What I'm hearing about the Cubs' trade deadline plans
And, Ian Happ's cankles, screw Rich Hill and you have better things to do than worry about the Brewers
I'm not hearing shit.
Nobody tells me anything.
The Cubs played their 100th game last night and just the second that Petecrow Armstrong did not start. At first, his absence from the lineup seemed like a rare day off for the 23 year old who had played in all but nine innings of the first 99 games of the season, and who didn't have much rest during the All-Star Break because as America's center fielder, he had work to do.
It turns out that his lineup absence was injury related, as he woke up Monday morning with a little swelling in his...easy now, kids, keep it clean...right knee. He got it when Garrett Crochet illegally blocked third base in Sunday's game, and the umpires didn't call obstruction because, "Pitchers would never do such things!" The Cubs training staff says it's nothing to worry about, and that he'll likely be back in tonight's starting lineup. That would be reassuring if the Cubs training staff had any reason to be trusted. But even though they don't know what they're doing, they're still right 50 percent of the time. Right? Let's hope for the best.
It was rather telling, I thought, that in the Petecrow-less lineup that three time Gold Glover Ian Happ, who has played 240 career games in center, was in left, while Seiya Suzuki who had played zero games in center was the starter out there.
You could think that the reason is that Happ is the gold standard in left, and why weaken your defense by playing two fielders out of position? You could think that if you were a fucking moron.
Happ can't play center, because he can barely play left. He can't run. I don't know if you've noticed, but while he was never exactly a speed merchant, he used to at least be a solidly above average runner. His Statcast numbers have him ranking somewhere between the 71st percentile to the 60th from 2018 through last year, and incredibly, he was 89th percentile as a rookie! Eighty-ninth? Did he get hit by a bus after that season?
As for what's slowed him down this year, he injured his hamstring in April, so maybe it's still bothering him? Or maybe he has that old man swollen cankles thing like the president has?
Regardless, he's in the 48th percentile now, and he seems to be slowing down in-season. Seiya's more than 20 percentiles ("percentiles" – is that a thing?) faster than Ian. Plus, Wrigley's a small center field so you can get away with a solid runner out there. Dexter Fowler handled it with relative ease in his two years with the Cubs, and it must have felt like he was in his living room, compared to his years with the Rockies and Astros.
Petecrow's one game absence brought out the "the Cubs don't have a backup center fielder!" panic, again. They do. He's Kevin Alcantara and he's a phone call away in Iowa (they have phones in Iowa, right?). Actually, he's in Louisville, because that's where the I-Cubs are playing right now. Seiya can handle it for a day or two, and there's always the great Vidal Brujan to...you know what? Seiya can handle it for a day or two.
The Cubs are going to face Rich Hill tonight, in his return to the big leagues at 45 years old for his 21st big league season. He managed just four relief appearances for the Red Sox last year, but two years ago he made 32 starts between the Pirates and Padres, so it's legit.
I'm sure we'll hear references to "old friend Rich Hill" but he's no old friend to me.
To me, Rich Hill will always be the guy who stood on the mound with pants full of crap and gave up a 12,000 foot home run to Chris Young on the first pitch of game three of the 20o7 NLDS. It might not have been 12,000 feet. It was pre-Statcast, so it might have been even longer. He gave up another run that inning (on a double, a walk and a single, and he hit Augie Fucking Ojeda with a pitch just for fun), and then another in the fourth, and then went home to hopefully go fuck himself.
A year later he made his final appearance for the Cubs when he started a May game in St. Louis and in the first inning he walked Rick Ankiel (which was impossible), Albert Pujols, Ryan Ludwick and Yadi (who never walked). Lou Piniella came out holding Rich's suitcase and told him to go away and never come back.
He has somehow pitched 17 more seasons. He's been...fine, I guess. He has 90 wins in 20 seasons. Ninety wins in 386 games, 246 of them starts, that doesn't seem all that great. One of his 2008 teammates, Theodore Roosevelt Lilly pitched in 30 fewer games than Rich and won 40 more than he has.
Ted's a real man. You know what Ted did to Yadier Molina? He ran his ass over at home plate. He didn't walk him with the bases loaded and start crying, like Rich did.
Oh, and when Ted gave up his incredibly long homer to Chris Young in the same playoffs, he at least was man enough to take it out on his glove.
Never the less, I wish Rich the best tonight. And by the best, I hope he throws a pitch, falls off the mound and breaks both arms and both legs.
(Jed's going to trade for him tomorrow, isn't he? This really seems like the Cubs and Royals have been talking about a trade and the Royals figure he'll throw five shutout innings against the Cubs on like 47 pitches and Jed will give them something for his old, worthless ass.)
Our old friend Jon Greenberg wrote a column yesterday about whether the Cubs are worried about the Brewers. The answer was no. At least not yet.
But fans sure are.
I'm not here to tell you how to fan. There's no right way or wrong way to do it.
But if you're worried about the Brewers 100 games into the season you're doing it wrong.
For fuck's sake. The two teams play each other eight more times. The Cubs have a better team, with better players, and even if Jed completely botches the acquisition of the necessary additional arms to get the Cubs across the finish line, the Cubs are going to make the playoffs, and the Brewers are going to blow a tire, at least for a while, because it's baseball, and some teams get hotter than shit and everything thinks they're great and then they careen into a ditch a couple of weeks later.
It wasn't that long ago that Cubs fans were worried about the Cardinals when they won nine games in a row in May, and pulled within a game of the Cubs. Where are the Cardinals now? In fourth place.
A lot of Cubs fans are mad at the Dodgers for losing all six games to the Brewers this year. Hell, the Dodgers smoked the Cubs twice in Tokyo Dome back in March, but then lost four of the five games they played here in 'Merica. Isn't it a better sign that the Dodgers juggernaut has yet to take flight than the Brewers sweeping them twice in two weeks? Who's a bigger threat to win the pennant, the Dodgers or Mat Purphy's scrappy gang of interchangeable slightly above average dipshits?
Wake me in September if Christian Yelich isn't in traction again.
Between now and then? Stop worrying about the fucking Brewers. You have to be able to find better things to do with your time than that.
