t in that group and they don’t feel like they’re close to that group they’re not even they wouldn’t even be looked at as the Innovative leader or the gold standard of their own division Brendan they haven’t been the the standard bearer of the NL Central in years mean you’re talking what you’re pushing almost a decade is little under that’s being you know hyperbolic but still like it it’s been a long time since you anyone would have considered you to be the standard Bearer the flag bearer of the NL Central and that’s those those are the expectations yeah it’s a shame they should be the expectations of course and that’s my expectations that’s why whenever I come on and I express frustration and I sound as if I’m complaining it’s because those are my expectations but it’s hard to live up to that it’s hard to be the best dude that’s why these front offices turn over so of often yeah I you know the one thing we didn’t talk about and we’re we’re nearing 90 minutes so we’re going to get out of here soon and I feel out of here I I feel like I could piss you off uh since we’re this late in the thing you know the one thing we didn’t talk about when I was talking about how sometimes they you know face picturers that come in with bad records and stuff like that I I it spaced already because I think I’ve had to comp compartmentalize this and block it completely out of my brain what really truly might throw me off the edge of this season is that they got carved up Brendan by Jose kintana all right that’s it goodbye I told you I didn’t know you were going that route I’m done where’s where’s the last ad break here all of the years that we had to watch that man nibble at the strike zone 3-2 on every hitter just again I’m not Rel litigating the trade he was a huge part of the reason they win the division make the playoffs whatever in 2017 yada yada but toward the end the the the the lack of attacking the strike zone the poor starts etc etc and excr in my opinion and I know you agree with me excruciating to watch one of my least favorite pitchers to watch maybe in the history of baseball this Cubs team he came into that game at Wrigley Field with an erra near five a FIP near 5.2 carves up the Chicago Cubs that might be the thing that drives me completely insane you knew it was going to happen too I woke up that morning and look at the projected pictures I’m like is that Jose Quintana Quintana like of course that was going to happen no offense to the guy but he ruined he took years off my life he really did years off my life Cory that count got to two strikes I knew damn well he was not string out that guy I mean unless he’s facing the Cubs apparently unless he’s facing the Cubs but those curve balls were not going to dip for strikeout when he was on the Cubs and of course on that day in the Mets uniform it happens kill me absolutely kill me but it it it reflects the Cub so perfectly in a way it can be reduced just to that example yes all right last question for you Brendon because our chat was talking about I’m pretty sure this was started by our guy Cody dendo but as we approach 90 minutes here it’s a fair question favorite Taco Bell that was in the chat say it one more time the chat was debating Taco Bell items I like those you’re frozen over there by the way I like those Dorito tacos fair enough the what are they called the Locos or I forgot the name yeah probably yeah I like those that’s my thing I think Cody eats them after Cubs losses but uh I guess he eats them sometimes after good things I don’t know but and can’t go wrong with a just basic burrito too they’re like $199 there can’t go wrong and those cinnamon things you know I’m talking about you had those cinnamon things those are great I might go there right now great addition to uh you know I know everybody laments uh the Wrigleyville neighborhood getting rid of the old Taco Bell but they did put one back you need it there’s not a lot of late night food immediately in that area but I digress all right uh well you know let’s say it’s late you want your Taco Bell you want a drink to go along with that well guess what go get a Blue Moon some beers can say they’re brewed for baseball but only Blue Moon is brewed by baseball I love coming home from a long day in a hot day in the summer flipping on the baseball game hopefully the Cubs are winning opening up a fresh Blue Moon there’s nothing better from Miss refreshing flavor with Valencia orange peel for a subtle sweetness and hints of coriander Blue Moon Belgian style weedel is a one-of a kind beer that’s made brighter bring the ballpark to you with blue moon Belgian style weed L it’s one of a kind every time Blue Moon delivered by get Blue Moon delivered by visit in g. 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Bloon beer.com chgo Blue Moon made brighter celebrate responsibly Blue Moon Brewing Company Golden Colorado all right brandan I uh I don’t know man here’s as we were saying what’s your biggest fear with this with this team my biggest fear is what we watch every day which which if you go back to you and I talking in the off season I expressed was my biggest fear almost every time we spoke which ends up in what which ends up in this offense is not reliable okay it’s it was Reliant upon bringing back Cody Bellinger and banking uh not him returning to MVP form but being able to repeat what he did last year which so far you know a 780 Ops I think is what he was around when the game on Sunday finishes it’s not terrible but you’re paying him to be your your big bat and that’s not a big bat at all and the Homer power is not where you would want it to be for him the known risks are hit or miss the Morell thing has not worked in terms of results thus far Michael Bush looks good uh but you know even Michael Bush like still not great you know not an elite hitter that’s you know able to kind of make a stronghold in the middle of your order and that you didn’t do enough to shore up the bullpen I which results in what which results in what yeah like missing the Playoffs right oh well yeah blown saves every other game and ultimately any number of games you could look back on when they miss the playoffs by one game or two games and say oh well they shouldn’t have blown that one on Monday against the Giants they shouldn’t have blown this one it’s just frustrating it’s it’s one of the those things where we don’t always go back to saying that we talked about this in the offseason I don’t care if we’re right about stuff I just want the Cubs to win we expressed those concerns as the off season was going on because they were legitimate concerns we weren’t the only people that felt that way it was a pretty common sentiment but then you start looking it gets close to the season you want to support the support the boys and like hope that they can come together in in you know one of the better standard deviations and higher percentile outcomes nerd but yeah but it’s it it is I think even more frustrating to kind of feel like this was definitely possible express it all the time and then on a nightly basis have to be like yep they lost three to2 cuz the offense can’t score any runs they can’t drive runners in with scoring position they can’t get that big hit they don’t have enough Slug and the bullpen isn’t reliable so they blew another game and it’s like it at at certain times it it feels like you’re you’re taking crazy pills it’s like uhuh like yep I was worried about this in December and January and it’s really frustrating to it it seems so obvious to everybody talking about this team that they didn’t do enough in certain areas and we just live it every night and that’s with Brendan them I think getting a way better than expected performance from their starting staff we knew that they you know Justin SE would be really good and they had a lot of potential in that depth but weren’t sure about certain guys how was tyone going to look when he came back how was shoda imanaga going to adjust and look in his first year in Major League Baseball and they’ve been one of the best rotations in baseball poll to pole so far this season and so even hitting at the higher percentile of that portion of the game for it to be where we are right now it’s just exceedingly disappointing and frustrating um but I don’t know they’re two games out of a wild card I don’t know I don’t know man my worst fear is shared with yours my worst fear is that if this happens throughout the season it increases the chance of another rebuilt with a different front office I don’t want to go into that certainty AR surviving that uh we’ll see we’ll see might be tough it increases it makes my comfort with ownership picking the next front office extremely shaky the Epstein don’t grow on trees generational Executives don’t just happen to don’t grow on trees and the trees that grow from him might not be that good is a lesson that people can learn but you know what’s funny about that and you know these are all generalities but there was a time where Jason McLoud was the next Hot Shot guy the getting interviewed by San Francisco it was only a matter of time until Jason McLoud got his presidency with a different organization never happened in fact he’s not even in a high executive position anymore why is that the sport changed on a dime and so my worst fear is that the sport is changing as we continue changes all the time itang changes all the time and is ownership in a position to identify the next front office to not just stay afloat on the change but to in fact promote that change be one of the Changers as Theo was I don’t know if I have that confidence and so my worst fear is that this is just the Tipping Point so I was hoping I’m still hoping I’m desperately hoping desperately hoping that Jed’s infrastructure developmental system bears fruit I am desperately hoping for that because if that happens then we can avoid that that legitimate worst case scenario that’s dark that’s how you get super dark you know you think this could be worse just wait just wait well I mean look I think like I felt you know looking back on it when they were finishing that Series in Tampa I said I thought we’d learn a lot about this team over this niname home stand and I think we did I think what we learned is that the play we’ve seen for the last two months or so you know outside of some some good play at the beginning of the year Etc is where this team is it it’s one of those things we can look at so many guys and we have uh yes Cody is is correct the good news is we’ll all be dead at some point anyway the sun could engulf us all at any moment um the Cubs have won a World Series in our life so if it’s time to go it’s time to go everybody that’s my philosophy hey it’s not a bad way of looking at it but I think uh Dan yeah Dan Chambers in the YouTube chat says he’s Ryan’s nephew parents were singing with him in the Box take me off the ball game that’s very cool thanks for jacked by the way too can Dan Chambers back clean up yeah um yeah hopefully a wonderful weekend and and night thank you to your uncle for your family I you know as as as Pat Foley used to say uh you know hope you enjoyed the broadcast and and the game and the statue unveiling in spite of the outcome uh that the Cubs gave on the field but um I think I think we did learn a lot in this nine-game home stand um and that is yeah that this is kind of who this team is until they show us otherwise you can always look at certain guys and say there’s room for improvement Cody Bellinger there’s there’s a a good discrepancy between the results that he put up last year and where he is right now if he got back there of course that would be great be a lift to the offense we saw Ian hap do that and he vaulted those numbers up in you know pretty short order he got them up Dan B Swanson can do that Nico Herer as soon as he’s not playing through a you know fractured bone in his hand maybe he can get back and and and start putting up those numbers again we talked about seya we’ve talked about Christopher Morel we’ve talked about these things um but at the end of the day it seems clear that they are going to play as we all feared a lot of close games they don’t have a very good Bullpen they have an unreliable Bullpen and their offense very frequently almost every day is going to put this pitching staff in a position where they cannot afford that volatility in the bullpen they cannot afford the compounded issues to the starting staff as a result of many different things injuries short starts etc etc and it’s going to be a lot of coin flips does that ball that Estrada hit leave the yard on Monday off nearest does he make one better pitch to get out of the inning does the offense drive in that one extra run from third base and as we spent all last year talking about it’s all margins all these little tiny things that you desperately try to avoid affecting the season and affecting every night they’re going to affect the season season and affect things every night every little tiny thing that’s why I Zone in on those tiny things like how pathetic am I like it’s truly sad how many graphs I make is it not it’s legitimately sad I have to squint to find these trends when making these graphs and like for example this is how pathetic I am okay I’m watching Dan B Swanson hit and I’m thinking all right you know he’s looking better there’s got to be a reason for this right and so like I’m looking at his mechanics this is how pathetic I am and I noticed these like small changes on the left is from May on the right is from his home run a couple days ago and you see these like small little changes you know his weight distributions change you can see that by the red area under the curve and then you start to look at okay let’s line that up with his bat speed you know when he did that all of a sudden his bass speed keeps going up and up and up bass speed the best at any point in the season right now and so I’m trying to find those like you think the Cubs are playing on the margins I’m playing on the margins for my optimism I’m playing on the margins for my for my mental sanity over here I don’t want to be doing this I don’t want to be making graphs like this Corey I just want to be a 100 win team this is simple ask that’s all apparently not a simple ask at all uh I’m just saying you know why can’t we win 100 games yeah I don’t know man it’s uh it is what it is like I said earlier I know people don’t you got to square the the conversation I’m not lowering my threshold to just take that third wild card spot but when they’re two games out like I said whether you think they could get in the playoffs and actually compete with anybody it doesn’t matter if they’re two games out they’re not going to sell but you know what you’re sick because you believe it like you’re holding you’re holding on to that two games out of the wild card spot for your for your own mental sanity because it could happen kind of I mean I know I know you but that that’s what I mean it it’s not it’s it’s it’s you and I TR to talk through the lens of what the front office is actually going to do what’s going to happen in reality I always say that where it’s like I wish they would spend $500 million on their payroll they’re not going to but that possibility keeps you alive it keeps you happy I know it does even though kind of but it also it also does Center a lot of these conversations if they are within Striking Distance of a playoff spot I just don’t see them selling I don’t see them not making decisions to try and take that playoff we’re weeks away but I’m kind of curious to like probe your thinking right now if they are two games out of the wild card and like three games below 500 on July 29th are they making trades to go over that luxury tax what do you think two games out three games under 500 I don’t know I really don’t if you had a bets I I think I think they might yeah that’s unbelievable if they do that dude there’s 40,000 people in the stadium I just can’t see them selling and I say unbelievable if they do that I do want to say like die hard Cub 1984 says Cory you’re sounding more like an owner than a fan I I got to clear that up I you kind of are I get out of here look at you my standard is not making a wild card spot my I have talked all the time about how like following what the Diamondbacks did last year and trying to sneak in and hope that you can win the World Series and using that as a justification to be in the middle and just hope you can make the playoffs is not good enough for the Chicago Cubs it’s not good enough at all I just spent five minutes talking about how they need to be the standard bearer of their own Division and they’re not even close to that so I am not justifying it I am not okay with them using a third wild card spot as their threshold of success it’s not good enough for the Chicago Cubs but when they’re two games out for you and to come on here and talk sell this guy trade this guy trade this guy I don’t think that reflects the reality of how the team is going to operate and I think it’s a disservice for you and I to talk any other way I’m I’m with you I’m I’m just poking fun you’re making fun of me I am making fun of you but I don’t want it I mean I guess I am doing it now but it’s still far away but what makes you believe truly what makes you believe they they trade and pay more money on this roster by starting that cycle by starting that tax cycle how much space do they have like five million or so yeah I mean I think I I I might agree with our guy Cody like I I I think they I think it would be similar to last year where they buy but not in a meaningful way so if you look at their current expect well that’s the other thing as Mark says in the YouTube chat like they don’t have a lot of guys that are geared so they are legitimately on the nose 5 million under that threshold by Cuts yeah so I mean I think I think it it definitely would be possible you try to bring in cheap relief help so the same thing they did last year yeah well that wasn’t selling yeah I know they’re not selling I’m not arguing for it again I’m just trying to like figure out what I think they’re going to do if it were all up to me if you’re asking me what I want them to do what I think they should do Freeman the owner do I I would have gone back at least two off seasons ago and done a lot of different stuff Chris BR still be on this team probably and I’d have to eat that guy no I don’t know well he’d be healthy if that were the case that Denver air by the way you know our good friends at dmvr no offense I can’t breathe in that state and city the altitude is crazy I go for a half mile walk my neck hurts I can’t breathe the altitude is a huge fact I don’t know I don’t know it’s it’s a it’s a bit of a mess because as we were just saying like they’re not particularly well suited to sell you could find some things to sell no they’re not going to sell there’s no way if they’re two games out they’ll just do exactly what they did last year yeah we’ll get Jose quas back from the Blue Jays Cory we’ll trade Canario for Jose quas um imagine that now that would be funny that would be fun I I don’t know man yeah get uh get quas back Jake Slaughter back from Seattle justy Tyson Miller back yeah yeah yeah our friend Gary would love that yeah so as I said I think we did learn a lot from this team in this nine game homand and I think we’ll learn more in this stretch uh as we March toward July as I said you you you know they’re probably on a plane already they have a night game in San Francisco tomorrow 3 8:45 starts uh Monday through Wednesday and then the finale at 2:45 on Thursday and then 3 in Milwaukee uh so you have a full 7 game road trip with no off days then you’re off the following Monday to start the month of July uh and then you welcome the Phillies to town so this is a tough stretch man and for not taking advantage of that nine game home stand stand you know now you have to it’s it’s it’s sort of put up or shut up time against better competition I mean this is a tough road trip you just won a series against the Giants but now you’re traveling out there you’re changing time zones four games on the road and then you’re going to Milwaukee and then welcoming one of the best teams in the National League in the Philadelphia Phillies that’s okay it’s okay don’t worry it’s gonna be okay it’s fine it’s fine it’s fine they just need to be stressed out bring in the best teams increase distress and they’ll be fine you know that’s what it is all right they just have to try harder Cory he’ll be okay right yeah that’s I think what we got for you guys almost two hours tonight um this our longest episode in history dating back to 2015 yeah it’s it’s working through it brenon I mean I think part of the the frustrating brand of baseball they play is it does you you described it as Purgatory it does sort of leave you in a weird state of like I don’t really know what to do with myself but at least it’s not hell like I’ll stay in progator instead of going to hell hell is like it really falls off the rails which is what like the white socks like what they deal with yeah I mean you know you have guys continue to underperform you have to sell front office is turned over you get back in front office that sucks yada yada yada 20 years from now was worse and we’re then that’s hell and then there’s no coming out of that then need to sell the team again like the Triune did and got get the next Theo Epstein you know maybe his kid is an executive you hire the Epstein’s kid yeah you know John Lester’s kid pitch for the Cubs that’s that’s what happens sure um off the rails yeah I think that’s what we got for you it it is just it is just a weird spot though the brand of baseball they play does leave you kind of with a like I don’t know man I I don’t know what to feel about this team on a on a daily basis but disappointing home stand four and five on this home stand stand drop a series to the Cardinals drop a series to the Mets did win two out of three against the Giants who now you head out to San Francisco to try to play uh and Brendan and I will be back with you uh next Sunday to try to make sense of it all um tough week honestly I want a brawl I want a full out brawl I want PCA charge the mound cover the face make sure everything’s okay no injuries no injuries charge your mound and go ballistic full out bro I want Council to get in there you know take his dip out go Full Throttle I need something Cory I feel we we do it does feel like we need one of those like the Cubs are 12 and three since since fill in the blank yeah right not Grimace but the brawl we don’t have Grimace we need like Anthony Rizzo 2.0 that’s what we need you know go to the Red’s Dugout scream at trapman or something like that that’s how it happens the Cubs are 15- one since Craig Council fought Bob Melvin in San Francisco oh he would kick Bob Melvin’s ass dude I think Council still has it all right no they should hire Carlos and brano back that’s what they should do quality control quality control quality control great great all right folks uh like I said appreciate you guys tuning in Long show um and after a Sunday night baseball game so as I said I appreciate you guys uh choosing to prolong your 2024 Chicago Cubs experience uh by joining Brendan and I here on the Cho Cubs podcast uh don’t forget tune in Luke Cody Ryan throughout the week they’ll have you covered and you got to tune in Luke you guys know he’s going to have to stay up so late for these San Francisco games make sure you hit the like button for him tune in to the show make it worthwhile for him tomorrow 8:45 in Chicago 6:45 for you yeah perfect um so don’t forget to tune in we appreciate your support very much appreciate you guys tuning in Brendan and I will talk to you next week uh what they got let’s see if they have it in them uh pull together a nice road trip here after a disappointing home stand so Brendon and I will talk to you next Sunday thank you guys for your support and as always go Cubs we all sitting like the May
Corey and Brendan discuss this week’s events in Chicago Cubs baseball, highlighted by Shota Imanaga and Javier Assad’s rough outings, Mark Leiter Jr.‘s injury, Hector Neris’ potential removal from the full-time closers role, Christopher Morel’s offensive funk, and Pete Crow-Armstrongs offense following his recall.
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10 comments
We stinks
Charts shmarts – this team sucks. I’m tired of hearing why they’re dying, it’s just clear they’re dying. Stuff needs to change.
This team fuckin' sucks, guys. Have a good summer.
Agreed. This team is as Limp Dick as they come.
The results after Taco Hell is similar to this teams offense thus far
Jed and front office gotta go .. heads gotta roll after this season
Does Culver's have a mascot?
Seasons over no need to worry about wild card dumb expectations I want a division title man no bullshit wildcard game
We need a 5 game winning streak like humans need water imo man get back over .500
So many D Ross Derangment Syndrome Folks now..LMAO..Saying sorry Ross..Funny..He was Awful ..You all just forgot how BAD he really was..The team last year was WAY Better than this team..That's what the difference is now..The team last year hit almost all year one of the best Offences in MLB..This year they STINK..That's just what happens in Baseball. Team last year had a 70 or 80 plus run Diff..This years team has a minus 20..D Ross had nothing to do with the team's hitting..If anything he made them worse!..Counsell can not be Player Manager and hit for this team..Give me a break..D Ross Delusional Folks..