NEWSLETTER
The massive outage that took down Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp yesterday was – by pure coincidence – triggered by the very same type of issue BN was dealing with yesterday morning, as mentioned atop the Bullets. The key difference, I suppose, is I was having to mess with our DNS servers on purpose because of other issues, whereas Facebook apparently took its own down by accident.
• I am very with Sahadev Sharma on the ideas espoused in his latest, combining the urgency with which the Cubs need to get back to competitiveness, and the plausibility of doing so in 2022:
In early 2013, Jed Hoyer watched his Cubs team against a loaded Cards roster and wondered how they'd compete any time soon. Less than 2 years later, the Cubs defeated the Cards in the NLDS. How rebuilds can go quicker than expected and why this one has to. https://t.co/2rwbHYRghc
— Sahadev Sharma (@sahadevsharma) October 4, 2021
• The Cubs *can* compete in 2022. And they *can* make moves this offseason to put themselves into a position to compete. I believe that will, indeed, be the goal. This doesn’t *have* to be a multi-year rebuilding process. But I think we do have to be realistic about how far behind the eight ball the Cubs are after letting the last three years lead them to the post-2021 cliff, which they elected to walk right over. As Sharma reminds us on all that has to happen for 2022 to play out with a Cubs winner, and then for that success to continue:
Contreras’ surprising emergence is the type of unexpected development the Cubs will need more of from their farm system. They’ll have to win trades, hit on high draft picks — like the No. 7 selection next summer — and find real value in the free-agent market.
They’ll need someone like Frank Schwindel to continue to surprise as he has in 2021. The first baseman doubled twice Sunday and ended the season with a 152 wRC+ (100 is league average), tied for 10th in all of baseball for players with at least 250 plate appearances. Nick Madrigal and Nico Hoerner have to stay healthy and prove to be the .300 hitting, contact bats their prospect status billed them as. It’d help if Adbert Alzolay, Justin Steele or Keegan Thompson emerges as a legitimate rotation piece next summer and if Codi Heuer and Rowan Wick can develop into consistent high-leverage bullpen arms. But they’ll need so much more than that.
• Yup. The Cubs need things like all of that to happen … and more. They need all that fantastic, 80th percentile internal stuff to happen, AND they have to get real impact out of the trade market and free agency. To say they have to nail their offseason decisions is hilariously understated.
• The poor Blue Jays, man. They put together a great roster, they have to split their home ballpark for much of the year (again), and they still win 91 games. Yet they miss the playoffs after finishing 4th in their division. … Same as the Cubs.
https://twitter.com/BleacherNation/status/1445347977451778051
• Go … Giants(?), I guess:
Welcome to the next level. #MakeItMajor #Postseason pic.twitter.com/56MravQbb5
— MLB (@MLB) October 4, 2021
• The recently-departed Cubs in the postseason:
Players who were Cubs in the last calendar year who are in the playoffs:
Jon Lester, Cardinals
Kyle Schwarber, Red Sox
Joc Pederson, Braves
Craig Kimbrel, Ryan Tepera, White Sox
Anthony Rizzo, Yankees
Kris Bryant, Giants
Colin Rea, Brewers— Gordon Wittenmyer (@GDubCub) October 4, 2021
• And the broadcast schedule, which kicks off tonight:
The broadcast schedule for Postseason games through Sunday was announced today by @MLB. @FS1 and @MLBNetwork will have exclusive live coverage of the ALDS presented by @GoodSam, while @TBSNetwork will provide exclusive coverage of the NLDS presented by @GoodSam. pic.twitter.com/BFkO6S8C5N
— MLB Communications (@MLB_PR) October 4, 2021
• This is actually a pretty fun factoid – it just didn’t happen enough:
https://twitter.com/WatchMarquee/status/1445106602441334784
• Obviously there’s a big confounding factor there – for a big chunk of the time when both D-Lee and ARam were with the Cubs, Wood and Dempster each spent their own chunks of time in the bullpen. And since they were pitching in setup/closer spots, that means they would appear only when the Cubs were already in a good position to win. Still. It’s fun. Sometimes things are just fun.
• Since it got me looking back – that Dempster transition from closer to starter, from 2007 to 2008, was pretty incredible. Not only did he bump his innings from 66.2 to 206.2(!) in a single year, he became a dramatically better pitcher. In his final two years as the closer, Dempster had actually produced at a pretty mediocre rate (slightly below league average ERA, slightly better FIP). So somehow he went from a pretty meh reliever to a dominant starter in a single year. He wasn’t quite able to duplicate that success in 2009+, but he was still pretty solid. We all know it isn’t rare at all for a struggling starter to transition to the bullpen and have great success. But a struggling reliever transition to the rotation and having great success? That’s wild.
• Amazon has transitioned its Deals of the Day into “Epic Daily Deals,” which I reckon is a prelude to the Black Friday ramp-up that might last several weeks. No complaints here. A whole lotta big deals today over here. #ad
• Gotta decide when I’m in a good place to give this a listen:
No baseball today. Good time to start “The Run” podcast with @MattSpiegel670 and @roywoodjr, if you haven’t checked it out yet! https://t.co/IPpyFXU003
— Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) October 4, 2021
