***Official 2024 Chicago Cubs Thread***

Crazy difference in organizational philosophies.

Clase goes 4 straight games, albeit on limited pitches.

Just do not ever see a world this regime would do that.
 
Not gonna blame Nico for that. 90% chance Dansby gets thrown out at first anyway, but still a really dumb way to lose a game
 
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The prospect rankings were updated by ESPN and MLB. ESPN has Ballesteros as the top Cubs prospect and Horton barely cracking the top 100.

MLB has Shaw as the top prospect in the organization with Jaxon Wiggins and Brett Bateman making the biggest jumps.
 
Curious what the trades looked like for Taillon. I believe this makes 3 of his 4 starts since July 30 that he’s all but pitched us out of the game.

Edit: his ERA since 7/29 is 7.09.
 
Cubs have scored 1 run per the boxscore tonight … lots of blame to go around.
Not necessarily blaming him for tonight, per say, I’m just wondering if this is another case of Jed overvaluing his own guys.

$18 MM is not that expensive for most MLB teams. Statistically, he was outperforming his contract.

Since the day before the deadline, he has reverted back to what he was in the first half last year - untradeable and a bad contract
 
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Not the best by Taillon, but giving up 4 runs over 6 innings isn't the reason the Cubs lost tonight. I think most managers would take that as a "bad" outing by their starter.

Or why Cubs go 0-3 in the series. The offense disappeared this series.

G1- 8 runs (down 8-3 after 6)
G2- 1 run
G3- 1 run
 
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MLB reportedly looking into a 6 inning minimum for starting pitchers.

This would effectively force guys like Wicks, Assad, and Hendricks to the bullpen which I think is needed anyway.

But I don’t like the idea in that a guy who gets blown up in the first or second inning should be allowed to be pulled.

I’d be ok with a 6 inning minimum with unless a guy has given up X amount of hits, walks, runs, and pitches
 
MLB reportedly looking into a 6 inning minimum for starting pitchers.

This would effectively force guys like Wicks, Assad, and Hendricks to the bullpen which I think is needed anyway.

But I don’t like the idea in that a guy who gets blown up in the first or second inning should be allowed to be pulled.

I’d be ok with a 6 inning minimum with unless a guy has given up X amount of hits, walks, runs, and pitches
Yeah that’d be stupid. And it’d have to come with some sort of pitch count for sure, teams aren’t going wreck arms hitting some arbitrary inning count
 
I actually like it. The carveouts are 100 pitches, 4 ER or injury (with required IL stint).

The game still needs offense and action and the best way to do that AND to reduce pitcher injuries is actually teaching guys to pitch and not going max effort on every pitch every start. You'll still have gas in the pen but it would be nice to get rid of the ridiculous 'openers' and make guys diverse enough where they can still challenge hitters the 3rd time through.
 
MLB reportedly looking into a 6 inning minimum for starting pitchers.

This would effectively force guys like Wicks, Assad, and Hendricks to the bullpen which I think is needed anyway.

But I don’t like the idea in that a guy who gets blown up in the first or second inning should be allowed to be pulled.

I’d be ok with a 6 inning minimum with unless a guy has given up X amount of hits, walks, runs, and pitches
I don't see the players union allowing that to happen. Just too many circumstances where you need to pull a pitcher if they don't have it and now you risk injury too by adding more innings to their workload. That basically means if you got 30 starts in its a minium 180 innings pitched on the season.

Also what about those "bullpen games" teams are now doing some days to cover a game here and there or the times where they use an "opener" to start a game with a guy they only plan to use an inning then bridge the rest of the game with a guy they hope to get 4-5 innings out of.

I was ok with the 3 batter minimum rule change as I hated seeing 3 pitching changes in 1 inning sometimes but it would royally suck if you have a guy get lit up to start the game and you know he doesn't have his stuff that day that you can't pull him when you want to. No one want's to see a game where it's already over in the 2nd inning and you have to leave a guy out there to throw batting practice essentially. MLB already doesn't like teams using position players to finish out blowout games too, this may add to that probably as I wouldn't want to waste an arm late in the game down double digits because he has to meet a minimum start requirement. Even with some kind of stipulation of pitch count or score that allows you to replace a starter before 6 innings just seems like a bad rule.
 
HAHAHAHAHA. I kind of love it.
I haven't seen anything about Morel lately so I thought I'd check. He hit those two HR and has a total of 5 hits in 48 AB for a .105/.232/.229

For comparison Paredes is .176/.283/.353 He was .245/.357/.435 for the Rays before the trade.
 
MLB reportedly looking into a 6 inning minimum for starting pitchers.

This would effectively force guys like Wicks, Assad, and Hendricks to the bullpen which I think is needed anyway.

But I don’t like the idea in that a guy who gets blown up in the first or second inning should be allowed to be pulled.

I’d be ok with a 6 inning minimum with unless a guy has given up X amount of hits, walks, runs, and pitches
Not a fan of that idea. If a pitcher is getting lit up, why should his team be forced to chalk the game up as a loss after a few innings.

I don't feel 4-5 inning starts as the issue with low batting averages. But fact managers design bullpens around having 4 solid one inning relievers to pitch innings 6-9. Maybe relievers should be forced to face 6 batters if they enter game before 8th inning.

Also hitters shouldn't be rewarded for being HR whores! The prevelence of shifts a couple years ago was a clear indicator most hitters don't have a varied approach at the plate.
 
I actually like it. The carveouts are 100 pitches, 4 ER or injury (with required IL stint).

The game still needs offense and action and the best way to do that AND to reduce pitcher injuries is actually teaching guys to pitch and not going max effort on every pitch every start. You'll still have gas in the pen but it would be nice to get rid of the ridiculous 'openers' and make guys diverse enough where they can still challenge hitters the 3rd time through.

Only way I see this working is adding another spot to the active roster as it may force more teams to go with a 6 man rotation next. Even then I don't see the players union agreeing to this rule change without a major fight. I'm old school enough that I remember the days it was not uncommon for elite starters to throw 120+ pitches regularly and not be worried about pitch count and innings thrown at the end of the season. Now it seems like 80-100 pitches is where most teams are pulling guys on a fairly consistent basis trying to keep them fresher from start to start and limit end of season fatigue.

Nolan Ryan once threw 235 pitches over 13 innings in a game, Tim Wakefield threw 172 pitches in 10+ innings in 1988, this is a pretty good article about some of the games a starter through the most pitches in: Nolan Ryan threw 235 pitches in one game (mlb.com) Not saying I want to see guys throw an insane amount of pitches on a regular basis but there was a period where it was not uncommon for the top pitchers in the game to have high pitch counts and throw well over 200 innings in a season.
 
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