Official 2023 Chicago Cubs Season Thread Vol: (17-17)

Man....Anthony Rizzo goes deep in the 9th to tie it, but the damn Center fielder robs it at the wall. :eek :{ :(
 
Buster Olney ‏@Buster_ESPN 2h2 hours ago
Kris Bryant this season: 158 hits, 68 walks, 32 doubles, 1 triple, 36 homers. Anthony Rizzo: 150 hits, 66 walks, 71 extra-base hits.
 
Cards lose. Magic Number is 6.

Cubs jump up big 7-0, with Jake on the mound, could make it 5 if they finish this.
 
W. 92-51

Magic Number: 3

Kyle Hendricks with 8 no hit innings before allowing a leadoff homer in the 9th on an 0-2 pitch. :(

Fowler and Zobrist both go yard.
 
The no-no was soo close :{
Would be extra special if we clinch at the Cards yards.

First time since 1945 that the Cubs are first to 90 wins ahead of the entire league. :Nthat
 
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Chance to move magic number to 1, up 3-0 in the 6th right now. Lester dealing. :smokin


2017 Schedule is out. Cubs open at the Cardinals on April 3rd, (Kyle Schwarber back :hat ) Home opener is against the Dodgers April 10th.

They'll also travel to Fenway at the end of April, and will host the Yankees in early May.

They will close the year at home against the Reds.
 
Annnnnnd now he hits #31. :lol

Cubs up 7-0 in the 9th, they will clinch a playoff berth on September 14th.

Magic Number for the division is 1.

:hat
 
The Case for Kris Bryant for National League MVP
Last week, we ran a series of posts laying out the case for the most compelling candidates for the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award (links to all of which are available here). Today, we continue with the National League MVP Award.

Note that, as with last week’s posts, these are designed to make an affirmative argument for their subject and are not intended to serve as comprehensive looks at every candidate on their own. The authors tasked with writing these posts may not even believe their subject actually deserves to win, but they were brave enough to make the case anyway. The goal of these posts is to lay out the potential reasons for voters to consider a variety of candidates and to allow the readers to decide which argument is most persuasive.

Not every award race has an obvious front-runner. Like, take the American League Cy Young Award. That’s as tight a race as you can imagine, so any number of candidates can emerge. For any one of them, you can go in asking, why should this guy be the winner? I think the National League MVP Award is different. The way I see it, the conversation begins with Kris Bryant. He’s out in front, so you have to wonder, why shouldn’t this guy be the winner? Perfectly legitimate question. Trying to answer it just leads you right back to the start.



To put forward another candidate, you have to first try to knock Bryant down a few pegs. It just can’t reasonably be done, on account of Bryant having been the best all-around performer in his league. Conveniently, this can be imagined as a two-player race — by far the two strongest arguments support Bryant and Corey Seager. Seager’s been outstanding, but Bryant’s advantage should be comfortable. You hardly have to drift away from his own page of statistics.

Start with the obvious. What’s Bryant good at? He’s known mostly for his hitting, and he has a top-three wRC+ in the NL. This year he’s trimmed almost a third off his strikeouts while increasing his power output, so now there’s barely anything left for him to do. He walks, he hits, he slugs. There are few more intimidating opponents in the box.

What really puts Bryant over the top, though, is how much else he does. He’s not just a hitter. Daniel Murphy is also an excellent hitter, for example. He’s probably been the MVP of the Nationals. But Bryant is smart on the bases, and he also just about never hits into a double play. For that you can partially credit his fly-ball tendencies. Regardless, by our overall baserunning metric, Bryant ranks in the top four. He doesn’t contribute in the most obvious way, like Billy Hamilton. He’s more sneaky-valuable. Any value is value.

And there’s the defensive work. Say what you will about the Cubs leaving Bryant in the minors to begin 2015, but it really did seem like he could stand to improve in the field. Well, as a major leaguer, Bryant has been defensively excellent. Last year, he rated well at third base. That helps to support the 2016 performance. Bryant’s been good again at third base. The numbers also like what he’s done at first base and in the outfield. Bryant has aided the Cubs with his versatility, technically having played at six different positions, and while Bryant hasn’t regularly occupied any premium position, he’s still in the top fourth in defensive value, as we calculate it. Kris Bryant contributes everywhere. Sluggers are great. Well-rounded versatile sluggers are MVPs.

It should go without saying that no MVP race should ever be decided by WAR alone. It just isn’t a sufficiently precise statistic. But there’s nothing wrong with using it as a starting point, yes? Bryant is the National League leader in WAR. Now, on the leaderboard, his advantage over Seager is slight. That’s why Seager has an argument in the first place. But consider: Both UZR and DRS agree that Bryant has been a good all-around defender. With Seager, UZR thinks he’s been a great shortstop, but DRS thinks he’s been average. The Inside Edge numbers think he’s been below-average. WAR considers UZR alone, which means it’s painting the most optimistic picture. If you knock Seager down a few runs, the gap widens. Though he’s been the one playing the premium position, that still hasn’t been enough.

By a mentally-adjusted WAR, Bryant might have a lead of a full win. Very possibly more. There’s no specific tipping point with this stuff, but the wider the gap, the stronger the argument for Bryant. And he’s the front-runner in the first place.

I should address a couple things. One, there’s the matter of situational context. Not long ago I wrote a post observing that Bryant had been one of the least-clutch players in modern history. That probably shouldn’t count for nothing. Since then, however, Bryant has improved his own standing. Just as important, Seager also has a very low season Clutch rating. Though Bryant has just a 65 wRC+ in high-leverage situations, we find Seager at 53. To whatever extent you want to dock Bryant for maybe not coming up big at the most important times, it’s not like Seager has blown him away in that department. Clutch performance isn’t tipping these scales.

Then there’s the matter of the Cubs’ general dominance. This is sort of the opposite of the argument that works against Mike Trout. No matter how good Mike Trout is, he can’t make the Angels win. And no matter how bad Kris Bryant could be, he couldn’t make the Cubs lose. The Cubs lead the NL Central by 16 games. I don’t think the Reds have even won 16 games. No one has been within five games of the Cubs since May 28. You’re going to hear people talk about how Bryant shouldn’t be the MVP because his team is simply too good around him.

I don’t like it. We’ve long supported Trout, arguing that the MVP is an individual-player award. On that foundation, Bryant also shouldn’t lose any points. There’s nothing in the MVP voting criteria that demands candidates come only from teams on the bubble. Bryant has been more valuable to the Cubs than any other player in his league has been to his own team. It’s just that Bryant’s teammates combined have also been more valuable than any other group of teammates. Related to this, value isn’t just about furthering World Series odds. The point isn’t just to win the World Series. The point is to win as many games as possible, to have as strong a season from start to finish as possible. So for these purposes I don’t care much about game “leverage.” Bryant has been worth the most wins. The point is to accumulate wins.

There’s just about nothing that Kris Bryant hasn’t done. There’s just about nothing that Kris Bryant can’t do. The strongest argument against Bryant’s MVP case is that his teammates are all too good, which has nothing to do with Bryant at all. Congratulations to Corey Seager on having an absolutely unbelievable year. He’s one of the most valuable players on the planet. He hasn’t been Bryant-level valuable. There shouldn’t be any shame in second place.
 
They are the Golden State Warriors in spikes, Springsteen on the diamond, and Warren Buffett with a scorecard.

The Chicago Cubs are baseball’s royalty, the ultimate in perfection with a gaudy 93-52 record, and on the brink of taking the first giant step to their most magical season in 108 years.

“Who’s going to beat them?’’ Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun said. “That team is so good. They’re just so complete. It’s scary how good they are with all of their depth.’’

The most frightening aspect?

“These guys are good, but we’re going to get better,’’ Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. “I like what we’ve done a lot this year, and I think it’s been very good, but there’s definitely room for growth and improvement.

“I absolutely believe next year is going to get better.’’

Is it permitted, kosher, or even lawful, to actually discuss back-to-back World Series championships about a team that hasn’t a title since 1908?

“I don’t think we feel the pressure like Golden State did, where you’re supposed to go out and dominate every night,’’ said Cubs catcher David Ross, who homered and threw out two baserunners in the Cubs’ 7-0 victory Wednesday over the St. Louis Cardinals.

It may be one small step for the Cubs, but a giant step for Cub-kind Thursday night when they can coronate their new party room at Wrigley Field with a victory over the Brewers. Their magic number is just 1 to clinch the National League Central after Jon Lester, one of three Cy Young candidates on the staff, suffocated the Cardinals’ lineup with only three hits over eight innings.

Go ahead and crank the volume, turn on the disco lights, and dance the night away, in what the Cubs envision to be just the first of four raucous celebrations over the next six weeks.

“You’ve seen our team,’’ said Lester, 17-4, 2.40 ERA, including a 1.47 ERA the second half. “We don’t like to party too much. I’m sure it will be low-key.’’

“It’s been the Cardinals’ division for so long,’’ said Rizzo, who hit two homers Wednesday to join Hall of Famer Billy Williams as the Cubs’ only left-handed hitters with multiple 30 homer, 100 RBI seasons. “It’s going to feel really good.’’

The team everyone envisioned for greatness since the start of spring training, with more national TV appearances than Trump and Clinton, have not only “Embraced the Target’’ as their T-shirts read, but have almost taunted the idea of pressure.

They spent six months touring the country as the greatest baseball team in America, and now that they’re on the brink of being the first team to be invited to the October postseason gala, the only question remaining is whether anyone can possibly stop them from winning their first World Series title since the Teddy Roosevelt administration.


Yep, just like that Golden State squad that won more games than any team in NBA history, only to lose in Game 7 of the NBA Finals to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

“I don’t think we feel like we’re anywhere like those guys,’’ Kris Bryant, the leading candidate to win the NL MVP award, told USA TODAY Sports. “The Warriors were so dominant last year, and had all of those great players.

“I know we have the players too, but you see what happened to them. They lost when it counted. So it didn’t really matter what you do during the season if you can’t finish it off.’’

Indeed, despite all of the flashy numbers, and franchise records the Cubs are setting, the Cubs know they will ultimately be judged by their performance in October.

“So no pressure on us, right?’’ Cubs catcher Miguel Montero said, laughing. “I know we have the greatest run differential in like 100 years. We’re doing stuff that hasn’t happened since 1930. But we don’t follow those stories.

“At the end of the day, all I want to do is win the last game of the season, that last World Series game, and that will get everyone’s attention.

“That’s how we want to be remembered, as World Series champions.’’

The Cubs, with a 17-game lead in the division, and a 7-game lead to clinch home-field advantage throughout the National League playoffs, simply are baseball’s most complete team.

They have the finest pitching staff in the game, yielding a .210 batting average, which would be their lowest opposing batting average since 1880 when they were called the Chicago White Stockings. Their starting rotation has a 2.92 ERA, with the Washington Nationals having the second-best mark at 3.51. It would be the Cubs’ lowest ERA since 1963. Their WHIP (walks and hits per innings) is a miniscule 1.05, which would be the lowest by a Cubs’ team since at least 1913.

The defense and their range has been uncanny, with the Cubs yielding a .255 batting average on balls in play, according to FanGraphs, the best by any major league team in at least 30 years. This combination of pitching defense has resulted in just 488 opposing runs all season, 50 fewer than the runner-up Nationals. They’re on pace for the fewest runs allowed in a non-strike season since 1945 in Cubs’ history.

Yeah, and let’s not forget the offense. They have two MVP candidates, Bryant (37 homers, 95 RBI) and Rizzo (31 homers, 101 RBI), and three infielders with at least 20 homers and 90 RBI when you throws in 22-year-old shortstop Addison Russell (20 homers, 91 RBI.) They grind opposing pitchers to death, leading the major leagues with 585 walks — 18 more than all of last season — and on pace for the highest total in franchise history. And they’ve significantly cut down their strikeouts to 1,211 compared to a franchise-record of 1,518 last season.

They’re not just winning, they’re bludgeoning teams. They’ve outscored the opposition by 234 runs this year, the greatest differential pace in the wild-card era.

Perhaps most impressive is that even the few games they do lose, they’re never blown out. They’ve lost only four games since July 10 by more than four games. They are 41-17 during that stretch, and now are on pace to win 104 games, last accomplished during the franchise’s glory days of 1910.

“Coming into the season,’’ Maddon said, “there were so many expectations heaped upon us and pressure was applied. That’s what created the target as far as I’m concerned. ... Once we get to the point where we have clinched, we will settle into a routine that I’d want to believe will keep them sharp and rested at the same time.

“Put the gas pedal down, or hit the brakes a little bit. We’ll just wait and see.’’

The luxury the Cubs have is that they’re so deep and talented, no one really needs an extended rest. They’re so versatile that Javier Baez has started every position in the infield. Bryant has played four different positions, including 32 in left field. Outfielder Jason Heyward awaits the day when he’s called upon to play first base, and Ross has taken ground balls at third base.

“We keep hearing about all of these numbers, and this is the first time we’ve done this or that,’’ Cubs GM Jed Hoyer said, “but honestly, we really don’t spend a lot of time on that.

“We know the only “first-time since’’ number that matters is the big one.’’

Yep, 1908, ending 108 years of futility.

“That’s the one,’’ Lester said, “that people will remember you for.’’

The Holy Grail of sports championships awaits.
 
^
Damn good articles as usual homeslice! Repped.

Was hoping to clinch in the Cards home field but hopefully we get it done tomorrow back in the Chi.
Already put in a sick day for Friday, might be too plastered to function :lol
 
Carrie Muskat ‏@CarrieMuskat 21s22 seconds ago
#Cubs name OF Eloy Jimenez and RHP Trevor Clifton the organization’s Minor League Player and Pitcher of the Year, respectively
 
Cubs first attempt at clinching the NL Central tonight:

Fowler CF
Bryant 3B
Rizzo 1B
Zobrist 2B
Russell SS
Soler LF
Heyward RF
Montero C
Montgomery P
 
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