Chicago, it’s been far too long.
Thanks for opening the newsletter and giving me another chance. It’s always good to have a party for your blog and then not write anything for, like, three weeks.
Another newsletter will be published Friday as well.
We had, at one point, over 50 people — or capacity — at the first ever SGCTC party event. Can’t express my appreciation to everyone that came out to support and enjoy everyone’s company.
At about 7:10 it was just me, my father, and my little brother. My little brother gave me a pity-filled look that I had not seen since I used to ask him to watch iCarly with me when I had no friends in the 7th grade. Thank God you all assured him later that people do in fact read this newsletter.
For those of you who haven’t gotten your shirts (should be just a few of you), I’ll have them to you within the week. If you haven’t paid me yet, no worries, just send that over to my Venmo at Andrew-Donlan. $28 big ones.
Trying to explain why there was a party taking place to significant others was a real treat. Went the “We bet on the Bulls to win over 30 games” route a few times and the “Uh it’s this newsletter I write” route on another, and all ended up at the same place: them nodding and kind of thinking I was a weird guy.
A lot has changed in the weeks since the party, though. The city of Chicago is going to be fully opened by this Friday, and you can feel it on the weekends now. It feels so normal that I’ve already started to get annoyed by crowds a little bit.
Rather than a hot girl summer or white boy summer (s/o Chet Hanks), I think we’re going to have to make this a dive bar summer.
Steer clear of any bar that has neon lights that say “You’re the prettiest girl in the world” or “Feed me tacos and call me pretty” or “Dump him” or something like that. Maintain physical distance from any bar that you see on Instagram more than twice per week.
With a lot of bars shut down, the ones that are open are jammed. It’s great, but I’m still not a fan somehow of people bumping into me and waiting 35 minutes for a drink with my credit card out like an ass hole at the end of the bar.
The bank account has also become normalized, meaning down significantly. When Tom Thibodeau (God Bless his heart) won the NBA Coach of the Year last night, I cashed in on probably my best future bet ever (next to our Bulls bet, of course). I got odds at +3600, which meant that I got a pretty significant pay day.
I’m not here to brag about that, because when I received the money, I sighed more than celebrated. When you are relying on the income of long-shot NBA future bets, it’s a good sign that you should probably scale back on the “hey don’t worry I got this round” move.
Because that’s also back, getting drinks for people at the bar and realizing toward the end of the night that they have absolutely not gotten drinks for you. Now, in the year 2021, that leaves you a choice: Venmo request them, sorta uncomfortably, four days later? OR just lose the money and live for the next weekend, hoping that Tom Thibodeau wins NBA COY.
I generally choose the latter approach.
Lori Lightfoot recently tried to propose a provision that would prohibit liquor stores from selling past 10 p.m. permanently. That was a pretty good key-in to the idea of “privilege,” because I was absolutely outraged at a politician for the first time in a while.
I also took part in an interview of her one time when I was in grad school and had no real opinion on her. Then she said “critically important” three times in like five minutes, and I liked her a little less after that for sure. Kind of gave me Matt Nagy press conference vibes.
The idea is that it would stop violence outside of liquor stores, or something like that. But the question is: Does stopping the sale of liquor at 10 p.m. cause more or less problems? I don’t know. I may start a fight if I can’t get a six pack after a softball game on a Thursday night.
Then again, abstaining from those late-night sixers may be a good idea. Last time I got a little too buzzed on a Thursday I wrote an emotional ode to my father and the 2001 Bulls because they won their 31st game of the season, cashing our bets and landing them in the 11th overall spot in their conference.
Lightfoot has done a good job of getting everyone to hate her, which is a thing Chicago mayors are especially good at. I always think it’s funny that Rahm Emanuel thought he was going to be the next president of the U.S. and then Chicago’s residents just put him through the blender year after year and now he just does spots on cable television here and there.
What else is there to talk about in Chicago? The idiots that proclaimed Chicago would “never be the same” are losing that battle day by day. If you went outside on a Saturday any of the last few weekends you may mistake it for Panama City during Spring Break circa 2015.
Likewise, the baseball fans that proclaimed either the Cubs season over (me, sort of) or the Sox season over (after losing either Eloy Jimenez or Luis Robert) are also looking pretty dumb.
Finally, the Chicago LeBron Stans have been retired, at least until next year, when they pop back up from the rat-infested trenches they inhabit. I can finally enjoy the NBA playoffs without raising my blood pressure every other night because of something LeBron did on or off the court. The question that still remains is what is worse: LeBron Stans in Chicago or Green Bay Packer fans in Chicago? I’m sure there’s at least one reader that’s both. And whoever you are, you’re a dork.
Anyway, let’s get into some Chicago sports, heading into what promises to be an all-time Chicago summer.
But before we do, I must ask something of you all. A good Catholic reader has been rumored to be upset about me using the term “Jesus Christ” in the newsletter. I am a slave to the readers so I will try to take it out of my SGCTC vernacular. If I sway away from this promise, please hold me to it, so help me God.
Let’s go.
The White Sox are not only good, but also extremely entertaining. Their fans are so thrown off by these facts that they like to spend time on Twitter either bitching about inconsequential issues or slandering my name by calling me biased.
Nonetheless, I have a job to do and plan to do it.
So instead I will point to the fact that the White Sox are legitimate World Series contenders, which seems obvious if you’ve watched them at all, but has not gained all that much momentum on a national scale.
The Sox have a 3.25 ERA collectively as a team, which is good for the 3rd overall mark in the entire league and the best in the AL. Their starting pitchers have a 3.04 ERA, the best in AL and the second in the MLB, and their relievers have a 3.65 ERA, which is good enough for 9th overall in the league and 6th in the MLB.
Some bullpen arms have struggled, and they’re still a top-third group. Liam Hendriks performance has been a point of concern at times, and yet he’s coming off an AL Reliever of the Month nod. The bullpen is undoubtedly better than even their 9th overall numbers suggest.
The hitting has been there all year. The Sox are the second or first best team in baseball, depending on what metric you’re looking at, and collectively bat 13% better than the average hitter according to wRC+, which is an advanced hitting statistic that accounts for outside variables such as stadiums.
Yermin Mercedes, who was a godsend early with Robert and Jimenez gone, has cooled off considerably. Still, he managed to break his slump — which included a lot of ugly two-strike approach stuff — at the right time, hitting a game-winning home run last week.
Anyone who thought Mercedes would keep up at the pace he was at is, well, an idiot. But what matters is that he was good enough when the team needed him to compensate for the Sox stars who started off slower.
Now, his services are still needed, but less.
Yoan Moncada is hitting 43% better than the average MLB hitter on the year now with an .855 OPS. Since his low point in Mid-April, he’s slashing .338/.469/.492 — an MVP-level clip.
Over that exact same period, Jose Abreu is slashing .296/.370/.568, which is not that far off from his 60-game production last year, when he did win MVP.
With the caveat, of course, being that there is plenty of baseball to be played — the Sox have the greatest division lead of any team in baseball. They’re up four games on Indians as of Monday.
That’s all without two of their best, most productive players.
Adam Engel has returned from his bout with a nagging hamstring injury, which will help the Sox in the one area they’re not particularly good at: fielding. It will also mean less Leury Garcia and Billy Hamilton, the latter of which just went to the IL.
(Hamilton, for all of his shortcomings, is still a joy to watch at age 30.)
The Sox would probably be better off without their manager, who continues to bunt in obscure situations, but they’re still really good nonetheless.
When is the last time a first place team added two players of Robert and Jimenez’s stature past the trade deadline?
As I began to write this section of this newsletter, Adbert Alzolay just came out of the game grimacing after throwing two 90 MPH fastballs. Two innings prior he hit 96 MPH.
If there’s something that the Cubs couldn’t afford to lose, though it seems like they’ve lost almost everything at one point or another, it was a reliable starting pitcher. As of tonight, Alzolay had thrown the second-most innings on the Cubs staff with the best ERA.
His progression as a starting pitcher for me has been one of the highlights to watch this season, and now his availability is up in the balance.
(Update: he left the game with a blister on his throwing hand. And I’m watching a baseball game at 12:30 at night.)
The Cubs success this year — they are still atop the NL Central as of this writing — has been especially impressive because the injury blows they’ve been dealt.
Still, the focus point has to be the bullpen. A major pain point in year’s past, the Cubs ‘pen has posted a 2.68 ERA this year, the second best in all of baseball. They went through a stretch in May where they gave up zero runs, and have a diverse range of arms to offer, even on nights when the starting pitching doesn’t last until the latter half of the game.
Their six most utilized relievers — Craig Kimbrel, Keegan Thompson, Dillon Maples, Dan Winkler, Andrew Chafin, and Ryan Tepera — all have 2.3 ERAs or below. Chafin, Tepera, and Kimbrel are all averaging less than one baserunner allowed per inning.
Putting one of the less-explored relievers in a starting role may make sense if injuries persist. After all, the starting pitching has been pretty sub-par in the first place.
The differences in this year’s Cubs teams don’t end with the bullpen arms, though.
The starkest difference has been the no-name (or seemingly so) players that have catapulted themselves into the starting lineup this year. Besides Eric Sogard, the Cubs have mostly been able to get away from the Daniel Descalso-level players filling in.
Patrick Wisdom, a former first rounder who has bounced around and hardly seen big league playing time, just won NL Player of the Week in essentially his first week in the majors as a Cub. The dude has seven home runs in 40 plate appearances.
Likewise, the 24-year old Sergio Alcantara is hitting .400 in his first eight games as a Cub.
Even with the other surprise names out of the lineup, like Matt Duffy (IL) or Jake Marisnick (now back), new names have filled in quite well. That Dodgers-esque shit is so foreign to me as a Cubs fan, and is a very welcomed development.
As for the larger names, there’s no real update on Kris Bryant, because he’s maintained MVP-level status throughout the year. While playing a different position seemingly everyday, he’s maintained an elite slash line.
We’ll get to the inevitable trade question later, but as of now, I just can’t see the Cubs trading a guy of that caliber — especially if the correct value isn’t there in return.
Javy Baez is battling a thumb injury. Nico Hoerner is out. The majority of the Cubs position players have missed some sort of consequential time, and yet they are right in the hunt in the division.
Since mid-April, similar to Abreu, Anthony Rizzo has been his usual career self — a .280 average, .380 OBP guy with an OPS significantly above league average. He had another couple of hits in tonight’s game.
Likewise, Ian Happ has been quite good (he just homered). Since May 1, he has a .819 OPS.
With the Cubs best players playing well and a division race well in reach, it raises the obvious question: whether to buy or sell at the deadline.
There’s nuance to this discussion, I believe. For instance, it makes more sense to trade Kimbrel — an older reliever pitching very well on the last year of his deal — than it does Bryant or Rizzo.
The Cubs would be worse off without Kimbrel, obviously, but they could also make up for it in ways they could not with someone like Bryant.
A limbo is possible for Jed Hoyer here, where he picks up meaningful future pieces at the deadline and keeps his team competitive. But the days of getting Gleyber Torres-level returns for closers seems out of the question.
Plus, Crane Kenney — the Cubs annoying-ass president of baseball operations — got on the radio to make sure everyone knew the Cubs would still be operating at a loss this season, despite capacity going back to 100% this week.
Given the Cubs status — one of the four richest teams in the MLB — the rhetoric from the front office is often embarrassing, even if they promise that performance will dictate decisions.
If you walk down Wrigleyville your bank sends you an alert that you’re nearly your credit card limit. The idea that they won’t see financial tailwinds in the future is a joke, and them positioning themselves as if they need to penny-pinch remains dumb.
There’s a lot of reasons why Kris Bryant may be playing as well as he is, but the easiest answer is probably that he’s just healthy again. The contract-year talk isn’t out of the question, I guess, but acting as if he’ll fall off a cliff if the Cubs extended him is asinine.
So what is the Cubs plan?
They lost just seven games in May, all by one run.
They can win the division, despite trading Yu Darvish for no reason but to save ownership money. Revenue is clearly going to return to normal earlier than they expected.
Does it even make sense for them to be selling at this point, unless they know something specific about Kris Bryant’s wishes that we don’t?
The Yu Darvish trade made no sense from a baseball perspective at the time. Trading Kris Bryant or Anthony Rizzo now may make less sense, contextually.
If nothing else, the Cubs have put Hoyer in a tough position. Had they continued their early-season play, a seller’s deadline would have been easier to sell to fans. Now, any decision will be scrutinized.
But I doubt the Cubs will be buyers. If they are, though, it would make the Darvish deal look even more foolish.
Comment below your thoughts on what the Cubs should do:
Let’s get the comment section going, get some new subscribers, and have a great week! See you Friday.
Thanks for reading.
Its good to be back! Worth noting that the Cubs and Sox are the only teams in their respective divisions with positive run differentials (+25 and +85). And that was talking baseball with Chuck Mac. Back to you.
Wow! Its about time. I have just a couple of Cub Statements:
1. Can we now admit that Joe Maddon was a shitty manager and the Cubs won the World Series IN SPITE of him being the manager?
2. Bryant has to be the person we keep. Besides MVP HItting Numbers, Rizzo goes down, Bryant to First. Happ Goes Down, Bryant to Center, Heyward Goes Down(Can he just stay down?), Bryant goes to Right and now Peterson goes down and Bryant goes to Left!!! Oh and he is also a great baserunner. Whatever you do moving forward, he has to be the focus.