2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series? (LOL NO)

[tomalak301]

I'm always told when I start these threads to let them have a little character, but this one may strike a nerve.

Anyway, the new season starts tonight in Chicago. I'm predicting a Dodgers/Orioles World Series, which I hope does not happen. As for the Giants, I really hope Mad Bum can get through this season after the number of pitches he threw last year. I also hope the Giants can just tread water until Pence comes back and I predict them to be a wild card team.

Happy Easter and I love this time of year.

 

[Tom Hendricks]

Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series?

NO!!!!!!!!!!!! Just kidding, just want the bendy

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series?

Today's goal for the Cubs....go 1-0.

 

[Timby]

Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series? (No.)

I'm always told when I start these threads to let them have a little character, but this one may strike a nerve.

I answered the question posed in the thread title.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series? (No.)

At least the Cubs bullpen had their shit together tonite.
As far as the rest, the regular lineup wasn't used a lot in spring training & Lester wasn't on his normal schedule.

 

[Kronos]

Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series? (No.)

Soler is a real hoot out in right field.


Looks like cub fans had to resort to peeing in cups due to bathroom snafus.

 

[Timby]

Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series? (No.)

Looks like cub fans had to resort to peeing in cups due to bathroom snafus.

Well, the Oakland Coliseum plumbing has literally overrun with shit on multiple occasions, it's only fair that the National League equivalent of a garbage scow of a stadium have piss problems.

 

[tomalak301]

Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series? (No.)

At least the Cubs bullpen had their shit together tonite.
As far as the rest, the regular lineup wasn't used a lot in spring training & Lester wasn't on his normal schedule.

Lester was awful, and I was very much intrigued by the fact that he doesn't know how to do pick off attempts. I wonder if that's something teams can take advantage of.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series? (No.)

At least the Cubs bullpen had their shit together tonite.
As far as the rest, the regular lineup wasn't used a lot in spring training & Lester wasn't on his normal schedule.

Lester was awful, and I was very much intrigued by the fact that he doesn't know how to do pick off attempts. I wonder if that's something teams can take advantage of.

If its a consistent thing, no doubt they will.

 

[Timby]

Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series? (No.)

Going back to the Kimbrel / Upton trade...

Nobody likes rebuilding but the Braves have replenished the farm system and unloaded bad money contracts this offseason. If you expected to see them compete this year, you are going to be disappointed. The other alternative is to throw money at journeyman "name" players like the Yankees and tread water indefinitely. The Braves are a couple years away but have time for their prospects to mature and will have money to spend in free agency.

I get that giving up Kimbrel was the price of getting out from underneath the Upton contract, but from a strategic standpoint it makes no sense. If you're going to float the "you can have Kimbrel if you take Upton" concept, you do it at the winter meetings when there's going to be a shit-ton of interest, or you do it at the deadline when teams are going to be desperate for an ace-level relief arm and will be willing to give up a king's ransom as opposed to getting, well, jack shit. If I were a Braves fan, this kind of salary dump trade would be a little more reassuring if I were confident the savings were going back into payroll -- as opposed to reading like an Astros-esque hard tank.

I also don't get why they aimed the money cannon at Markakis when they decided to just trade every other major leaguer on the roster. Then DFA'ing Quentin with the express purpose of playing Eric Young ... I mean, do the Braves even have this goofy-ass offseason if they didn't extort $400 million out of Cobb County for the new stadium? Furthermore, has anyone checked Ancestry.com to make sure John Hart isn't related to William Tecumseh Sherman?

At least the Cubs bullpen had their shit together tonite.
As far as the rest, the regular lineup wasn't used a lot in spring training & Lester wasn't on his normal schedule.

Lester was awful, and I was very much intrigued by the fact that he doesn't know how to do pick off attempts. I wonder if that's something teams can take advantage of.

If its a consistent thing, no doubt they will.

All but one of the stolen bases were from bad throws by the catcher or Castro's perenially stellar "defense." The double steal was the only one that was really on Lester.

 

[Use of Time]

Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series? (No.)

Sounds like a last minute decision to me. It would have been better to see them shopping him over the off season I guess but I'm really not sure they weren't doing just that. It's possible this offer was floated to other teams and the Padres had been mulling it over for a while to see if he would still be available. The timeline of these things is always difficult to nail down.

I hope the money goes into payroll but the stadium is an albatross looming. Confusing to say the least.

 

[Timby]

Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series? (No.)

I hope the money goes into payroll but the stadium is an albatross looming.

Look at it this way: The Braves' highest-paid player right now is Dan Uggla.

This really just reads like the Braves being cheap and saying, "Fuck you, we got your money for our stadium, enjoy us being shit for a while," even though the team has no reason to be cheap (the only thing forcing this "rebuild" is first Wren and now Hart being bad at their jobs in different flavors).

I mean, the valuation of the team has tripled in the eight years since the current ownership got it, and they just won an almost-free mallpark -- there's literally no reason for the Braves to tank like this. Thinking about it further, they basically took ~40 cents on the dollar for the best reliever in baseball in order to clear a non-crippling contract, and at this point "rebuild" is becoming baseball PR spin for "we don't want to spend money." You can become very good very quickly if you're willing to spend some fucking money, money that nearly every team in the league (including Atlanta) has.

 

[Scout101]

Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series? (No.)

does seem pretty low, can't imagine no one would bid more if he was put on the market...

 

[Use of Time]

Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series? (No.)

I hope the money goes into payroll but the stadium is an albatross looming.

Look at it this way: The Braves' highest-paid player right now is Dan Uggla.

This really just reads like the Braves being cheap and saying, "Fuck you, we got your money for our stadium, enjoy us being shit for a while," even though the team has no reason to be cheap (the only thing forcing this "rebuild" is first Wren and now Hart being bad at their jobs in different flavors).

I mean, the valuation of the team has tripled in the eight years since the current ownership got it, and they just won an almost-free mallpark -- there's literally no reason for the Braves to tank like this. Thinking about it further, they basically took ~40 cents on the dollar for the best reliever in baseball in order to clear a non-crippling contract, and at this point "rebuild" is becoming baseball PR spin for "we don't want to spend money." You can become very good very quickly if you're willing to spend some fucking money, money that nearly every team in the league (including Atlanta) has.

Well it's hard to flatout say they don't want to spend money. They spent a lot last year locking up Freeman, Simmons, Teheran, Santana's one year deal, etc. I'm thinking they have just fallen in love with the homegrown talent concept. This may have to do with them getting bit so much with free agent big names, Upton's, Uggla etc.

The concept would seem to confirm it's an effort to field a competitive team in 2017 and they will certainly have money to spend then if that's the plan. It's just a question of did they go to far with the deconstruction of the original core team and how many of those prospects will pan out as projected to actually be competitive in 2017. Next two years will be rough so I'll have to settle with just eying the young callups to see what they offer.

 

[Timby]

Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series? (No.)

I hope the money goes into payroll but the stadium is an albatross looming.

Look at it this way: The Braves' highest-paid player right now is Dan Uggla.

This really just reads like the Braves being cheap and saying, "Fuck you, we got your money for our stadium, enjoy us being shit for a while," even though the team has no reason to be cheap (the only thing forcing this "rebuild" is first Wren and now Hart being bad at their jobs in different flavors).

I mean, the valuation of the team has tripled in the eight years since the current ownership got it, and they just won an almost-free mallpark -- there's literally no reason for the Braves to tank like this. Thinking about it further, they basically took ~40 cents on the dollar for the best reliever in baseball in order to clear a non-crippling contract, and at this point "rebuild" is becoming baseball PR spin for "we don't want to spend money." You can become very good very quickly if you're willing to spend some fucking money, money that nearly every team in the league (including Atlanta) has.

Well it's hard to flatout say they don't want to spend money. They spent a lot last year locking up Freeman, Simmons, Teheran, Santana's one year deal, etc. I'm thinking they have just fallen in love with the homegrown talent concept. This may have to do with them getting bit so much with free agent big names, Upton's, Uggla etc.

Well, yeah, that's the corollary to spending money -- you have to spend it well. BJ Upton was on the brink of total collapse when the Braves signed him, and anybody with half a brain could see that Wren fucked up badly on that deal.

The concept would seem to confirm it's an effort to field a competitive team in 2017 and they will certainly have money to spend then if that's the plan. It's just a question of did they go to far with the deconstruction of the original core team and how many of those prospects will pan out as projected to actually be competitive in 2017. Next two years will be rough so I'll have to settle with just eying the young callups to see what they offer.

I guess my point is there's no reason to do a Yankees-Project 189 dumpster dive. It's not like the Braves are hurting for money. There's no legitimate rationale for doing a blatant salary dump months after getting a massive stadium deal other than "hm, yeah, let's pocket two years' worth of cash."

 

[Corran Horn]

Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series? (No.)

All but one of the stolen bases were from bad throws by the catcher or Castro's perenially stellar "defense."

Which stolen base was on Castro?

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series? (No.)

It's Opening Day, and Torii Hunter is already fed up with Joe West. For once, West managed not to sound like a pompous ass. Courtesy of ESPN.com:

Hunter, who spent the last two seasons with the Tigers, got a nice ovation before the game, but he wasn't happy at all with the call that ended the ninth, arguing to plate umpire Joe West that he checked his swing.


"I think he had dinner reservations or a concert to play in," Hunter said. "But that was terrible. We come out and do our job every day -- that's what I do. I come ready to play, do my job, I battle at the plate. We ask you to do your job as well, and Joe West needs to do his job, and he didn't do it well."


West's reply: "I thought he swung, so I said he swung. They're all great players, and any time you get called out at the end of the game on something like that, they're going to be upset, so I understand that."

--Sran

 

[Tom Hendricks]

Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series? (No.)

I love opening day too, I would like to welcome the 2015 FIRST PLACE New York Mets. It usually doesn't last past the first couple of games. However for that instant, the Mets are baseball gods.

 

[santa biggles]

Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series? (No.)

Phillies lost to Boston 8-0. And the tone has been set for the rest of the season.

 

[Scout101]

Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series? (No.)

Red Sox looked ok And just announced 4/82.5 extension for Porcello, not too shabby a day. And the Yankees got pasted, so all is well