2016 WS Champions/Cubs Thread

[Scott Dierking]

Last team to choke away a 3-2 LCS at home was............. The Bartman Cubs.

 

Don't see it happening here.

[NJ]

1 hour ago, Lith said:

Great response by the Cubbies in these last two games.  They had been front runners all year, and I was really interested in seeing how they would respond after falling behind for the first time all season.  You really needed those two against Urias and Maeda.  One year ago today it was our time -- maybe tomorrow night is yours.  Good luck.

Thanks bro - the youngsters are still going to be streaky till there's some additional seasoning - but I'm beginning to think for the first time we may have enough maturation to get it done this year. Baez, Russell, and Contreras have grown up in a hurry and can cover the slack of Heyward and Zobrist.

[BP]

3 hours ago, NJ said:

Thanks bro - the youngsters are still going to be streaky till there's some additional seasoning - but I'm beginning to think for the first time we may have enough maturation to get it done this year. Baez, Russell, and Contreras have grown up in a hurry and can cover the slack of Heyward and Zobrist.

Good luck to your Cubbies, John. I'm rooting for you/them.

[SenorGato]

My favorite part of posting here when Cubs went down 2-1 in the series is that it gave hope to those emotionally invested in them losing. Act casually!

[SenorGato]

6 hours ago, JohnJ said:

I hope the Mets' Amed Rosario can come close to these two guys as part of the best young infielders in the MLB. Rosario has physically matured astonishingly over the last year.

He was a scrawny kid when he was first signed, and has blossomed into a grown man over the recent months. He's bigger than the guys mentioned and the ceiling of his potential is as high.

Rosario's going to be a stud. Hopefully for entertainment's sake guys like Conforto and d'Arnaud, still young post-hype guys, start doing what they have the potential to do given their backgrounds as hitters. Lots of people forget how good d'Arnaud was for the 2015 team when he actually healthy. Young catchers who can hit and defend do not grow on trees, which is why I'm a big Contreras fan already. I still feel like Contreras' emergence in AA last year was right below Bryant being Bryant as far as building an all around monster for the next 5-7 years with a chance to be historically ferocious between 2016-2018.

[SenorGato]

 

[JohnJ]

33 minutes ago, SenorGato said:

Rosario's going to be a stud. Hopefully for entertainment's sake guys like Conforto and d'Arnaud, still young post-hype guys, start doing what they have the potential to do given their backgrounds as hitters. Lots of people forget how good d'Arnaud was for the 2015 team when he actually healthy. Young catchers who can hit and defend do not grow on trees, which is why I'm a big Contreras fan already. I still feel like Contreras' emergence in AA last year was right below Bryant being Bryant as far as building an all around monster for the next 5-7 years with a chance to be historically ferocious between 2016-2018.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing this year with d'Arnaud. I got really down on him. Last year he was hitting, and driving the ball. And down the stretch he was leading the pitching staff and handling them well in game too.  

This year he looked like a different guy and his body language sucked. Somehow it looked like he lost all confidence and was very wishy washy the way he looked. I wonder if the throwing woes contributed to him losing his confidence. If that's the only thing then there's hope. He looked lost.

TC said they want to spend time on him to rehabilitate him and get him going again. They were trying to land Lucroy tho and even appeared ready to move on. We'll see.

 

We're gonna have an interesting Hot Stove, and there's a lot ways Sandy can go with what he does. He definitely has work to do.

 

 

[RutgersJetFan]

Oh my god. Second year into this and I think it's safe to say ARod is one of the best baseball analysts I've ever seen. ****. I am a lifelong ARod despiser and this is awful.

[SenorGato]

https://mobile.twitter.com/ESPNChiCubs/status/789891606543343616

SOME shot Schwarber can DH should they make the WS. 

On 10/17/2016 at 7:03 AM, Scott Dierking said:

 

 

[SenorGato]

Kris Bryant is a franchise player.

[joewilly12]

Looks like the Cubs are going to the World Series 

[billybroome]

Congrats to the Cubbies! 

[JohnJ]

Happy for Joe Maddon. Always liked him a lot.

 

Did like the Bartman Cubs team more tho and was really disappointed when that team lost

[RutgersJetFan]

My neighbor is in her 70s. Lifelong Cubs fan. Flies a W flag after every win like clockwork in all the years we have known her. She's completely bombed right now, hilarious.

[SenorGato]

On.y 4 more to go! 

[The Troll]

0000108


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[JustInFudge]

Congrats Cub fans!!! 

Should be a great series.

[SenorGato]

Something else I am enjoying is knowing this is just the beginning for the Cubs barring a catastrophic disaster. They'll basically be printing money moving forward. They're well on their way to being the premier player development franchise if they aren't already.  

[RutgersJetFan]

3 hours ago, SenorGato said:

Something else I am enjoying is knowing this is just the beginning for the Cubs barring a catastrophic disaster. They'll basically be printing money moving forward. They're well on their way to being the premier player development franchise if they aren't already.  

It's almost as if you started rooting for the franchise at exactly the right time.

[SenorGato]

6 hours ago, RutgersJetFan said:

It's almost as if you started rooting for the franchise at exactly the right time.

Sure buddy, whatever you need to believe. There there now, it will all be over soon. In the meantime just tell yourself all the stories you need. Interesting, sorry, "interesting" that this tale of yours only became a thing to mention this year.

----

https://theringer.com/the-postseasons-true-revelation-is-a-two-way-mystery-man-3e2e8585e6ba#.p8jmaliuw

Quote

 

With apologies to Javier Báez and Andrew Miller, the most impressive postseason performance of 2016 is taking place 4,300 miles away from the nearest MLB ballpark. On Sunday in Sapporo, Japan, in front of 41,000-plus fans, Shohei Otani, the best starting pitcher in Japanese baseball, did something that would have broken the baseball internet had it happened here. He got a save.

It was Otani’s first career save, but that undersells its significance. This save, which sealed the semifinals of the “Climax Series” — Japan’s perfect term for the playoffs — sent Otani’s team, the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, to the Japan Series, a seven-game showdown between the winners of the Central League and the winners of the Pacific League. In his one inning of work, Otani retired three consecutive hitters from the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, the two-time defending Japan Series champions. In the process, he threw two fastballs 165 kilometers per hour — 103 miles per hour, to those of us still spurning the metric system. That broke the NPB record of 164 he’d set in September, which broke the previous record of 163 he’d set in June.

Otani’s 2016 performance produced the most climax-worthy stats page since late-career Barry Bonds. In 140 innings, he struck out 174 and allowed only four home runs, finishing with a 1.86 ERA — an improvement on his 2015 performance, when he’d been one of the top three contenders for the Sawamura Award, Japan’s equivalent of the Cy Young. While he was at it, he hit .322/.416/.588 in 382 plate appearances, launching 22 home runs. And to top things off, he won the Home Run Derby. 

 

I remain supremely confident this guy will be wearing a Cubs uniform by the end of the decade. The whole article itself is a pretty solid summary of his dominance on the mound and how that might translate. 

[Scott Dierking]

@NJ and @The Troll

Good luck to you guys and enjoy this next week and a half, however it may turn out. You guys epitomize true Cub fans that have earned this opportunity to celebrate and enjoy the sport and team at the highest level.

I expect this week will provide you memories that will last your entire lifetime, and hold onto everything that this Series brings.

Best of luck and soak in every minute that you can.

 

[RutgersJetFan]

1 hour ago, Scott Dierking said:

@NJ and @The Troll

Good luck to you guys and enjoy this next week and a half, however it may turn out. You guys epitomize true Cub fans that have earned this opportunity to celebrate and enjoy the sport and team at the highest level.

I expect this week will provide you memories that will last your entire lifetime, and hold onto everything that this Series brings.

Best of luck and soak in every minute that you can.

 

+1. Long-time fans that are actually associated with this community and contribute to it. Have a lot of neighbors like that. Those are the ones that deserve it and I'm happy for them.

[GimmeShelter]

Best of luck to the Cubbies and their fans.

Looking forward to watching the series.

[SMC]

 

[SMC]

1 hour ago, RutgersJetFan said:

+1. Long-time fans that are actually associated with this community and contribute to it. Have a lot of neighbors like that. Those are the ones that deserve it and I'm happy for them.

Absolutely.  Fans in their 60s like Bill Murray never saw them in WS.  Crazy.

I was fortunate enough to be in Chicago in late September for a conference and a colleague of mine from the Chicago office was a Cubs season ticket holder (one of those who inherited from his dad) and I got to see my first game at Wrigley.  Wrigley didn't even exist in 1908 when the Cubs last won a title and there's no one still alive who went to see them play in West Side Park, so I wanted to be one of those who went to a game the year they won it all.

[RutgersJetFan]

24 minutes ago, SMC said:

Absolutely.  Fans in their 60s like Bill Murray never saw them in WS.  Crazy.

I was fortunate enough to be in Chicago in late September for a conference and a colleague of mine from the Chicago office was a Cubs season ticket holder (one of those who inherited from his dad) and I got to see my first game at Wrigley.  Wrigley didn't even exist in 1908 when the Cubs last won a title and there's no one still alive who went to see them play in West Side Park, so I wanted to be one of those who went to a game the year they won it all.

It's changed so much just in the past few years. Albeit a sh*thole of a stadium, before they put the new scoreboards in you really felt like you were walking into a time machine every time you stepped into that place.

Even Wrigleyville over the past 4-5 years. The dive bars are getting knocked off one by one in favor of catering to the yuppie crowd. It's insane to think that even a neighborhood like Wrigleyville could get gentrified because that concept is always so associated with race in the U.S. but that really is what has happened.

[SenorGato]

Lol @ the local message board politcians. I guess that's what has to be done when content or substance are nowhere to be had. 

[RutgersJetFan]

Holy crap. Rooftop tickets are almost a ******* stack.

[Jetsfan80]

Congrats to Troll and NJ.  Real fans even back during the tough times.  Hoping the Cubs win the WS for you guys. 

[SenorGato]

NJ and The Troll, please like me! You guys have hit my tried and true measures of #realfandom trademarked just today or yesterday. The formula is that you have to pick me over he. Please! Remember that a vote for me  and my party is a vote for love and hope! 

vanDoug feel free to go screw. You also do not meet my very real cutoff date you bandwagoning bandwagoner! This is serious business! Do you even have Cubs fan neighbors? Just so you are aware, I do! Just so you are aware, I do! Just so you are aware, I do! They are happy and old. Are you even happy and old, bruh? 

[SMC]

14 hours ago, SenorGato said:

Sure buddy, whatever you need to believe. There there now, it will all be over soon. In the meantime just tell yourself all the stories you need. Interesting, sorry, "interesting" that this tale of yours only became a thing to mention this year.

----

https://theringer.com/the-postseasons-true-revelation-is-a-two-way-mystery-man-3e2e8585e6ba#.p8jmaliuw

I remain supremely confident this guy will be wearing a Cubs uniform by the end of the decade. The whole article itself is a pretty solid summary of his dominance on the mound and how that might translate. 

Ahhh, the fan fallacy.  You're not guaranteed the future, just this season.  Cherish it.  Players get hurt, they under perform, and other teams may out bid the team for free agents  That's baseball. Think of Mets fans of last year or even Braves fans after 1995. The only sure thing in baseball is that there aren't sure things. 

[SenorGato]

33 minutes ago, SMC said:

Ahhh, the fan fallacy.  You're not guaranteed the future, just this season.  Cherish it.  Players get hurt, they under perform, and other teams may out bid the team for free agents  That's baseball. Think of Mets fans of last year or even Braves fans after 1995. The only sure thing in baseball is that there aren't sure things. 

Catastrophe is pretty much the only way the Cubs are not built to last. Braves finished in less than first place once in 15 years without the kind of money or market the Cubs will have and have. The 2015 Mets were built around an older lineup and a rotation with one non-surgeried young arm (albeit arguably the best RH in the game for the foreseeable future, barring catastrophe). That roster and team just were not in the same shape as the Cubs, performance and injury histories both bear that out. On paper the 2015 Cubs were a better team than the 2015 Mets, their follow up seasons also bore that out.

Just going with the numbers the 2016 Cubs actually underperformed expected W-L based on their periphs. This team, barring catastrophe, has as good shot at getting better next year with Bryant in the meat of his prime as well as a lineup of guys in their early-mid 20s. I've said it all year - 2016-2018 is well set up for some special sh*t to happen before their media rights are sold for top dollar.

 

[Scott Dierking]

38 minutes ago, SMC said:

Ahhh, the fan fallacy.  You're not guaranteed the future, just this season.  Cherish it.  Players get hurt, they under perform, and other teams may out bid the team for free agents  That's baseball. Think of Mets fans of last year or even Braves fans after 1995. The only sure thing in baseball is that there aren't sure things. 

The numbers have been computed. The contender to the Ming Dynasty will not be denied.

 

[SenorGato]

Don't pay any heed to Scotty. He's been wrong all year insisting that math makes less than whatever it is he even believes.

[Larz]

I have cubbies withdrawl, lol