The Cubs Suck
It's actually impossible to not complain about the Cubs at this point so everybody just get off my fucking case before I get going here. I tried time and again to spin something positive and I got absolutely jack squat diddly nothing. It's miserable and there's a strong chance it gets worse.
The purpose of this blog is for me to vent about how much they suck.
Some MLB ranks (out of 30):
- 2nd: blown saves
- 4th: franchise value
- 8th: payroll
- 14th: OBP
- 19th: runs
- 20th: OPS
- 22nd: HRs
- 23rd: total bases
- 24th: hits, 2Bs
- 25th: batting average
The Cubs fired David Ross only to have the exact same record through 79 games. They're also paying Craig Counsell the most money in the history of MLB to manage the club and he's been, at best, somewhere between a dull turd and complete dweeb. At least David Ross was cool and got pissed off and busted balls and had relationships with the guys. Now we get Counsell's lifeless arrogance and dweeb demeanor after every soul crushing defeat when all we want is some fire.
In other words, we're paying more and getting much worse customer service for basically the same result. That's a colossal miss when the bullpen is so terrible.
The Cubs have 17 blown saves and 21 losses in relief which both rank 2nd behind the White Sox. So competitively bad against the worst team in the modern era.
Data says the Cubs would be 8 games better if they had just a league average bullpen. Specifically, the 15th best group of relievers (fifteenth best) would yield a 45-32 record, 3rd best in the NL.
Instead of league average though, they're nearly league worst.
So going back to the manager, you have to be so wrong to make such large decisions only to ignore such a critical part of the ball club.
The longer this goes, the more Jed is responsible because the extremes are so obvious. The only things keeping this team somewhat afloat are complete outliers: starting pitching dominance, rookie production, April's remarkable W/L record.
If any of those 3 categories were anything less than outstanding, the Cubs would be another 5 games back in the standings. That's a fact. Things probably should be worse.
As such, you'll have to excuse the puke on my shoes
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I'm nauseous.
That's because the Cubs have the 8th highest payroll without being committed to any superstars. It's arguably the weirdest state of any major market baseball team I can remember. Not good enough to compete for the division. Too many big contracts to spend more in the short term. No power and even less relief pitching. A farm system that's good enough on paper to delay any major decision making with a rival manager replacing the fan favorite world champion. Glaring weaknesses with no plan much less urgency to improve. And probably closer to the Marlins/Rockies than the Dodgers/Braves if we're being completely honest.
In addition to that, the Cubs suck because they're not good at winning. In fact, you could argue they're above-average at losing games they should win. The same thinking prevails when you lose a lot of bets in a weekend. It's just as hard to lose that much as it is to win that much. That's what you say after a 2-15 college football Saturday and yet I find myself saying that about my professional baseball team. It's actually just as hard to blow as many games as it is to make a comeback.
I blame everyone. And I mean quite literally everyone. Just fuckin stop already with the beer bats and promotions and forced nostalgia. We're going to be stuck on the David Bote grandslam in perpetuity if we don't get our shit together. It's already almost 10 years since the World Series and you'd think we had to start from scratch after winning it.
Meanwhile, Theo's sprawled out on a 57-foot Caribbean catamaran with Eddie Vedder, sucking Mai Thais while a cabana boy prepares fresh mahi mahi lettuce wraps. Somewhere else, Tom Ricketts LARPs incognito.
Nowhere is anyone solving this problem, which brings me back to my original bane: things are actually getting worse.
How do they get better?
3. Better players.
2. Smarter leadership.
1. Steroids