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Cubs and Nats just played a game that ended 6-5 Nats where 30 year old career minor league journeyman Rafael Ortega hit three HR's for the Cubs, and 33 year old career minor league journeyman Yadiel Hernandez hit three HR's for the Nats. Together they combined for eight of the game's fifteen hits, and eight of the game's eleven RBI's. And who said this series would be dull? 
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Aug 1, 2021 21:33
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 07:32 |
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mcmagic posted:It really is hosed that Rocker now can't sign with just any team he wants and has to wait a whole year to start his pro career when he could pitch in the minors right now. Niwrad posted:It seems dumb that Rocker can't sign with any team he wants now and that the Mets get a first round pick next year. Yeah, the ridiculous bit is that this isn't even "Mets offered [x] signing bonus and Rocker told them to take a hike", this is "Mets drafted him then decided they didn't actually want him, so Rocker is just hosed and has no recourse to enter MLB until the next draft." What a loving shitshow.
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Aug 2, 2021 02:24
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"Hmm, how do I assuage my fanbase after trading away all of their favorite star players...? I know, I'll whine on the radio like a baby about how they were all greedy and didn't *really* want to be Cubs, which is why I wasn't able to extend any of them for https://twitter.com/JesseRogersESPN/status/1422216050645606402 https://twitter.com/JesseRogersESPN/status/1422216052566548486 
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Aug 2, 2021 20:56
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I for one absolutely believe that the team that has refused to sign a single major FA since 2018*, has whined constantly about the luxury tax, and salary dumped our best pitcher in a year the team was ostensibly claiming to compete was also making FA-competitive extension offers to their core players, who refused these incredibly generous contracts out of misguided greed. *I know they signed Kimbrel in 2019, but they did it in the middle of the season where they'd only be on the hook for ~2 months of his contract and even then only after Zobrist went on the restricted list and the Cubs no longer had to pay him.
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Aug 2, 2021 21:18
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jng2058 posted:Really, though, what do you expect Hoyer to say? The question was "why didn't any of these guys get extended?" and all Hoyer had to say in response was "We tried to extend them but unfortunately we were never able to get anything done. I wish all the best for them and hopefully a reunion is in the cards going forward." Even if it's BS it's gracious, and who knows maybe Javy or Rizzo will find out this offseason that no, nobody wants to hand them massive contracts and they fall into the Cubs price range and get re-signed. Instead Hoyer threw a big tantrum about how he offered all these guys incredible deals and they refused because they're greedy and didn't really want to be Cubs for life, even if that's what they told the media. He essentially threw Javy, Rizzo, and Bryant under the bus, telling fans to blame the players themselves for ending up in a position where they were traded away. "Don't be mad at us, be mad at the players who didn't really want to play for your team like they said they did." It's disingenuous and gross and I would have to imagine slams the door on any kind of reunion between those three and the Cubs, at least in the immediate future.
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Aug 2, 2021 21:28
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I agree that a full sell off was the correct call: holding on to any of Javy, Bryant, or Rizzo given the circumstances would have been supremely dumb. My issue is not with those guys getting traded. My issue is Hoyer after the fact coming out and publicly saying "don't blame us for the sell off, blame the players for refusing our extension offers."
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Aug 2, 2021 21:35
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Unsurprisingly, Jed 'ing yesterday has provoked a response: https://twitter.com/CubsZone/status/1422560626971394053 Anthony Rizzo posted:“Why? It just sounds like a bad break up when someone says they’re fine but they’re really not fine. When it comes to the guys on our team and what we did [lists accomplishments], and good people, those things cost money. So it comes down to a business. You want your cake and you want to eat it, too. That’s just how it seemed. I think it can all speak for itself that there’s a common denominator is that no one signed …. We just had such great memories there, that, to come out on air and say that doesn’t really make sense, but it is what it is.”  Super cool and good to spark a public slap fight with the guy who's been the face of your organization for almost a decade because you just had to go to bat for your cheap-rear end ownership.
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Aug 3, 2021 18:36
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Theo absolutely knew, yes. Supposedly a whole component of his leaving was that he was owed $10M for the last year of his contract and Ricketts told him that he was just oh so poor that if Theo stuck around he'd have to take that $10M out of the player payroll to pay him. He wasn't exactly forced out, but he was given every incentive in the world to walk away and I have to imagine he already had a good idea that the commissioner's office would swiftly pick him up and put him on their payroll.
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Aug 3, 2021 19:42
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Crash course on why the Ricketts went from big spenders to Bob Nutting in only a couple years: 1. They spent a ton of money renovating Wrigley and apparently just kinda assumed the city would give them tax breaks/money/both for doing so. Not only did Chicago tell them to take a hike, but the renovations meant a ton of non-ADA compliant features of Wrigley were no longer protected by grandfather clauses and needed to be renovated as well. 2. They decided they wanted in on all that fat, juicy RSN money, and did so despite the fact that Sinclair's RSN model at the time was hemorrhaging money and nobody wanted to pick up their network at the carriage fees they were demanding. The resulting programming for Marquee is hilariously thin outside of Cubs games themselves, and it also doesn't help that their presentation during games is almost universally reviled by fans for how poo poo it is. 3. A big part of the money making strategy was to snap up every hotel, bar, restaurant, etc in wrigleyville to soak up a bunch of extra non-baseball revenue that didn't have to be shared or accounted for. But whoops COVID happened so the Ricketts were sitting on a whole neighborhood's worth of idle property for a year plus. None of this excuses at all what they did, and in this time the family also sold TD Ameritrade for roughly all the money that's ever existed so they're nowhere even close to the red, but it is pretty funny how every single one of their business strategies just fell flat on it's face immediately.
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Aug 3, 2021 19:57
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Craptacular! posted:You forgot about the part where Tom was more interested in funding a growing insurrection rather than baseball players. I factored that out under the assumption the same thing could be said of every single MLB owner.
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Aug 3, 2021 20:01
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Niwrad posted:So did the Ricketts send Jed out there to lie and make the players look bad? Jed was almost certainly told to go out and try to shift the blame onto the players. Tom also sent out a panicked letter to season ticket holders begging them not to drop their packages. They are in full PR spin mode. I've talked to several casual Cubs fans (ie: people who just watch games and root for the team rather than obsessing over the minutia of prospects and financials) and all of them are completely taken aback and outraged all the core guys got traded.
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Aug 3, 2021 21:14
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Mustached Demon posted:I'm still pissed off about how it all went down. I'd bandwagon onto the Mariners if I could watch them here. What surprised me was how pretty much nobody I talked to in real life had any idea this was coming. It turns out that I am Extremely Online® when it comes to the Cubs and my knowing it would be a fire sale was not the common conception. Seems like most had a pretty good idea Bryant was going to be moved, but were completely thrown for a loop that Javy, Rizzo, and even Kimbrel were dealt. I can't help but wonder if the FO and Ricketts similarly thought the fanbase at large was braced for what they considered inevitable, and were surprised by how much surprise and outrage flared up.
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Aug 3, 2021 22:13
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Intruder posted:Is The Show one of those games where you can upgrade to PS5 free if you own it for PS4? Nope, the PS4 version and PS5 version actually different games with different features. Most of the differences are graphical, but IIRC the PS4 version lacks the build your own stadium mode, and the PS5 version doesn't let you import your own music (  ).
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Aug 3, 2021 23:48
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Delta is coming for MLB's rear end.
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Aug 4, 2021 01:43
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The Dodgers continue to just blatantly ignore every other team's crying about financials and just add every available interesting piece they can payroll be damned to chase another ring. I genuinely hope it's pissing Manfred and the other owners off that a top three most high-profile team in the sport is just completely contradicting ~the narrative~
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Aug 4, 2021 17:41
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TwoHeadedDeer posted:my question is if they win again, will bigger market team actually stop whining and follow suit? I think the CBA will ultimately be the big wild card - and might also be why the Dodgers have been willing to load up on all these expensive, expiring/one year contracts. It's entirely possible there's no baseball next season, or that the financial aspect of the game has drastically swung one direction or the others.
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Aug 4, 2021 19:09
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The Astros fans who try to pretend the cheating didn't matter or the Dodgers are just as evil because ~reasons~ remind me of the lovely Cubs fans I know who try to argue that Chapman did nothing wrong or is reformed or that the Cubs shouldn't be ashamed that they traded for a known wife beater in exchange for a ring. Mental gymnastics are a hell of a weird drug.
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Aug 5, 2021 03:14
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SourKraut posted:I still donate every month to RAINN, for various reasons, but it does help to assuage the guilt of cheering for the 2016 Cubs with Chapman on them. I'm not talking about people who acknowledge Chapman was poo poo and try to do stuff to assuage their guilt over being happy for 2016 despite him - I also firmly fall into that camp. I'm talking about the several Cubs fans I know IRL who are of the opinion that either "all that matters is what happens on the field and I don't care what players do in their personal lives", or maybe even worse the guy I know who still argues to this day that Chapman's partner dramatized the whole event for attention and really he didn't actually do anything wrong and the league's punishment was way too severe.
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Aug 5, 2021 07:31
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Good Dog posted:The Angels traded Mike Napoli for Vernon Wells so they could play Jeff Mathis full time. It might be peak Angels. The Angels only got $5m of the $86m owed to Wells over the last 4 years of his deal in salary relief. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNHrxRC1bBA
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Aug 5, 2021 17:47
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Opposing teams have finally cottoned on to the secret with Reyes, which is that if you just never swing he'll walk you like 90% of the time.
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Aug 6, 2021 04:54
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Thom P. Tiers posted:If one thing comes out of the CBA I hope it's an entire overhaul of the minor league system and team control after draft. The MLBPA will definitely try to do something about the team control situation, but probably only in terms of what happens to a guy once he reaches the majors. There's been next to zero willingness on the part of the players in past CBA's to improve the lot of minor league players.
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Aug 6, 2021 20:02
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Crazy Ted posted:N: A 31 mph strike Put him in the pen cowards
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Aug 8, 2021 02:35
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Aug 8, 2021 20:53
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Kevlar v2.0 posted:Fangraphs had the Cubs' farm system go from 23rd best to 9th best from their trade deadline deals. Actually 8th now, Fangraphs did some reshuffling and we've moved ahead of Miami.
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Aug 9, 2021 17:06
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Forrest on Fire posted:Aren't all the new prospects long-term farm types of players? Seven of the top ten guys have ETA's of 2024 or 2025 on Fangraphs, yeah. Our best prospect Davis is probably going to be up late in the season next year though baring a huge slide or injuries, Marquez shouldn't be far behind him (if he ever gets healthy again), Amaya will probably be up in 2023 to replace Contreras, and there are a few high floor/low ceiling guys like Rivas, Strumpf, Kilian, and Morel who'll probably get looks next year. Assuming Ricketts doesn't go full Tribune and actually plans to spend in FA to augment the team, I expect 2022 to largely be a punt, 2023 to start seeing a rise back to relevance, and 2024 when the Cubs would be full on competing again.
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Aug 9, 2021 20:59
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bawfuls posted:Seems like a trustworthy source I say we take him at his word on this I mean, I believe him insofar that the "budget" seemed to be relying on a bunch of public money that never materialized. Ricketts and the city had a big spat years ago because they were asking for a truckload of money from the city and Chicago (rightly) told them to take a hike. I believe that was also around the time where it came out they were making threats to move the Cubs to Rosemont if they didn't get their public funding behind closed doors and got laughed out of the room for thinking anybody would take a threat to leave Wrigley seriously.
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Aug 10, 2021 03:57
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bawfuls posted:well so far this year he's hurt it swinging a bat and sliding into 3B so I'm skeptical of how much his defensive position is going to protect him one way or another Didn't the Dodgers do the same thing with Bellinger for a while for the same reason?
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Aug 10, 2021 21:03
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 Imagine giving up eight runs over four innings and then having the audacity to be bitch to reporters about it. You suck bro, have fun almost certainly never pitching in MLB again.
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Aug 12, 2021 17:35
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Thom P. Tiers posted:Would love to pull up some posts on Arrieta circa Aug/Sep 2015 and compare them to these I can take that, just don't dig up 2016 Cubs posts about Addison Russel.
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Aug 12, 2021 17:49
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#illhelpyoupack
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Aug 12, 2021 18:36
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Popete posted:The only evidence we had back in 2016 was that dumb "help you pack" tweet and that was after the election. It was a pretty clear pro-Trump dog whistle. Thom P. Tiers posted:And drat was Jake on the sticky stuff? His ERA is 10+ and OPS against 1.131 since the ban that's SO BAD. He was starting to fall into a tailspin even before the ban, he basically had 3-4 good starts and then was unplayable for the rest of the season. His spinrate fell a bit after sticky stuff got banned but not at Dodger levels: 
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Aug 12, 2021 19:11
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tadashi posted:According to RA/9 WAR, Arrieta is worth -2.3 WAR. Cubs paid more to bring him back than the ChiSox did to bring back Rodon, lol.
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Aug 12, 2021 19:29
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Timby posted:Fired a gun in her direction through the wall of their garage, I believe. That was after he chokeslamed her up against a wall.
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Aug 12, 2021 20:07
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bawfuls posted:Retroactively give the 2015 NL Cy Young Award to Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw I vote no not because I like Arrieta, but because I think it's funny you're still salty about it six years later and running, and look forward to your inevitable yearly posts with graphs and stats about how Kershaw and Grenkie deserved it more.
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Aug 12, 2021 20:23
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So Bauer had a previous protection order filed against him and the Dodgers still paid him $40M? Did they just not bother to look into him at all before handing over such a massive payday? Fuckin' MLB, man.
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Aug 14, 2021 19:20
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https://twitter.com/SlamCentralNYY/status/1426568871755100164
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Aug 14, 2021 19:42
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I'm legitimately mad the Dodgers signed Bauer because until then I actually liked them.
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Aug 15, 2021 02:25
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bawfuls posted:lol Friedman hasn’t even admitted he hosed up in any way! I bet he doesn’t even after all the dust settles. Not that I think it'll make you feel better, but this is basically every MLB team. Something like three organizations actively covered up for Callaway being an active sexpest to female staff and fans, and when it all came out instead of copping to it they all threw up their hands and told us how they just could not believe these allegations against such a beloved member of the game, how could they have known?!
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Aug 15, 2021 18:58
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Mustached Demon posted:The Cubs will lose 100 games. Not good enough, gonna have to lose more than that to catch the Pirates, Orioles, and D-Backs.
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Aug 15, 2021 22:02
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 07:32 |
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Kirios posted:If they can somehow get a top 5 pick that's a massive success for Year 1 of tanking. Yep, hell originally I was figuring a top 10 would be a stretch but they've already tied for the 7th pick and show no signs of actually performing well whatsoever. Unfortunately we do have a bunch of bottomfeeder games lined up against the Pirates and Rockies, gonna have to work hard to out-tank the masters.
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Aug 15, 2021 22:13
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