GOOD MORNING CHICAGO!
Happy Tuesday. We are officially less than a month away from both college and professional football kickoff.
The summertime is nearing a close, but all that means is an entrance into some of the best months of the calendar, September and October.
In October, in particular, we could be watching Justin Fields start football games for the Bears, college football, brand-new Bulls and Blackhawks teams, and the White Sox in the postseason as one of the three favorites to win the World Series.
Start ex-communicating people in your life who will take up time for no good reason in those calendar months now. And for the ones your can’t ex-communicate, try to get lunch or drinks with them 2-3 times for no reason over the next three to four weeks. They’ll have no idea you’re being an ass hole.
Before we get going on today’s newsletter, make sure to spread the word about the newsletter. I’ve had a bit of a lull in subscriptions, and also a dip in readership (I think a lot of that has to do with Google. Or maybe people don’t want Lonzo Ball breakdowns.)
Even for your friends and family that do subscribe, send them this newsletter today so they can be reminded to get this newsletter out of their promotions tab and into their primary inbox on Gmail.
Subscribe here:
Here are last week’s three newsletters:
Dig into those if you haven’t gotten the chance.
Let’s go.
I’m not like the usual Chicago baseball fan — thanks to this newsletter and a friend group made up of mostly Sox fans, I’ve grown to root for them more than I root against them, despite being a lifelong Cub fan.
But because a lot of Sox fans have created identities that are based 80% on the Cubs failures and 20% on the Sox’ successes, this Crosstown Classic was a bag of salt on the wound that surfaced at the trade deadline.
Watching Cubs games these days feels like being in your college town after your four years have passed. The same bars, the same streets, the same feelings, but with none of the people that brought those aspects of the town together to make it feel magical.
In other words, it’s pretty depressing.
Watching and listening to Steve Stone and Len Kasper announce Eloy Jimenez homers and Dylan Cease strikeouts in Wrigley Field felt like getting table topped and then promptly tea-bagged by two teammates before a football practice in middle school. Just a double whammy of embarrassment that leaves you looking up at the sky for a few seconds contemplating your life.
For God’s sake, look at what the Cubs are left to sell at Wrigley these days.
(Via Jon Greenberg on Twitter)
Ian Happ currently has a -0.3 WAR, a .177 batting average and an OPS 32% below league average. David Bote has been much better, though. He has just a -0.2 WAR, a .205 batting average and an OPS just 29% worse than the league average.
The Cubs viewership has dropped off so significantly that it’s already down 37% from 2019 and 28% from 2020, with the caveat being that there are other factors contributing to it, such as the shift over to the wonderful Marquee Sports Network that has yet to bring anything good to the franchise.
Meanwhile, the Sox broadcasts are up 123% from 2019, the largest increase of any team in the MLB.
Eloy Jimenez has been so good against the Cubs (and against the Twins last night) that I can’t even make fun of the fact that Tony La Russa had to pinch run for him on Friday when he was on third base in the middle of the game.
While the Sox fans rightfully talked shit to Cubs fans over the weekend (after all, they’ve waited long enough), Cubs fans were just scrambling to figure out who the hell the guy in the on-deck circle was.
At least I have the perspective of once watching the Cubs blow a World Series Game 7 lead and immediately seeing LeBron James flex with a ‘Cleveland v. Everybody’ shirt on to know that times have been worse. Therefore, Alex Rodriguez unsuccessfully trying to speak basic english as the Sox hit homer after homer is not my lowest point.
And if the Cubs have any sort of pride whatsoever, the agony should not last longer than half of a season. But I’d believe anything at this point.
On the broadcast, Buster Olney tickled my balls a little bit by saying he thinks Javier Baez could still be in play for this offseason. It doesn’t seem like that’s actually the case, but being that he was the one player I was dying to keep, it was enough to keep me hopeful — like a Bears win to get back to a game below .500 in Week 13.
The Cubs have great social media, always have. On the other hand, their public relations ineptitude as an organization is truly a sight to behold. A week after they got rid of every good remaining player they had, they announced the forthcoming opening of a sportsbook next to Wrigley Field.
The completion of Disney World Chicago is near, just without Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, or Goofy.
Maybe their ultimate goal is to get drunk fans betting on the Cubs over the next year while they’re losing 70% of their games — I wouldn’t put it past the Ricketts and Crane Kenney.
Back to the old college town analogy — the Cubs are hellbent on ripping our friends away and also tearing down our favorite bars to put in over-priced clubs and cheesy additions to a place that was alright in the first place.
Listen, I can gamble with the best of them. But for God’s sake, maybe — just maybe — hold off on that announcement for a couple of weeks.
Since the ostensibly revenue-generating Marquee Sports Network was put in place, as well as other investments such as the sportsbook, the Cubs have shed salary after salary on the field.
Sure, that may have been inevitable, but all the talk about those investments being a way to put a better product on the field feel very hollow for the time being.
Nevertheless, my reading patterns have changed with the Cubs over the past week and a half, and now I’m conservatively all in on anywhere from 15-18 prospects in the system.
Justin Steele makes his first start for the Cubs today at 1:20, and at least that will be worth watching.
As for the rest of the prospects and trade deadline returns, I’m going to put out an exclusive look at them in a newsletter over the next week or two.
Ryan Tepera — like I told you — has returned to being the good bullpen pitcher that he has been over the course of the year. Craig Kimbrel gave up a homer to Austin Romine, the latter of which looked like he was the 9th hitter on a house league team when the ball went over the fence, and has since returned to being Craig Kimbrel.
Meanwhile, Cesar Hernandez looks like an upgrade at second base defensively, and has hit the shit out of the ball in the 10 games since he’s been with the Sox. He’s at over a .300 average and 48% above league-average OPS over the small sample size that is his time with the White Sox.
It’s hard to imagine a bigger pick-up than Kimbrel, but given the role that Hernandez is playing, Rick Hahn’s biggest deal at the deadline may end up being the trade he made for him.
It hasn’t stopped Leury Garcia from playing everyday, as Luis Robert’s return did not last night. Garcia playing right now doesn’t matter, the Sox have played the weakest schedule in all of baseball and are over 10 games up in the division.
The question is whether he’ll still be in the lineup come playoff time. The obvious answer would be no, but I’m not so sure. The ultimate goal is to keep everyone healthy and happy come September and October, which makes Leury’s innings sensical. But I don’t know, man, old habits die hard.
On a brighter note, Eloy Jimenez and Luis Robert will now be in the lineup for the foreseeable future, and Eloy’s power looks so goddamn easy right now. He’s had back-to-back two-homer nights, and is getting to a point where I think he could easily walk now 15% more, given that power.
I think we were all prepared for Eloy’s comeback to take some time — whether that be weeks or a month or two. It took less than a week.
Dylan Cease’s stuff has looked incredible over his last few starts. While his ERA (3.99) is almost identical to last year’s (4.1), that’s not even close to telling the whole story. His FIP, which takes into account other factors that could lead to a pitcher’s ERA being higher or lower than it should be, is almost half of what it was last year. With a 4.1 ERA in 2020, he had a 6.36 FIP, and in 2021, he has a 3.9 ERA with a 3.35 ERA. That’s a massive leap. His WHIP is likewise down from 1.44 last year to 1.27 this year. He’s striking out 12 batters per 9 innings pitched, where as last year, he was striking out less than seven.
On the other end, he’s been far better at home than he has been on the road. He has a 2.2 ERA at home and a 5.86 ERA on the road, and opposing hitters are slashing far better against him as well.
His performances against better teams also leave room for improvement. Against teams at or above .500, he’s allowing a slash line of .248/.351/.376, which isn’t good. Against teams below .500, his strike out to walk ratio is 3.72 compared to a 2.35 and opponents are slashing .222/.297/.344 against him.
Some of that is logical, most pitchers will pitch less successfully against better teams. But come playoff time, Cease won’t be seeing the Royals or the AAA Cubs. He’s also seen 3x! the amount of hitters at the sub-.500 team level compared to the over-.500 level.
Just something to watch before we anoint him to the top-half of the Sox rotation and the top-10 (yes, I saw this yesterday) group of pitchers in the American League.
On Thursday at 6:15 p.m., the Sox will play in the Field of Dreams game against the Yankees in Iowa. That should be awesome, and I’m glad it’ll be Rodon taking the mound for the Sox in the matchup against the most talked about team in the league that’s not even in a playoff spot at the moment.
(If you play MLB the Show, they’ve added the Field of Dreams field to the game, which is cool.)
Can’t wait to drink beers for that game and argue about Dylan Cease.
The Chicago Bears and Justin Fields will play in an actual football game, in front of fans, this Saturday.
Fields highlights at this point would go for hundreds of thousands as NFTs, and the dude isn’t even the starting quarterback.
Nationally, Justin Fields training camp has been painted as if the next Pat Mahomes is blossoming in Lake Forest. Locally, where I’d recommend getting most of your information, the reporters tell a different story.
They’d tell you, and have told us, that Fields looks good. He has good throws and bad ones, good days and bad days. In other words, exactly what we should be expecting from a rookie QB in his first NFL training camp.
But we still are subject to guys like Louis Riddick — who I like — saying that Fields has coaches “fricken ecstatic.” Riddick and Matt Nagy are super close, so I take everything he says with a massive grain of salt. Plus, what else are coaches going to tell their friends in the national media? Ah, he’s looked alright thus far.
Bears coaches are ecstatic because they have a guy who could save their jobs on the roster now, and a guy not named Mitch Trubisky.
We have the right to be ecstatic about Fields as fans for obvious reasons, and I will remain ecstatic about him. But for, I don’t know, the fifth week in a row, I want to temper the expectations. It will do us — and Fields — well in the long run.
But on another note, Andy Dalton has reportedly had a good camp. Great. The Bears head-scratching move to sign him has been lost in the Fields hype, and I’m still sitting here wondering what exactly the plan’s point is. We know the plan — play Dalton no matter what and wait until next year, if possible, to put Fields in.
Why, though? The old conventional wisdom that rookie QBs need time is clearly not the case anymore. What they do need is reps. With Dalton, what is this Bears team’s ceiling this year? I don’t think it’s a super-bowl level team. Dalton didn’t win a playoff game in his prime, and he’s way past that.
Wouldn’t the obvious move be to put Fields out there to take his bumps and bruises in a year when the Bears actually have some weapons, so that before his rookie contract is up and we have to pay him a larger percentage of the salary cap, he’s ready to perform at a high level?
It just seems like we’re forgetting about what’s important this year because of the fact that we have Justin Fields at all.
The Bears also continue to face an almost insurmountable amount of injuries. They currently have 9 healthy O-Linemen in camp, when they should have around 15. These guys are playing on two teams — 1st and 2nd or 2nd and 3rd — most of the time, and there are significant guys out.
Teven Jenkins hasn’t practiced at all thanks to the back injury that’s been bothering him. That’s a major problem, especially because a back injury is especially tough to get through for an O-lineman. James Daniels is also now dealing with a quad injury.
If the Bears return to play again this year with a bad offensive line and a bad run game to match, it will be a colossal failure. And at that point, who cares who’s throwing the ball?
The NBA has launched an investigation into the Bulls sign-and-trade deal with the Pelicans that ultimately ended in the signing of Lonzo Ball. It will likely end up in a severe penalty, perhaps to the tune of $10 million, or worse, a 1st round draft pick.
The Bulls can simply not lose another draft asset after what they’ve given up for Vucevic, Ball, and DeRozan.
It’s patently ridiculous that this is a thing. First of all, “tampering” is clearly widespread in the league, and it’s blatantly obvious that the league picks and chooses when it brings the hammer down.
LeBron James’ agent, Rich Paul, literally orchestrated to get one of his clients (Anthony Davis) onto another team with his main client (LeBron) in the middle of Davis’ contract. There was no tampering there? Of course there was — it’s literally impossible that there wasn’t — and that ended up in a championship for the Lakers.
I won’t even get into how the Lakers probably circumvented the cap with Davis and promised him money elsewhere (like for his appearance in Space Jam 2).
The fact that the Bulls are the ones that will now be punished is total bullshit.
Having said that, this ultimately falls on the moron agents involved in this deal. They couldn’t wait to leak their clients deals so a complex, obviously pre-arranged deal was announced less than a minute into the free agency period.
Had those imbeciles waited 45 minutes, we wouldn’t be dealing with this. But they only think about themselves and how their deals will look on Woj’s twitter. Also, Woj reporting this investigation after being the reason that it’s happening in the first place is something else.
Lonzo Ball is a Bull, and that won’t change, but this is a serious organizational setback. Either the Bulls lose a major asset, or they lose a heap of cash. That may not seem like a problem, but it will probably make the Reinsdorfs pissed, which will lead to some owner-forced dumb move in the future.
Elsewhere, Denzel Valentine and Cristiano Felicio are officially no longer Bulls.
Marko Simonović, the Bulls’ Montenegrin second-round pick in 2020, will be on the Bulls this year. He has some talent as a near-7 foot, 220-lb athletic big. He looks a lot like Lauri on the court — a not strong, streaky shooter who can WOW you here and there. He had 15 points in the Bulls summer league opener.
Pat Williams looked like a man amongst boys in the same summer league opener, posting a 14/9/3 line in the first half alone. He cooled off a bit in the second half, but make no mistake, this kid is going to be a stud. And if he is, that takes the Bulls ceiling from one place to another. Williams’ development — considering all the Bulls other moves and an impending LaVine extension — is nearly as important to the Bulls as Fields development is to the Bears.
Lauri Markkanen has still not signed anywhere, meaning the Bulls could still get assets for him on a sign-and-trade. He claims he has plenty of offers, which, uh, is definitely not true. He won’t be back on the Bulls, though. We got Marko anyway. See ya!
Shout out to our guy Zach LaVine on bringing the Gold back from Japan. Great tournament for him and an invaluable experience.
We want home court advantage in the playoffs.
LETS GO BULLS.
Thank you, my SGCTC kings and queens, for reading the newsletter. Spread the word, comment, and enjoy the rest of your week!
Sox fans generally clearly care more about the Cubs woes than their own success. I, being a true Chicagoan, will support them in their quest unlike my Sox fan friends who literally contemplated suicide in 2016.
No comment on the Cubs, They are dead to me UNLESS they resign Javy!
I think the Bears situation is simple. If Justin Fields is a confident athlete who will take failures as a learning opportunity versus beating himself up, start him immediately. That is how you learn. Taking snaps.
I had not heard about the Bulls tampering charge. In this day and age in the NBA, every move involves some sort of tampering. Ridiculous!
Lastly, these football athletes who put all kinds of performance enhancing things in their bodies but won't get the vaccine?!?! Lamar Jackson just got Covid for the second time? Costing him 10 days. Eddie Goldman. who sat out last season because of Covid concerns doesn't get vaccinated and now is out with Covid?!?!?
The best part about watching Patrick Williams is that when he does something good I say he’s the next Kawhi and when he makes a bad play I say it’s cuz hes only 20 years old.