Hockey

The Distance Perceived And Real, Jeremy Roenick Is A Big Fat Baby, And Whatever Else Is Floating Through Our Ears

By Sam Fels 2112 0

Some notes pieces before we decamp for the weekend…

-It’s been a dark week for  Hawks fans, there’s no point in selling anything else. As gratifying as the 3rd period may have been last night, we know it’s for naught. The Hawks themselves have made no bones about where they think they are, even if they can’t put a finger where that is exactly. They’ve declared the rest of the season about their young players, which means they don’t have anything real to play for. And this is the third straight season that’s basically been the case, which firmly lands you in the hockey desert.

A lot of the discussion over those years has been whether or not if this is the price fans would pay for the six years of glory. No one seems to be asking whether or not fans should have been asked that at all. As we said yesterday, Pittsburgh and Boston haven’t really asked that of their fans. But that’s a discussion for another time.

The scarier or more frustrating strand of thought that’s been leaking out of the Hawks’ offices these days, along with the gas that has been clouding theirs and the Bulls’ minds, is that all of the sudden this is going to take two or three years to fix. It feels like the Hawks are prepping fans for a full rebuild that they A. can’t actually do and B. don’t actually have to.

While we’re one of, if not the, darkest Hawks corner of the dark corners of the internet, we’ve also been pretty consistent that this team isn’t far away from being an entrenched playoff team. Now, it’s not that close to running with Colorado or St. Louis or Boston or Tampa, and maybe that’s what they mean by taking two or three years. That seems a hard path to negotiate given the ages of some of their best players, but they can still relatively easy put themselves around the discussion.

Still, that’s a strange note to strike when the previous note was the “all we have to do is get in” the Hawks had been playing the past couple years, using the Predators team that caved in their skulls in ’17 or last year’s Blues as evidence, even though that wasn’t close to the whole story on those two teams. Both of them were preseason favorites that just took longer than expected to get their shit together. The Hawks can’t seem to decide where they want the goalposts.

Clearly the Hawks don’t know what message to send, which is what happens when you don’t even know what direction you’re taking your team. Or if you’re John McDonough, who you are (I really wanna know…).

Still, looking at this roster, it’s easy enough to point to where the Hawks have to address in the summer to gain the 10-15 points they’ll need to not just make the playoffs next year, but perhaps compete for automatic spots instead of being in this muck.

Despite Jeremy Colliton’s thoughts most of the year, if you can even pin them down, the Hawks have in place quality center depth. I don’t know what Dylan Strome is exactly, but I do know that hiding behind Kirby Dach and Jonathan Toews next year is a pretty good place to be and one he can flourish in as well. Maybe none of Toews, Dach, or Strome are #1s either anymore or yet, but having three #2 centers seemed to work out pretty well for the Blues last year or the Predators in the past. It’s certainly a model you can win with.

The problem up front for the Hawks at the moment is that they only have four top nine wingers instead of the six they need. Saad, Kane, Debrincat, Kubalik, But if you’re using a “3+1” model, as the Hawks are pointing toward with their centers, you can get away with Drake Caggiula as a third-line winger. Or the idea of Andrew Shaw that he no longer is anymore. Or something like that. It would be fine.

So really, the Hawks need one more winger up front, and one that is a complete burner. This is why Andreas Anathasiou would have been perfect, but the Hawks need more speed. They’re not slow up front, but they’re also not in the same neighborhood as Colorado or Calgary or half a dozen other teams. Ideally they could add two wingers with gamebreaking speed, but I’m trying to be realistic.

At the back, we’ve been talking about the historically bad and slow defense for two years. Which makes it seem strange to say it doesn’t have to be all that far either. Part of that is Adam Boqvist hasn’t developed this year in the way that you’d hoped. But some of that is Keith not being really a great partner for him but also no one else being able to play with Keith. Calvin de Haan is a miss, whether we like it or not.

But simply the addition of Ian Mitchell helps. The Hawks can make noise about bringing him along slowly, but he’s been a top pairing d-man in the NCAA for three years. If he needs anytime in Rockford it’ll be an upset and probably means he’s not going to be anything close to what we hope. And he shouldn’t need that. How much he improves the blue line is up for debate, but he unquestionably will. If they can get him here.

If the Hawks are aggressive–i.e. buying out both Smith and Maatta, locking Brent Seabrook in his house, and simply letting Andrew Shaw retire–and use the $20M in space they might have in that scenario to bring in…oh I don’t know, Taylor Hall and Torey Krug or Mike Hoffman and Sami Vatanen or the like, they’re there again.

This idea that they’re just going to have to wait is them just giving themselves more rope for the fuckups they’ve made and the ones they’re going to make. Two more big contracts might make people worried, but they hardly have any other long-term commitments other than Daydream Nation. You can even see the end of Keith’s contract now. Strome or Kubalik are RFAs and aren’t due long-term commitments either, especially Strome.

It feels like the Hawks are preaching patience after they’ve already exhausted everyone’s. Which is about as backwards as everything else they do.

-The cognitive dissonance to separate Jeremy Roenick the player who presided over my world from ages 8-16 or so and Jeremy Roenick the person now is becoming a mountainous task. Thankfully we’re on the cusp of him having to go away forever.

Roenick showed up on The Score yesterday to whine some more about losing his job for being an unrepentant pig on a BarfStool show hosted by and for goo-brained warthogs. JR is now just every other older white guy complaining he can’t be an asshole without someone calling him on it and having real consequences when they’ve had run of the place before. Why you’d have this dope on your show is anyone’s guess, because he proved long ago he’s a shit-assed analyst and now his only job appears to be showing his ample ass. But of course Dan McNeil still needs to prove to everyone that he still knows famous people, and Danny Parkins was just disappointed that he wasn’t having an actual rapist on his show to get back at all the girls who didn’t talk to him in high school.

The choice quote of course is, “”I think anyone who knows the situation and who knows me, knows I got the biggest raw deal of all time.” I know when I’m sitting at home and thinking about JR I slot him right between slavery and the Jewish people in Egypt. Anyway…

JR doesn’t seem to get he was on a public forum with a public job. This isn’t some glib remark he made at the water cooler behind Kathryn Tappen’s back, and even that wouldn’t be acceptable in a workplace. He demeaned and objectified a coworker, making her job harder. It changes the conversation from Tappen’s skills as a broadcaster and presenter, and reduces her to just how she looks. JR is the same cigar-chomping boss you had who would go down claiming, “What? It’s a compliment! Don’t be so serious!” before smacking his secretary on the ass.

Thankfully, NBC seems to be moving their hockey coverage toward the same style as their soccer coverage, which is everyone acts like an adult and just analyzes the game or the league. Milbury is still lurking around, but Boucher, Sharp, Hartnell, Carter, Lovejoy, Johnson are all younger, more reserved personalities for the most part. Fuck, this is the same outfit that just announced and all-women broadcast for Hawks-Blues on the 8th, so it shouldn’t be a huge shock that NBC might not want some drooling goober grabbing himself around.

Hockey has always been terrified of pissing off its neanderthal section of the fanbase, which is why fighting is still around and the disciplinary system is a joke. But it can’t get the fans it does want to welcome in without eliminating it. It’s a painfully slow process, but punting JR and his type into the sun is progress.

Baseball

Yes Movement – 2020 Chicago Cubs Player Previews: Nico

By Sam Fels 1160 0

Nico Hoerner wouldn’t be the first kid to be tossed into an emergency situation and end up a team fixture for a long while. It’s just that I can’t really think of another one. K-Rod? Willson Contreras wasn’t thrown into an emergency, he just played his way into a three-catcher rotation in ’16. It does happen on occasion, and considering what the other options are at second base, the Cubs might have to hope it does again.

Nico Hoerner 2019

20 games, 82 PA

.282/.305/.436

.305 wOBA  86 wRC+

3.7 BB%  13.4 K%

0.7 Defensive Runs

0.2 WAR

The excitement over Hoerner basically had to do with the Cubs having a prospect worth a shit for the first time in a couple seasons, the unique circumstances, and some initial success. It also had to do with Hoerner making a lot of contact when the Cubs whiff paranoia was at its highest. That doesn’t mean that Hoerner had any business being in MLB at that point, and was only there due to a lack of depth thanks to the front office, Addison Russell’s inability to do anything right on and off the field, and Joe Maddon’s aversion to even trying Bote there in an emergency.

Overall, Hoerner was a touch overmatched, which isn’t much of a surprise for a player how barely had half of a season at Double-A. He showed a little more pop than you might expect, but that doesn’t mean he had a lot of it, and with his no-walks policy it meant he just didn’t get on base enough. You can do that if you’re Javy Baez. If you’re not…well, you’re going to have to hit an awful lot of doubles for anyone to care.

YES! YES! YES!: The Cubs seem pretty determined to start Hoerner off in Iowa, which makes sense as he’s never been there. They might rotate a couple of burnt steaks in Kipnis and Descalso along with whatever it is David Bote is in the meantime, it’s just figuring out how long that meantime is going to be.

If Hoerner can put up numbers in Des Moines that he did in Tennessee (7.1 BB%, .344 OBP) you wouldn’t think it’s going to take more than six weeks or two months for him to be installed as the everyday second baseman at 1060 West. From there he could be the one hitter other than Rizzo who doesn’t strike out much, and give the Cubs some contact-driven on-base habits at the bottom of the lineup. He’d be another candidate to bat 9th with Bryant leading off to maximize what Bryant is doing in the #1 spot.

Hoerner even boosts all of that by driving up his hard-contact rate (26.5%) from last year, and some of those singles turn into doubles and triples while he sprays line-drives all over the field. That was the big thing for Hoerner’s approach last year. He was happy to use right field in AA but that went away with the Cubs, with just 17% of his contact going that way. Hoerner isn’t a weakling when aiming for right field, and that’s probably Priority #1 the Cubs have told him to work on amongst the corn. If he gets that down, the Cubs might end up with the Marco Scutaro-plus they’re envisioning.

You’re A B+ Player: Hoerner never hits the ball harder, nor uses the opposite field, which means he’s just grounding out to short and third a lot because he almost certainly won’t strike out much. His high-contact ways don’t really matter if all that contact sucks. Hoerner was easily busted up an in last year in his brief cameo, and that’s almost certainly where AAA pitchers are going first when the season starts. If he can’t prove he can turn on those, then his future looks more “Theriot” than “Scutaro.” And that’s a word that should have every Cubs fan’s indigestion level on the rise.

Dragon Or Fickle?: Some of what Hoerner’s future this year is hinging on what the rest of the lineup does. Say the Cubs do hit 1-7, which involves Ian Happ finally blossoming full-time and Jason Heyward hitting righties at merely a decent clip…well then the Cubs can afford to basically go glove-first at second base. And Hoerner is still the best defensive option amongst the four who could line up there (though Kipnis is still pretty good there). And Hoerner has just as much offensive upside as Bote. The Cubs could do what they did with Russell (sadly) in ’15, which is tell him you’re up here to catch the ball and we’ll worry about the offense later.

But there are a lot of ways this could go wrong. The three-headed monster of confusion currently slated for second could all fall flat on their face offensively. Happ could do Happ things and be all over the map. And then the Cubs might need Hoerner to hit straight from Iowa, and quickly.

None of that has anything to do with him though. Hoerner’s contact rate kind of institute a floor, but it also makes him a little BABIP dependents. And he doesn’t have a lot of speed to help with that. Like, he can’t be Tim Anderson (and man, do I wish he could be Tim Anderson). He’s only 22, so there’s plenty of time to add muscle and bat speed with it. Most likely, Hoerner is called up in June after a good to pretty good, but probably not dominant, stretch in Iowa. But I also think the Cubs will hit outside of him, and he won’t be required to carry anything.

Hockey

Game #64 – Hawks vs. Lightning Preview: The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

By Sam Fels 1351 0

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 27-28-8   Lightning 40-18-5

PUCK DROP: 6pm

TV: NBCSN Chicago

POINT AT THE SIGN: Raw Charge

I keep thinking it can’t get worse for the Hawks, or really us, and yet somehow it does. It’s certainly bad enough to go have to play the team you used to laugh at that’s now a league standard right after the trade deadline where your management made it clear they’re not much beyond cats pawing at a laser pointer. But then to have to follow that up with the team who’s been the clearest illustration of what you’ve become from what you were…well, how much more can you take? Oh right, after this they’ll have to face their former coach with the highest scoring team in the league.

We chose this.

The last three times the Hawks have faced the Lightning it’s been something of a definitive statement on their status. And if I cant throw in a Tin Cup quote (god I’m truly lost), “And the definition was shit.” Remember it was five years ago they were contesting the Final. Last year, the Lightning simply embarrassed the Hawks twice, including that 30-shot period at the UC. This year, while the score was closer, you never got the impression that the Bolts were even sweating as they calmly skated away in the 3rd period. That’s where they went after ’15, and this is where the Hawks are. And that’s back early in the season when the Lightning were fighting it.

They’re not fighting it anymore. Put it this way, since that late November dance around the maypole at the United Center, Tampa has gone 30-11-3. 63 points of the 88 on offer, which is a 117-point pace over a full season. It’s landed them second in the NHL overall, with the misfortune of the best team in the NHL being in their own division. But wouldn’t you know it, the Bs and Bolts play twice next week in something of a division decider (the Lightning probably have to take both in regulation though).

How did the Lightning turn around after an iffy opening two months? Same thing they always do. Get scoring from everywhere (six guys with 15+ goals and Johnson with 13) while NIkita Kucherov leads the way. Get great goaltending (Vasilevskiy ran a .948 in January and has been .920 since Dec. 1st). And dominate possession (fourth in both Corsi and xG% over the whole season, and second in both since Dec. 1st).

While the Lightning have a tremendous amount of firepower, it’s their defensive game that’s really the backbone of this as they’re third in both the amount of attempts they give up and their expected goals against. Their speed up and down the lineup allows them to choke space whenever they don’t have the puck, which isn’t all that much.

Of course, nothing really matters about the Lightning until April, when they’ll have a couple gremlins to work out of their heads. Last year’s first round disaster probably isn’t much more than an anomaly considering this is a team that has made three trips to the conference final at least in the past five years. It’s Vasilevskiy who will have to answer the biggest questions, as he spit up big time against Columbus and wasn’t terribly good against the Capitals the year before in the East Final. But again, this roster and this system they seem poised to do big things in the spring. You get the feeling if they can negotiate the first round boogeyman, which could end up tricky given the arsenal of Toronto or Florida or even Carolina, there might not be any stopping them.

As for the Hawks, you wonder if this isn’t about damage control. They saw their front office (rightly) declare their season over on Monday, and then while showing more gumption than you might have thought, got kicked in the nuts by the worst possible people anyway. You wouldn’t blame them if they just didn’t have it in them to chase the Bolts all over the ice tonight. Still, there’s professional pride at stake and bigger roles in the future to claim. Corey Crawford gets the start.

It’s hard to believe a team led by this group will just quit on the season, but they’re up against it tonight for sure. This is our lot in life now.

Hockey

Game #64 – Hawks vs. Lightning Spotlight: You Go Your Way And I’ll Go Mine

By Sam Fels 1332 0

Once again, this tine of year has turned into a philosophical study of how the Hawks got here, where they’re going, and whether or not any of it is correct or possible. It’s not what you’d ideally be discussing at this time of year, but when your front office’s only ploy to fix things is turning the team off and then on again, this is where you end up.

The Hawks claim that they’ve been forced into this position for a third straight year not because they made any mistakes, because no one makes mistakes over there don’t you know, but because this is just the price you pay for the success they had. We’re sure the Penguins or Bruins would like a word, but we have the Lightning to deal with at the moment. And keep in mind, the Lightning have done with with two different GMs but a constant vision and direction. How nice that must be.

The Bolts don’t have the long track record that the Hawks do in the past, but they were at the same point in 2015 and separated by barely the width of a sheet of paper. Now a direct comparison isn’t totally fair, as the core of that Lightning team was younger than that of the Hawks. Still, with how Toews and Kane have played the past couple years, and Keith this one, they aren’t seprated by light years either.

The Lightning have the top of the draft picks just like the Hawks do, in Hedman and Stamkos. They also had Jonathan Drouin, #3 overall. But from there, the Lightning have just done so much more with later round picks than the Hawks, or indeed most teams. Brayden Point was found in the third round. So was Anthony Cirelli. Tyler Johnson and Yanni Gourde weren’t even drafted. And that was eight and six years ago now, but the Hawks added literally no one who’s contributing to this team now between 2008 and 2016. You can’t have that gap. You have to have a middle generation to go with your standards and your young kids. The Hawks missed that, which is why they’re paying the price. There’s nothing between the Keith and Toews generation and the DeBrincat one, aside from maybe Brandon Saad and that came at the cost of Artemi Panarin.

And since the Lightning took Drouin 3rd overall, they’ve never picked above 19th. In that time they’ve added Point, Cirelli, and Mathieu Joseph. They also added Brett Howden, who they spun into Ryan McDonagh (your value of that may vary) and J.T. Miller, which was then spun into another first round pick that got them Blake Coleman this past deadline. No matter where it turns, it’s something they can use.

The Lightning have been better at trades as well. They weren’t going to re-sign Ben Bishop, so they got Erik Cernak out of it. Compare that with the Gustafsson or Lehner return. When Drouin wasn’t working, they turned that into Sergachev. They realized that Kevin Shattenkirk would work in a limited role. We can go on here.

Compare that with the Hawks who only have Dominik Kubalik in the past three years as a definite win as a trade, and maybe Dylan Strome but it’s hard to say that for sure right now. Their free agents or guys they took a flier on…well, we don’t need to go on about that because you’re probably going to want to eat in the next few days. There are guys out there that could have filled a role that the Lightning identify and the Hawks pass on. That’s how you end up with Nick Seeler.

The Hawks have used the excuse of their late draft positions or cap problems to try and hide their failings. But the Lightning, or the Bruins, or the Penguins, have faced all these obstacles the last five seasons and keep ending up at the top of the standings. It’s not about the obstacles. It’s about how you get around them. And if you’re blaming the obstacles, that tells you everything you need to know about your skills.

It’s quite simply, not good enough.

Hockey

Game #64 – Hawks vs. Lightning: Hedley Lamarr’s Mugs, Pugs, And Thugs

By Sam Fels 1077 0

A Bogosian-Coburn Pairing – We laud the Lightning for their ability to produce players and their forward-thinking ways in how to deploy them, but man do they love a lumbering, dumbass d-man. Especially if they’re old. Why a team this fast up front and with speed in the back as well would want to roadblock themselves by installing a couple of walking potholes on their second pairing is beyond us, and you could see where it might be a major problem against any of Boston, Toronto, Carolina, Washington or Pittsburgh down the road.

Cedric Pacquette – Still snorting the headlines from after Game 3 in 2015 about how he’s the ultimate pest and shutdown guy, even if he spent the next three games getting his ass kicked from pillar to post.

Pat Maroon – This guy very well could end up with two Cups in a row and forever wear a label of THE glue guy, and we’re fairly sure he couldn’t avoid a dying sloth.

Hockey

Game #64 – Hawks vs. Lightning: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 1040 0

Hawks

Notes: We assume this Seeler shit is over because Colliton went on at length at practice about the rest of the season being about the young players, and Carlsson counts in that. But nothing surprises us anymore…Boqvist returned to playing with Keith in St. Louis, as even Colliton couldn’t stomach Koekkoek being there anymore….which didn’t stop Maatta from having a terrible game, but again, nothing surprises us anymore…

Lightning

Notes: Could be a bit of a mash unit tonight for the Bolts. Coleman’s wife is having a baby so he might not play. Maroon is listed but he won’t, and Stamkos left their last game early and is out as well. They will probably dress seven d-men, as they have nine on the roster…which doesn’t mean they lack firepower, as Kucherov is only on a 17-game point-streak at the moment…Or Point who just had a 12-gamer end…

Baseball

Yes Movement – 2020 Chicago Cubs Player Previews: Bote Bote Bote…Bote!

By Sam Fels 1498 0

When you absolutely have to have a Cub do a kind of adorable yet still annoying gender reveal, David Bote is your man. And he might be the man for the Cubs at second and occasionally third and short, because there’s always a chance that Nico Hoerner stalls out in Iowa and there’s a much bigger chance that Jason Kipnis and Daniel Descalso are still dead. And while he causes more teeth-gnashing amongst Cubs fans for someone who came from basically nowhere and has been fine, if the Cubs had to turn to him it really wouldn’t be the end of the world. And then there are too many who mistake one ultra-dramatic home run for career-long success. There’s so much noise around a bit-part player. Let’s study the star man.

David Bote 2019

127 games, 356 PA

.257/.362/.422

.336 wOBA, 106 wRC+

12.4 BB%  26.1 K%

-1.4 Defensive Runs

1.5 fWAR

Bote had a pretty weird year last term. For one, he was a righty who couldn’t hit lefties, which doesn’t make any goddamn sense but it’s what we’re dealing with. Against right-handed pitchers he had a 115 wRC+, and against southpaws it was 80. Which was the complete opposite of what he did in 2018. So hey, if he could split the difference!. Also, he really started to hit after Joe Maddon had moved him out of the everyday lineup in the second half. And Maddon stopped playing him against lefties in the second half, giving him only 30 ABs against them. Which he did crush, but it’s only 30 ABs so who knows?

It wasn’t hard to figure out where to attack Bote though, as he couldn’t get to high fastballs nor lay off curves in the dirt, which doesn’t make for a very good combination.

Bote graded out as fine at second, though hardly superlative. But as the Brewers proved with the old-dog mobility of Mike Moustakas, you can kind of cover that up with shifts if you’re so inclined. The Cubs didn’t shift as much because Baez covered half the Earth anyway, but it might be something they try. Bote also graded out higher than you’d expect at short when Maddon finally figured out that Baez was dying of exhaustion, which might be something to consider if Hoerner isn’t up for a while.

YES! YES! YES!: For Bote to be more than just scenery, or slightly above scenery, he’s going to have to figure out how to hit a pitch above his waist. We know he has serious power low in the strike zone, and it’s something of a mystery why pitchers keep throwing him pitches there. But even just up in the zone, not above it, and Bote has been pretty much helpless. His desire to catch up to pitches there has made him susceptible to curves that tease being there and then gleefully dive for the sanctuary of his toes and his whiffs. If that continues to be a gaping hole, then this is his limit. If he shortens his swing a bit and can get there, than his plus-on base skills play even better.

And fuck, if you take simply his .362 OBP last year, put it in the nine-spot ahead of Bryant in the leadoff spot, he’ll score a fair amount of runs you’d have to believe. Really, you could do a whole lot worse as a placeholder for Hoerner, however long that might be.

You’re A B+ Player: Bote can’t close up that hole at the top of the zone, pitchers actually read a scouting report every time and his already too-high K-rate for a supporting cast member goes up. And he loses walks, which is what’s keeping him above water overall. Hoerner never claims the second base spot, and we’re left watching two corpses try and ooze their way toward competence between Kipnis and Descalso and Ross has to euthanize them in the 6th inning of some game in July behind a big blue curtain (assuredly sponsored by Sloan). At 27 when the season starts, it’s hard to picture how Bote improves that much but there is some room. He also watches his glove deteriorate and can’t even claim breaking even in the field.

But no matter what, he’ll be part of the Cubs pregame highlight reel for the next five years.

Dragon Or Fickle?: I’m higher on Bote than most, mostly because of the walks and the passable glove and occasional power. I don’t think he’ll completely split his ’18 and ’19 and be useful against both handed pitchers, but I also think there’s a decent chance he’s not an abortion against either as well. If he can just take high pitches the other way for singles enough to not have to see curveballs or get fastballs lower, he could end up being a real weapon. He’s clearly a player you don’t want to be in the lineup every day, but you’d rather see him than Descalso or Kipnis. If Hoerner can claim what’s rightfully his relatively quickly, then having Bote cycle in at a couple spots two or three times a week is ideal. And that’s probably what you’ll get.

Everything Else

Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dumb, Tweedle Dumbest

By Sam Fels 3178 0

If you truly want to be enraged, this piece from Scott Powers ought to do it.

All three members front and center of the administration, as it were, take turns showing their ass and incompetence in this. When you really get a look at who is steering the ship at all levels, you’ll be left with no faith that any of this is ever going to be fixed. This isn’t the captain failing to spot an iceberg at night. This is three people who don’t know what an iceberg is. Let’s go through the utter slime spilling from each of their mouths.

“I think going forward it’s pretty important that we have to know who we are,” McDonough said on ESPN-1000’s “Hockey Show” on Feb. 8. “We have to know where we’re going. I think we have to do our best to get back to great. But we have to do it in the right way. There has to be a process to it. We’re in a bit of transition right now. Where we are right now is not unexpected.”

If every Hawks fan didn’t drink a gallon of paint thinner upon reading this, I’ll be surprised. Anything to ease the pain.

First of all, this doesn’t mean anything. I’ll tell you who you are, Mr. McDonough. You’re an NHL team that plays in Chicago. There. Done. Boy, that was easy. And you’re not a particularly good one. All of this “right way” and “process” gobbledygook is just someone who doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about trying to sound smart. I’m a little surprised he didn’t find a way to work “synergy” and “proactive” into the conversation. It’s been three years of this horseshit, and just now they’re thinking about “a direction.” Left at Albuquerque, dimwit.

I also love this, “I think we have to do our best to get back to great.” Oh you do, do you? Fucking groundbreaking! What a discovery! Here every other NHL team is straining and scratching just to get their teams to “watchable.” But here comes Albert/Aristotle/Confucius McDonough and he’s got a new idea! He’s gonna strive for great! ELECT THIS MAN PRESIDENT OF THE GODDAMN UNIVERSE! HE WILL GUIDE US TO NEW HEIGHTS WITH HIS BRILLIANT AND TO THIS POINT UNHEARD OF IDEAS! ALIEN CIVILIZATIONS WILL TREMBLE AT HIS ACUMEN AND LAY DOWN THEIR PHOTONS!

Secondly, if this is not unexpected, then why did you fire Quenneville? If this was all part of your process, why wasn’t his performance up to par? And the day you did that, mind, you said this was a playoff roster. It’s going to miss the playoffs by open lengths for a third straight year. You expect us to buy this?

Do we know if McDonough is capable of tying his shoes?

Then it was Stan Bowman’s turn to open his mouth and remove all doubt.

“There’s no question we’re positioned better down the road,” 

Well… I have a question. What does a second and third round pick guarantee exactly? They’re lottery tickets. Sure, they could position you better in the future. And those players could end up with a squeegee in their hands in four years. Do they really think Slava Demin is going to change the Hawks’ fortunes? Those 23 points in two college seasons he’s played must’ve been really impressive.

But for where we’re at right now, it’s important to try to build up some assets and build for the future, and I think we’re in a better position to do that now than we were yesterday.”

If that was the goal, then Brandon Saad and Corey Crawford should have also been shipped out for whatever you can get. If gaining assets and solidifying the future was priority one, then you do that as much as humanly possible. If your aim is two or three years down the road (and we’ll get to that in a minute), then these players probably don’t matter to you. But what Stan did was half-ass it. Which he’s been doing for years. They didn’t pick a road, just paid lip-service to it while pointing in various directions to look like they’re doing something.

We haven’t even gotten to the good part yet.

“The biggest thing is in today’s game is having young players play an important role,” Bowman said. “I think the last couple years we picked in the top 10 the last two years. We hadn’t picked there I don’t know how many years it was, probably since we picked Patrick (Kane). So I think that’s where you get some of those high-end players. I think the challenge is to try to get as many of those as you can and then build from that way out. Luckily, we still have some other established players that are difference-makers.

Certainly hard to trade for. I guess it happens rarely when they become available. You typically have to draft them or develop them. Maybe trade for them or sign them as free agents.

“There’s no shortcut to it other than drafting and developing those players. Then the question is how do you acquire those? That’s what we’re trying to do, trying to acquire either young prospects or draft choices we can use to find that next group. 

I’m going to need to go lie down.

Let’s try and clear this out as best we can. Do you know how many top-10 picks anchored the Hawks’ Cup teams? Three. Toews, Kane, Seabrook. Keith was a 2nd-rounder. Bolland too. Same for Saad. Crawford as well. Hjalmarsson a 4th. Kruger too. Shaw a 3rd. Should I keep going? Good, because if I do my organs are going to bindle-up and thumb it out of my body.

Aside from Kane and Toews, the Hawks have two top-ten picks in the lineup now in Dach and Boqvist. How many more do you need, chumley? You have to do more than just hit in the first round. And you just turned down the chance to take more spins at getting those impact players. DeBrincat is the only player taken by the Hawks beyond the first round to have any impact in six fucking years, and that’s just going back to Vinnie Hinostroza. You probably have to go back to Saad in 20-motherfucking-11 to find a true one.

So you want to tell me more about your development system, Stanley?

Also, just off the top of my head, here are genuinely impactful players that have either been traded or moved as a free agent in just the past couple years: Taylor Hall, PK Subban, Jacob Trouba, Ryan O’Reilly, J.T. Miller, Erik Karlsson, Joe Pavelski, Tyson Barrie, Artemi Panarin, Matt Duchene, John Tavares, Phil Kessel, Jason Zucker, Jeff Skinner, Nino Neiderreiter. Funny, none of them went to the Hawks. Maybe Stan was too busy figuring out his formula and McDonough was trying to find a compass so he could learn how to use it so he could point the Hawks in a direction. That’s if he can figure out who they are first, of course. Seems to me you can find impact players in all sorts of ways.

“Yeah, I think if it was something that was known, if we knew exactly what the future held then you could have that conversation, but it’s just a lot of guesswork on everybody’s part as far as nobody knows what our team’s going to be year to year,” 

That quote right there is a fireable offense.

You’re the GM. You’re the one plotting the course. You’re supposed to know exactly how long it’s going to take for the Hawks to compete. It’s supposed to be laid out in your office. You’ve had three years of serving up trash, and you still can’t say how long it’s going to be? You’re supposed to know exactly when every prospect should be reaching the NHL. How much time they need in junior/college, AHL, and then your team. You know when every contract is up, and who will be a free agent every year from here until the ocean swallows us all (do I need to tell you about CapFriendly.com?) Tell you what, we’ll all turn our tickets back in and you can call us when you’ve got it figured out.

The Hawks have wasted three years, and are now not just telling the fans but their veteran players who actually eat the shit every night of losing that they don’t have a plan or an idea when they might be able to stop eating shit. Also, and I didn’t include quotes for this, but Stan goes on to say he doesn’t feel the need to talk to Toews, Kane, and Keith about what the plans are, exactly a year after he said that’s exactly what he would do. Which is probably best, because Keith might knife him at this point.

If you swapped Bulls and Hawks management for a month, would anyone notice?

Oh but don’t you worry, dear reader, because Jeremy Colliton got to spill industrial waste over his bottom lip and will have a Hazmat crew called in to clean up.

“My responsibility is to push these guys to play at their highest level every night, and particularly the young players, to give them opportunity to improve and couple that with feedback and accountability, as far as what they’re doing every day, so they can take a bigger and bigger role,”

I can’t.

This comes merely hours before Colliton called out his players for the second time in a week for not playing hard enough, for not paying attention to the details, for doing their own thing. Dylan Strome is on a wing. Adam Boqvist won’t move his feet with the puck in his or the neutral zone. Kirby Dach spent half the season on the fourth line. Dylan Sikura isn’t even here for Matthew Highmore. Lucas Carlsson was called up after Dennis Gilbert and then scratched for Nick Seeler.

Let’s go about it this way. Which young player is better now than when Colliton showed up? A grunt like Matthew Highmore? Valhalla here we come.

The goddamn plane has crashed into the mountain, my friends.

 

Baseball

Yes Movement – 2020 Chicago Cubs Player Preview: The Rizz-inator

By Sam Fels 1257 0

You know the Cubs offseason was even more off-kilter when Anthony Rizzo, perhaps the happiest and jolliest man on the planet, shows up at The Convention spitting fire. He was pissed about the attempts to trade Kris Bryant, he was pissed about the Cubs refusal to even discuss an extension with him, he was pissed that his owner is a billionaire who can’t seem to find the extra millions to keep the team together. And he was right. And seeing as how Rizzo is the unquestioned heart of this team, it will be he is the indicator of whether this team is going on a Fuck You Ricketts World Tour or is simply going to quit on the front office. I’m willing to bet it’s the former, especially with his Splinter David Ross as manager.

Anthony Rizzo 2019

146 games, 613 PA

.293/.405/.520

.390 wOBA, 141 wRC+

11.8 BB%, 14.0 K%

-6.9 Defensive Runs

4.0 fWAR

Amongst the trash of the 2019 Cubs season, it would be easy for most fans to forget that Rizzo had something close to a career year last year. Highest batting-average, highest on-base, third-highest slugging, second-highest wOBA Of course, some of this can be attributed to the baseball made of aliens. It was the slide in homers that cost him some other career-high numbers, but clearly this was another offensively dominant season from the double-cuatro.

YES! YES! YES!: There probably isn’t a bigger given than Rizzo. He’s been metronomic in his production, with only 2018 as anything resembling an outlier and even that was a 126 wRC+ campaign where he was basically undone by an unusual number of fly balls not leaving the yard. Every other year, Rizzo’s wRC+ is between 135-155, a wOBA of .380-.390, and so on. He hits 27-33 homers, and hits somewhere within 10 points either side of .280. You can just write it in.

There really isn’t anything to suggest that Rizzo won’t put that up again, unless you take his greater tendency to go the opposite way last year as a sign he can’t get around on the fastball anymore. But considering he slugged .679 when going the other way, it would make you think it was on purpose and he wasn’t just trying to jerk everything. Rizzo has always had power the other way, and is a supremely smart hitter, so this just seems part of the blueprint. This kind of suggests it was by plan too…

You’re A B+ Player: Rizzo has turned 30, so there is something of a fear that his decline, if not upon us, is right around the corner. Which is probably why the Cubs were a little hesitant to discuss an extension with him, as they might want to see what the next couple years hold for him. Rizzo’s contact numbers slipped just a touch last year, though they were still above league-average. But this is seemingly very nit-picky.

The main problem with Rizzo is health. The past couple of years, Rizzo has missed a handful of games due to back problems. And back problems don’t tend to get better as you get older. That was capped off by injuring his ankle at the end of the season, which he didn’t really have any business playing on in that Cardinals series last year, but he did it because his team needed him. We’re still talking about a player that appeared in 146 games last year, and even 140 games of Rizzo is enough. The Cubs would probably like more flexibility to get him more days off than they have, and maybe between Baez, Bryant, and Contreras they can find a way to do that. The worry is that the back starts to get worse in a hurry.

But when it comes to Rizz, that’s about it.

Dragon Or Fickle?: As stated above, Rizz is basically the surest bet on the Cubs. Bryant has his health issues, and whether he’ll even be allowed to stay, and how he’ll deal with the rumors flying all year. Javy’s wild ways can always swing cold for a month. Contreras and Schwarber have their contact issues. Rizzo doesn’t really have any of these, other than minor health questions. This year, he probably won’t even have to worry about where in the lineup he’ll be, as it looks like Ross is going to put him #2 and leave him there. So a 135-140 wRC+ season with the usual pretty good defense at first, and the unquestioned leadership.

That’s the one thing about Rizz, is that if he is the leader of this team, and everyone would tell you that he is, then the things that slid under Joe Maddon as far as focus and preparation are partly on him. He has to swing the hammer in the clubhouse, along with Lester and one or two others. Ross can only do so much. While Rizz is out there for the media and take the bullets that way, it’s been said he can be a little quiet in the clubhouse. That won’t fly now, if the Cubs are making their prep and focus a focal point of any turnaround. It’s on Rizz to make sure everyone’s on message. Because if he speaks, everyone will listen.