Still Gotta Come Through Chicago
Bulls Nearing Destiny and Chicago Baseball Check-in
Good morning Chicago!
Big week — the first ever Still Gotta Come Through Chicago gathering will be held at O’Callaghans in River North at 7 p.m. on Saturday. If you read the newsletter, you’re welcome. Would love to see everyone. If you’re thinking about coming, just let me know. If you won’t know until day of, that’s alright.
We have a private floor — the third floor — for four hours and it will be a cash bar. All I ask is that you be respectful of the bar, they’ve been generous hosts leading up to the event.
No wristbands or anything, just show up and have a great time. Bulls are currently a TBD for a time slot Saturday, which is really screwing up my plans. Literally the only game that has not had a set time all season. It’s due to the play-in and playoff implications of each game, and I assume they’ll want to stagger the ones that matter the most.
If I contact the league office to let them know they’re really fucking up the biggest party plans of the entire spring, I’m sure they’ll make sure it works. The game was originally set to be at 7, so I’m hoping it stays that way.
Also, if you ordered a shirt, I’ll have those to you ASAP. I’ve already delivered about half of them, and figure I’ll be able to get the other half delivered this week. If you haven’d paid me, that’s totally fine — just send that to @Andrew-Donlan on Venmo when you get the chance.
There are just a few large t-shirts left before we’re all sold out, so if you want one, act accordingly.
Thanks again to everyone who bought a t-shirt and to everyone who is coming out on Saturday. I very much appreciate the support — and I am looking forward to a get together that has been two years in the making.
As always, get someone to subscribe today!
Let’s go!
I’d never want to do this on this platform, but I’m afraid I must begin this email pleading for a new job.
My boss, who is a SGCTC subscriber, messaged me the other day that he had a dream that Zach LaVine decided to leave the Bulls in the offseason.
It’s all down hill from here. The company won’t be profitable by year’s end.
If you remember, I wrote a couple weeks ago about my nightmare that Tomas Satoransky was on the injury list for a game against the Celtics.
That psychotic behavior is becoming contagious, I’m afraid. A successful entrepreneur with a family — who began the year a casual Chicago sports fan — is now having bad dreams about a 29-39 Bulls team losing a player this summer.
The next logical step will be him watching meaningless Bulls games in lieu of a show with his wife. Before he knows it, he’ll be with my friends and I at a Christmas Eve Bears game chanting “WE WANT FIELDS!” with his shirt off. His kids will be mortified when they turn on the television to see Daddy running up and down the stadium stairs because the Bears made a field goal to cut their deficit to 17 deep into the fourth quarter.
Once you’re thirsty, you’ve already lost the hydration battle, every father in America says, with no real scientific backing. Similarly, once the SGCTC lifestyle penetrates your subconscious, it’s already too late.
When you hear someone saying ‘Why would anyone care about the Bulls?’ in public, you think it may just be your duty to answer the question and perhaps call them a fucking moron in the process.
You’ll argue with a grocery bagger in Boston over LeBron/Jordan — that’s a true story from one subscriber.
You may ruin Christmas Eve dinner because you had a few too many Miller Lites at the Bears game, another true story from a subscriber that’s been documented here before.
You may even start leaving nonsensical voicemails on your friends’ phones because Kawhi Leonard chose the Clippers over the Lakers in free agency, and you somehow think that is a topic that anyone wants to talk about at 2 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Or that it matters in the grand scope of your life.
The question is whether this was the goal of the newsletter, or if it’s gone too far.
Either way, one things for sure. I’ll need a job by mid-summer because an entrepreneurial mind will have become poisoned with trivial hypotheticals to ponder like: would you rather want Justin Fields to become a hall-of-famer — but no championships are guaranteed — or for the Bulls and your favorite baseball team to each be the 1 seed in their respective conferences or leagues in four of the next ten years, also with no championships guaranteed?
But I guess if I do lose my job, I’ll have enough money to get by… after the Bulls win their 30th game this week and we all cash in on the over/under for the season win total…
LETS GO BULLS!
Before we get to the Bulls, actually, I need to quickly point you to some recent Theo Epstein comments, because they are too on brand for this newsletter to not mention.
On a recent Bill Simmons Podcast, Epstein was asked who the drunker fanbase was post-title: the 2016 Cubs fans or the 2004 Boston Red Sox Fans?
Here’s his response:
I will go with Chicago, because one thing they have over Boston is that they’re more into day drinking. With the Red Sox, I feel like that was more in bars and in houses at night. And in Chicago, after they suffer through the winter… if the sun is out and the temperature is over, like, 48 degrees — they’re having a good time doing a lot of outdoor day drinking. So I’ll probably give it to the Cubs for that one.
Plus, it was 108 years as opposed to 86.
Epstein remains one of my all-time favorite Chicago sports figures. For one, it is almost underrated how unbelievable it is that he ended both of those World Series droughts. In the Cubs case, they won the World Series in fifth year of what he literally dubbed a “Five-Year Plan.”
He is also just a humble guy. In addition to the aforementioned, he also completely advanced team building, but rarely talks about himself or his practices as if he’s some omnipotent baseball mind.
It always angered me when Cubs fans would criticize him later on when things weren’t as good as they were before. You should be forever grateful for what he did for this team and the city.
Also, he never fell in the trap of giving more due to his time in Boston, despite the fact that he’s a New Englander and was on a New Englander’s podcast. That, I very much appreciated. SGCTC-certified for life, Theo is.
He also completely nailed this question — even to exact degree. If it’s 48 degrees — but sunny — in Chicago, the amount of texts you get before 11 a.m. asking what your plans are almost triple.
Now back to the Bulls, who are potentially reaching 30 wins tonight and lining our pockets ahead of the SGCTC party on Saturday. The beers pay for themselves when you believe in your Chicago Bulls and subscribe to SGCTC.
If you didn’t heed my advice, you can stand in the corner all night and pay for your drinks with the paycheck you worked 50 hours the previous week for. Idiot.
The Bulls last few games have given us an eye into what kind of team they can actually be. Since both Zach LaVine (from COVID) and Nikola Vucevic (injured) returned to action, the Bulls are 3-0 and have outscored their opponents by 55 points combined. More importantly, LaVine and Vucevic have played well together and with each other, giving a glimpse at how deadly a pick and roll could be between the two next season.
The tragedy of this season is that we didn’t get to see this iteration of the team in time. The deadline stymied progress momentarily (for good reason, half the team was different afterward), and then LaVine’s 11-game COVID absence was sort of the nail in the coffin.
Without LaVine being out, I think the Bulls are likely in the play-in game as of today. Instead, they’re 2.5 games out of it with four to play. Will it be hard? Absolutely. But there’s still a chance.
The Bulls would have to either catch the Wizards (2.5 games back) or the Pacers (3 games back).
The best case scenario is the Bulls win tomorrow against the Nets (and secure those 30 wins) and beat the now-tanking Raptors Thursday. That would leave the Nets again and the Bucks to close out the season, with the major caveat being that both those teams may not be playing their starters anymore. A 4-0 record the rest of the way is more feasible than it seems, but still unlikely.
If they did complete the season on a 7-game win streak, however, they’d need the Pacers or Wizards to lose all but one of their last three or four. Here are their schedules:
Wizards last three: @ Hawks, Cavs, Hornets
Pacers last four: 76ers, Bucks, Lakers, @ Raptors
Bulls: Nets, Raptors, @ Nets, Bucks
It’s certainly not impossible. I rooted as hard for the Cavs to beat the Pacers last night as I have for the Bulls all season.
What really stings, though, is that if the Bulls did make the play-in, they’d face teams teams they dominated in the regular season: the Celtics, Hornets, Wizards, or Pacers.
The Wizards would be the most formidable foe, but it would have (could be) really fun to see the Bulls play in one or two winner-takes-all matchups against those teams.
What could have been, but that’s COVID.
Another tremendous development of late has been Coby White’s performance. He’s been night-and-day from some of his low points early on in this season, so much so that play-by-play announcer Adam Amin called him, Vuc, and LaVine “The Big Three” the other day. Let’s calm down there, Adam.
But here are their numbers over the last three:
I don’t want the Bulls to lose out to get better lottery odds. For one, if their ping pong balls don’t land them in the top-4 of the draft, they’ll lose their pick anyway to the Magic. Any percentage increase they’d get at this point would be negligible, and they’ve lost enough games over the last four years.
Remember when the Suns missed the playoffs narrowly last year but won eight straight games to end the year, and then Chris Paul joined them thanks to their promise, and then they became one of the best teams of basketball? Let’s err on the side of that, and not lose games for potentially no reason.
Let’s fight for that play-in spot, and if it doesn’t go our way, at least show our players, the fans, and future potential players that we’ve got something good going on in Chicago.
But most importantly for you all, let’s get that 30th win. There were times where the Bulls looked like they’d get there easily, and times where I got berated by (so-called) friends because it looked like it could be close. Either way, the time has come.
If the Bulls win any of their last four games, they will reach the over (41.5%) of their games. If you bet with some bookie that had their win total at something higher than 29.5, you should get a new bookie, but rest assured you’ll probably win that too.
I’m borderline emotional now that this storyline is coming to a close. It began with a hype video last year, and we weren’t able to see it through. Another hype video kicked us off this year, and now we’ll be able to hopefully celebrate it like we planned to do on Saturday. Your hard work, diligence, and investment in the Bulls and this newsletter hopefully will pay off sooner rather than later.
Here’s what I said in December, and I’m not looking back at it with any regret now:
How you view the Bulls now will not be how you view the Bulls in June — that’s a promise.
And when the Bulls go, say, 34-36, you’ll wish you believed in them. And you’ll wish you had that extra cash in your pocket to join us at the Bulls OVER party somewhere in downtown Chicago where everyone will be vaccinated and the new roaring ‘20s will be kicking off.
We’ll dance, we’ll sing, we’ll hug. Everyone will enter the bar with “Sirius” playing and then we’ll convince ourselves that the Bulls may be on the verge of a championship in 2022.
And it’ll break my heart if you miss out on it.
So let’s do it.
The Bulls, depending on how successfully they recruit free agents, will be good next year. How good depends on how well they can fill their needs this offseason. Obviously some luck in the draft to keep their pick would help, but if not, I have faith that Arturas Karnisovas will make moves to better our team and build on this year-end momentum.
I don’t see a way that the Bulls are not a top-5 team in the East next year, frankly. And I’m looking forward to enjoying a long-awaited return to the playoffs with you all.
LETS GO BULLS and let’s get this goddamn W tonight.
The Cubs and their players have really had a tail of two seasons. Excluding the first dozen or so games, the team has been a good hitting one.
We can’t exclude those games, though, so we’ll have to do with a .500 record and the hope that the hitting stays close to where it is and that the pitching can remain serviceable.
Another series win over the Pirates after a sweep of the Dodgers was still encouraging, especially because in the lone loss Kyle Hendricks was subject to maybe the worst luck in a start I’ve ever seen. The Pirates manufactured a handful of runs on some of the least well hit balls you’ll ever see become hits, and the Cubs still almost came back and won in the 9th against one of the best closers in all of baseball.
Kris Bryant currently ranks first in the national league in doubles and slugging percentage, and second in home runs with nine.
Javier Baez is all the way up to a 123 OPS+, or 23% better than the average hitter. If you took away his first dozen games, the conversation around him would be closer to a 2018 one than the 2020 one. His OBP still remains a problem, thanks to a heightened strike out rate, but things are looking generally positive.
What’s not looking positive is the health of the team. Jake Marisnick, who has been a godsend for the Cubs (.264/.350/.623), hurt his hamstring in the series finale, and will likely be out for a few weeks. Happ and Hoerner are still dealing with the fallout from their collision, and Heyward (who’s already really struggled this year) is dealing with a hand injury. Arrieta is still dealing with a cut on his thumb.
Zach Davies had a tremendous start the other day, and I’d expect him to progress to his mean — which would be a generally good pitcher. Adbert Alzolay hasn’t gone far into games this year, but he’s been great in the innings he’s thrown. His ERA still remains above 4, but he also has one of the best WHIPs in the league among starting pitchers. That and his lower 3.7 FIP (fielding-independent pitching) number suggest that ERA will improve. He’ll go against Shane Bieber tonight, which will probably be an impossible counterpart to match, but I’m excited about what he could become this year.
The Cubs are just a few games back in the division, but remain in fourth place. I imagine this race will be one that isn’t decided until the waning days of the season.
If they can get over the injuries, they should be there in that race, and we can all again wonder why the fuck we traded Yu Darvish this offseason.
In other news, David Ross is dating an actress from Chicago Med. I have no idea who she is nor do I watch any of those shows about Chicago’s various civic departments that are seemingly popular. So I don’t have much to say besides congrats on finding new love to David Ross, who’s mostly been good this year.
Here’s a very cool story about the Iowa Cubs owner, who made sure all of his employees stayed on payroll throughout this last year:
Beth Mowins took over for Boog Sciambi this past week in the booth, and I thought she did a fantastic job. A trailblazer in the industry, she deserves a ton of credit — especially because she gave no room for weird dudes on Twitter to get mad that a woman was announcing a baseball game.
You probably recognized her voice, and that’s because she’s been the narrator of your Saturdays from around 11-2 in the fall if you like college football and the Big Ten.
Amidst a flurry of criticism, Tony La Russa did not help his case this past week when he was forced to admit that he didn’t know the extra innings rules. Because he did not know the rules, he put his pitcher — Liam Hendriks — on the base path for no reason.
Hendriks double-switched into the game in the ninth, and therefore was placed in the order where the last out took place in the top of the inning (they were playing the Reds, an NL team). But the rules state that if that place is now occupied by a pitcher, you can use the preceding hitter as the runner on second in the next extra inning.
I actually knew this rule thanks to (I think?) Jason Benetti. That’s not good that I know it and La Russa did not.
In other words, there was no need to put Liam Hendriks on the base path. There was also no need to steal Leury Garcia from first when the leading run was on third with one out, especially because throwing him out was made easier because Hendriks was on third and not a threat to steal home on the throw down to second.
It was a tough look for him, certainly. But like I said last week, at this point, there’s not much you can do but shrug, flip off Jerry Reinsforf symbolically, and keep rooting for a team that’s still plenty capable of winning the division.
Yermin Mercedes, after a short-lived cold streak, reignited his improbable rookie run this past week. His .380 average in his first 100 at-bats is the best for a White Sox hitter since Gus Zernial (.390) in 1949, according to Mark Potash of the Sun-Times.
It’s hard to understate how important Mercedes has been for the Sox. With Eloy Jimenez being out since the start and the more recent Luis Robert injury, he’s allowed the Sox to plug in lesser hitters and remain one of the more powerful lineups in the league.
From an OPS+ perspective, the White Sox only have two players that were perceived to be starters that are under league average: Adam Eaton (90, 10% below average) and Yasmani Grandal (82, 18% below).
Eaton has really struggled of late after a great start, but will probably be closer to average throughout the year. Grandal, on the other hand, has had one of the stranger starts to a season you’ll ever see.
His average is .113, which is awful. His OBP is .378, which is great. He’s walked 27 times in just 22 games, which is incredible. He has just seven hits, though, which is astonishing.
For someone that is struggling that much hitting, it remains a mystery why he’s been able to walk so much — excluding his plate discipline. This would be the worst hitting season he’s had by far, though, so I also wouldn’t expect him to keep on this same track.
I did say “perceived staters” earlier, though. Leury Garcia and Billy Hamilton, whichever way you slice it, are two of the worst hitters in all of baseball. And they’ve certainly played enough to make those stats mean something.
Danny Mendick has been one of those fill-ins who’s really worked recently, and he’s hitting .333 through his first 30 plate appearances. More Mendick and more Adam Engel, once he’s returned from a hamstring issue, will help round out the Sox new and not improved — but not bad, at all — lineup.
The Sox pitching starting pitching has been so good that Lucas Giolito — the staff ace — has looked like the ugly duckling. He’s got the worse ERA by a pretty wide margin. But that’s more good news than it is bad: Dylan Cease, Carlos Rodon, and Lance Lynn have all been fantastic, while Dallas Keuchel has been as expected.
Throw in Michael Kopech’s spot starts and you have one of the premier rotations thus far in the entire league.
The Sox lead the division currently, and play the Twins and Royals in each of their next ten contests.
The Blackhawks ended their regular season Monday, finishing off their season at 24-25-7. It was a somewhat positive year for the Blackhawks, considering expectations. They got younger at the trade deadline, competed for the playoffs until the last few games of the season, and Patrick Kane had another brilliant year.
But it’s tough to view it that way. Kane is not getting any younger, and minus a manufactured entrance into the playoffs during a COVID year, they’ve failed to quality for the playoffs in four straight years. It’s been five since they won a playoff game.
Even if they outperformed expectations this year, and despite the run they had in the past, going five years without a playoff win when you have one of the best players in all of hockey under contract is awfully discouraging.
Jonathan Toews is supposed to be back next year, but he’ll return likely with less firepower than he had before. Who knows how his absence affected this particular team — it likely did in ways that cannot be quantified. But he’s also getting older, and won’t be around for forever to be both a leader and a quality hockey player.
The parity in the NHL is arguably unmatched. There’s a reason why the Hawks run was so impressive, but it also begs the question: how have they not been able to turn it around quicker in these last four or five years?
It feels like that’s the question every fan should be asking themselves and the front office heading into next season.
Thanks for reading, thanks for subscribing, thanks for buying t-shirts, and thanks for drinking beers with me on Saturday.
LETS GO BULLS, STILL GOTTA COME THROUGH CHICAGO, and COMMENT NOW:
THE EVENT WILL BE HELD SATURDAY, NOT Sunday, as an earlier version stated.
I agree with Chuck. Definitely going to be a sad day when the season is over. Nothing like getting fully invested in an 11th seed NBA team. Then coming to a platform to express our feelings about the games with our peers. Although, I confidently believe their final record is not a great representation of their year. Still took significant strides from last year. And we are a covid exposure away from the play in games. Not losing hope yet though. If I did not have a minor issue with gambling, I would be ten times more excited for these upcoming games. BUT, I will be living vicariously through you and all of the SGCTC readers who hammered it the season total over. See you Saturday