[Applause]
welcome to the rants live [Applause]
well hello there evan how are you i'm great
i guess i mean well the cubs are great sort of well
i mean they're they are legitimately great i mean there are we'll get into the numbers here in a
little bit over this uh six game winning streak but uh suffice it to say
they are playing great but tell me another team in any sport at any level
that can somehow make a six-game winning streak feel bad
yeah you know what i mean like i assume you remember the game yesterday
well yeah just i mean but in general but it's also like okay they lost nine in a row it was like okay they're just gonna keep
on sucking so bad they're going for a top three spot maybe you know top four at the outside and now it's like holy
crap they just swept the phillies and the pirates they overtook the pirates in the standings they're they're moving up
and playing good baseball finally which you know but then then the last of those
games they have the day off today obviously but the last of those games could possibly be the last home game for wilson contreras and ian happ and so you
feel all melancholy about that but then it's like winning
it i don't want i want to put this right away yeah it's it's not like there's no value
there's no value to wins or losses really because the record at the end of the day doesn't matter other than the
fact that they still want a better shot at that top pick and so it's like
now you're winning not like you know if this had happened early things might be different i don't know
what this reminds me of is i i remember when i was dating a girl and she was getting ready to go off to college and
you know it was like you could see the end right the end was there there was no doubt about it and
but then like right before you leave what she leaves to go away to college
things are have never been better but you know it's still gonna end
because you know i'm staying back in in omaha nebraska she's moving on to bigger
and better things the writing is on the way you know it's over and those last few moments are still
like better than you want them to be right like you right like she almost won it was bad like you wanted to be
business then it'd be like man this would make it so much easier because it's just yeah oh yeah it can't be
that that's kind of i mean it's not the same that's not quite how it was last year
but like you know none of those guys were really playing all that well at the time and
it's sort of like okay they had turned you know had turned down offers depending on who
you believe and what you want to listen to but it like you knew that was going to happen and the team wasn't playing well right
they had been just not that they are this year but at least it wasn't like some big winning streak or something
right like well their record last year was 51 and 55 at the trade deadline which is far better only four games
below 500 so there was a chance and the braves as we've talked about were right there with about the same record they
went on to win the world series so there was a chance that they could have uh you know kind of clean things up there and
possibly made the postseason especially in the nl central which has just historically been weak since the cubs
dominated dominance has ended but you know it's now they're 40 and 57
but they're playing better i mean last year after the all-star break they were six and nine heading into the trade uh
which was july 31st heading into july 31st uh post all-star break
this year they are six and oh and they're going to play the giants in
the final four games before the uh the trade deadline and the giants are not playing well
and the giants very much like the their last two opponents uh the phillies and the pirates are not a great offensive
team and i think they've lost like they've lost a bunch in a row i don't
know if it's like six in a row or something like that let's see they've won all that well they've lost
six in a row so it is it's possible i mean the cubs are going to have a winning record post all-star break
heading into the trade deadline that's a guarantee it's just how much of a winning record are they going to have i mean it is
conceivable that the cubs can win the next four games and go into the trade deadline on a 10
game winning streak and trade away their two most valuable
veterans with wilson contreras and ian happ who
you know i mean listen everybody's playing well right now it's like everyone's playing really
well and and ian happ and wilson contreras are certainly not leading the charge there but they're two guys that are important
parts of the lineup that when you remove them at the trade deadline it changes
how other opposing pitchers have to pitch to the other players in the cubs lineup
they no longer have to take into consideration two guys like ian happ and wilson contreras
and that's big and so don't expect this winning to continue but who knows
yeah i mean well the and and look at how well they're pitching i mean that's and that's the biggest thing
i mean there's a few things right there's the two things we can look at is like their pitching has been incredibly inconsistent and then their inability to
do anything with runners in scoring position um and these are things we've talked about but i mean if you
obviously the way they're playing now and the way they played the nine games prior like neither of those is is really
accurately indicative of what this team is however at least you know not to be that
hot or that cold at any one point but i mean if you look back and you go man what if
like look at all the dudes who've been so kyle hendricks currently on the il uh wade miley on the il drew smiley has
spent a ton of time on the il marcus strowman back but has been on the il more than once
right and and miley has more than once and so if you there's that's 80
of your projected opening season starting rotation that has missed significant time and and
whether you want to call it whether it's because of that or for other reasons hasn't you know they they have not
pitched consistently well um so you know i mean they've gotten great contributions and then admirably
who was possibly want to be i mean you could make the argument that 100 of their projected starting rotation
has has never been together at any point this season depending on you know they've never had that um or that 100 of
them have missed significant time if you want to go that route but obviously justin steele keegan thompson have done
really well and they've been a big part of this run lately they've been getting contributions from adrian sampson but if
you go back to the start of the season say man if these guys were healthy if the pitchers were and that's a big if
you can never right i'm not i'm not indicating that the cubs would be very good or anything like that
but in the weak division where they play
right where you're going to steal some games and they've won a series against the cardinals right they've won a series against the brewers
um they've obviously they've won series against the pirates they've beaten the reds
it's conceivable that if things break differently
this is a team that's actually in contention in the division and and i'm not i'm not
even saying that that means they would not be taken the same direction that they they are and that they and that's
kind of where i go yeah i i don't think that changes where we are and kind of what we're
talking about right now i i just don't because it's not like they if they had a
history if they've extended anybody i mean who have they accepted david bodie and kyle hendricks full stop
yeah the cheapest experience you could i don't know hendrix aside like
the booty one man what's going on there like that that was
i still think that was just a weird deal and i
david modi's a good dude but it it is incredible to me how many people still overrate the hell out of him like
somebody the other day on one of the lineup posts was like i'd rather see body in there any day over that mediocre patrick wisdom i'm like
you may want to go back and check the stats on those two bro because i listen
wisdom isn't having a great season but bodhi hadn't hit for any sort of power
in the last two years and out i mean people like if there is anyone who is defined more by like two hits
you know it's like oh the the grand slam and the other he's got a couple of walk-off homers
and man has he ridden that in the eyes of a lot of fans because we're talking about a dude who people
wanted to trade chris bryant put david body in as a starting everyday second or third baseman and they still want him
over wisdom like i don't get it but anyway um but i mean but but there again that's another dude who was hurt there are a
lot of people who they expected to contribute in ways that they simply have not and and that going back to the the
original point is that if they were in any sort of contention if they were
in a position even even just what as you mentioned what they were last year where they're kind of they're floating around that 500 mark
uh the division last year was pretty weak right i mean the cardinals were right there around 500 around the deadline or the all-star break
um i mean you're looking at because i think i think as you'd mentioned they were like four or five games under because
they were only like two games under 500 when they traded peterson at the deadline if i recall like them and the
braves and the cardinals had almost identical records like half a game separating them and that makes it like peterson uh like
a week or two at the deadline deadline right i'm sorry it was during it no it was i'm sorry it was is that the all-star break is that all yeah right
after the all-star game not the deadline but another yeah that was that was like the writing was on the wall with that trade right
not that you knew it was there huge but once you start trading guys like but you knew they could have bought like the
cardinals picked up players the braves picked up players in that record and the cubs clearly were ready to jettison
everyone uh and then you know immediately went into a tailspin but that's that's what makes it tough and that's but that's
also very telling because you're going it doesn't matter whether in theory you could buy players and
contend they do not mean to like they are not intending to do that they don't want to
uh and that's why this year has a much different feel than last season last season
you didn't know who was going to come up to replace uh chris brian hobby by us anthony rizzo
i mean we didn't know we didn't even know who frank schwendel was for god's sakes um
and so it was now it's different right it's like we pretty much know i mean there's there may be a couple
guys that come up but we know who is probably going to come up i mean we know who's on the team because most of the
team is made up of these younger prospects at this point you know surrounded by you know couple veterans i
i would say the godsend of the past several weeks has been that jason hayward hasn't been in the lineup i mean
that's the best part about what's going on this season is that we don't have to sit there and watch jason hayward pound
the ball into the dirt to second base and and get out it's just that to me that's been the best part to
be honest with you it's like i know it's hard losing ian happ and wilson could cherish but at least we get to see guys
in there now who you know i mean nelson velasquez i'm just going to go over some of the numbers real quickly during this streak
since june 17th the the cubs are on a six-game winning streak nelson velasquez has three home runs
he's slashing 400 500 and one 1 300
[Laughter] that's solid three home three home runs he's got a 366
wrc plus and he's striking out only 16.7 percent of the time
um in fact uh everyone in the team is performing like that morel is a 198 wrc plus with 8.3
percent uh strikeout rate say a suzuki 146 wrc plus with a 14.8
percent strikeout rate uh ian happens one of the highest strikeout rates on the team right now at 25.9 percent now
he's still got a 128 wrc plus and contreras is at a 209 wrc plus
striking out 18.2 percent of the time which is closer to the league average but i mean i i would say just there's a
lot of excitement to be had going forward and i think the return for whatever the
cubs end up getting for ian happ and wilson contreras is i'm going to be really surprised if
they're like 18 or 19 year old prospects maybe there will be one or two in there
but what i'm expecting and you tell me what your opinion is on this is i'm expecting guys who are going to be
closer to major league mlb kind of big league ready uh maybe next year
would be when you would expect to see them uh but i don't know what do you think on that
um you know i'm i've gone back and forth on it because well actually before i get to that
let me ask you this do you think we see jason hayward again in a cubs uniform gotta help do you think that yet do you
think do you think they're playing this thing out and and it's just an understood agreement that
he's just gonna kind of continue to quote unquote work on baseball activities basically throughout the rest of the season and then they quietly dfa
him this winter and let him see if he can find catch on with a new team at the minimum if they have any intention of
winning next season the answer to that would be absolutely 100 because these young guys need to get in
there and play and they're proving why christopher morrell nelson velasquez
say a suzuki these guys are killing it and they need to continue to get at bats
there's no point in bringing jason hayward back and you know where's he gonna play
well yeah that's i mean it it would it would not make a whole lot of sense but uh
no so so i guess getting back to the the other question though um i mean a lot of it depends on the
teams right i mean we we've seen a bunch of different teams mentioned for the two of these that
the thing that would be a little bit and it's a little bit weird because it'll depend again on that team and then
who those top prospects are that they've got and whether or not so like with the cubs
when they traded gleber torres as part of the role as chapman deal part of that was because the cubs already had two
guys in uh javier baez and addison russell who were locked in at shortstop second base
and they're just okay this guy could be your top prospect but guess what we've already got two young guys at the
position he plays and then they you know i mean they knew and then they had chris bryant so he can't he's not sliding over to third
right so basically okay now he's expendable and and he was a little bit farther away right he was only at uh at a ball at the
time and so it's a little bit different but i do think you see some of these teams where they may have some players who are
close to major league ready but are being blocked and so for that team in particular that player would have a little bit less
value you know and we're seeing that in some of these talks um but
you know i i think it it's a circumstantial thing because i know a lot of teams would would rather part
with guys who are farther away if you are a competitive team right now especially if we're talking about a
pitcher or something like that right who might be able to come up and help you out in a david price sort of way with
the raise back when he first debuted right worked out the bullpen when they made that world series run under madden in 15 i'm sorry in 14.
and it's so some of those you know i'd be surprised to see them part with that but if we are talking outfielder shortstop
second baseman that kind of a guy who maybe they could figure out where to move him around but there again
the cubs have a bunch of guys the reason they drafted 16 pitchers was because they were so stacked with position
players most of whom are shortstops and outfielders that to get a guy in there who could
ostensibly block one of them unless then you flip some of those guys so yeah i don't know i'm all i keep going all over
the map with it but i do think it'll depend on the trade partner um
you know if it's somebody like the braves who we saw mentioned with half i think there are some guys who are closer to the major leagues who have
already made the majors you know for at least a debut uh if we're looking at the mets you know i think they are not
going to move one of their top two guys so i think maybe we look at somebody who's perhaps or some some bodies who
are perhaps a little bit farther away um and so that's what's interesting to me with the mets to be honest with you um
is that you know they're sitting there saying that they're not going to trade their top two guys and it feels like they're just backing
themselves into a corner because i mean if that's what the word is and whether that's true or not and
you're a team that wants to acquire wilson contreras and i'm assuming there's going to be several suitors out
there i mean doesn't that kind of weaken the mets position
um not necessarily i mean it and i don't even know if they're the number one for him but i i think
depending on who the cut now could they come with another package that would get that in there but i think after you look at a team like that that
especially when the cubs are involved that to an extent you could say they got burned i mean
they had hobby for a couple months but he started really slowly with him before kindly certainly yeah kind of catching
on and then then he didn't research right we don't owe that williams what's he gonna do right well no but i'm saying
the mets might might look at it like wait a minute oh crap and then the cubs clearly like something about like the the one of the
first things the cubs did as soon as pete crowe armstrong could start swinging again was get him in with their hitting in uh
instructors and tweak a couple things in there and we're seeing the results of that so i i think the the mets may look
at that almost in a way they're like oh crap maybe they're evaluating something um
and you know what's what's interesting to me about the met so when you look at that right is that they don't want to move
um their top guys and now for the life of me because now i was looking at uh i was
looking at this thing about ian happ and like who might be on the on the map there but uh it was alvarez is like the
the top mets prospect who's a catcher right but what's what's it and they don't want to move him
um but what's interesting to me is that the mets also drafted kevin perrotta who we've talked about on the show uh
slugging catcher out of georgia tech who they drafted i think number one 11 overall i believe they got i'm not in
love with his swing though his swing is too funky for me i just i i know that he's one of the you know the
highest rated catcher in the draft and blah blah blah i just have you seen his swing
i haven't really looked at him now check out video of how he swings and it's it's
i just don't see it playing i i just yeah it's super funky
uh it's kind of like he brings the bat yeah it's just the bat action he gets it through the zone obviously
yeah i don't know why i was thinking albert is this uh who wait no is that it yeah francisco alvarez okay nevermind yeah i'm looking at like
i i have like three different articles open so i can reference them but yes i'm sorry um but but here's the thing though right
what did i just say about petrol armstrong is that there was something a little you know his swing wasn't quite built the
right way that that's something they can clean up a little bit and now the thing with that is that you
cannot trade a recent draft pick until the season is over so a deal like that would have to
be a player to be named later now it's also a little bit different because you have the dh
right so a guy can be just a hitter but it is interesting right so we know the
mets need catching help we know their number one overall prospect is a catcher and we know their top draft pick from
this recent draft is also a catcher and a college guy too who could move somewhat quickly
and so you do kind of wonder if they're not willing to move their top guy is there a way they'd be able to move
piranha which i don't want to call that i called it a coup obviously you're talking about giving up
contreras and probably david robertson or michael gibbons or somebody like that in order to make something like that
work but if you're able to come away with a dude who everybody thought you would have tried to go after at number seven
or who felt might be a top five pick in addition to some of these other players and with the cubs again from their
catching perspective you know not having a ton of that that you can really depend on although miguel amaya is raking
i'd be very interested to see something like that right so when we talk about guys who are kind of closer um
you know there are a couple i'm trying to remember who else uh brett beatty i think was the other one right uh mark
vander mark vientos betty's the one that don't want to move uh ronnie mauricio he's been
but the thing is like last year mauricio was one of them who was off limits when they were talking about cubs
trades right with the mets and so now he's falling all the way down to three uh mark vientos number five
so i don't know there there are we've heard of those names related to the cubs before and so i i wonder though but if
i'm the mets i'm going okay wait if the cubs want these guys are they seeing something we're not what do we need to do
but um yeah i i think the cops just want to get a bunch of good players uh but i would i
would love to see them get somebody who can step in as we've talked about the only way if you trade these guys
away the only way it's actually helpful for future seasons not the only way i'm sorry for next
season right is if you're actually getting somebody
who you believe could at least to an extent make up for the production that you just traded away because otherwise again as
we keep going around and i and i know there's been a lot out there and i promise i'll i'll shut up with this in a
little bit here but there's been a lot of talk you know everybody's like hey if you can trade for juan soto you do it like you just go
get that player everybody always wins those trades for these superstars and i'm like
all right i mean yes if you look at especially like i go back to that tigers trade for um for
miggy but if you look at that yeah it's because they traded away guys who ended up being nothing to get him
but at the same time you have to have that core kind of around them if you go and add juan soto to the cubs right now
they're still a bad team they still need to do so so much more around that and that's that's the
problem i have and that's the thing i want to make it very very clear because all these people like yes you could trade like okay cool but do we trust the
cubs to commit the money that he needs and also the money that it needs to put a team around him i don't know about
that but uh as i get back to it right the cubs need to be able to replace the
production from wilson contreras and ian happ which is a significant amount of production
and they've got to do it at a at a value-based price because half is only making 6.5 million contributors only
making like 10. like together they are only making 17 million dollars it would cost way more than that right
it it would cost so much more than that to replace both of them combined with one free
agent is going to cost more than 17 million so that's where if you're gonna make a trade for a dude you better find
somebody who can step in pretty quick or hope that your uh your system produces them because that
alone i just it's a tough spot man it's a tough spot
yeah it's it's interesting that's for sure what do you think the do you think
wilson contreras has gone 100 percent no doubt about it
yes absolutely so it would be shocking to see him no i would be
i would be entirely here's my thing though is is that listen so yes i agree i think they should trade
wilson contreras because this season is dust there's no way they're going to win and they'll be able to get
such value for him coming back that it makes no sense to keep him but
he is a free agent at the end of the year and he is obviously emotionally tied to the cubs now he's going to want to get
paid but could he take a hometown discount maybe and the thing is is that i just think
that if you're looking forward for the cubs and you want to win next season listen
if you look at the cubs pitching staff with just the guys they've got right now you've got steel thompson strowman
killian and hendricks that is not a bad line uh pitching staff in fact
i think that's top 15 for sure top ten
yeah if they perform up to where they should or where you better than top
and if you've got a bullpen there depending on who the cubs trade but they've they've shown an ability an
uncanny ability actually to be able to cobble together a bullpen each and every year
and so i don't think there's a big concern about whether the cubs are going to have a good bullpen to support their their starters next season
and so when you start looking just at pitching and then you start to talk about nelson velasquez and chris morell and
and saya suzuki and uh i mean even if you wanted to throw alfonzo rivas in there who's not
playing well but i do believe that if he gets more playing time he is going to start clicking he's a great player he always has been
and and other players on the cubs pj higgins he's a great maybe great is too much but he's a great
replacement he's definitely too much but he's a good yeah he's not a great player but he's a great replacement and he's definitely an above average catcher
and i i just think that when you start to look at what the cubs could look like next
season it's not that discouraging it's not at all and if the cubs can get back some
players from the from trading ian happ which i don't think there's a guarantee they're going to trade ian half because
you know he still has a year left on his contract he's not afraid i think he's i think it's as close to a guarantee as
hap is almost or i mean as contreras is almost they are aggressively shopping him they are aggressively shopping him they want
to move but that's a guy who they could hold on to i mean the same thing happened at wilson counters last year i mean they shipped everybody out except
wilson contreras because they knew he had an extra year on his contract but they weren't shopping him
they weren't trying to move him they've been trying to move hat for weeks not i mean not that they wanted to move them earlier but i'm saying we'll see they've
been i think these properties be very high oh no i don't think they're going to come down
no and they're going to bundle it they can hold on yeah i think they're going to bundle them with a reliever but i i think he gets moved because i think they
see his value as being as high as it's ever going to get um and for the same reason he drafted
all those pitchers they know how many people they've got coming up through the system they know how many outfield prospects they've got coming
and i i question this i want to go back to something real
quick and there's a comment in there like keegan thomas is not being traded there's there's no we gotta we had a
comment i hope he didn't look like i'm not moving any of those guys our bullpen has not been bad this year in fact our bullpen is ranked 12th in
all of major league baseball so i think you know you get commenters out there that don't know what they're talking
about and i guess right but you don't you do not trade when you are a team that needs pitchers when you are a team
that needs young players when you're a team that that doesn't have more pitchers really coming
up you do not trade a guy making the minor league or the major league minimum yeah thompson's not getting traded there's no
way unless the only way it happens is if they trade for juan soto right which we just
discussed like that that would be the only it would have to be a blockbuster to where you're having to do that to acquire but um back to you know again
when you look at all these position players and when you look at hap like you talked about it right the reason
they didn't get more and they did a really good job in all the trades they made but the reason they didn't get even more was because none of those guys any
time remaining on their contracts hap would be the first person they've really traded in the last couple years who
actually had value beyond this year and who you know who still has that control
so i think you look at a team like the braves who lost adam duvall right who they need a left fielder now
and so happ might be that guy that they could kind of spring for but i think he's also got value and that he could play a couple of those different
outfield positions he could play second base if you had to i don't think that would be the smart
money for a team to do um but the fact that again he hits him well from both sides that he's been just
absolutely mashing from the right side this season um you know the only thing that that you worry about a little bit is that the
power is not there so much but again i think they'll be able to move him um a
lot of that depends on kind of what happens i feel like with soto one way or the other um and then kind of where that
market goes from there but um yeah i'm just i'm really interested to see it because
the the bullpen is excuse me the bullpen is solid uh again i don't know
you know why anybody would question that necessarily but um speaking of which friend of the program scotty f ross
picked up his uh first save the other day and uh and in his majorly leading 46th appearance he's
the closer going forward well hey i think you know it's probably going to be like between him and and wick um
i think it'll be kind of a kind of a huge is another one who's going to get uh some of that but
you know yeah i mean one way or the other i would like to see the cubs if nothing else i'd like to see them get some guys who are close to them
it'll be level so we can kind of see some young guys come in i'd rather that than go out and do like
you know jerry hairston jr and and steven souza jr and any other
juniors that are coming in on short-term deals that are not possibly part of the future
in the least um but you know i i don't know i want to see
mash mervis up i want to see alexander canario who who i think i think canario comes up this season he's
already on the 40-man roster he is absolutely destroying double-a pitching here in july
and i mean again if he's already on the 40 man like what what the hell the team is gonna suck why not get him up here and
match some homers and let's have some fun with this so um at least give me that if you're not gonna give me a competitive team
give me all the prospects and and let me see some of this stuff work and figure out what the hell you're gonna do
but well i think that's what we're to get and i think we're going to have a team that's that's not going to be bad
the second half of the season they're not going to be anywhere near as bad as they were last uh the last year uh in
the second half i can at least be dynamic i'd be very surprised if they were
anywhere near as bad as they were last season and that's basically because the guys that they
that we've talked about a lot of the prospects are already up you know the guys that we've already seen and and the guys that are going to
be coming up like mervis and and whoever else ends up coming up they're just supplementing the guys who
we've already seen who are up who are having success at the big league level so
i think there's a lot to be excited about and you know it's it's it's so hard to
to kind of buy into that because it just feels like we've been duped over and over again but i do think that
where we are right now and and obviously it's very dependent upon what the cubs get back for wilson
contreras ian happ and whoever else they end up trading um but i think that things do not look
as bad as i was thinking they were gonna look now of course it's easy to say that because here we are a six-game winning
streak everyone feels good you know i mean it's it's not hard to feel real good about
the way things are going when you've won six games which is the longest winning streak of the season
so you know i mean maybe there's a little bit of pull going on there and uh maybe i'm a little disillusioned but
i'm not feeling too bad well and you know again bear in mind whether regardless the bullpen
performance you're talking about trading the closer who has been completely lights out
and givens who's been really good this season as well although givens is a guy i don't know if i'm
alone here i feel like i keep waiting for the other shoe to drop on him like i keep waiting for something bad to happen
and uh so i don't know but robertson has just been awesome and you talk about again a guy who has
incredibly increased his uh his value over the time he's he's been with the cubs i mean that's a great pickup but
you know i do like again those young arms have gotten we gotta remember you know ethan roberts got hurt early he had tj surgery he'll be back at some point
you know maybe the second half of next year um but f ross and hughes are a couple young guys who are still in there
i you know i do question kind of where you go with that is it is it some young guys are gonna have to come up to fill
some spots do they do they end up kind of picking up some uh some other i mean you know you got mark leiter jr who can come back up and
you know there's other uh pitchers who are kind of out there just floating around who they can use
but it is uh it is one of those deals where really what happens the rest of this year a lot of it'll be
kind of you know you're putting putting these guys like under the little under the dome and kind of watch them a little bit
put them in the fishbowl see what happens and you're also talking about you know we we talked about these guys getting promoted
to chicago but there will be a lot of moves from whether that's pca moving up to double a uh maybe james triantos
comes up to south bend right owen casey could could get some time at double a who knows like
i i think they're gonna be more aggressive with a lot of these position players than what we've seen maybe
otherwise the pitchers are really the issue and how quickly some of those guys can move because we still need to see
that happen it's great they drive a bunch of pitchers a lot of them are college guys but that's gonna have to start coming so
um i i'm i just want i just want the trade deadline band-aid
ripped off i i guess is where i'm going from it because it's just yeah because you you know a lot of this
stuff is going to happen it's just a matter of let's get it done and it's it's especially difficult because they are coming off this streak
they have the day off today they've got three three late games and then you know an
evening game right going from thursday through sunday then they have another day off
and then they're in st louis the day of the deadline and that's that night and it's very similar to last year
when they were in washington right as you recall chris bryant flew with the team to washington
and in the pregame that's where we got that video of him hugging it out when he found out that he had been traded right
the the evening before so he's in his cubs gear he's in his warm up stuff
in the visitors dugout and so like if if they're gonna do this
and i understand some of the stuff takes up until the last second to get figured out but
i don't want to see ian happ or wilson contreras in saint louis
in the dugout finding out they got traded away from the cubs like if they're going to get moved i want to get moved when they're
in san francisco maybe wilson gets traded to the giants he could just stay there um they go on that monday night 6 45
central and the trade deadline is 5 p.m central so it's really close
yeah hopefully everything will be ironed out before before do it on monday get them done on
monday or before like and the giants are a team that's been rumored you know i mean you mentioned
how poorly they've been playing and maybe they're playing themselves out of contention but they need some help at catcher and they're only i don't know
well after yesterday might be farther behind i know they were only like two and a half games out of the wild card they're right there yeah they're two and
a half yeah but they're in a very still game under 500 yeah so i mean you know can they they've
shown they can turn things on they they do have some talented players around there but um
you know i that that would actually be kind of nice for me though because it's similar to brian being traded out there where it's kind of like
i you know you i don't expect them to make much noise so i don't really care that and the giants were really really good last year
and they they unfortunately faded but i want to see conference go someplace where i don't have to be pissed like
trade him to seattle i don't think seattle is in the market for him at all but that's i haven't thought about the mariners
since they had jay buener um well probably probably at some point in between there but i don't want to see him in houston i don't want to play for
the astros i mean they have a chance to win but as long as it's not the yankees
right which i i can't imagine i don't want him to go to the mets i don't want to see the mets do well at all i i don't
i don't want
but here's the thing like they have a glaring glaring need at catcher they
have some really strong top prospects still and they're going to have max scherzer with jacob degrom both pitching down the
stretch they will find a way to screw it up but man it's going to take an even more monumental messing
than we've probably seen in recent history for them to screw that up and if they add contreras to a team that's got
those top two pitchers right with some other guys who are playing pretty well they will absolutely be a force now can
they overtake the dodgers that's another question entirely but man with those two pitchers dude the braves are right in
their tail yeah it'll be something braves are two games
back they're getting ready to be overcome by the braves it's gonna happen um and somebody had said yeah i saw in
some comments that they want the braves to trade for wilson contreras i i don't see that happening
you know yeah i don't care that'll be the case starting at catcher instead of his brother
that'd be a weird trade uh switch between catcher and dh you know yeah there you go and so and so yeah you
know a lot of a lot of interesting stuff for sure uh developing and of course uh the cubs are
probably almost 100 percent going to trade wilson contreras but it is what it is and we'll we'll kind of
see what what plays out from that but you know i mean you mentioned like i was looking at their numbers during the
streak and it's just uncanny and it's just weird to think that they're able to kind of put all this stuff together
and the phillies aren't a terrible team i mean they're right there in the uh the wild card race i think there are a few
games over 500 uh they've been playing pretty badly lately they're yeah they're three games over five hundred well i
mean hell yeah they got swept by the cubs of course they're not playing very well wow
and the pirates you know it's nice to see the cubs finally beat the pirates that that was the weirdest two-game
series a night game followed by a day game on a tuesday nonetheless i don't
even know if they've had a day game on a tuesday all season long i i guess no
i mean it was i guess it's you know because it's a getaway type i mean it works out great for the timing because then you can fly out to san francisco
that day have a full day off out there yeah but it was it was a very
it was just very weird coming out of the break with that and here's interesting note about that while we're
speaking about uncanny numbers and weird stuff right so justin steele went into that start in
philadelphia 21 fastballs away from the record for most of them
without giving up a home run 21 away it was like 786 and the record was 807.
and the first pitch he throws to schwarber he just jacks it for a home run and if you don't think schwarber knows
that right like what do you think like schwarber's hunting fastballs dude and i'm sitting there like i bet schwarber
reads comes inside her and he knew um i i know that's absolutely not the case because cash forward but we weren't the
only ones he can read i mean it was out there it wasn't it was very obvious but i put it
out there and i'm like well [ __ ] like and i put it out like right before the start too
one pitch dude but but yeah i was and and i get it and he's leaning on that
but but that was just one of those funny things when you sit there and you start thinking about it though and you look at the number of pictures like the pitches
that have had been thrown 500 plus times without allowing a homer and they are all
it was like clay home sinker and carlos rodon slider and i forget what the other so like they
were these are like god tier pitches right and so to see justin steele up
there with that many with that many four seam fastballs thrown without giving up a homer
like you didn't let one leak out over the plate and somebody just got lucky and barreled it but it's a that's
really really stuff like that stands out to me as far as his ability
to continue to pitch well as he really starts man and if he could just get that change of oh my goodness i
just i feel like that would be such a difference maker for him but maybe maybe it doesn't happen so yeah i mean that's
the thing is that the guy the listen i think between steele and thompson and i
know killian came up and didn't do well but he's back in iowa just dominating and uh he will be up uh i would imagine
in the second half of the season and let's talk about braylon marquez real quick what a i mean he's he is
dangerously close to bus territory yeah i mean
i i can't remember if it was if we were talking about it or if i just saw a comment here or what you know because somebody's like what's up with marquez
nobody's heard about and then like you know jared banner like director yeah well no [ __ ] but um but
you know there have been talks earlier like oh he's starting to ramp back up he's getting in the throat and it was like oh no last month you know he had a
a debridement procedure and this is not common somebody like what's debridement i've never heard of that like well okay
anyway but uh you know it's a cleanup so it's better than like
having your rotator cuff completely uh redone or having something you know more
structural in nature but when you're talking about a dude who threw two thirds of an inning
in 2020 uh because he was at the alternate site so he came up on the last day of the season then didn't throw it all in 21 because
he had first of all he had coveted intake issues and actually that was problem with 2020 had coveted intake issues there were conditioning issues
issues and so you have a top prospect coming into camp with conditioning issues yeah to me that says everything
to me that has bus just written all over it because if you're a top prospect you want it right you and and i that's
that's always been the knock on him is as far as
the the maturity um and and are you
able to focus enough right to to want
to get better versus just leaning back on your net because the dude's got all the physical raw talent in the world i
mean you throw it triple digits crazy slider all kinds of stuff has it all big dude
right should you know the durability is now in question but there was a lot of when he took off at south bend a lot of
that was attributed to the fact that he had finally bought into the idea of kind of pitch tracking on his off days and putting in some of the extra work on
what it takes to be a baseball player unfortunately right you did we talked
about 2020 but 2021 had issues with the covet intake had the shoulder was barking there
then had i think another i think he tested positive like maybe twice never pitched in 2021 right
did not throw this year so now we're talking about in three seasons he has thrown two-thirds of an inning
in competitive baseball games right he's been doing some work on the side but but none
in the last two years and for a pitcher even if he's young that is just so difficult to come back
from and and you know he did pitch those two thirds of an inning at the major league level but he hasn't thrown above double a
like what are we gonna see from this guy can he actually get back to doing
anything you know what i mean like that's that is difficult and and i'm with you
on that one unless he comes out and is good we don't know how long it'll be hopefully this is a short time frame
and he'll be able to resume a throwing program in the offseason and be back for spring training but at this point
i i think anything you get from this guy is gravy
yeah i mean he's the type of guy that like you know you end up is he on the 40 man i uh i think yes
right he had to protect him yeah yeah and so he's the kind of guy who like you don't protect and then he ends up going
somewhere else and then he just ends up being like a cy young winner or something stupid like that like he's a
change of scenery guy if i've ever seen it right i mean he's going to say that
he's got to change something i i a lot of this is bad luck i'm not trying to put this all on him
like it's just a bunch of this the situation has not been easy but i my concern is that
he doesn't just need to get healthy i i think there are some things that that he's got to put together
psychologically and and to be able to just
push through i'm not talking about injury right but but to be because the the most
difficult part of this i don't think is physical if you've essentially you've sat out three years
yeah so mentally trying to get yourself back into the groove and reestablish because at this level at the level at
which he wants to pitch it is just as much about the mental side of the game as it is the physical clearly he's got the physical tools
can he come back from this psychologically because i think that's just what's so
difficult with all these and and that's something like look at mark appel or someone like that right who uh who has
talked a lot about that former number one overall pick right all kinds of problems again he finally just debuted this past season he was drafted ahead of
chris bryant and just made his debut this year um it's a great story but again that's one
of those situations where he he had to spend a lot of time figuring some things out yeah
yeah it's it's not encouraging when it comes to him but the thing is is that there it feels like there's uh
definitely some some other guys and now that they've just drafted 16
uh pictures and the the thing about them drafting 16 pictures is i think it speaks much more and i think
some people kind of tend to overlook this is it speaks much more towards to
the the position players that they have in place versus the fact that they failed
developing pitchers it's it's that they've got they're nowhere to put position players
and that's why i'm really super interested to see who they get back in the trades they
pull off here in the i think it's going to be very interesting to see because i mean you do
i can't even get it up what are they who are they gonna trade for i mean are they gonna trade for position players i mean are they just
gonna trade for guys to stock the system that they can then trade and maybe in the off season
uh that's about the only thing that would make it really faster because you've got a limited number of spots right you can only have 180
players across your affiliates and so if they've already got so many
position players they couldn't draft new guys to bring into the system and that's just at the rookie levels
right now right so if you're if you're trading for these guys they're having to come in and play at
low high double a and they need playing time yeah and so i mean you know some of that
changes because you are going to trade some players away that'll open up a few spots
but and i know procedurally they can make some things work but i i do kind of want i mean at some point and hoyer
talked about that too when he talked about getting aggressive and it's like you you spend in two different ways he talked about actual financial currency
and then he talked about prospect currency and at some point they're gonna have to trade these players just for no
other reason and to create room but you can't have six short stops all at the same level
right so it comes it comes down to you know how do you kind of evaluate who that is right who's
going to bring that return and who do you think you know because they've got they have a lot of guys at short and as i mentioned they have a lot of guys in
the outfield you know those are a couple spend and most of those guys are in the outfield right it's not like like a
short stop you can convert they can move to third they can move to second they can move to the outfield oh and casey ain't moving anywhere like
he's a left fielder or right fielder he ain't going anywhere else right that's that's it you know bryce ball is either
a first baseman or a dh look at that matt mervis first base or dh slaughter can move around a little bit
but you know there there is limited capacity for some of these players and so i think
that's where it is a little bit important and that's that's part of why you want to have somebody in place like a bird in the hand is worth two in the
bush whatever you want to say you need to establish who are these players who we're gonna prioritize and
put up so then we know who we can move uh otherwise you're just gonna be sitting here for years and none of them might ever pan out and that's the
difficult part about prospects they look great now history is filled with a bunch of guys
who were phenomenal prospects cubs fans should know this well and who
then simply did not pan out at the major league level so if you're sitting there counting on prospects
i've got some news for you that might not be the best strategy long term
but this you know we we compare this to you know before this this time period
that we're in right now to to before the cubs won the world series in 2016 because
it's worthwhile comparing that but at the end of the day this is starting
to feel and on our last show i believe i was saying that i thought next year was going to be
2014 but as we look more and more at how things are developing
i mean next year could be could very well be like 2015 right i mean you've got a a lot of young
prospects who are definitely going to be hitting the major league team um
you don't really have the veterans that were there to bolster the 2015 team like
anthony rizzo for example i mean there's you trade away wilson contreras and he didn't happen you're
not really left with that guy anymore but you could really see this team next year
being at the all-star break a 500 team
um i think they got they got a lot of work to do
i think to get back let's just talk about pitching steal time chilling
right you've got those five pitchers i feel good about getting to 500 with those five guys and if you look offensively
i mean granted you're gonna lose two big pieces but you know mervis comes up and
and you know who who knows who else comes up from within the system
and i mean things can start looking at morel across the uh across the outfield
you know you've got horner we haven't talked about nico horner but my god i mean how good is how good is
nico horner i mean man he is just doing so well he's like top five shortstop in
baseball right now yeah i mean he's doing doing incredibly well uh so yeah i mean if if things hit yeah let me reel
it back that that anthony rizzo i think actually nico horner is that guy and thank you for reminding me of that um
because he is the veteran guy strangely um yeah and he's better than been around
for a long even though he doesn't have a thousand professionals he's better than rizzo was
he said it i'm telling you i'm not saying he's going to be better over his career but
i'm just saying you showed me when did niko offer to fight the entire reds team huh that's
coming okay then they play the reds i don't know but that when that happens if nico horner
offers to fight some people i i feel like he would just smile at him and like comb his hair back and they would always
add cincinnati august 11 okay well there we go
comes play i'm looking at the schedule going forward and
we'll be done shortly so if you guys are just sitting there on pins and needles waiting to hear what we say next it will
be over soon i promise but starting next season next month they they go to the
cardinals then they play the marlins and then they play the nationals both at wrigley
and then they've got the field of dreams game on thursday
and then there was a decision like that was a terrible choice when they made it
right when they and we all saw they were like oh god these two teams and now it's like who are they gonna have because
it's like contreras and i mean and vado will still be around because whatever
but who are they gonna market for that game like they got to change their marketing for it i mean the cubs do have you know you throw horner and morrell
on there and some other dudes but it's like man that is just
that is not the game that you want to showcase is like hey america here's our
product let me find two of the shittiest teams we've got yeah but you know what i've traded off your stars
it sets up really interestingly for the cubs young stars this could be a coming out for a
number of players it could be nelson velasquez it could be chris morrell it could be nicole horner i mean anyone or
all of them could go off in this game and it's going to be you know the talk of baseball if it
happens when it happens because i'm going to predict it is going to happen you guys say a suzuki in the limelight
i mean they're it's it's from the cubs perspective i mean from the red's perspective i don't think there's any
real appeal but i think there's some interesting things that could happen for the cubs in in that game and
well at least they're two bad teams it's not like it's the cubs playing the yankees or something which actually they did play them pretty well when they when
they squared off and then and the reds actually beat the yankees in their series in new york not long after the cubs played them
which is just super weird um so yeah i mean who knows could some things happen
absolutely and the cubs do have some fun young marketable players who uh who i think
you know if they're surrounded and that's the again we keep going back to it but it's just the team was not built around the
superstars properly which goes back to my soto point where like we've already seen a cubs team that was not able to
properly build around superstars who weren't very highly paid at the time
so i don't know that i trust them to do it right this time around at least
on a sustainable level so we'll we'll see we'll see there's a lot there's a lot that's gonna
happen between now and just a week from now let alone the entire winter and going into next season so uh any number
of ways it would be very nice though if mr hoyer would you know for a moment
stop his execs speak and maybe lay out even the slimmest
example or or blueprint like you don't need to show me the full blueprints but can you show me
a sketch of what you think this building is going to look like because right now we're all left to guess and i think the
guesses are fairly good but you don't have to give it all away give up all your leverage just to tell us a little bit about what your plan is
that would be nice that's all i'm asking i think we're going to be able to figure it out
after the trade deadline so we have a week left to go um before you know whatever happens with the trade deadline
happens and we'll definitely circle back looking at the schedule as we've mentioned four against the
giants and then monday off which is august first which is the day before the trade deadline so we will definitely
have a show on august 1st um and that should be an interesting time
because we'll either be right on the edge of whatever trades happen or will be beyond
them my guess is that there may be some some of the smaller trades might
happen some you know kind of ancillary players but i don't think you're going to see eden
happ and wilson contreras traded before the absolute trade deadline i mean i remember last year
it was just like everything dropped right at the deadline it was so insane
and uh i was in chicago with my family as my kids came right at the at the time my seven and
nine-year-old kids come very at different differing times because they had different favorite players
uh one loved anthony rizzo and the other love chris bryant and so at separate times they both come in the room crying
about the trades that have been that were taking place and we actually did a show
we were doing a show like right at the deadline i think right didn't we do it like right
as it was happening i think there was something like that because rizzo went the day before so at
least that was uh a little bit you know i don't know if that helped at all but
it was kind of that was the first shoe to drop right and then the other ones kind of kept falling so uh but yeah i i depending on what
happens with soda i think there could be a bunch of stuff that's like right last second so it'll get a little hairy should be
interesting we'll see maybe it's gonna get traded i don't know
i think it's like 50 50. maybe yeah i don't think they're going to get what they if the you know what i wrote about
earlier the the rumored names that are reported in the whole cardinal saying there's no way in hell that makes any
sense based on the names that were shared was like two prospects and then they were also gonna take on corbin and you know but i'm like man if they if
something like that happened if the cardinals gave up gorman and like one of their top three prospects
yeah and then some some other just dispensable parts to get corbin to eat corbin's 69 million
dollars remaining and get one it's not going to happen there's no way you're getting juan soto and then including a
player who's going to bring down the value that you get back that doesn't make any sense and the nationals have said as much right which is kind of
weird even though the report said one thing and i'm like yeah it's going to take a hell of a lot more than those two guys that were named to get one ears of
juan soto yeah they do not need to trade him at the trade deadline i think the only thing that wants oda is doing is just creating a lot of static
around that's that's unnecessary around the trade deadline to be honest with you but
well i would like the cardinals to devote all their efforts to trying to trade for them and not being able to and then being stuck with their dick in their hands so if that happens i'll be
happy yes let's on that note i think that's a good way to end the show actually
uh anyways like i said we'll uh we'll see you guys back here next monday the day before the trade deadline it should
be interesting until then have a great rest of your week and we're out see ya
[Applause]
you