Recent content by champaignchris

Shota, Peterson and Holmes were clearly the best three starting pitchers for the Cubs down the stretch. So, we’re not going to start any of the three in the first two games of the playoffs?

This has been a bad team for the last quarter of the season. Which is remarkable considering PCA was performing at an MVP level and Bregman at a near-MVP level for that entire time. Really, over the last 40 games, no one on the offense was particularly bad. Amaya and Hoerner weren’t great...

Carson Wentz is probably a little better than your average backup QB. He’s not about to go win anyone a Super Bowl, but the Vikings will be able to run their entire offense with him.

You’re not the first to make the comparison. If he starts dating a Hailee Steinfeld-level actress, look out!

Bears QB history is so bad that it’s fun watching how fast Williams is rising in franchise rankings. He came into this season 9th in career yards and 10th in TD passes. He passed Blanda in TD passes last weekend. So, he’s 9th in that, too. Assuming relatively good health, Williams should...

The defense as a whole wasn’t great, but #7 was out there putting hits on people.

I should add, with Suzuki, Happ, Boyd, Imanaga, Maton, Kelly, Harvey, Austin and Taillon all off the books next year that’s over $100 million of payroll. ($13 million this year for Maton, Harvey and Austin. Ugh!) They should be able to acquire a starting outfielder and two starting pitchers for...

I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to re-sign Kelly. He’s a good fit for the team. They could also just roll with Amaya and Ayers. Under the old rules with unlimited Sept call ups, Ayers would already be on the team. The infield is set with everyone under team control. Busch won’t be THAT...

Finish this sentence, “if the Angels are worth $4 billion, the Cubs are worth…”

The offseason pitching acquisitions have been horrible this year. Cabrera looked unhittable in his first two starts and has been hurt/bad ever since. Jacob Webb has been the most dependable guy in the pen. Thielbar has been awful. Milner pitched 35 innings, got hurt and was released. Maton...

These last 10 games have maybe been the weirdest part of a weird season. 6 losses by a total of 9 runs. 4 wins by a total of 50 runs.

It was a combo of COVID, dropping numbers and a lot of recent losing. They had 30-some kids across all four years, about half of them freshman.

Urbana High School is a little bit bigger in enrollment, about 1,100. They cancelled their 2021 season after one game (lost to Centennial 65-0) and then didn’t field a varsity team in 2022. They started a varsity team again in 2023 and finally won their first game last year.

PCA became the 10th player in MLB history to go 30/30 in consecutive years. Looking forward to next year, the entire list of players who went 30/30 in three consecutive years is: Barry Bonds.

Reminds me of Jason Heyward, another tall, lanky batter. Heyward hurt his wrist in 2016, played through it, but his swing got off, and he never really recovered. Tucker tried to play through his wrist injury, too. He’s been a completely different hitter the last 50-ish games with the Cubs and...