Hockey

Game #52 – Hawks 2, Coyotes 2 (Hawks win foursquare): Of All The Gin Joints In All The World…

By Sam Fels 2103 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

The urge is be disappointed that the Hawks couldn’t get this one in regulation. They worked through the rust pretty quickly, certainly created enough to win easily in regulation (though gave up enough to lose it too), had a two-goal lead, but still needed the carnival game to get the second point. But you can’t legislate for Antti Raanta playing like it was last year instead of this one. This is how the Hawks have to do it. Get it open, trade chances, and bank on their goalie outplaying the one at the other end. Most nights, pretty much every night, Crow’s performance would have been more than enough. He was matched tonight by Raanta, so you get a split decision win. It happens.

Considering where they stand and the tiebreaker being just regulation wins, the Hawks aren’t as bad as I thought so winning in extra time isn’t as disadvantageous as I thought, either. They’re within one or tied or up on reg. wins with just about everyone around them, which is a sad state of affairs in the West. Three points back of Arizona, with two games in hand. Can’t take their foot off the pedal, but at least it’s interesting.

Let’s get to it…

The Two Obs

-As you would expect, it took the Hawks five or 10 minutes to find their sea legs again, as they gave up way too many good chances and didn’t let Crawford breathe much. The xG for the period being .94 to .26 tells you pretty much everything. They were sloppy with the puck and couldn’t quite get that extra foot as they adjusted back to game pace. But hey, they survived it.

-The season isn’t totally about development, but there were big moments from both Dach and Boqvist tonight. The latter clowned Taylor Hall twice when one-on-one with him. He out the Hawks in trouble in the second by turning into trouble and just handing the puck over, but you take the good with the bad. On the power play just once I’d like to see him fake the drop pass and just steam into the zone and see what he can do with only three back there, but he’s probably under specific instructions. The important thing is the defensive game isn’t nearly as helpless as some would have you believe.

Dach created the second goal with more good work on the boards (which he’s been excellent at all season) and then the vision to find Kane who found Saad. That line was a threat all night and clearly Dach was relishing finally getting to play with some real talent. Let’s see a whole lot more of this.

-Drake Caggiula continues to be useful. You’ll know the Hawks are ready to do things that matter again when he’s on the third line permanently.

-On the flip side, it was something of a rough one for Toews. 40% Corsi, 41% xG, and haphazard with the puck all night. Capped it off with a lazy penalty late in the third which the Hawks can’t have.

-So, when we get down to 15 games left or so, or the end of the month, and if Crow continues to outplay Lehner as he has of late here, what will they do? We’ll save this question for later because we’re nowhere near there yet. Let’s just enjoy how good Crow has been of late.

-Maatta and Koekkoek were to blame for the second goal, as Fetch got absolutely done in by speed and then just kind of went out walkin’ after midnight somewhere else and Maatta wasn’t quick enough to come over. But then how could he be expecting Koekkoek to just wander off like Layne Staley used to do offstage? Anyway, they’ve been a solid enough third pairing, and sometimes your third pairing is going to fuck up. You live with it. It’s why they’re a third pairing. It was cute that it came right as Konroyd was extolling their play of late. That’s a motherfuck this whole blog can be proud of.

-God, Top Cat just can’t buy one right now, can he? He’ll binge soon, and you just have to hope the rest of the Hawks game doesn’t fall around it so it can result in more points.

-It’s fun to be in the race, but the Hawks have had to be this hot just to get within hailing distance. Which means they can’t stop.

Onwards…

Hockey

Game #52 – Hawks vs. Coyotes Preview: Back To The Lecture At Hand

By Sam Fels 1526 0

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 24-21-6   Coyotes 26-21-6

PUCK DROP: 6pm

TV: NBCSN Chicago

NO REGRETS: Five For Howling

The Hawks won’t get to ease their way back into the swing of things after their midseason bye, as they’ll immediately be plunged into something of a wildcard four-pointer in Arizona. And this has not been a location that has been too kind to the Hawks of late, nor the opponent.

The Hawks only have one win in their last five games against the Yotes, and they were popped there earlier in the season and lost what was essentially their last stab at relevance late last season. You wouldn’t think this would be such an issue for the Hawks, given the lack of star power Arizona has and the usual majority of Hawks fans in the stands making it a de facto home game. But their collective speed on every line provides the same problem that teams like Vegas or Colorado do, just on a smaller scale. They can harass the Hawks deep in their own end into mistakes and streak out of their zone away from the Hawks to get into open space.

The Hawks won’t be allowed any excuses tonight, however. They’re four points behind the Yotes, who hold the last wildcard spot, but have two games in hand. Thanks to the Jets incompetence and the Preds not being a whole lot better (as well as having their own bye), the Hawks are still in this with only Nashville to leap to get to Arizona. And the Predators have a date with Vegas tonight, so the Hawks can jump over them tonight if results go their way.

They should be seeing an ornery team, as the Yotes returned from their bye earlier in the week and promptly only took one point out of four against hanging curveballs Anaheim and LA. They would have looked at this three in four as a spot to really cement their status as playoff contenders, but could be looking at truly biffing it if they lose to the Hawks. And this isn’t a team that should be overflowing with confidence, given their history of fading into the background consistently.

Injuries have been an issue, most notably with Darcy Kuemper missing weeks as he was the anchor to this team. He won’t return tonight but is due back very soon, probably their next game. Without him, the Yotes’ weaknesses are much more easily exposed, as Antti Raanta and Adin “Silent” Hill have been hardly worth writing songs about. Those weaknesses are pretty much they can’t hit a bull in the ass with a banjo. They don’t score much, they don’t possess the puck much, and they’re barely a middling defensive team. If you dismiss Oliver Ekman-Larsson as a “Yeah, but who gives a shit?” guy, there really isn’t a star anywhere on this team. Phil Kessel was brought in to be that, but much like the story he’s getting old now.

Taylor Hall was then brought in to be what Kessel might not be able to be anymore, and he’s put up 16 points in 18 games as a Yote. He gives them what should be something like two scoring lines, as Keller and Kessel are on the other one. But Keller has one point in nine, and Kessel is a few months away from doing ads for The General car insurance. They’re depending a lot on Hall, Dvorak, and Garland, though the top line of Keller-Stepan-Kessel has been possession-mutants.

Defensively, without OEL there isn’t really an advanced puck-mover here. Chychrun chips in goals with a booming shot but it’s not really what he does. Alex Goligoski is getting up there in age. Maybe Ilya Lubishkin, but he’s no guarantee for the lineup. OEL is a miss, whatever you consider him.

To the Hawks. Just about everyone other than the long-term casualties is reporting for duty, as it looks like Dylan Strome is going to make the post. That leaves the Hawks just one winger short of a pretty keen “3+1” model, with Dach at least getting limited looks between Kane and Saad and Top Cat reuniting with Strome. Kampf will continue to try and square-shape into that round hole as the other winger on that line for now. No word yet on which goalie will start but considering the way Crawford was playing and the way Lehner kind of had a hiccup that almost made him barf against Florida, the money is on Crow.

You can count on the Coyotes to try hard, because they have to, and because they’re coming off two disappointing results. You can probably expect a pretty scratchy first period from the Hawks, as they try and figure out how their legs and arms work again and get timing down. So really, just wading through the first 20-30 minutes is the order of the day, and then if things are still tied or in one goal the Hawks can begin to find their game. They’ll have to be tight with the puck in the offensive end, because this Arizona team will be looking to spring on them and away from them at the first sign of a turnover.

This is a big month, as February doesn’t tend to be. The schedule is very road-heavy, but that’s suited the Hawks better all season. Most games are against teams around them or below them. If you’re a part of this, then be a part of this. Otherwise, stop wasting our time.

Hockey

Game #52 – Hawks vs. Coyotes Spotlight: Went To Clayton Keller, To Have My Fortune Read

By Sam Fels 1127 0

As we’ve stated over and over every time the Coyotes show up on the schedule, the biggest obstacle to them mattering has been a lack of frontline scoring. They’ve gotten great goaltending from a couple different guys. With a blue line that contains Ekman-Larsson, Chychrun, Demers, Goligoski, and Hjalmarsson, that’s a pretty decent platform for a team. And yet the Coyotes haven’t been able to get to the playoffs, and only last season and this one have they even been in the conversation. Cast your mind back and see if you can recall a genuine top line player who donned…well, whatever color it is they wear. We’ll wait.

Don’t worry, we’re not going anywhere…

Ok, now that you’ve failed let’s get to the heart of it. There hasn’t been one. The acquisition of Taylor Hall for a song before he hits free agency was clearly meant to remedy this. So was the trade for Phil Kessel over the summer, though it might just be that age and indifference (and the hot dogs, of course) have caught up with him and his 11 goals.

Still, from within the idea was that Clayton Keller would solve this. 45 points in his only season at Boston University certainly suggested that there was a boom to come when he arrived in the desert. A rookie season of 65 points for a go-nowhere team suggested same as well.

And then it just kind of stalled out.

Keller put up 47 points last year, and is on pace for just 51 this year. Not exactly the kind of production you’d want from someone you just handed a $7.1M per season extension that Keller got before this campaign. That’s second-line production, and if Kessel is past it and Hall bolts in the summer for greener pastures, the Coyotes will be where they’ve always been. And that’s not anywhere anyone wants to be. View sucks.

But things might not be that simple. Under the hood, Keller is having a better season than that. He’s averaging 9.7 shots per 60 at evens, almost two more than last year and nearly three more than his impressive rookie season. His individual expected-goals is up to 0.81 per 60, a full 33% over his first two seasons. Same deal with his scoring chances. So he’s getting to better areas and firing away more often, but he can’t get them to go in. He’s got the lowest shooting-percentage of his career at even-strength. He also hasn’t been able to net more than twice on the power play, thanks to the Yotes man-advantage being a bit Hawks-like.

His team-wide metrics are better than they’ve ever been as well, but again, the Yotes are shooting just 6.2% when he’ on the ice. There isn’t much you can do about that when you’re getting the right amount of chances. He’s playing with Derek Stepan and Kessel at the moment, but Stepan has always been a miscast 2-3 center and Kessel we’ve been over. He could use some help. Perhaps there’s a market correction coming that will boost the Yotes to their first playoff appearance in eight seasons. That’s the dream.

The Coyotes will never go anywhere as a team, consistently, until the produce or acquire a star. And keep them there. Sure, they could spasm one good season like 2012 that makes all old hockey men lose their mud over a team that’s “MORE THAN THE SUM OF THEIR PARTS HARF HARF HARF” but you don’t stay there like that. Check out the Predators for evidence. Keller is hardly the first one who contained promise that he would be the one to break the mold for Arizona. They’re still waiting.

Hockey

Game #52 – Hawks vs. Coyotes: Hedley Lamarr’s Mugs, Pugs, And Thugs

By Sam Fels 1204 0

Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Not likely to play tonight after getting injured Thursday, and it’s a harsh label we know. We’ve spent many a wasted moment in the past trying to figure out how to get OEL on the Hawks, though he never showed any inclination to leave Arizona. And now we have to ask, is he a “Yeah, but who gives a shit?” guy? He might be the smoothest skater in the league, and the numbers are good, but if he made such a difference wouldn’t the Coyotes have mattered in the last eight years? Maybe it’s not fair to hold him up to an Erik Karlsson level of the past, where he can drag a bunch of plumbers and rodeo clowns to a playoff spot, but the Yotes haven’t even been close. Maybe it’s all just production in the dark?

Phil Kessel – We love him, simply because he pisses of Canadians so, but he bitched his way out of Pittsburgh, who haven’t missed a beat you’ll notice, and now he’s in the desert doing exactly dick. Not even on pace for 20 goals. Yeah, he’s old, but his game was supposed to age better than this. But hey, he gets to play in a hockey outpost which is probably what he always wanted.

Arena Game Presentation – It looks like something out of 1989 in Glendale. Seriously, get a new scoreboard. You don’t need the volcanic eyesore that the United Center has, but you can do better than Chicago Stadium.

Hockey

Game #52 – Hawks vs. Coyotes: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 977 0

Hawks

Notes: It looks like Strome is in for tonight but that won’t be confirmed until gametime. He’s been practicing and took the morning skate today…Colliton toyed with having Dach center Kane and Saad, which we are completely on board with, as long as the usage is correct…Gilbert was recalled after the break but Koekkoek has actually been ok on the third pairing so wouldn’t expect a change there…

Coyotes

 

Notes: The Yotes have a wealth of gametime decisions, as Demers, OEL, and Brad Richardson all could play, or all might not. OEL left the last game early, so he seems like the least likely of the trio but who knows?…Kuemper is definitely out so it’ll be Raanta tonight. He’s given up 15 in his last five appearances, and only two of them were full games. So he’s either been pulled or filling in…Keller has one point in his last nine…

Hockey

The Case For Not Re-Signing Robin Lehner

By Sam Fels 1952 0

This is something that probably will, and definitely should, go on the back-burner while the Hawks are in a playoff chase. There are more important issues and you don’t want the distraction. Which probably makes it more likely the Hawks, in their infinite wisdom, will ink Lehner to an extension before the end of the season, either to juice the buzz inside and outside the team as they try and chase down a spot or as a feel-good makeup when they fall short. You’ve already heard the push for it, and you know how they operate.

It shouldn’t be a priority at all. And it probably shouldn’t happen at all.

And it really doesn’t have much to do with Lehner. The simple numbers don’t add up. As of right now, the Hawks only have $10M in cap space for next season right now. With a minimal cap raise, maybe it’s $12M. There are a couple things the Hawks can do to open up more space, such as buying out Olli Maatta, which would only count about $800K against the cap next year. Maybe they actually do have a plan to deport Brent Seabrook into retirement/orbit, which obviously opens up another $6.8M. Do all those things, and the Hawks would suddenly have $22M. Hey, maybe Andrew Shaw retires and you get even more. If all those things happen, then re-signing Lehner makes some sense.

But it’s not that simple. Both Dylan Strome and Dominik Kubalik are due for big raises (and Caggiula might earn a small one). You would have to imagine they come in at at least $9M combined. If Lehner gets the $7M per year or more that he’s looking for, suddenly your $22M in space has become $6M in space, and you still need another d-man and at least one winger. And a backup goalie, and not just some stooge but one who can play 25-30 games because Lehner has never taken on a full starter’s load and that’s not really a thing teams are looking for these days.

Now, play this out differently. It would depend on how Corey Crawford finishes the season, so keep that in mind. But at 36, it’s unlikely that Crow is going to get more than the $6M he gets now, and it’s unlikely he’ll get more than a one- or two-year deal. Say you can Crow back for $4M, and then bring in someone like Cam Talbot for $3M-$4M (who has flourished in a partner/backup role this year). Now you’ve got two goalies for the same price as one Lehner, along with flexibility down the line which is not something the Hawks have had a lot of this past decade.

And maybe you’ve got space for a Tyson Barrie or Sami Vatanen or Toffoli or Kreider, which this team still needs. The only thing through the system that might join up next year and boost the team is Ian Mitchell, and that hardly seems a sure thing. Now if he signs and your top four is Keith, Mitchell, Boqvist, Murphy, that’s a nice start, but pushing Mitchell down do the third-pairing in his rookie year with de Haan is even better. And this team still needs one more winger, and might need another forward anywhere if they decide Kirby Dach’s presence makes Strome expendable (longshot but impossible).

As for Lehner himself, there seems to be a reason he’s on his fourth team. Or there should be, when he’s had exemplary seasons with each of the first three. He was traded from the Senators after after a step-back .905 SV% season, but that was after a .913. The Sabres let him walk after another .908, but that was after a .920. You know the story with the Islanders. And you know he’s not settling for another one-year deal.

Gone is the time when you can win with some stiff in net, and the Hawks were the last to do it in 2010 and there are still far too many around town who think that’s how things still work. So you can’t just ignore the position. However, you also have to have the team in front of it, and the Hawks aren’t going anywhere until they ask their goalies to do less than they are now. And it’s going to be awfully hard to do that paying Lehner what he wants and has pretty much earned now.

If the Hawks had more prospects coming through that would do that for cheap for years, then you could justify committing so much to one goalie. But they don’t. This is the way.

Baseball

There Seems To Be An Awful Lot Riding On Ian Happ

By Sam Fels 1740 0

I don’t know if center field was all that high on the wish list–emphasis on “wish”–of most Cubs fans when this offseason began. That’s before we really came to see how Scrooge-tastic the Ricketts would get this winter. The Cubs definitely needed another pitcher in the rotation (didn’t get it) and they needed an arm or two in the pen (maybe got it? Who the fuck knows?), but center field seemed an obvious hole as well.

And it’s still there.

A lot was focused on Nick Castellanos, which of course didn’t solve much about center. It would have pushed Jason Heyward to center a lot of time, or to the bench a lot of the time. That clearly didn’t happen, which leaves Heyward in right and…well, my only guess here is that the Cubs are wagering (or have been forced into wagering) that Ian Happ will grab the centerfield spot every day. Or that Steven Souza Jr. will light it up in Mesa and claim it, even though he needs a Razor to get around the space.

So that leaves in Happ. In theory, if Happ were to match his numbers from 2019’s cameo-plus appearance for a whole season, you probably wouldn’t notice Castellanos’s absence that much, especially if Heyward is only restricted to facing right-handed pitchers and puts up his 115 wRC+ from last year again. Remember, Happ’s final slash line was .264/.333/.564 for a 127 wRC+. That’s really good!

And defensively, he was actually not bad at all. Even good! If you go by the metrics, that is. +2.9 defensive runs, 32.2 UZR/150. Which we’d seen before, though on a lower scale, in his debut in 2017. It’s not ridiculous to think he could actually handle the position for the majority of the time.

Of course, there’s a caveat with Happ. A lot of his numbers came out of an incredible last week of the season, when the Cubs were already toast. In the last six games of the season, Happ went 10-for-22 (.454), with four homers, with a slugging of 1.136. It’s a nice week, but considering Happ was only up a couple months, it distorts things a bit. Without that week, he hit .228. He slugged .457, which isn’t bad obviously but isn’t near the season-finishing mark. And he still struck out a quarter of the time. That makes the question marks a lot bigger.

Again, the front office has probably been bullied into hopes on Happ. This isn’t part of the plan. They have no other choice. Still, if they were looking for hope, they’re probably looking to the guy who will stand to Happ’s right in left field for most of the season.

Like Happ, Schwarber had partial-season success after being called up, and quickly. Schwarber’s 2015 was over 69 games and Happ’s 2017 was over 115 games, so Happ was up for nearly twice as long. Still, immediate production. When Schwarber did get back into the lineup every day (after a knee injury which probably delayed development even more), he had at least a season and a half of scuffling, including his own demotion to Iowa. Of course, Schwarber’s boom was in the first half of 2018 instead of the second. And it was last year when Schwarber finally “popped,” with a 120 wRC+, including a 151 in the second half of the season. Now, Schwarber is a given.

Happ himself had two seasons of waywardness, and like Schwarber had a demotion to Iowa (which lasted much longer). The hope is that last week of the season was the sign something clicked, and he’s going to have his Schwarber coming out party from center this year. If he does…well, it solves a lot of the lineup questions and probably frees Ross up to bat Rizzo leadoff most of the time. Really it would only leave second base as a guess, and the thing is David Bote has been better than most think and Hoerner may grab it anyway.

But that’s an awful lot riding on one hot week when the chips were already counted. That’s the corner that the Cubs have been backed into by their owners.

Hockey

The Road Ahead

By Sam Fels 1729 0

Fair warning, I’ve just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy so anything referencing a road might cause me to throw myself out the window in the middle of this blog. You’ll get to trace it though, so that’ll be fun.

The Hawks will return to practice tomorrow and then to game action on Saturday, and they really won’t get much of a chance to play their way back into top form. They’re still three points out of a playoff spot, with only Winnipeg to leap, but basically everyone in and around the wild card spots will play another game before the Hawks get back to it on Saturday night. Which means the Hawks will have games in hand on most, but those only matter if you win them.

So how does it stack up? Right now, the West’s last wildcard holder is on a 90-point pace (still very sad). The Hawks are on about an 87-point one, and it took them winning 11 of 16 to even get to that. So to get to 90 points, the Hawks will need 36 points from 31 games, which would be a 95-point pace. And that’s if you believe that the target won’t arc up a bit, which you would think it would just a touch.

You would be tempted to go through the schedule, but that’s kind of folly for hockey because individual games come up weird. Your goalie has a bad night or theirs has a great night or you hit three posts in a period or something. As you look at it now, February does look like it’s a good runway, as the only games against the league’s glitterati are one against St. Louis, one against Boston at home, and one against Tampa. The rest are either against teams the Hawks are around in the standings are also-rans like the Ducks or Rangers. Essentially the Hawks have it all in front of them this month. They can play their way right into the thick of it or they can play themselves right out of it.

March looks even tastier, with the Ducks, Wings, Sharks, Senators, two against the Wild, Kings, and Canadiens all on the docket mixed in with tougher games. That’s the kind of slate you’d like when you’re competing for something, especially as some of those teams if not all will be stripped for parts by then.

So can the Hawks keep this pace up? We’d like to see things trending that way, so let’s et graphical!

Here are the rolling five-game averages for their CF% (blue) and xG% (red):

So those are going up. Their xG% ends at 53% and has been in the upper 40s for the last seven, but have been under 45% most of the season. Their average Corsi has been over 50% for the past nine. Again, small samples but at least trending the right way in five-game averages. They’ll have to keep going to get to the 90-point mark.

Of course, with the Hawks it’s about their defense. So here’s their five-game rolling average of Corsi against per 60:

And their xGA/60 rolling five game aveage:

Again, trending down, which is good. Still, since December 1st, when the Hawks have picked up their games somewhat, they rank 26th in Corsi against at evens and 30th in xGA/60 against. So their trendlines might just be part of a league-wide belt-tightening, which we see every season as scoring goes down as the season goes on and people don’t care as much. The numbers are no better from January 1st on, so it’s hard to see how the Hawks can be this bad defensively and remain competing for the playoffs. They’ll need those trendlines to continue to go the ways they have been the past couple weeks, let’s say.

Still, as we said before the break, there’s probably a Debrincat binge waiting, and the power play will spasm a good couple weeks you’d think for no reason other than HOCKEY! So it’s hardly out of the question the Hawks can defy their defensive averages or rates a little longer.

Baseball

Bryant Loses Grievance, Cubs Now Able To Shoot Themselves In The Face

By Sam Fels 2152 0

I wouldn’t pretend to know the ins and outs of a grievance arbitration or fancy lawyer talk (I leave that to Beverly Brewmaster and whenever he talks about it I just fall asleep), so maybe these kinds of things do need to take years to finish. That seems ridiculous, and even people who are at least adjacent to those in the know seemed flabbergasted by the whole Kris Bryant grievance taking this long. Especially when the outcome was pretty clear, because these are the rules of the CBA. And so it came to pass yesterday that Bryant lost the grievance, which we all knew he would. Which means that Bryant won’t be a free agent until 2021, which is when the Cubs have decided that the world will end because they want it to.

I don’t know that Bryant’s loss changes anything anywhere, other than these few things. One, no one else will try it now. Two, this will be changed in the next CBA. Three, it’s going to release a bunch of new trade rumors. This wasn’t about Bryant being bitter towards the Cubs, because exactly no one has said that, and Bryant has in fact said quite the opposite. This was just the time and place to try and draw a line in the sand for Scott Boras, because it was just so obvious what the Cubs were doing in 2015. Remember, this is a Hall of Fame caliber player the Cubs kept down for three weeks to “work on his defense.” You can’t get more clear. If there was ever a chance for Boras and other agents to open the floodgates early, this was it. They took their shot.

So now this mess. Already we’re hearing that the Cubs and Rockies have talked about a straight Bryant-for-Arenado swap. Some don’t seem to see what the Rockies would get out of that. At this rate, Arenado is not sticking around for more than the two years before his opt-out, and that’s even if they can make nice at spring training to smooth out their bullshit from the winter. So the Rockies would get the better player for cheaper for two years.

Don’t believe me that Bryant is better? Chuck your recency bias into an alley dumpster. Bryant has played two less seasons than Arenado and has been worth slightly less than four WAR. Arenado is the better defender for sure, but Bryant is the better overall player. Arenado has never produced a 6+ WAR season. Bryant has three. Shove it.

So if the Cubs were to do that…well it doesn’t make any goddamn sense unless they were sure Arenado would never use that opt-out (or bought it out) and they get a fixed cost on a player who’s still really damn good (though not exactly sure of what they’d get from him at sea level).

We still hear about the Braves, but I don’t know why the Braves would feel the need. They’re already clear favorites to win the division with the Nats losing Rendon and having no idea who their rotation will bounce back from going the route. There’s no lineup that can guarantee October success (ask the Dodgers and Astros about that one) and the Braves pitching is their problem in that they don’t have a clear, you’re-fucking-done ace. Maybe Soroka is that one day but not striking out less than a hitter an inning he’s not.

The Rangers don’t have anything the Cubs want. Neither do the Nats. Neither do the Phillies. The Dodgers probably do but they don’t need him either and they’re not going to give you what you really want from them (Lux, May, others) because they simply don’t have to. They’re going to walk to that division again and enter as overwhelming favorites again.

Which brings us to yesterday’s curiosity, which is the leak from Jesse Rogers and David Kaplan, organizational stooges if there ever were, that there was no mandate from ownership that the Cubs get under the luxury tax threshold to start the season. Which would seem pretty fucking weird considering the offseason the Cubs have had, the last two in fact, but they definitely have been told to be in range of it should the season go balls-up and they can start unloading everything.

Which is seemingly what the Cubs want. They’ve done their best to anger Anthony Rizzo, and Bryant, and maybe even Contreras. There’s still no extension for Baez. So maybe they’re hoping the team quits on ownership and the front office? This is something out of Major League.

I doubt it’ll happen. If nothing else, these players love playing together, or at least used to. They’ve just hired a manager they’re clearly all going to at least respond to, if not run through a wall for. And the division while maybe improved a touch, though that’s debatable, hasn’t gotten away from them.

If the Cubs go in as is, they have holes, but they also have a lineup that can ball-out for a few months at a time and has done, at least three good starters with a fourth (Lester) who can surprise, and a pen that can’t possibly be worse and has some candidates to surprise. Maybe the Ricketts are rooting for it, but there’s very little chance this team is going to be 10 games back come July 31st unless they are torn asunder by injuries.

And maybe one thing we can get behind, as disenchanting as these two offseasons have been, is the actual Cubs roster going on a FUCK YOU WORLD TOUR to spite their bosses. It’s still a very easy roster to root for.

-Right, couple signings to discuss, which are definitely the boom or bust kind. This one’s weird, because right after the season the Cubs couldn’t stop bleating about needing more contact and less strikeouts, two things Souza doesn’t provide even when he was healthy. He can barely patrol center field, which you wouldn’t want him doing more than as a support role. So that’s right field for Heyward against lefties you would think. And he’s struck out against lefties 30% of the time, though provided some pop as well. The last time he was healthy, three years ago now, he hit lefties well. But this is a flier, which is where the Cubs are.

-Jeremy Jeffress is the other signing, and the Cubs again are hoping health is the main issue here and not just natural decline. Jeffress lost nearly two MPH on his fastball last year, which saw his hard-contact rates ballon and lose the ground-ball rates too. He’s not the 10+ K/9 guy he was two seasons ago, as that’s something of an outlier, But if he’s not getting grounders to go along with his decent K-rate, he’s just this side of “bum.” He did have some injury issues last year and only made 48 appearances at the MLB level when he’d routinely been around 60 or more. Again, doesn’t cost you anything, could be a boom, but more likely a nothing. But again, this is the way of the Cubs now.