Happy Friday Chicago!
I hope everyone had a wonderful fourth of July, and that is was filled with family, good food, good times, and not too many hillbillies — with the brain pleasure systems of an eight year old — rocketing fireworks off in your ear.
I ended up bunking up with the Old Man one night due to company staying at my parents place, and I felt like a Vietnam Vet prepping for it. I rifled beers until my head hit the pillow, where I then turned up my headphones as loud as possible to avoid the primal groans jettisoning from his throat, into the walls, and then back at me.
There’s no better test of a man’s focus than sharing a room with your Dad, knowing the first snore is imminent, and knowing you’re not near subconsciousness.
The good news is that I slept like a baby. The bad news is I told the Old Man that, which he immediately mistook for some validation of his delusion that his snoring — which he has never heard — is “not that bad.”
The great thing about the holidays is being with your family, if you like them. You can tie one on and not have to deal with hangover anxiety the next day, worried you were acting weird or oversharing.
For some reason, that was not the case this year for your boy. The weekend was so great and endorphin-rich that the brain initiated the come down as a nose dive on Sunday, telling me that maybe I was talking too much to my little brother about his future, and maybe my older brother heard me say things twice and just didn’t have the heart to tell me to shut up.
Did I tell my brothers I loved them, too? Was it cringe, be honest?
At least I wasn’t the one who pissed in the non-functional toilet, drawing the ire of Mom and Dad. That assured me that my parents’ power rankings of their kids, that they email each other every Monday with commentary, did not have me at dead last.
That’s the 732nd week in a row I haven’t been last in the rankings, a miraculous streak that started a few weeks after my Dad found the high school grade report I had intercepted and hid, and told me to “get it fucking together.”
Sometimes I don’t know how parents make it out to the other side. Your 31-year-old son can’t listen long enough to not relieve himself in a toilet that doesn’t work, and now you’ve got piss that smells like asparagus, and looks like it’s from someone who’s refused water for the entire week, standing still below you.
And you can’t slam their head against the concrete and kick them out of the house. You have to say something like, “Hey, can you make sure to not do that again?” to a person with a fully developed prefrontal cortex.
God Bless America. And God Bless all of you parents.
I hope you all had a good time, but just know none of you had as good of a time as my brother and I did deeply discussing the 2019 Cubs — who didn’t even make the playoffs — for 45 minutes on the beach.
We’ve got a lot to get into. Let’s go.
Play that song, baby! What did I write about the Cubs in the last newsletter? Oh, I can’t remember, because I’ve been doing power cleans to Steve Goodman’s Go Cubs Go all week.
The Chicago Cubs just swept one of the best teams in the league, on the road, and the Orioles have had their first 24-inning scoreless streak since three years ago.
And it was the big, bad, mighty Cubs — the flying Mastrobuonis — that did it to ‘em.
The final score of the series was 21-2, and the Cubs hit .268 with runners in scoring position.
Both numbers are jarring, frankly, particularly because of the opponent. The second one, however, is really what stood out to me from an eye test perspective the past week. The Cubs were getting hits when they needed to. Shota Imanaga struck a batter out with men on second and third. Luke Little struck out the guy he needed to right after the rain delay Wednesday.
It could just be the ebbs and flows of luck, and I am trying to hold back from screaming for everyone to CHARGE. Two losses in a row to Cardinals could effectively ruin the euphoric, although short-lived, high of this week.
Whereas no one was hitting during the Cubs awful stretch, which essentially spanned months — the Cubs won back-to-back series for the first time since April — now everyone is hitting. Or so it seems.
That was the case in Thursday’s game, at least.
Shota’s All-Star nod felt like a pity throwaway so that the Cubs could meet their one-player quota in the Midsummer Classic last week. This week, he’s our outstanding rookie who deserves to be in the game and should start, dammit!
He didn’t have his A-game Wednesday, and still threw six shutout innings and got the win. At the most basic level, that’s how I view pitching in the MLB. Two buckets. One bucket is the guys that can not have it on a night and still get you a quality start (or more), and the other bucket is the guys that are toast if they don’t have it.
I was worried Shota was maybe “figured out” at one point, but it appears that’s not the case, at least not yet.
Meanwhile, since Justin Steele went off on his teammates in the dugout in Milwaukee a few weeks ago (having not notched a win, despite a 3 ERA at the time), the Cubs have kind of, sort of figured things out. And he has three wins via 19 innings pitched and just 2 runs allowed since then.
For basically three straight years now, Steele has been one of the five to ten best pitchers in baseball at any given time. Right now, he’s pitching as well as anyone.
The starting pitching overall has certainly not been the problem. If the Cubs were 10 games above .500, for instance, I’d probably have already changed the header above to a picture of Jameson Taillon. Dude has a 2.99 ERA through almost 90 innings pitched!
On the other side, Miles Mastroubini still probably sucks, but he made some incredible plays in the last Steele start, and also has logged a few hits — which is good enough for me.
Because he’s the bottom of the barrel. Morel homered Wednesday. Dansby Swanson has snapped out of his slump the last two games.
Michael Busch has had consistently good numbers all year, but as J.D. said on the broadcast yesterday, it didn’t really *feel* like it. Now it does.
Seiya Suzuki has also been consistently good, sans May. If you take out that month — granted, it’s an entire month — he’s been the Cubs best hitter by a decent margin. He’s up to a .265/.334/.477 slash line now on the year after another jam-packed RBI night.
(His fielding, we’ll get to another time. I think he’s in his head a bit, but I don’t think Hoerner was appreciative of him slamming into him last night. The ball he do-or-died on, I think he dove for that because Steele had a no-hitter at the time, to be fair.)
It is pretty infuriating that 1. Bellinger will be out for the Cardinals series and that 2. the Cubs will probably not have a Shota or Steele start in the Cardinals series.
Four more wins to hit .500 by the All-Star break is extremely unlikely, mostly because of those reasons listed above. But if they find a way to take three of four, it may be all engines go from here on out.
One of the most impressive things about the Cubs and the Sox, when they were playing like the two worst teams in baseball, was the starting pitching.
Garret Crochet has a 3 ERA and a sub-1 WHIP in 105 innings pitched. Erick Fedde, too, has a 3 ERA — in over 111 innings pitched. The former has a 3.9 WAR halfway through the season, and the latter has a 4.3 WAR.
And the Sox have won 27 games.
Having that good of a 1-2 punch through almost 100 games and having those results has to be a statistical outlier in MLB history.
What’s more remarkable than that, however, may be Fedde’s performance in general. He played in Korea last year, and prior to that, had never had an ERA below 5.4 in a year where he threw more than 50 innings. That’s remarkable.
Luis Robert is the only statistically — or otherwise — batter that’s above average on the entire team, however. So maybe none of this is that remarkable.
Looking through my notes on the Bulls, and the first one is just in all caps, and doesn’t give much detail: MORONS.
But I think I can figure it out.
Ah yes, I keep hearing the Bulls are “headed in the right direction.” They are, if you would consider walking southward down the side walk “the right direction” to vacation this weekend in Mexico.
The Bulls are getting younger, as they desperately needed to do. They are gaining some draft capital, as they desperately needed to do. They are bottoming out, to a certain extent, as they desperately needed to do. They’re looking to trade Zach LaVine, as they desperately need to do.
But they desperately needed to do this a year and a half ago. Now, they’re dealing with the consequences of waiting.
Take all the top talent they’re shipping out now and put it to the side for a second. Just think about the fact that the Sixers offered two second round picks for Andre Drummond at last year’s trade deadline and the Bulls just said no. Now, Drummond is on the Sixers, and the Bulls do not have those two second-round picks.
Instead, they have two second-round picks for DeMar DeRozan, after facilitating a sign-and-trade deal for him to get around $60 million of guaranteed money from Sacramento. Again, first think about the fact that the Bulls apparently offered DeRozan a contract worth $40 million per year prior to last season.
The Bulls are constantly waiting too long. Three to four first-round picks for LaVine and DeRozan two seasons ago, or even last offseason, was easily achievable. Now, DeRozan is gone for two second-round picks and Chris Duarte, and LaVine and the Bulls are in no-man’s land together. But you’re not getting much for LaVine, if anything, but a salary dump.
The third team in the Sacramento-Chicago deal for DeRozan was the Spurs. You know what their purpose was? They took on Harrison Barnes — a decent vet, on a semi-expensive, but soon-to-be expired contract — and got a first-round pick swap from the Kings in 2031 as a result.
The Bulls could have done that, but they 1. are unwilling to go into the luxury tax 2. signed Jalen Smith before facilitating the DeRozan deal, which left less room between them and the luxury tax.
So, the Bulls, because they’re dumb and cheap, lost out on the best asset that came from the DeRozan sign-and-trade. The Spurs are a process-oriented organization, the Bulls are not. And that’s why they got Victor Wembanyama. And that’s why they had the foresight to take a pick swap from the Kings in 2031, and why they took on Harrison Barnes now.
That type of move is unacceptable, and so infuriatingly frequent for this Bulls front office.
I like the Jalen Smith signing. He’s a young big who shot over 40% from three last year. But he was not worth sacrificing cap at the beginning of free agency — before the DeRozan deal was done — as he will likely not play for a good Bulls team during his current contract.
The Bulls also signed Patrick Williams to a five-year, $90 million deal. It’s a fine deal. I like Pat Williams and still believe in him. And, at this point, $22 million per year is not huge money in the NBA.
But, like Nikola Vucevic last offseason, who else was going to give him that money? Was someone going to offer Williams $75 million? $80 million?
Again, the Bulls negotiated against themselves.
I can’t even be happy about parting with DeRozan, or signing Smith, or extending Williams, because it’s all done so sloppily.
The Bulls “compete” worse than any team in the league. They also “bottom out” worse than any other team in the league.
The only time the Bulls won a championship under Jerry Reinsdorf is when they lucked into Michael Jordan. The only other time they were successful is when they lucked into the no. 1 pick and Derrick Rose. Outside of that, they’ve been an under-the-radar disaster.
And that’s what I’m left with. I truly don’t think the Bulls will be a legitimate contender again under the Reinsdorfs unless a once-in-a-generation talent falls into their laps.
So, here’s to hoping the Bulls get out of their own way (doubtful) and have a chance at Cooper Flag in next year’s draft.
Thanks for coming back to another edition of the newsletter. I appreciate you spreading the word and reading. Comment below.
Chuck Mac, we shared a room, not a bed. As far as I know I was quiet as a church mouse that night and Andrew says he didn't hear a thing. What else do I need?
Fingers crossed on the Cubs but NFL Rookies report a week from today!!!!! I do not want them to trade Bellinger.
How Billy Donovan remains with the Bulls through this mess is hard to understand. He has to be saying "let me out of here!"
Watch the PreSeason Hard Knocks. A whole different perspective on things. I think it is very interesting.
The Cubs are a 5 game win streak away from reeling me in.
Curious as to which bed you and TD shared and surprised you willingly took that option over the couch.
The Bulls last year actually had a chance to right their wrongs. Could have stockpiled draft picks, and even with the abysmal Vuc signing, could have saved face and gathered some real assets. Its one of the worst cases of mismanaging assets I've ever seen. SUNK COST FALLACY. AKME should be out on the street. As you said, there is literally only one way for the Bulls to be relevant in the next ten years, and its by falling ass backwards into a generational talent. Cant publish on the internet the things I would do to get Cooper Flagg.