Cubs fan here.

Reality bites sometimes.

Bryant sucks. He had one good year. I'd trade his ass but doubt you would get much of anything.

They made a huge mistake not keeping Castellanos, he and Baez are the two guys I would actually build around. I like Contreras, but he should be a full time DH.

Schwarber, Almora, and Nico, are just dudes. Rizzo is a nice player, but I don't think he is a super star.

As for the pitching staff, Theo has botched it from day one. I'm fine with Lester. He did what he was supposed to do. Hendricks has never bothered me either. But signing Darvish, Chatwood, and trading for this Quintana were train wrecks. I'd feel better about the Cubs if Eloy Jiménez was playing the outfield for them.
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What in the actual fuck did I just read?

Bryant sucks? Build around Baez who has literally only had 1 good year, unlike Bryant. Contreras a full time DH? Rizzo is just nice, not one of the top 3 or 4 1B in the league who consistently reaches 30/100?

The Cubs are individually really talented. The pieces just dont work as a whole. There is virtually nothing to compliment on this team and its been that way since the start of 2017.
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Bryant's first three seasons were great, but his last three seasons are nothing to write home about, especially in the RBI category. One those same last three years, Baez has had a better batting average, more RBIs, and has become the heart and soul of the Cubs team.

Rizzo is the one guy who shows up year in and year out. I have no complaints with him.
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Baez is a fan favorite. He also has a career league average batting line. If the Cubs choose to build around a guy who's single season fluke push for "MVP", which fell miles behind Yelich, instead of a guy who's 4th best in WAR since he entered the league, then the Cubs deserve every fucking bit of the shitstorm coming their way.

Nearly ever damn tier 1 SS is going to be a FA at the same time as Baez and I already know the one in Cleveland isn't sticking around for another contract. There's absolutely no fucking way I would take Baez over Lindor.

Baez is a likeable dude and he plays the game the way its supposed to be played. He's just not as good as the hype. His ZiPS line for 2020 is a whopping 92 wRC+. He has all the tools in the world to go with a 5 year old batting eye who's in the backyard with his dad throwing lob pitches with softballs and using a bat thats way too heavy and swinging at absolutely everything.
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You will never ever EVER undo the Chapman trade. He was on fumes in those last few games but the Cubs needed every inning he threw him for that title.

But man - you have to believe Russell would've gotten it done ahead of Gleybar at the time the deal was made. The Cubs just didn't want to shuffle Baez over to SS in the middle of a pennant run. So they took the path of least resistance.

The problem isn't the trades they made - it's who they kept.

At the time, Schwarber had more value than Eloy. Russell had more value than Torres. And the cubs had the roster depth to absorb the loss of both of them while waiting for Torres and Jimenez to arrive. Soler for Davis was a give-up, IMO - they didn't need to make that deal, they just didn't value Soler anymore. They could've gotten their closer in FA, but again - path of least resistance was to trade someone that had fallen out of favor for a rental closer.

Theo just mis-fired on his evaluation of several key guys. I think he expected Schwarber to develop more against lefties and be a more sound hitter (rather than pure slugger) against righties. Obviously he didn't expect Heyward to blow. I think he thought Happ and Almora were going to be better than they are (though Happ's finally playing pretty well).

Hell, you guys could probably really use Cease right now and he was effectively a throw-in in the Quintana deal.

For two years they've needed bullpen help and instead of getting high-quality arms in setup roles and building one from the ground up (guys like Ottavino), they dumped money on a dude in Kimbrel who was aging pretty fast because he was 'an established closer'...

And one of the worst mistakes they made is somewhat offset by the fact it created one of the Cardinals worst mistakes. By letting Fowler walk away, they lost a leadoff hitter who they've been trying to replace with guys ill-suited for the leadoff role ever since. Fowler was happy and comfortable in Chicago and would've likely still been a quality leadoff option for them even as his defense declined (though he still wouldn't be any worse than Schwarber out there).

Theo's made a quite a few mistakes and many of them, much like Mozeliak, were unforced errors.
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Bryant hurt that front shoulder in 2018 and I'm not convinced it's ever fully recovered.

Rolen did the same thing to his shoulder in 2004 and he just never recovered. The shoulder never got its strength back and he never hit for plus power again. He remained a valuable player, but he had to alter his approach. Bryant hasn't seemed able to find a new approach and apart from a white-hot May last season (that he attributed to that 'ax handled bat') he's just not been the same guy since his shoulder came up lame.
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Pretty sure he doesn't even use the axe handle anymore.

And to say 2019 was carried by a single month is pretty ignorant. Was May an insane month for him? Yes. He had a 190 wRC+ in May. But, April and August were his only months under 130 wRC+.

Bryant goes into really bad slumps where he literally can't hit a meatball right over the plate and he stays in them for weeks. But he's generally a premier hitter in the league.
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But apart from that May, he was a fairly middling power hitter.

That May was the only month he had power similar to his salad days. In other words, "apart from a white-hot May...he's just not been the same guy"

I didn't say he was wholly ineffective (though he was a real hollow offense sort of player over the 2nd half last year), I said he wasn't the power bat he'd been before the shoulder.

He was so good in that May that I was looking to buy one of those damn bats if they hadn't been sold out. I was sold on 'em, man. I don't roll my wrists worth a damn and his testimonials had me convinced that it would force better extension and follow through for me.

Seems like he may not have even believed the hype if he's not using them anymore. Glad I saved my $300...
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He's also pretty openly admitted that he isn't comfortable hitting 1/2, but Cubs...

Just need to ride this Ian Happ hot streak and hit him #1 until he ultimately goes back to being Ian Happ.
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Like I said - letting Fowler go hurt them almost as much as signing him hurt us. I mean even Schwarber's been kinda screwed up since the leadoff experiment.

I could have seen Rizzo thriving in the role because he's not a guy who feels like he needs to hit for power to be productive. He's a bit like Votto in that sometimes he's maybe even a little too patient for his own good.

I can see a world where Rizzo's a pretty damn good leadoff hitter.

But for some reason he's the guy they don't seem inclined to give much run there. I'm sure they've tried it, but I can't recall it.
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They were doing it at the end of last year, IIRC.
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Maddon put Rizzo leadoff multiple times when he was struggling and he was hitting leadoff homers left and right to the point where it became a meme that he was the greatest leadoff hitter in history. He just clogs the bases and started acting like he was Baez and began making really stupid outs.
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Yeah, thats the way my layman's eyes see it too. Good as individuals but together, shit as a team. Thats got to be on Theo.
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Hmmm....maybe just take the good with the bad there?

I mean the Cubs ain't exactly Whitey's rugburners out there. 'Clogging the bases' is the kind of thing that Dusty Baker would say when he's busy putting a dude with a .285 OBP at the top of the order.

At some point you just need to stop setting guys up to fail. If Rizzo can get on base, especially now that the NL has the DH, let him do it. His OBP skills and ability to bat himself into scoring position w/ XBHs sets them up pretty nicely, especially if Happ continues to be a decent run producer.

Eh - whatever. They're like 10 games over .500 with a roster that looks like it would struggle to win 80, so someone's doing something right I guess. Just seems like they're getting in their own way.
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Other than 2 games against the Indians they really havent played any truly good teams.

There's just really not been a legitimate option to fix the leadoff spot. The teams realistic openings were CF and 2B. Off the top of my head I can't think of a single leadoff type hitter that was readily available for trade at either position.

I thought maybe a trade with the Phillies when they were down on Cesar Hernandez could have worked and it wouldn't have cost much to get him, but he's nothing to write home about. He was simply a guy that got on base, had a little speed, and didn't strike out at the typical Cubs rate.

Had a few discussions on Cubs boards about who they could look at for leadoff this last offseason and looking around at the league I could really only think of taking a shot on Manuel Margot who ultimately got traded to the Rays, but even he was more of a fingers crossed that he takes a few more walks and gets on base more.

The only big splash I could see would have been a trade with the Braves with Bryant or Baez going to Atlanta and one of their CF prospects coming back plus a couple more pieces.
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