The 2018 Play Like It's 2016 Cubs

[Chuck to Chuck]

Let's go. Get it done. Make the 2018 regular season as fun and irrelevant as the 2016 regular season was. 162 parties and bring on October.

[Saul Goodman]

Just win, baby.

[Quality Start Machine]

They're scoring 900 runs and leading the NL Central wire-to-wire.

This is gonna be fung.

[SKO]

1 down, 127 to go.

[Saul Goodman]

Surprising takeaways from Game #1 of 162:

Justin Wilson: not vomit-inducing
Jon Lester: somewhat vomit-inducing

[CBStew]

Surprising takeaways from Game #1 of 162:

Justin Wilson: not vomit-inducing
Jon Lester: somewhat vomit-inducing

Throwing strikes was not in Lester's playbook today.  I was also not happy about the number of pitchers that Maddon used. 

[R-V]

Joe Sheehan wrote a newsletter just for Cubs Twitter today.

I spent my Tuesday deflecting questions from well-intentioned radio hosts intent upon gleaning meaning from the first five days of the season. As much as I enjoy having baseball back, and have particularly enjoyed the way the schedule has been spread out, allowing us to watch games for 10-12 hours a day on many days in the early going, that's what it is: enjoyment. It's about getting back into that rhythm, and watching our game, our favorite players, our new favorites. Storylines are out there -- the new managers up and down the eastern seaboard, the two-way player in Anaheim, the death of the ground ball -- but you're not going to be able to reach meaningful conclusions about any of it five days in.

I'm a stickler for this, even as coverage of baseball more and more resembles that of the NFL, all breathless reaction, all an endless race to be first with a conclusion. Baseball demands patience, and then when you think you've waited long enough, it demands more patience. We watched a team win 104 games last season, post the best record in baseball...and lose 16 of 17 games at one point along the way. The NL MVP started the year with one extra-base hit and no homers in his first seven games. The AL Cy Young Award winner had a 5.06 ERA in six starts as May came to a close.

Even our ability to measure inputs down to the tenth of an MPH or a degree has to be tempered by patience. Just because a particular displayed skill stabilizes quickly doesn't mean 30 pitches or 15 balls in play are enough to form a conclusion. Sometimes that information points to a meaningful change in a player's skill set, or even an injury. Sometimes, it's just noise created by a bad night's sleep, or a hitter seeing the right set of pitches to drive. Players are not Statcast-generating robots any more than they are stat-generating robots.

Maybe I'm just the old, wagging his finger as he looks out upon his neatly-manicured lawn. I'll live with that if so, but this trend, this need to NFLize baseball coverage, is the least attractive thing about what is really a golden era for baseball writing. Let the season breathe.

[World's #1 Astros Fan]

Joe Sheehan wrote a newsletter just for Cubs Twitter today.

I spent my Tuesday deflecting questions from well-intentioned radio hosts intent upon gleaning meaning from the first five days of the season. As much as I enjoy having baseball back, and have particularly enjoyed the way the schedule has been spread out, allowing us to watch games for 10-12 hours a day on many days in the early going, that's what it is: enjoyment. It's about getting back into that rhythm, and watching our game, our favorite players, our new favorites. Storylines are out there -- the new managers up and down the eastern seaboard, the two-way player in Anaheim, the death of the ground ball -- but you're not going to be able to reach meaningful conclusions about any of it five days in.

I'm a stickler for this, even as coverage of baseball more and more resembles that of the NFL, all breathless reaction, all an endless race to be first with a conclusion. Baseball demands patience, and then when you think you've waited long enough, it demands more patience. We watched a team win 104 games last season, post the best record in baseball...and lose 16 of 17 games at one point along the way. The NL MVP started the year with one extra-base hit and no homers in his first seven games. The AL Cy Young Award winner had a 5.06 ERA in six starts as May came to a close.

Even our ability to measure inputs down to the tenth of an MPH or a degree has to be tempered by patience. Just because a particular displayed skill stabilizes quickly doesn't mean 30 pitches or 15 balls in play are enough to form a conclusion. Sometimes that information points to a meaningful change in a player's skill set, or even an injury. Sometimes, it's just noise created by a bad night's sleep, or a hitter seeing the right set of pitches to drive. Players are not Statcast-generating robots any more than they are stat-generating robots.

Maybe I'm just the old, wagging his finger as he looks out upon his neatly-manicured lawn. I'll live with that if so, but this trend, this need to NFLize baseball coverage, is the least attractive thing about what is really a golden era for baseball writing. Let the season breathe.

INTREPID READER: SKO: OH LOOK AT THE COOL RATIONAL FAN FUCK YOU I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO CALL THE TEAM GARBAGE AND AN UNDISCIPLINED TEAM BECAUSE THE FIRST 7 DAYS WERE FAR LESS THAN THE OPTIMAL PLAY THAT I ALLOW MYSELF TO EXPECT AND AM ENTITLED TO.

[SKO]

Joe Sheehan wrote a newsletter just for Cubs Twitter today.

I spent my Tuesday deflecting questions from well-intentioned radio hosts intent upon gleaning meaning from the first five days of the season. As much as I enjoy having baseball back, and have particularly enjoyed the way the schedule has been spread out, allowing us to watch games for 10-12 hours a day on many days in the early going, that's what it is: enjoyment. It's about getting back into that rhythm, and watching our game, our favorite players, our new favorites. Storylines are out there -- the new managers up and down the eastern seaboard, the two-way player in Anaheim, the death of the ground ball -- but you're not going to be able to reach meaningful conclusions about any of it five days in.

I'm a stickler for this, even as coverage of baseball more and more resembles that of the NFL, all breathless reaction, all an endless race to be first with a conclusion. Baseball demands patience, and then when you think you've waited long enough, it demands more patience. We watched a team win 104 games last season, post the best record in baseball...and lose 16 of 17 games at one point along the way. The NL MVP started the year with one extra-base hit and no homers in his first seven games. The AL Cy Young Award winner had a 5.06 ERA in six starts as May came to a close.

Even our ability to measure inputs down to the tenth of an MPH or a degree has to be tempered by patience. Just because a particular displayed skill stabilizes quickly doesn't mean 30 pitches or 15 balls in play are enough to form a conclusion. Sometimes that information points to a meaningful change in a player's skill set, or even an injury. Sometimes, it's just noise created by a bad night's sleep, or a hitter seeing the right set of pitches to drive. Players are not Statcast-generating robots any more than they are stat-generating robots.

Maybe I'm just the old, wagging his finger as he looks out upon his neatly-manicured lawn. I'll live with that if so, but this trend, this need to NFLize baseball coverage, is the least attractive thing about what is really a golden era for baseball writing. Let the season breathe.

INTREPID READER: SKO: OH LOOK AT THE COOL RATIONAL FAN FUCK YOU I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO CALL THE TEAM GARBAGE AND AN UNDISCIPLINED TEAM BECAUSE THE FIRST 7 DAYS WERE FAR LESS THAN THE OPTIMAL PLAY THAT I ALLOW MYSELF TO EXPECT AND AM ENTITLED TO.

Yes all of that is correct.

[SKO]

Also Sheehan reacted to ONE Schwarber misplay by saying the Cubs needed to get over their "crush" on the guy that has been far and away their best hitter so far and just play Almora, so he can eat a dick

[SKO]

I really do find it funny that there has to be some kind of higher relationship with a sports team than "mad they lost, happy they won." I'm obviously perfectly rational and happy to discuss stats and stuff between games but in the end if the point is not to have some kind of emotional reaction to the actual events of the games themselves I gotta say I don't get it. You know they're not your friends, right? They don't care about or acknowledge your existence, you don't owe them anything. Yell at them when they lose or yell at everyone yelling at them when they lose, in the end you make no difference here.

[R-V]

I really do find it funny that there has to be some kind of higher relationship with a sports team than "mad they lost, happy they won." I'm obviously perfectly rational and happy to discuss stats and stuff between games but in the end if the point is not to have some kind of emotional reaction to the actual events of the games themselves I gotta say I don't get it. You know they're not your friends, right? They don't care about or acknowledge your existence, you don't owe them anything. Yell at them when they lose or yell at everyone yelling at them when they lose, in the end you make no difference here.

I mean at the end of the day nothing we do makes any difference, we're all farts in the wind eventually. The point is not that you can't or shouldn't get mad when your team loses. It's that trying to draw some greater meaning about where the season is headed out of a meaningless sample size (Happ should be benched because of his K rate...Lester might be done...Heyward is clearly bad again) is a waste of breath.

[Quality Start Machine]

I really do find it funny that there has to be some kind of higher relationship with a sports team than "mad they lost, happy they won." I'm obviously perfectly rational and happy to discuss stats and stuff between games but in the end if the point is not to have some kind of emotional reaction to the actual events of the games themselves I gotta say I don't get it. You know they're not your friends, right? They don't care about or acknowledge your existence, you don't owe them anything. Yell at them when they lose or yell at everyone yelling at them when they lose, in the end you make no difference here.

I mean at the end of the day nothing we do makes any difference, we're all farts in the wind eventually. The point is not that you can't or shouldn't get mad when your team loses. It's that trying to draw some greater meaning about where the season is headed out of a meaningless sample size (Happ should be benched because of his K rate...Lester might be done...Heyward is clearly bad again) is a waste of breath.

But thanks to the Information Age, there are people whose livelihoods depend on offering analysis (and by extension, meaning) based on the sample size that exists - in this case, 5 games. As foolish as The Athletic is with their money (looking at you, Dolan), they're not going to pay a guy to say, "let's see where we are 20 games in." 

[SKO]

I really do find it funny that there has to be some kind of higher relationship with a sports team than "mad they lost, happy they won." I'm obviously perfectly rational and happy to discuss stats and stuff between games but in the end if the point is not to have some kind of emotional reaction to the actual events of the games themselves I gotta say I don't get it. You know they're not your friends, right? They don't care about or acknowledge your existence, you don't owe them anything. Yell at them when they lose or yell at everyone yelling at them when they lose, in the end you make no difference here.

I mean at the end of the day nothing we do makes any difference, we're all farts in the wind eventually. The point is not that you can't or shouldn't get mad when your team loses. It's that trying to draw some greater meaning about where the season is headed out of a meaningless sample size (Happ should be benched because of his K rate...Lester might be done...Heyward is clearly bad again) is a waste of breath.

I mean most of the time my twitter account is just "fuck. shit, goddamit, that sucks" if you can see me drawing making any proclamations like the above, fine. I mean the Heyward thing I am going to wait until he has sustained success before I change my default opinion that he sucks ass. I think I may have called for Happ to get a day off but not end up benched, he was clearly just pressing too hard there for a bit. There's just a default attitude among a large chunk of Cubs Twitter that basically anyone who dares get mad at the outcome of a single baseball game is a moron. I'm a moron, but that's not why.

[Saul Goodman]

I really do find it funny that there has to be some kind of higher relationship with a sports team than "mad they lost, happy they won." I'm obviously perfectly rational and happy to discuss stats and stuff between games but in the end if the point is not to have some kind of emotional reaction to the actual events of the games themselves I gotta say I don't get it. You know they're not your friends, right? They don't care about or acknowledge your existence, you don't owe them anything. Yell at them when they lose or yell at everyone yelling at them when they lose, in the end you make no difference here.

I mean at the end of the day nothing we do makes any difference, we're all farts in the wind eventually. The point is not that you can't or shouldn't get mad when your team loses. It's that trying to draw some greater meaning about where the season is headed out of a meaningless sample size (Happ should be benched because of his K rate...Lester might be done...Heyward is clearly bad again) is a waste of breath.

"Again"?