I do and don’t want to write this blog.

Do: it’s my job.

Don’t: everyone needs to calm down.

Do: I can help you guys calm down

Don’t: but I don’t want to freak out in the process

Do: stop being such a pussy dude.

Listen I want the Cubs to win as bad as anyone not on Cubs’ payroll but I also want to be reasonable here. I’m a meatball homer with the best of them but that’s predominantly in the heat of passion. When it comes to the blog and actually forming hot takes, I try to stay objective otherwise I’m not better than YOUR UNCLE FRANK SCREAMING AT THE FUCKIN TV GODDAMNIT MADDON.

That said.

Last night sent emotions skyrocketing early here in the 2nd half and I figured it’s time to reel everyone back in before we hit the next 8 games. So I sent out the bat signal to get some questions and as always you guys didn’t disappoint:

How about “Complete And Utter Failure”

Seriously.

Fuck Addison Russell and what a perfect place to store our hate to start. I encourage you to channel it productively and efficiently. And as we come to pass in this blog, you will find that public enemy #1 in my brain is Addison Russell and all the shit he stands for.

So. To answer your question, the opposite here and with respect to Addison is

Complete And Utter Failure

Descalso also sucks very badly, arguably more than Addison Russell depending on your own personal belief system.

Let’s be specific about Descalso though. He doesn’t just suck very badly. He’s probably the worst regular player in baseball through July 23rd hitting .182/.280/.264 for a -1.1 WAR over 183 plate appearances. Honestly it’s hard to be that bad while still collecting a big league paycheck but here we are talking about it.

The reason Descalso is still hanging on and not in Iowa cleaning lockers or stuffing cannoli’s at his cousins deli is because Theo recruited him in as an underpriced veteran free agent to be a leader in the clubhouse of sorts. Whether you like that or not, the sales job itself means Theo can’t just send him off to hell without reservation. That would be a bad look moving forward and probably more relevant is Theo’s ego. He’s not giving up like that and sending a bad message in the same process.

In reality, Descalso probably won’t get much more meaningful playing time baring a miracle set of circumstances. He’ll continue to take up space for another few weeks but I’d be stunned come September if you hear his name in any meaningful fashion. He’s been so bad and I wish I could tell you why other than he looks like a guy who stopped doing steroids. Not saying he did steroids. Just saying that’s the context of the drop off. Very bad.

Never. He’s been too good for too long to start doing new things. His jam is being the guy for the last 3 and I don’t think twice about his preference.

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Honestly though can someone get Elon Musk on the phone real quick just for a feasibility study? Imagine how much Crane Kenney would love to sell that for on the new Cubs TV Network conveniently brought to you by the folks at Sinclair.

Now’s a good time for me to tuck away in this blog a funny little anecdote about the time I informally met with Cubs’ brass to talk Barstool. I specifically set the meeting the on the premise of covering the fan experience. I didn’t care about the front office or superstars. Just wanted some behind the scenes looks at stuff that people who follow Barstool Chicago give a shit about. Anyways I’m starting to ramble. Point is that the chief pushback I got on Barstool is that we would make certain women around Chicago sports feel uncomfortable.

ADDISON RUSSELL EVERYBODY

Alright I know I’ve been extremely salty so far but that’s more about Addison Russell firing me up and then that other guy asked me about Descalso so blame him too.

Really tho the next big takeaway = Calm Down

I know it’s hard because we’ve got really high expectations and not a whole lot of history managing them. But you have to really buy into the fact that MLB is a beast of a league and years like 2016 are so rare. Even in the wake of being World Series champs, remember the Cubs steam rolled the entire NL en route to 103 wins. Then they were a 4-run 9th away from a game 5 against the Giants. Then a Clayton Kershaw good start away from a game 7 in the NLCS. And then it took one of the greatest WS comebacks to be earn the championship and even then it still doesn’t seem all that real.

Point is the difference between positive and negative history is often much smaller than you think. Nothing has been blown or fucked up. It’s still Theo’s league. They’ve still been to the postseason 4 straight years, 3 out of 4 NLCS’s and they still have Javy and KB and Rizzo and Johnny Big Nuts Lester. It’s not over not by a longshot. Just don’t be so hard on the fact they aren’t going 122-40 every damn year.

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The tough thing about trading Russell is he’s still a valuable baseball player. He’s still one of the best defensive shortstops in the entire world and if he ever ended up in an organization that loosely managed its players on/off the field, he’d be legit.

Unfortunately that’s not the Cubs and that’s why you see a guy with 5 years of experience under his belt talk about things like missing signs and not being focused on the bases. It’s crazy to me but it’s exactly what you get for trying to jam a square peg in a round hole.

The guy holding the cards here is Theo and he is no dummy to Addison’s skillset and to that – neither are the 29 other teams. Everyone in baseball knows he is capable of balling out at an all star caliber level.

The problem is what team would reasonably trade anything of any value for Addison without having a PR nightmare blow up in their face? Like I don’t even want to speculate organizations out of fear that I grossly offend people but you should get the point. It’s not that he looks like dogshit or anything. People know he can play. You just don’t have wiggle room to explain yourself when he’s been as bad as he is (again) both on/off the field.

There’s no way anyone on the team but Addison Russell is carrying the bats and balls in his trunk

1. You need Strop and it’s a low risk situation. You’re 7-2 in the 2nd half, starting a road series, fresh off sending CJ down to AAA again. Brach is doing his best to be serviceable but outside Kintzler and Cishek you’re kind of grasping in the 7th and 8th. So to have Strop go last night made all the sense in the world to me whether you hate his guts or not. You use him there because you want him to succeed so you can use him again and start spreading out the innings.

2. Joe is Joe. He doesn’t manage as scared as some people think and the bullpen issue now are perfect examples. I heard plenty of people calling for him to give CJ a more relaxed appearance to come back and it hurts my feelings. Newsflash: he’s a high leverage reliever. Like that’s his position and his job description. He’s there to get outs in high leverage moments. He’s on the roster. He’s in the dugout. He’s wearing the uniform and healthy and all that shit. Great. You’re in dude because guess what. That’s your fucking job. If you can’t do it – great. You’re going back to the minors but when you’re up in Wrigley there is no time to fuck around.

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That’s where all this is headed and it’s something I like about Joe.

Higher end prospects for Castellanos should mean the catcher (Amaya) and maybe Adbert or Ian Happ. Honestly I don’t really know because reporting on this is largely dependent on your access and no surprise here but I have zero access. Just the tea leaves and this delicious sixer of great tasting less filling Miller Lite. And from these Lites and leaves, my brain tells me the Cubs have a big Stop Sign up when it comes to dealing prospects. There’s too much of a gap between big league and minor league talent and who knows if a huge play to the top of the farm can be sustained.

On the other end are these light hitting veteran moves that seem to replace Bote and Garcia at bats. Probably good move to be made for later in the year if Sogard, but Dyson would just move Almora to the 4th outfield spot and take away some flexibility in the lineup. The Cubs have to play Schwarber and they have to play Heyward. Dyson would then be the everyday guy where as if you go for Castellanos you can spell him and Heyward in right and have more options.

Ultimately it’s nice that Theo gets to make these moves. Personally this year I’m less inclined to bring in new blood other than some older veteran lefty relievers if available. It’s make or break time with Almora and I hate the idea of shying away from him and pushing off the inevitable. Someone tell him he has 70 something games to be the everday centerfielder here in his career or he can go play in Queens.

Probably trying to actively trade him for Whit Merrifield and that’s probably actively failing miserably. If you call him up and he sucks, trade value dips. If you call him up and he thrives, trade value does not nearly go up as much. The mystery works in the Cubs advantage and until the deadline passes my guess is he’s in Iowa.

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Not sure but the imagine of a veteran big leaguer demanding more respect as the 2nd best reliever is pretty funny.

Slow down dude. That goes for everybody. As I say every day in my lineup previews on twitter, Garcia is going to get the fastball spot in the lineup while the Contreras is nursing his foot. We see it every time Garcia takes the field – he’s a nightmare against fastballs up and over the plate. Moving him into the 1 spot would just be a bit too much.

Best case scenario though would be Garcia forcing the issue. So far there’s no indication he can’t or won’t. I’m just trying to be realistic with how he’s used.

Actually LOL’d

Guys stop seriously. The Cubs are not going to be relying or even looking to either of these 2 guys between now and the end of the year. It sucks they’re making a combined $24 million and that could easily be used on several major league contributors. But ultimately you need to emotionally bury these two players and get on with your life.

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Rizzo although Freddie is HOF material and no one ever talks about him.

You draft him 7th overall and bring him along for 7 years you might as well give him a chance to own the position.

Obviously we’re seeing he’s overmatched which is probably something the Cubs have known much longer than us. But point remains you still need to flush these guys out and that means getting him on the field and letting him succeed or fail. Again, we just happen to be talking about him at the point it seems very likely that this is a Fail.

He’s not that fast

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No confidence and way too much emotion. Unfortunately he’s probably down to his last proverbial strike. I imagine the Cubs keeping him in AAA for a few weeks then bringing him back up and putting him in the exact same high leverage spot. From there it should entirely be sink or swim. If he doesn’t figure it out here, it’s hard to think of an organization that has the patience to develop him. At some point you need to accept that you either have it or you don’t. CJ has me thinking it’s a slam dunk he doesn’t have it but I could be wrong. I want to be wrong.

CALM THE FUCK DOWN GODDAMNIT

Lol

I love getting fired up and telling people to cool it at the same time but seriously. The idea of selling is laiugh out loud funny. Thank you.

Drink every time Len or JD says something unreasonably optimistic. Drink 2x at every mention of how long the season runs. Finish your drink any time JD tells a personal story to distract us from the carnage.

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Who I want and who the Cubs target are two different things. Personally I like Mychal Givens but he’s too young and Sergio Romo but he’s too old. Chris Martin from the Rangers is interesting but ultimately I would have to defer to Theo to find a lefty not named Diekman who can throw strikes and command a second pitch on a team very far out of the wild card hunt. The Mets are two bad weeks away from that being Justin Wilson??

Over my dead body.

Because you care and at the end of the day it’s a beautiful thing. For too long I sat and watched meaningless baseball in the hopes that one day I’d be captivated for all 9 innings every single night. I know the Cubs probably won’t ever be as good again as they were in 2016, but the fact we get to give a fuck and that it means something should never be overlooked. Aint nobody going back to that bullshit.