35thstreetswarm

Nah, next season is the one that would be the real kick in the teeth to interrupt. Maybe the one after that as well. I’m excited for this season, but it’s still just the warmup.

On the bright side, maybe no more worries about his innings limit...

They're in another forum (SLaM)

Ooooohhh, the trap is set! Masterful!

Great—it’s probably what allowed us to get him at 3.

I think Cease may end up being the story of the year. I really hope so.

It's funny, almost any trade can be justified by playing the "circumstances at the time" game, since all were made by baseball professionals and few trades are patently terrible on day 1. Most trades, though, do end up getting evaluated by fans and organizations based on tangible results, i.e. what actually happens with the players. Every manager on his way out the door can deploy a million persuasive ex ante rationalizations for all their "bad" moves -- fans are not usually willing to deploy the same reasoning in their favor, though, unless the team has built an insane amount of goodwill. It sounds to me like the Cubs' performance during their fast-closing window was good enough to buy your blanket forgiveness for a while. Fair enough, but I just don't think one title after an uber-hyped multi-year tank job will buy that much from most.

I agree that we'll have to make the same *types* of decisions that the Cubs did. I just hope we'll make better ones. I think the knock on the Cubs is they traded the wrong prospects (though tough to know if the deals would've been available at the time for different prospects) and signed the wrong free agents (e.g. Heyward). Not that they should've just avoided trades and the free agent market altogether. And the Darvish example aside, it's not like there weren't better moves available at many points along the way - they likely could've had Verlander, for example.

I think that's why the poster wrote "what not to do on the back end." The whole "Cubs won a World Series and I'd be happy with a World Series" post kind of goes without saying [typing?] at this point.

The Cubs really seem to be waging a multi-front war on their fans over the last couple seasons.

It's funny, I suspect that if you took a poll back in late 2019 to see who folks wanted to be the *regular* RF, Puig would have beaten Mazara handily. Mazara was not even on the radar. Now we're arguing over whether he'd even be a suitable backup to Mazara. I think a lot of folks have talked themselves into Mazara (myself included) and are measuring Puig against the version of Mazara they've built in their minds. Puig has a world of talent and is on the right side of 30. Particularly given the strong support system on this team I think he's worth a flyer.

I remember this little older lady standing next to me literally jumping into my arms after Iguchi’s homer. I was jumping up and down with the rest of the crowd cradling her like a baby. Leaving the stadium that night was definitely the first “oh my god, this could really happen” moment for me.

Blackout game ALDS game 2 Funny how these threads also function as “age polls” (reminding me just how young a lot of the posters are).

Me too. If nothing else I hope I get to return to watching my Cub fan friends hate us right back, all while bending over backwards to appear not to (a time-honored Cub fan tradition).

Happy to start this as an unapologetic member of the "I care about how we do as compared to our crosstown rival even though I fully recognize they're not in our league or division" club. Will the Cubs continue their now-clear downward trendline, or will the pretty-intact core of a former World Series team rebound? Will Bryant get traded? Will the crosstown series become fun again?