Official 2023 Chicago Cubs Season Thread Vol: (17-17)

JohnnyRedStorm said:
It's still very early, but I can't see Schwarber staying in Triple A long when he gets sent down.
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He has to tho. They want him to be an MLB catcher, he needs Triple A for a while. If we were in the AL, yeah great, but in NL, he needs a position and reg work + at bats.
 
Welp. 17-0.

Schwarber with 4 hits.

Bryant a GS. Rizzo/Russell/Denorfia all with bombs.

:hat
 
Schwarber looked ready to do this everyday :lol

CP is he that bad in left field or do they just prefer to get him reps behind the plate for the future? Cause I mean, honestly, I rather have his bat in left that some of the guys that have been trotted out there this year, but if you see him as a full time catcher, I totally understand wanting him to continue develop back there.
 
Did Cleveland dirty with that game :lol

Pitt and Chicago both rocking and rollin and still 5/7 games out :{

Need St L to drop off
 
JohnnyRedStorm said:
Schwarber looked ready to do this everyday :lol

CP is he that bad in left field or do they just prefer to get him reps behind the plate for the future? Cause I mean, honestly, I rather have his bat in left that some of the guys that have been trotted out there this year, but if you see him as a full time catcher, I totally understand wanting him to continue develop back there.
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They haven't even used him in LF yet, at all. He's been a full time C/DH. Far as I know, not one inning in the outfield.

They either believe he'll be the next Piazza, or they figure he could pick up Left after just a few weeks.

Coghlan has been solid in LF tho. He had horrible early season luck, flyin out to the track in April, line drives right at somebody, etc. But he's been great the last month. Last night he gunned someone at the plate, and reached base 5 times.
 
It’s just embarrassing what’s still left, even with all these kids still making debuts. We still have CF Albert Almora, RF Eloy Jiminez, SS Gleyber Torres, LF Billy McKinney, 1B Dan Vogelbach, and now we just added 2B/CF Ian Happ, and LF Donnie Dewees in the draft and we still have the July International market where Theo is being linked to MULTIPLE MULTIPLE top prospects. It’s absurd. I mean, his top end prospects already up in the majors, have back end prospects developing right behind them, and then Theo is going to start building up a THIRD wave of talent behind that. What the hell????? :lol I have never, ever, ever seen the Cubs in this good of shape. Quality up and thru the entire org, and we’re still building. This July wave, on top of the SP we all know Theo will get at either the deadline, or in the offseason (David Price the most commonly linked) by this time in 2016, they will be the hottest ticket in MLB. Wrigley being renovated, top tier talent in the rotation, a young powerful bullpen, a ridiculous young/powerful lineup, a hugely deep farm system, a top tier manager, a top tier GM, a rabid fanbase, a new TV deal on the horizon……..the health of this franchise is mind blowing. In 2011 we had a bunch of old, washed up, hasbeens, no farm system to speak of outside of Starlin Castro, (with Baez about to be drafted tho) and just 4 years later, they are almost 85% rebuilt, and just a few months away from a complete overhaul throughout the entire franchise. Unbelievable.
 
Agreed. I mean, look at this:

Considering his 2015 numbers, my system projects him for 11.7 WAR through age-28, up from 6.1 WAR after last year. Heading into the year, only five prospects — Joc Pederson, Kris Bryant, Jorge Soler, Addison Russell and Julio Urias — earned a higher projection than Schwarber’s current figure.
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4 of the top 6 projections, are Cubs. :lol :rollin


I have no idea if all 4 will live up to these expectations, but God damn.
 
Starlin with the clutch 2 run single in extra innings yesterday.

Now today, Arrieta 8 shutout innings, Rizzo a bomb, Fowler a Grand Slam, Castro 3 hits, and Schwarber a 2 run single with the bases loaded and no one out on an 0-2 pitch, vs a lefty. 8-21 so far, may get one more at bat here in the 9th.
 
What a win, beating Kershaw, with two Bryant bombs. :eek :hat

38-30, late June. Wow.
 
Kershaw let that curveball hang in the air too long. Bryant caught it perfectly. My only issue right now is, I hope we don't hit a big slump after the all star break.
 
Walkoff 1-0. :hat

Cubs go 2-0 over Kershaw and Grienke. Now finish the series with Hendricks/Lester. :hat :hat
 
Chicago Cubs President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein yesterday discussed a range of topics with the media, and you can read his thoughts here, here, here, here, and here, among other places. His comments inform the following, and are worth a read.

Can and will the Chicago Cubs make significant in-season additions to help spur along what looks to be a playoff-caliber performance in 2015?

That’ll be among the big questions sorted out over the coming month, as the young team continues to play well in the face of a tough schedule and a tough division.

Although the Cubs are happy about the team’s performance this year, Theo Epstein explained that they’ll never be satisfied enough to stop trying to improve. The first order of business, if Epstein had to rank? As he’s mentioned before, it would probably be in the starting pitching area, where the Cubs have dealt with some injuries in their reserves. Moreover, as performance in the 5-spot (and Tsuyoshi Wada’s injury) has shown, the Cubs will need more starting pitchers than the six they’ve used so far this year. That’s just the way baseball goes.

Epstein even said the preference was to address the issue before it becomes a problem, so you can expect the Cubs to keep exploring the starting pitching market as we round into July.

Sprinkled into some of the articles about Epstein’s comments is a thread questioning whether the Cubs will have the financial flexibility to make a major mid-season addition. Epstein’s general response to those kinds of questions is to avoid, as you can see in the articles linked above, saying that he’d rather other teams not know what the Cubs are or are not able to do financially.

That makes a lot of sense – imagine a situation where the Cubs are in negotiations to acquire a certain player with a big contract. Imagine that the Cubs don’t have plenty of financial flexibility to take that player on, but the other team wants to eat salary in exchange for a better prospect. If the other team knew the Cubs had little flexibility, they could really put on the prospect squeeze. Conversely, if the Cubs did have plenty of money (they did go after James Shields in February, after all), the other team would know that it’s no big deal for the Cubs to take on salary, making that a weak negotiating point for the Cubs.

Then there’s the other thing about financial flexibility and saying too much about it right now: it might not be entirely clear just yet.

While we know that baseball operations is given a budget at the start of the year, and we know that it tends not to ebb and flow along with that year’s revenues (which instead more typically impact the following year’s baseball operations budget – once expenses are paid, all remaining revenues go to baseball ops), we can’t yet know exactly how that budget will be spent in a given year. Yes, the vast majority of baseball ops outlays for a current year are locked up and predictable by March, but some things – like midseason trades, buying or selling – are not knowable until they arrive.

For the Chicago Cubs in 2015, there’s a potentially really big expenditure that isn’t yet precisely knowable because it hasn’t yet arrived: international free agency.

In the Summer of 2013, the Cubs spent lavishly on international free agents – i.e., prospects from outside the United States, not already playing in professional leagues – topping more than $10 million in total expenditures. In so doing, the Cubs blew out their MLB-imposted bonus pool, and were prohibited from signing any international free agents for more than $250,000 during the next period.

That prohibition expires when the new IFA period opens on July 2. That’s in 10 days.

Rumors are swirling that the Cubs will once again blow out their IFA bonus pool, which could mean significant expenditures in the 2015 baseball operations budget aren’t yet locked up.

Just how significant those expenditures are might depend on how well the Cubs do with various Cuban prospects who aren’t yet committed, because that’s pretty hard to project right now. I’m sure the Cubs’ front office has a better sense of it than most, but remember: the explosion of Cuban free agents this year has really changed things. Unlike Dominican and Venezuelan free agents/prospects who are essentially locked into informal agreements long before July 2, much of where the Cuban players will go, how much they’ll cost, and how open they are to being persuaded is unknown. Many of the priciest (by projection) Cuban free agents were not known to be available back when budgets were being formed and traditional free agents were being signed back in January and February.

Estimates on bonuses for many Cuban prospects vary wildly, and it’s not at all difficult to imagine a scenario – especially when you consider the 100% overage tax for blowing out your IFA pool – where the Cubs right now are projecting that they could spend anywhere from $8 to $30 million in international free agency. That’s entirely hypothetical/speculative/merely an example, but it shows you what could be a huge range when it comes to in-season spending. That could easily impact the path the Cubs take in the trade market, and the balance they strike between using financial assets and prospect assets to make acquisitions.

In other words, then, even if the front office knows that it has quite a bit of financial flexibility right now in the baseball operations budget, they might not be sure how much of that they’ll be able to devote to midseason acquisitions as opposed to international free agents.

I’d expect we’ll see a serious flurry of IFA signing/rumor activity there in the first week or two of the new period starting July 2, as teams like the Cubs try to nail down exactly how much they’re going to be spending in IFA, and how much they’ll have available to spend before July 31 on the trade market.
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When you read a report that Oakland A’s lefty Scott Kazmir “has been a prime target” for the Chicago Cubs, and that they’re on the hunt for starting pitching, you could read that in two ways: (1) nothing new there, or (2) more smoke for things we’ve heard.

Whatever your predilection – which probably bears some relationship to the way you would describe a partly-filled glass of water – that’s the report from Bruce Levine, which you can read here for more information.

The Cubs’ interest in finding another starting pitcher is no secret, openly discussed by the front office (and observable to anyone, frankly). As for Kazmir, specifically, the lefty has been mentioned in connection with the Cubs, and has long made sense as a rental starter for the Cubs, especially after he established he was healthy and productive. Kazmir won’t come for free, but the financial investment is small and short-term (he’s a free agent after 2015, making $13 million this year), and the Cubs would be betting on his health for only a couple months, rather than many years.

Kazmir, 31, has been consistently very good since his return to the big leagues in 2013. Adding someone like him would not only improve the back of the Cubs’ rotation, but it would also improve their quality depth by bumping someone from the rotation into that role.

The Cubs have a range of interesting Rule 5-eligible players, and they won’t be able to protect them all on the 40-man roster after this season. (As just one example, it makes you think of a guy like Dan Vogelbach, who’s got a big league bat, but whose future with the Cubs is unclear – doesn’t he seem like an Oakland A’s kind of player? There are many others, though, who could be a fit in these kinds of rental trades. And, to be quite sure, Kazmir would likely cost more.)

We’ll see if the Cubs really do look to act quickly. I still tend to think a deal before the All-Star Game – before more sellers decide they’re sellers – is unlikely. And, of course, the Cubs aren’t going to be the only buyers out there.

In any case, Kazmir remains someone particular to watch.
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Lester today. :{

Blew a potentially wonderful series with yet another lackluster performance. :{
 
Cubs get to 39-30, after beating Kershaw and Geinke, and somehow manage to lose the next 5 games. :{

Growing pains suck, but they are expected.


On the good news side, Neil Ramirez is back, Soler is rehabbing in Triple A and should be back before the end of the week, and July 2 is almost here, and Theo will blow out the International Signing period in grand style. :hat

Also, Ian Happ is RAKING in his first stop with the org, much like Bryant did, much like Schwarber did. :hat
 
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