Chicago Cubs 2019 Season

#926      
Cubs Twitter smoke that it's Ross

The blank canvas, probably dumb, never coached before, recent former catcher?

Worked great for Matheny, can't see it going bad for Ross...

For real though, it probably won't matter. Whatever starting pitcher they sign will be 5x more impactful than whatever Ross does, unless he's just completely lost. The new manager won't be able to keep Bryant healthy and on the field or keep Darvish's elbow attached.
 
#928      
The blank canvas, probably dumb, never coached before, recent former catcher?

Worked great for Matheny, can't see it going bad for Ross...

For real though, it probably won't matter. Whatever starting pitcher they sign will be 5x more impactful than whatever Ross does, unless he's just completely lost. The new manager won't be able to keep Bryant healthy and on the field or keep Darvish's elbow attached.

giphy.gif
 
#930      

mattcoldagelli

The Transfer Portal
The blank canvas, probably dumb, never coached before, recent former catcher?

Worked great for Matheny, can't see it going bad for Ross...

For real though, it probably won't matter. Whatever starting pitcher they sign will be 5x more impactful than whatever Ross does, unless he's just completely lost. The new manager won't be able to keep Bryant healthy and on the field or keep Darvish's elbow attached.

Ahhh, there's that small batch, got-dumptrucked-in-an-LCS-sweep brand of Cardinal butthurt.

giphy.gif


Playoffs weren't a total loss though - definitely got to beef about whether someone was playing The Right Way and throw at some guys, so you can build on that for next year.
 
#931      
Ahhh, there's that small batch, got-dumptrucked-in-an-LCS-sweep brand of Cardinal butthurt.

Playoffs weren't a total loss though - definitely got to beef about whether someone was playing The Right Way and throw at some guys, so you can build on that for next year.

I was just being a smartass, the Matheny - Ross comparisons write themselves. The things people said about "smart front office gets a blank slate guy who they will be able to control" were verbatim said about Matheny in 2012. But I was being serious when I said managers really don't matter, unless they're just straight terrible, like Matheny. I don't really think there's a manager capable of say, taking a 85 win team and making them a 90+ win team just buy pulling the right strings, the underlying talent is infinitely more important.

I'm also completely content with the Cardinals season. They won 90 games and got the LCS with a not very great team. Mo is the king of assembling a team that projects for 87 wins literally every year and that usually means you make the playoffs, sometimes you get hot and win a trophy.
 
Last edited:
#932      
Far more important than the manager is whether they give their new manager a legitimate starting center fielder, a legitimate lead off man, a bullpen, a fifth starter, a bench more than two men deep...
 
#933      

mattcoldagelli

The Transfer Portal
The things people said about "smart front office gets a blank slate guy who they will be able to control"

Is this "blank slate" thing a narrative I've just missed? I haven't heard that and it would be a very odd take - the major appeal of Ross is that he has a personal history with almost the entire roster. That's kind of the opposite of a blank slate.
 
#934      
Is this "blank slate" thing a narrative I've just missed? I haven't heard that and it would be a very odd take - the major appeal of Ross is that he has a personal history with almost the entire roster. That's kind of the opposite of a blank slate.

Blank slate as in the front office can project whatever they want on to him. He has no preconceived managerial tendencies, therefore the assumption is he'll be open to learning and will manage the way the front office wants him too (using advanced metrics, applying situational leverage correctly, able to sell that to the players, etc.).

Which, obviously can be a good thing. Or you can do what Matheny, Ausmus (x2), Matt Williams, or any of the other recent managers with no/ not much managerial experience and just throw away the stat packs and do your own thing, especially panicking over small samples in the face of advanced metrics telling you to stick to the path. It happens a lot with recent former players turned-coaches, they surface level accept what the nerds in the front office are (correctly) telling them to do, but years of ingrained "baseball knowledge" take over and all the sudden you're shaking up the line to "get guys going" and starting Matt Adams in LF because "we need his bat in the line-up" and starting the utility infielders over the better players because they're "hot" or "have gone 5 for 9 against this pitcher historically, so he obviously has his number"
 
Last edited:
#935      
Blank slate as in the front office can project whatever they want on to him. He has no preconceived managerial tendencies, therefore the assumption is he'll be open to learning and will manage the way the front office wants him too (using advanced metrics, applying situational leverage correctly, able to sell that to the players, etc.).

Which, obviously can be a good thing. Or you can do what Matheny, Ausmus (x2), Matt Williams, or any of the other recent managers with no/ not much managerial experience and just throw away the stat packs and do your own thing, especially panicking over small samples in the face of advanced metrics telling you to stick to the path. It happens a lot with recent former players turned-coaches, they surface level accept what the nerds in the front office are (correctly) telling them to do, but years of ingrained "baseball knowledge" take over and all the sudden you're shaking up the line to "get guys going" and starting Matt Adams in LF because "we need his bat in the line-up" and starting the utility infielders over the better players because they're "hot" or "have gone 5 for 9 against this pitcher historically, so he obviously has his number"
Unfortunately, we had a ton of that with Maddon last year. See for example leading off Almora despite having the literal worst OBP among non-pitchers on the team, or platooning Almora and Scwarber despite Almora’s horrendous reverse splits, or continually throwing Brach to the wolves because he was “the 8th inning guy” and etc.

The Cubs had some major roster holes this year, but they also had a whole bunch of really good players that were not employed as well as they could have been. It’s pretty easy to look like you’re pushing all the right buttons when you have a top-to-bottom great roster; there aren’t any wrong buttons to push. Less so when the bottom end of the roster is full of holes.

The point I’m making is that if Ross is just a regular level of meat-ball, it’s not going to be much of a change from this year. The improvements will come with improving the roster. And they’ll be paying their manager several million dollars less than when Maddon was there.
 
#936      

mattcoldagelli

The Transfer Portal
The Cubs had some major roster holes this year, but they also had a whole bunch of really good players that were not employed as well as they could have been.

All of this + they were just generally sloppy and not sharp.

It's a bit too convenient of an observation, but the amount of guys who said that Ross was an important counterweight to Maddon's loose style in 2015-16 is pretty striking, and the amount of mistakes has trended up since retirement. You can fire all the hitting coaches you want, it's not going to help you if you keep getting TOOTBLAN.
 
#937      
All of this + they were just generally sloppy and not sharp.

It's a bit too convenient of an observation, but the amount of guys who said that Ross was an important counterweight to Maddon's loose style in 2015-16 is pretty striking, and the amount of mistakes has trended up since retirement. You can fire all the hitting coaches you want, it's not going to help you if you keep getting TOOTBLAN.

Wasn't expecting to see this reference today. Also came across Ronny Cedeno as part of a separate Google search. Strange day.
 
#942      
Howie Kendrick has aged really well. And talk about a back firing decision for the Astros, woof.

My brother texted me right after that decision, "A.J. Hinch just pulled a 2016 Joe Maddon with Kyle Hendricks."

All that being said, let's go Nats!
 
#945      

bdutts

Houston, Texas
Stros in 5.

Oops! :) I blew that one. Couldn't have imagined in turned out like this.
The Nats starting pitching, outside of game 4, gave them the opportunity to come back. I think I saw a stat where they scored 21 runs 7 inning and later and 12 runs 1-4 inning. Remarkable job of coming through when they needed to.