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Reasons to Believe: The Cubs Turn It Around Right Now · Monday Morning Cubs Show

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, good afternoon, and evening Chicago Cubs fans, and welcome back to the Monday Morning Cubs Show.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Today is Friday, June 12th.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: It is your host, Carl.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is a solo episode, and we're gonna have a great Friday.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta start there, folks.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the show.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for tuning in.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you guys have a chance, you want to review it, you want to share it, you know that obviously helps.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a beggar.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm a chooser, and I I choose today to be positive about the Chicago Cubs, and that's gonna be the ethos of today's show.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I got a nice little agenda lined up for us, but first, just some general commentary about where we're at mentally, I think a mental health check-in in the Chicago Cubs is a perfect way to start the show.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and then a perfect way to start that would just be say again, thank you to the Maniacs for showing up.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: The last couple weeks have been awful.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: The 7-22 stretch, awful.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we were 15 games over 500, uh, not even 40 games into the season.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And now when you go look at the standards check on the Chicago Cubs, you're gonna see the Milwaukee Brewers are 15 games over 500.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And now everyone's gonna say they're such a great baseball team, and they are.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: They're a good club, they play hard.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: But we're just we're just drawing this point as context to start the show here, folks.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: When I say it is been as bad as it's almost, I think, ever been as a Cubs fan, because of the expectations, because of the payroll.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but just all the circumstances of how we felt going into the season, then to see the season start at a historic pace, right?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: First team since 1953 to do this and that.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna talk through a couple of the negative stuff just to get it off our chest.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then what I want to do, which is probably the craziest thing and most negligent thing I've ever done on a Monday morning cub show, is I'm gonna be very positive today.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna give you guys some things where the next 13 games are still against teams that are under 500.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I made this point with Mahoney.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're gonna pick up some steam, we're gonna move through this 22-game stretch against teams against 500.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: I believe through the first nine games we're three and six.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we had two we had 22 games against teams below 500 that started at the beginning of this month.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: So we talk a lot about June on today's show.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: But on June 2nd, we hosted the Athletics at home.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that homestand, abysmal.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely abysmal.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: San Francisco embarrasses us.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: We go to Colorado, worst team in Major League Baseball.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Then we get embarrassed on Tuesday, and then Shodi Imanaga does everything he can to like give the offense a chance, and then we get a and we blow it Wednesday.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's what I'm saying, guys.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: We just gotta laugh about it.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: We you just gotta, at this point in the season, you just gotta have a laugh about the shit we've been through.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, in this moment, collectively as a maniac, I am making a decision.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm inviting you guys to join me.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: That the the worst part of this bullshit's over.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: That we we are a group of ball players, and this is a team that's gonna go out and and they're gonna compete.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're actually gonna compete for the remainder of the season.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's where I'm at, my head mentally.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't wait to talk you guys through it.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Before I do, though, guys, Thirsty Vacero is obviously the title sponsor of the show.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: You guys have heard us talk about a Mexican-style soda with the signature spicy finish.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's all bite, no rattle, all season long.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Going back to last playoffs.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And now is the time when I say we're rallying, we're getting we're about to emerge into an extremely long positive stretch baseball.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm committing myself to as a Cubs fan.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't have any influence or control over how the boys play.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, correct counsel is not watching my lineup preview and then going into the clubhouse and being like, all right, guys, Carl's behind us on this one.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, we're we're just we're on the outside.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're on the outside, you gotta do everything you can.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I'm appealing to the maniacs now.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Can we get can we get some momentum around a thirsty vacaro?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Is there like when I see the pictures on Twitter before a game, a guy posting up with a thirsty Vacaro, you know, shout out Sean, listen to some jam bands.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know who you are, Lizard King.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we just with Troy, we have so many great maniacs out there slugging through these.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is how we turn it around.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm just appealing to you guys.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: You support the show, you're a Cubs fan, you're a diehard, you know, 162 or and you're not ready to give up on the season yet.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Get yourself a Thirsty McCarrow on Amazon, ships right to your front door.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Just look it up.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Three bold flavors.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Title sponsor of the show.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: There is no positivity today without Thirsty McCarrow.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I should qualify this.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Some people are mad at me.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: They want me to come in here.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna fire credit counts, we're gonna sell the deadline.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and I'm I'm blatantly ignoring on purpose some starting pitching injuries.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: But before before we get into those details, like I'm just asking you guys, I know this is crazy, but like we can be positive about this baseball team looking ahead.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if we want to look back in May, uh puke your guts out, right?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: We want to look back the first week of June, puke your puke your guts out.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: It actually, if you just want to isolate the last uh six weeks of life, terrible.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: We haven't won a series.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's 10 straight series, I believe.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: What is that?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: 33 games, 32 games?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: How many games we we haven't won a series since May 6th?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's June 12th.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: These guys know, I mean, they know they suck.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: They know they suck.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: That they've been trash.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's absolutely no doubt about it, right?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, as as I'm as I'm preparing to take you through why I'm willing to do this, let's just address some of the shitty stuff up front, all right?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Jamison Taeon, hamstring strain, I'll tell when the all-star break.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so then we gotta find somebody else to give up home runs, right?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: He hasn't pitched well at all this year, didn't pitch well in spring training, had a couple good games to start the season, uh, enough to string together, you know, that one statistic where it was like lowest ER, you know, who are the pitchers who have the lowest ERAs in baseball over the last three three years of people who've pitched at least 300 innings.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And James Atan's like 11th on that list, which is just you know, we're watching our F-words because I know there's kids around, you know, listening to this at, you know.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that's fucking crazy, right?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because he's he hasn't been good.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a different thing than when you see Matt Boyd get re-injured.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: We want Matt Boyd to come back.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: He's scratched.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Soreness, whatever.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: He's we we need Matt Boyd back because Matt Boyd, uh, you know, presumably is an effective major league pitcher, where we know for a fact, James and Tian, not right now.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And before people start saying, well, that's because he sucks, obviously, uh, there could be some underlying injury there.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like if his hamstring popped, it could be because he's he's putting more leverage into it because some other part of his body is sore.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a shoulder, it's an elbow.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: So then you drive more, or maybe it's a landing issue.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't have the MRIs.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't talk to the doctor.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: And just saying when you see the performance is terrible, and then an injury comes, there is a good chance that that player uh was performing with an injury, and that's not stuff I'm saying as I'd sit here on a couch and watch it.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't expect many people to be like adept with the fact that these a lot of these guys are you know play through shit and it's a long season.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I you know, when I worked with Jake for the year we did starting nine, some one of the like aha or like Eureka, I mean that I learned an incredible amount about the major league lifestyle and some of the behind-the-stuff stuff or behind-the-scenes stuff as far as cultural and personality and what the clubhouse is like.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And a huge takeaway is like you just have no idea how many guys are fucking playing with that nagging shoulder, like the the busted ankle from the slide that isn't talked about in the media, that isn't because this is their job, is how these guys get paid.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: They don't want to say, hey, I'm hurt, I'm banged up, I'm this and that.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I have through uh, I suppose personal experiences or picked up secondhand and stuff that has been baked into my mind that I would like to sh share, at least maybe educate somebody out there who's like, fuck this guy.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you get quick and be like, this guy sucks.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I really never considered that.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: That like poor performance can be directly tied to, you know, so when you look at Danzby Swanson, is is quite literally as bad as John Lester was at hitting in like 2017 or 18 or something.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like John Lester, after he got to the National League, obviously he's the worst hitter of all time in 2015.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: But then he's a great athlete.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: He figured, you know, he figured it out enough to have like a 600 OPS, you know, where I think his first season was like 400.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: So my point in that is Dansby Swanson's performing is bad as like one of you know the worst offensive pitchers in in Cubs war.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's how bad Dansvie Swanson's been.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: So here's a question: is Dansby hurt?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, is there like there's gotta be some physical component that's holding him back, I would guess.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Is it vision?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's where we go with Nico.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Is it vision?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: So when I get into the positive part of the show, what I'm trying to do is just introduce a couple things here that can can take us off the ledge, right?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you spend as much time on Cub's Twitter as me, you'll know it's depressing and sad.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go through a couple DMs.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh later, a little mailbag, maybe I guess, maybe mailbag to address a couple of these things.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: But people are really pissed.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're pissed, I'm mad.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've been so mad.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that show I did in Las Vegas, just motherfucking I don't want to do it, but I was motherfucking the Cubs hard, hard.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Hate Craig console.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't even know if I like Craig.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't know.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: I don't.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think I hate him, but I think I don't.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is the problem with baseball.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because I just don't know.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: I know as much as I can know, and I don't know if I like this guy.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's as hard as it gets.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Do I stand behind Craig Council?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is what I'm willing to do.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm willing to say it's a bizarre game filled with so much nuance and intricacy and stuff that is hidden under the table, you'll never see the iceberg that sank the fucking Titanic.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's Major League Baseball.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And all you see is a little thing that's floating and bobbing up and down.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know the behemoth underneath the water.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm willing to, by the grace of God, give the benefit of the doubt to the Chicago Cubs that they're gonna pick their shit up and play their balls off through the rest of June, at least the next 13 games.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's the expectation.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And when I'm saying this, it's what I'm building the expectation.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So when this weekend series starts against the San Francisco Giants, I am not gonna be watching the series and going, well, the offense sucks.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Couldn't score in St.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Louis, couldn't score at home against the Athletics, got boat raced by the Giants, lost a series to the Rockies, go figure we're getting our ass kicked again.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm putting that language to bed.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm putting that attitude to bed.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: I just cannot continue to carry it around with me.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm gonna ask the Cubs, I'm gonna ask Manias, I'm gonna ask all stakeholders within the Chicago Cubs community that we're just gonna fucking pick it up today and move on and move forward and do the best that we can to make the most out of the season.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because when I woke up today and I looked at our playoff odds at 36% when they were at 99% five weeks ago, I sharded like leaky butt juice.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because instinctively, almost the reaction, you know, I shouldn't say almost because I don't have the experience.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: They say when you die, you defecate, like shit just comes everywhere.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was almost that compulsive.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not trying to be too graphic.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm saying is it it literally blew the shit out of me when I saw our chance almost the third to make the postseason.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, why is that?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Our starting pitching sucks, right?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Our starting pitching, it's hurt, it's banged up, it's trash, it's terrible.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: We had no starting pitching.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's basically a fact.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: That is basically a fact, and so to compete through it, we're going to have to have offense to pick it up.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: We just need it.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: I need signs of life, I need power, I need slug, I need guys who care.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: I need guys who care.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so, can we get that?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: I know that we were 15 games above 500.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: I know we played the absolute worst stretch of baseball I've ever seen a talented Chicago Cubs team play.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that today we are in San Francisco playing a late 915 game.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: We have all the time in the world to get our heads right, and we're away from Chicago, Chicago media, people at the grocery store, the guy who fucking parks your car, you know, who's going, geez, Nico, what's going on with the team?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we we don't, we're out, we're away.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say that's actually a good situation for us to bounce out of it because the overwhelming negativity around the Chicago Cups, which is justified, by the way.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking anyone out of being negative.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to continue to be negative, that is fine.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: You are always welcome here.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you and I I will 100%, 100% respect your decision to be negative if that is how you truly feel.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if it's performative, then I would now I want to bargain with you a little bit.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: But if you are truly negative because it has hurt for you to sit there three hours, four hours, and just it's like one run, you know how it's pregnant, you can't hit a hanging slider.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: But if it's performative and you're getting mad because people on Twitter are mad and you like the engagement or whatever, like, guys, that's stay with me for a second.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's ride up here, let's talk, let's have a nice conversation here about why.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: And because at this point, I would assume most of you are like, have you given us one reason to be positive?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm gonna do it right now.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: The Craig Council ejection on Thursday.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you guys are paying attention to this, Moises Biasteros is up.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: He hits, uh, fouls a ball off of his front leg and stays in the batter's box.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: The ball rolls out into the field of play, which is then turned into uh an automatic double play.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: The runner on first base doesn't advance because it's a foul ball.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Moises biasteros isn't running it out because uh he hit it off his leg.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: The umpires have the capacity to review that.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: The team cannot trigger the review, the umpires can kick it to New York and be like, hey, look at this.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: The umpires didn't do that, the umpires just were like it's double play.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: And Craig got tossed, Craig got Craig got fucking wrung.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it was an amazing ejection because if you've paid any attention to Craig Console's ejections, we talked about this in the season preview with Alex Cohen.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think he's been ejected going into the season.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: I thought he was ejected six or seven times, and it is almost always with a home plate umpire's uh ruling on either something where like it's very obvious to Craig.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I mean this is this isn't bad inside like Craig gets ejected because he gets pissed off.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: He's pissed off yesterday, he gets so mad at the home plate umpire.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: The home plate umpire, though, is like a replacement home plate.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's like a guy you call he's not a regular MLB umpire, they have a reserve of umpires that they'll call in, and then that's how you kind of get your big league experience.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: We'll bring up a trip, they'll have like a pool of minor league umpires or kind of in this what we would call is if if you're talking about ball players, you'd say quadruple A players, you guys come up and down, and so it's a younger, less experienced, home played umpire, but it's his call, and he's like, I have it like this.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I have.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Crew chief comes over to council, and council's laying into the crew chief, who I believe was ump in first base.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Culpa?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Was it Ron?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's giving him the business where he probably should have got wrong there.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the crew chief won't ring him, it's crazier.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Send him.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: He he would not eject council, and this is a moment.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: All right, now if you're watching the game, you follow the game closely.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: This this is a moment where you're going, crack, get tossed.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Get tossed.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the crew chief doesn't want to run him.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason the crew chief doesn't want to run him is because the crew chief is like, well, you know, I mean, emotionally, you're like, or I would say internally, the crew chief is very likely going, well, the home plate umpire is fucking rookie, not even a rookie.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: We we just call this guy up, he doesn't up that much at the at the big league level, inexperienced guy.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Council's chewing his ass out.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe he missed the call.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're not slowing down the game, we're not kicking this thing to New York.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're just let's keep it moving.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's his call.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: I want to give the home plate umpire some confidence if I send this to New York just because Craig Council's yelling at him.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: That impacts my relationship with this guy, and I'm the crew chief.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, what the crew chief wants is council to go back in the dugout, home plate umpire get back behind home plate, cubs just finish the game, had a lead, just play this one out like it's nothing.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And council's like, at that point, council's like, I have to go, I have to get ejected from this game.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's no fucking way I can come out here after this.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: They take away two outs from us.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, what does counsel do on his way back to the dugout?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Goes right back up to the home plate umpire.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll guarantee you the last thing the home plate umpire wants to do is eject the manager of the Chicago Cubs.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Out the think of yourself, your first year on the job, second year, whatever.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Limited experience on your job.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't say rookie, I should have more details about the home plate umpire's experience.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: But generally, this is enough to know he is inexperienced, especially relative to a crew chief and correct council and that moment and circumstance.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: So the fact that counsel went back to this virgin home plate umpire and basically gave him the sense that I am not leaving until you fucking send me.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Do you understand?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like we'll be, I'll motherfuck you for the next whatever it is.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: To see that from council, unbelievable.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because historically, his ejections come quick, they come right from the dugout, arguing balls or strikes, and you cannot argue balls and strikes, not from the dugout.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: You just they there's no chirping up home plate umpires balls and strikes.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: They got rid of that.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Home plate umpires have full you as soon as you start bitching about a strike zone, umpire can send you collectively bargain.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing you can do about that.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how counsel gets ejected.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: He'll react quickly, yell something at a home plate umpire on like a check swing from Nico Horner.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Usually it's a uh usually when Craig Council gets ejected with the Cubs, the play involves Nico Horner, is what I should say.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I loved about this, it's Moises by Asteros.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're already winning, but we've played like shit.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: We've played like shit, we've got a trash team.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: The fans hate it.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And council's not gonna go to the media and sit on 670 and say we suck, we're bad.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's gonna protect his players, and the reason he protects that clubhouse and he doesn't say shit to the media, and he doesn't put stuff in our hands, and he doesn't give us any sound bites, and the reason we feel so kept in the dark is because Craig Council has like a 15-year playing career, you know, 12-year playing career where he didn't get into the big leagues until he was like 28 or you know, some crazy what is it when he got up with the with the Marlins, all American at Notre Dame, um, you know, breaks into the league a little bit later, has to grind his way through the minor leagues, is a reserved player for most of his time.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's like, what is it like eight, nine years into council's career, he becomes an everyday player, six, whatever, where he's like an effective, reliable in some cases, depending on what statistics you favor.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: So when you consider that personalities in the dugout, um, especially as an infielder's the background, I think that's another thing I want to call out.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: The infielders are very uh what's a what's a precise way to describe an infielder relative to a catcher, relative to an outfielder?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I think infielders are lunatics.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think the catcher is like an offensive lineman, is kind of like the funnier or more of like, you know, has the personality.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: And now that personality can be jovial, it can be attractive, it can be fun, it can also be stiff and mean.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's like that you're in the trenches, and that usually brings out one side of the spectrum where you're either like a total lunatic or you're a complete personality, right?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Willison Contreras, David Ross, Miguel Montero, personality.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, Carson Kelly, just fucking dead serious, just like a dead serious professional.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Let's see, he's like a center.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna go through here and name all the do a football analogy.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just trying to make this as relatable as possible, which is I'm talking about Craig Counsel's mental makeup as a manager, and I'm talking specifically about his extensive experience as a player in Major League Baseball and how that influences the way he wants to run his clubhouse and make his players feel.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: So even though they're going through this awful stretch, they can't hit.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do we need to fire Dustin Kelly?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Do our hit are hitters just complete jobs?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Trash, what are they doing with the starting pitching staff?
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna see very few cracks from Craig Council as he addresses and Midian speaks publicly about his players because the line he'll never cross is you know expressing to third parties or outwardly his personal thing.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is a critical word, disappointment, not frustration.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm mad.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: We can't, you know, we should, you know, we're we should score more runs.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: But he can't ever express disappointment, and rarely I should say, if ever, does.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: When things are really bad, Craig's like, it's gonna turn soon.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I know the work we're putting in.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think he's doing that for us or fans or anything.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's his message for fans first.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think his first priority before anything comes out of his mouth is how does this impact the clubhouse?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: And is there an opportunity for it to be negative?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Get it away from me.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's anything that has any opportunity to be negative within the clubhouse that comes out of his mouth, and there's no way Craig's going down that path.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so as I sit here and judge Craig and say, Do I like him?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Do I not like him?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of times I'm working off the fact that we're sitting here watching the post-game presser and he's just thumbing through it like he don't give a fuck.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then I see him get ejected to go back to the home plate umpire is what I'm saying, because he's gotten tossed before, but when he gets tossed, it gets tossed immediately on a technicality.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: You can't say that, Craig, you're gone.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yesterday, Craig Council got made a show of it, made a show to get tossed for a rookie.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Not for Nico Horner, not for Danzby Swanson hitting 180, not for NL player of the week, Pete Cro-Armstrong, not for Seiya Suzuki's been on the team for five years and needs to break out of a slump.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: He did it for my chubby Venezuelan son, who needs more playing time.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: He did it for Moises fucking Biasteros.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a crazy diatribe.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: I just went on to find some positivity.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: But the reason I'm going so deep into that ejection and Craig Counsel's personality and the way he represents himself is that I do think we uh are easily not misled, but just like easily react to uh what I would say again, the iceberg of information, you know, or or if you're you know went to business school, the information asymmetry.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like we see what's here, we don't know what's below.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: But when I see Craig go do that performative ejection yesterday and go back to the home plate umpire, it's almost like I'm sticking my head underwater, you know, and just with a little peek just for a second, just to see what how big is the shit underneath.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like I like what I see when I stick my head.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: I like that a lot.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: That tells me that he ain't that it's much tighter in there than I'm led to believe based on how bad they've performed.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense 25 minutes into the show?
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: Does that have any hold or material worth to you guys?
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: As I sit here and I'm like, fire crack, I don't give a fuck.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think Sylvie put out a poll the other day.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yo, Sylvie, SPN went out.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Who doesn't?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you're listening to the show and you don't know Sylvie, that'd be crazy.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think he put out a poll the other day and said, Would you fire Craig?
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it was 60% yes, 40% no.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's obviously a little different because like you have to hold somebody accountable.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: The team hasn't played well, it's always gonna go right to the manager.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, personally, I would say Carter Hawkins first.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: I would say Carter Hawkins before anybody.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like just Carter Hawkins.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: We have we have no we have no quality MLB pitching dev that has the talent of modern baseball.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost insane.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like we're playing a different game.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it would be like if we came out tomorrow and we were a small ball team.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: We were butting, we were fucking hitting and running, you know, little punching Judy singles.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like it that's insane.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: That that's the level of what I'm talking about.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: That it's insane that we don't have dudes pumping Ched.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: We have guys that are like, oh, this is his fourth major league team.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: He's been in triple A for the last three years.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let's see what Ferguson's got.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, but Ferguson's got nothing.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not trying to call out Ferguson.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying, like, it's such an indictment on the guy whose whose job is that.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, Jed's the president of baseball operations.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: You work for Jed, Jed hired you.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: You better have a fucking team and a strategy in place.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: You better know your shit.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: You better be able to communicate with scouts, you better be able to get your inside information and work a fucking network and figure out who are the talented guys this team can invest in because we have all the resources to invest in people.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like every time we bring in new faces and stuff, they look like guys from fucking 2003.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Throwing 92 with a cutter, you know, or if it's 2003, it's a slider.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I I I do I do have strong feelings about the negative performance where I'd say, yeah, if we're gonna fire people, we want to lay people off, we want to just fucking burn this season down.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I told you guys at the start, I'm choosing to be positive.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm choosing to be positive.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like if we if we have to fire somebody, fine.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Start with Carter Hawkins, start there.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I don't want to have that conversation, I don't want to play that hypothetical game, you know.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a couple just a couple other just quick here, guys, because it I do want to get to this mailbag some Twitter DMs.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to talk extensively about how I'm feeling about Craig Council and specifically with the leadership and where he's at.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: And like, I know it's stupid, I know it sounds stupid, but this is how I am.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I watched the game yesterday, and I'm sitting there thinking to myself, maybe this is it, maybe, maybe this is enough.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was a second thing that I saw that really hit me, and it was Alex Brugman's post-game interview with this cold, dead stare.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, How was it the offense finally breaks out today?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: And immediately he's like, Well, we have been very bad.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we know we've been bad.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, before you can most players are like, Yeah, it's great to break out.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: We had we had a great game today, real proud of the boys.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Brackman's like, Yeah, no, I I mean we've been really bad, right?
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't get that, like almost ever.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: I would give him an A plus in the accountability rankings because I don't want him like fired up and flipping tables.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: That does not work in baseball.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't, it does not work.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Getting mad in Amy, you can get mad like twice in a season.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Justin Steele got really mad in Milwaukee a couple years ago, and we're still we we still go to that as a place of like that's how we do it.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's getting mad.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's it has its time and place.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be the right guy for it.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I don't I don't see a ton of it in the in this cub's clubhouse, and I think that can be a problem from the outside when you're like, where's our fire?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Where's our spirit?
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: But in the same sense, fire and spirit like that they accomplished, we're working towards the same thing of what?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: The acknowledgement that we need to be better, the acknowledgement that 7 and 22 over 29 ain't it, the acknowledgement that we completely gave away 15 games above 500.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: 15.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's in what it would that's in that's in fucking May.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: So when you give that up, you're looking for the fire and the passion.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Ian Hap goes on 670 and says, Well, I'm not looking at the stand-ings and we're gonna be just fine, and then we go five and fourteen in our next 19 after he gives that interview.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that gets people irate.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: And and for good cause and good reason.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we want better sound bites, we want better baseball.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even want to be addressing the sound bites.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be addressing the offense and our capacity to hit with runners and scoring positions.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the shit that actually matters to winning and losing baseball games, not like how guys react post-game, not how serious and determined we are.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna give a fuck.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: You're getting$35 million, you better be serious.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Ian Haps getting$23 million living in Chicago, playing world-class golf everywhere you go.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I want I want to get into I want to live in that world, and to do that, the Cubs are gonna go out this weekend and play good baseball against the San Francisco Giants.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's it, that's just how I feel.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm I'm over the sound bites.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: But if I have to, because we've been what would have won two and eight over our last 10, can't win a series, then I have to look at the sound bites and I have to get something, I have to find something.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I gotta go just to Bragmant quick in this post-game interview with Elise, and he's just so fucking serious about swing changes and mechanics and not being good and what it's gonna take for us to play better baseball.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, whether that's rare and it works out or not, I don't know.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: But that's the exact talk and tone and type of shit I need to see to restore confidence amidst this god awful stretch.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I get a council ejection, love that one.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's a nice little feather in the cap.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: I get a I get a Bregman looks like Frank Castle, the punisher.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like it just murdered his family staying there talking to Elise.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, We're not good.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: The offense broke out today.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: You guys are sensational.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: How's it feel?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Say you got going.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, We're not good.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're bad, we're a bad team, Elise.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: So these are things I'm and I'm hanging on by a thread.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you better believe these are the threads that are propping me up.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't say I'm gonna come in here, I got all the statistics and data and information that are gonna back up what I'm gonna say.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm reaching here, buddy.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: You better believe these are fucking thin straws, all right?
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm holding them and I'm asking you, do you want to hold them with me?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to consider PCA's red hot?
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, he's a 225 weighted run created plus in the in the month of June.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: He's if if you took his last two weeks and you rolled it out over the course of the season, PCA would be a 16 win above replacement player.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: 16.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like Babe Ruth was 13.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: So for the last two weeks, that's what we've gotten from PCA.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: I hate what I'm about to say now because Ian Hep and Michael Bush have both been good in June, they're striking out almost 33% of their plate appearances.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: I repeat, they're striking out almost 33% of their plate appearances, but still having, when I say productive Junes, and it's easy to just go to weighted run created plus because it's one metric.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, 158, 150.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're looking there, it's like walk rates are up.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: The isolated power on Ian Hap, which means his hits are extra base hits and home runs.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because his he when he hits the ball, it's he's staying on second base, he's around the bases, is basically where you're at with Ian Hap.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the thing about this is it's very frustrating because we as human beings remember bad things.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: We can remember if you just consider your memory.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: You you have a vivid memory of childhood of like tying your sneakers somewhere in the smell of some fucking licorice.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: You have a vivid memory of the smell of licorice.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: What the hell is that, dude?
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, get this fucking thing on the rails.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but what I'm talking about, your memory, you have specific where you can recall like extremely specific things from a moment, but can you recall a collective period?
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell me about you know, tell me about April of your first grade?
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: No, but you do remember, you know, the way you got into a fight with your buddy Billy in in first grade, or you know, you remember the fucking blue shoes, you know, your buddy Joe wore that were so ridiculous you made fun of him in third grade, or whatever it is, or you know, you you remember specific things that stand out.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: And as I'm bringing up this way humans remember things, or the way we remember why you talk so weird.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: The way we remember things and interact with our memories, it's very easy for us to go to those strikeouts in the big moment to say that guy sucks.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: He struck out the basis low in the seventh inning.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, he did strike out that that is true, that's absolutely true.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that will overweigh the fact that hey, Drew a walk in the third and scored a run.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he hit a double in the ninth, and you know, whatever.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not, well, can't be talking about the ninth, but you know, he hit a home run on the second inning the next day.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't give a fuck.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: Struck out the bases loaded last night.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you sit down at the blackjack table, you you don't remember a single blackjack you've hit unless you had a huge wager on it and it was a must-win.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you remember it, but I'll absolutely guarantee you what comes to mind I say sit down at blackjack table.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: How did the dealer get 21?
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's what you remember.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: How remember the time?
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: I remember at my bachelor party just getting absolutely worked into the ground by this blackjack dealer.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm talking just 21.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like, you wouldn't even believe it.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I have like PTSD when I walk through a casino now and I see the smiling blackjack dealer, you know, and no one's sitting down at the table.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: Ignoring the fact that I love blackjack, I have a great time playing blackjack.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because this memory, and so this is when I'm just interacting with our June statistics.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: I know there's people maniacs that are like, fucking hap.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Fuck say Suzuki.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: 150 say 150 weighted run created plus in the month of June.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've bitched relentlessly about Miguel and my slug.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: 130 weighted run created plus in the month of June.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's obviously room for improvement here.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: Kim Fordo looks like he's back in a situation where he shouldn't be playing baseball.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we bring up Pedro Ramirez, no can be going on Kevin El Kantara.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: The Danby Dansby Swanson might as well be swinging the yellow wiffle ball bat.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or he's hurt.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: Or he's hurt.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: Some could come out.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's there's bad there.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you want to look at the bad.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's bad.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Bragma can't hit mistakes right now.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: He's not hitting mistakes.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: He's not barreling the ball up, he's not hitting it hard.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: Or alternatively, we can say, because we're choosing to be positive today to roll into this Giant series with an attitude that we're gonna win it because we're a good ball club.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's an adjustment away.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: He's one small adjustment away.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he's a guy who's gonna find that adjustment, seek that adjustment, make it, and then and then go on a tear because he's gonna make that adjustment.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: The league is is gonna be pitching to him just like they are right now, and you'll have the adjustment for how the league's pitching to him.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna see a stretch that's gonna be six weeks long where Alex Breckman's gonna be the best player in our lineup, is gonna look like every bit of$35 million we spent on him.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: But to get there, he has to make the adjustment against what the league's doing to him right now based on how he's performing.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if he gets that, so look, what we're seeing, people are not afraid to throw him breaking balls in the strike zone, which for a hitter of his experience and caliber should be a complete no-no.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's multiple hangers.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: We call hang them and bang them, maybe.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: And they're in a hanging sledder.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like um for a hitter when it when you get a hanging breaking ball, the reason the ball is hanging is because the release is atypical for a major league pitcher, right?
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: So like it's not as strong uh coming out of the hand.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's obvious.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's a flash.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: The flash is much bigger on a hanger.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the hitter reaction to a hanging breaking ball is almost like um if you have a dog and you know, like you fucking like what my dog is is obsessed with cheese, provolone in particular.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: I can open the fridge, unzip the bag of provolone, and he will come rifling down the stairs within one second.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: He just gets that whiff of provolone, and Scotty is a madman running up to me.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, the same way a high quality MLB, like great hitter.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Elf Renner's career is a great hitter.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: You see a hanger, that's the provolone coming out of the fridge.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: Instinctually, you are just like, oh thank god.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: Time slows down.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost, I mean, like, you know, it be like as soon as the flash of the ball out of hand, you're like, oh, it's that is just right there for me.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why hanging breaking balls get hammered.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: Hammered.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, fastballs down the middle of the plate?
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: No, because it's it's a fastball.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: The flash isn't nearly as big.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: So there's where you're kind of getting into the technicality of like the Bregman performance in the slump.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Why isn't he better?
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact that he's hitting second, third, fourth on our lineup, and opposing pitchers have been very comfortable making mistakes with breaking balls over the middle of the play, been very aggressive with him because he's been getting himself out.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so why I'm choosing to be positive about this is saying Alex Bregman finds that adjustment, and you're telling me major league pitchers are gonna spend two or three weeks still on the same old Scotter report that they put together where they're going, oh, you can challenge him.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to throw your best shit.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you're down 1-0, you can flip it in there.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: And and either he'll take it for a strike, and if he does put in play, he's not squaring it up right now.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: So then he goes, makes the adjustment, he gets his foot down, he, whatever it is, you know, there's a thousand things it could be.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not him, I don't hit off the T with him, I don't work with him.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I can't speak it specifically about the adjustment he's making.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: I I think it has something to do with load, which means your weight transfer.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when the pitch is coming in, you typically put weight to your back, and then you want to transition weight to your front.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then the transition of weight to your front is when you want to be making, you know, that you might be putting the weight into the ball.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when they say I'm working on my load.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: What they're talking about is how do you transfer, you know, your energy in your body, your lower half and all that shit, it into the baseball.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're not just throwing your hands at the ball, right?
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: A swing is a very mechanical and technical thing.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: And what you want to do is maximize the energy you can put into a baseball with the least amount of movement possible.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because the more you move, the more you're gonna swing and miss.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: The more you move, the more holes you have in your swing.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: Typically, the more balanced, steady you are.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like look at Luis Herez, foot's down, almost no movement, head still, just a real quiet, clean hitter.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: Loud bat, quiet body.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: Loud bat, quiet body.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: Alex Bregman typically has that quiet body foot down, but right now the bat's not that loud.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so just getting deep into the adjustment process with Alex Bregman, that's what we're talking about with the rest of the clubhouse, making adjustments and getting better.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because the league is pitching the cubs different, they're seeing more breaking balls than any other team in major leagues, they're seeing them uh over the plate on 0-1 at a significantly higher rate than your average major league team, which means when teams get ahead in the count, they're not like generally afraid to make a mistake against our lineup, and that's because we're not slugging.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why I did all the slug talk last week is because we don't slug, we're not threatening.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: We are giving opposing pitchers an opportunity to say they don't have they don't have the thunder that makes me think I shouldn't make this pitch or feel like I can be more aggressive.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you were a quarterback, you'd be like, I can throw into that secondary.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's they miscommunication, you know.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: I can look a fucking safety off because that safety is gonna go, he he's just not a good safety.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: I can easily look that guy off and I can make my play down the middle of the field.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the same, that same level of like athletic reasoning or competitive self-talk is the type of self-talk pitchers have against the Chicago Cubs.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, I can do this because I know this about them.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so these are the adjustments we need to make as an offense.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: And part of that is like, okay, well, if I'm gonna see more breaking balls over the plate 0-1, and then that works with your approach.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, do I need to be more trigger happy when it's 0-1?
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: Do I need to do I need to be saying and gearing myself up for a uh you know, a an opportunity where typically in MLB it's 01, like that next pitcher getting is not even that unless it is a bona fide mistake, um, it's it's gonna be a quality location that's difficult to hit because it's 0-1, and the pitcher has uh immediate advantage.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: So pitchers get 01 with the cubs are like, hey, you can get to 0-2 if you're using the strike zone, if you're using the strike zone with some off-speed stuff.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: And this is just shit I've seen.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is just I'm watching the game.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I this is how I feel.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's validated in some statistics when you look at like uh tendencies and how opposing teams pitch the Cubs, but like collectively, again, I'm not sitting in the clubhouse, I'm not I'm not like meeting with Carson Kelly for coffee to hear about you know, you guys do uh what's a soft toss?
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see live?
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: Do you hit on machine?
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: Do you take live BP in a cage?
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: Do you hit on the field?
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when you're hitting on the field, what are some of the stuff you're like, what are the things you're looking for?
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh oh, does that change when you get to 2 0?
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and then obviously most most of these guys baseline average MLB players are.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I am honestly just trying to hit the ball back up the middle, line drive, squared up, right?
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: Most of these guys.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: But in order to accomplish that, you have you have to have the mechanics, you have to have the loud back, quiet body.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: You have to have the foot down.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: You have to have an approach.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: You have to have some kind of fundamental understanding of what the other team is trying to do to you.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: Then we can start talking about you know adjustments and all that shit.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why I'm saying, guys, like this all could be coming together at a head where they've been so bad for so long.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: The league's taking advantage of some weaknesses in the lineup.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: You see Craig get ejected, you see PCA's just fucking red hot.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you know Bregman's in that cage.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: And if Bregman's in the cage, it makes it a lot harder for Nico Horner not to be in the cage.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if Nico Horner's in the cage, it makes it a lot harder for Danzby Swanson not to be searching for an answer.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and then once you start going down that path, now you're creating a culture where it's like, we're gonna solve this problem, we're gonna solve this problem.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what I'm buying into right now on Friday, June 12th, that we have a club that's is gonna solve this problem, that it's not too late in the season, and that all the success or failure will be completely dictated by our by our bats.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sorry if I just, if there was a little microphone noise there, I just got really excited with my hands and accidentally hit the microphone because as I'm very passionate about this stuff, and it means a lot to me to sit here and follow this team, you know, and watch it as close as I have, which I've been doing since I was in fifth grade, where it's like I'm watching Cubs today.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: What do you know?
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm watching the Cubs today.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: Go outside, I'm watching the Cubs today.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when I played college baseball, my um I walked on Illinois my sophomore year.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up playing four years, ended up getting two varsity letters out of it, pitched in 51 games for the University of Illinois.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um amazing experience, amazing experience.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: Learned so much about the game, got to compete against great athletes that I knew across this the Chicagoland area that didn't know me because I wasn't, you know, as a bullpen catcher at brother, I was my junior year.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then I had a little bit of a growth spurt in going into senior year high school.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was sitting like 85, 88, which is enough for like a D2 school to be like, hey, have you thought about coming to you know central Missouri or something?
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: Have you heard about us?
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but not in any material fashion.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then a little bit of arm injury, and like I wasn't strong, I was weak.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was like 160 pounds, I was just a little south side fuck, didn't work out, didn't the way kids are serious now in training.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like, buddy, I'm out fucking, I'm drinking, I'm I'm crushing Miller lights at Beverly right now.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna walk back to Matt Roseco's house, probably smoke some weed, probably listen to some fish, probably go hang out at a block party.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's growing that that's that's growing up in Oaklawn.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's just how it was.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: And not trying to get too personal or deep or any of this shit, but like I I love the Cubs, I loved baseball, I loved following professional baseball.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_00: And once I hit my growth spurt and I started throwing harder, it was like, wait, can I play?
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how all of a sudden I'm I'm throwing fucking guys are swinging and missing, and like I can pitch and play.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was the bullpen catcher, and honestly, the only reason I'm on the team is because my older brother was on the team and everybody liked him, you know.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: Coach fucking hates me.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I'm just working back on this personal experience of for me when I got in when I got into college and started competing and in really in really just given a really given a fuck about the game and what goes into the game, and what is it, what does it take um, you know, to be successful in the game.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe I'm losing my train of thought here a little bit because as I'm going back into some of this personal stuff, like this wave of memories are just like triggering over me.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but just how much it means to me and the passion that I have for this game, and how much this game is given to me, and you get what you put into it.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll guarantee you that.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're playing it, you're a fan, whatever, like the the game of baseball will mean as much as you are willing to let it mean to you.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's so many great things about it, obviously, for so many reasons.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: So as you sit here, we talk about the clubs.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like for the last week or two, you know, I've been so mad that it's like I don't even know if I want to watch these guys.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't even know if I can sit down and stomach uh you know this at all because I'm just mad and I'm angry and I see guys and I'm getting the impression these guys don't care.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: You don't care?
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: You don't care.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: I remember one time we beat Chicago State like 21 to 3, and I gave up an unearned run in the seventh inning or something.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it was a bullpen day.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody got an inning, so I'm like working the seventh inning or something.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: I gave up like a bloop single, and I was just livid, livid that I gave up a hit to somebody from Chicago State.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I I mean, I'm not looking at the I don't have the box score in front of me or the play-by-play, but he advanced to second base on like a weak ground ball, the third baseman, struck the next guy out, and then the our short who I our shortstop is just like an all-American All Big Ten short step.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: His um I was a sophomore junior, but he's a freshman or something at this time.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe maybe maybe I have it, maybe I have it, maybe it's a fucking sophomore, whatever.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: Josh Parr was a great player, all Big Ten.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and he and he and he made an error, and uh he's a much better player than I was, and a much more valuable contributor to the team.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it's wildly unfair.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's in I'm telling you, in the moment, and even in hindsight, it's wildly unfair for me to even be bringing this up in any context of saying Josh made a mistake.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_00: Josh was a tremendous player.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: But the guy hits a ground ball, a shortstop, Josh boots it, and the guy on second scores.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: And Chicago State goes out on the board.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're up 19.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: Most of if not everybody on the team wants the game to be over, so we can go to Cam's or Joe's, and you know, we had a road trip coming up, so it's a game's over, shower right to the bar.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I get out of the game, I go back into the clubhouse.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: I I know I'm only pitching the seventh.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: I come out after the seventh.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: Again, this is just fucking college baseball.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's a meaningless game.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to just, it's it's on my mind about how much I cared in that moment.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: I like, I don't want to get, I don't want anyone from Chicago State on any fucking bus ride back to Chicago being like, oh, we got that one in the seventh off Stirk.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's that's a guy that he pitches late innings for him.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's their Friday night first guy out of the bullpen.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_00: We got him.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was so mad I went into the clubhouse and was no joke, took my stool out of my locker and fucking smashed it off the ground.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: And was and was mother, I was so angry, you know, like a junior staff trainer who's like in the clubhouse for if to watch this game from the clubhouse for injury per is like is like come thought something terrible happened, comes in, it's like my Carl, you know.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: I've my name's Mike, but like Mike, what what what happened?
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and if anybody who's like, your name's Mike, my name's Michael Carl Sturk.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: I go by Carl when I got onto Barcelona because I was working in white collar accounting and I didn't want people to know, so I originally did it all anonymous for like three or four years.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then I broke, hey, I'm the guy, Carl.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: I do the stuff I write for Barcelona about the Cubs.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: So if that confused you, that's why.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Michael Carlster.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_00: The trainer comes, he's like, Mike, what's wrong?
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_00: Woody, what's what's wrong?
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I just gave up a run at Chicago fucking state.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I was watching it.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: Josh, Josh didn't make that play.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's an unerned, who cares, dude?
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't hurt your stats.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, my stats?
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't I give a fuck about my stats?
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: I care that there is a group of peers competing against me that can have the ability to say, we got to that guy.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a meaningless Tuesday night game from 16 fucking years ago that I remember vividly, that's how mad I was.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: So when I watch this Cubs team and I see a guy lollygag, when I hear Ian Hapse he doesn't pay attention to the standings because it's a long season and blah blah blah.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: When you see guys smiling in the dugout when we're losing, they cut the dugout, you see guys smiling, guys that are playing.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: Not not a bench guy, not a not a guy, not a guy who doesn't play.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I think they cut to Pedro Ramirez.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_00: He had a big laugh on his face, eating sunflower seeds, happy he's just finally gotten the big leagues.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm talking about when you see Nico Horner and Alex Bregman cracking smiles, while we got one run on the board in the seventh inning.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's the stuff that on it, it just incenses me.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: But that's personal because I know the attitude it had to take for me to compete and to get the best out of my shit.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: And these guys are so much better than I'll I mean the their worst day is so much better than my best day.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um it isn't even worth comp I don't even belong in the same conversation as a baseball player.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's how good these guys are.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's how just talented and and fast and at everything, it's just so fast, it's so fast and so good.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't take away from the fact that I still have enough experience in my own right, and I know people listen to us too, whether you played high school baseball or whatever, you played high school football, or what if you if you have something you care about that you're willing to put yourself out there for and you're willing to try hard, you're willing to fail, because the benefit of the success or the ultimate payoff so far outweighs whatever what work hard today, hit off a T, look at some tape, get ready for the game, know the scouting report.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's the cost.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: What's the payoff?
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: Payoffs of representing the Chicago Cubs, being good, winning games, winning at vision, putting pride behind your legacy and your name and all that stuff.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where I've kind of gotten off the rails the last couple weeks with this team.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I've lost and I've lost that.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like I they don't have, and I go back to my personal experiences within the game, and and you just get sucked into it, and it makes you so angry and upset, and especially as we get older and you want to spend time on at night watching the game, you want to follow them.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_00: Your wife's like, you want to do this, and you're like, eh, they got a game tonight, or hey, can we put on you know whatever Gray's Anatomy rerun?
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let's watch that for the fifth time, you know, and you're sitting there like fine, you take out your phone, you start streaming the game on your phone.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, Are you even watching this?
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and you're willing to have these personal little things.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I don't have this, my wife doesn't give a fuck at this.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_00: She, I could, I could I could chain smoke a pack of cigarettes on the back porch, listen to him on 670, scream at the top of my lungs, and she she's so numb to it at this point, she would be like, uh, you know, of course, this is your passion.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I stopped smoking five years ago.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously, congratulations to me on that.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: Stay strong.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: I had a cigarette a couple weeks ago, you know, almost fell out of my fucking chair.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_00: So um, my point though is that we do put in time to follow and care, to build a community, to have relationships around the Cubs.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it's Sam, the late the nice lady taking pictures outside Wrigley Field every day, the kick, the the boys, the kids show up to play, you know, every every day she's there.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think the the guys at Bleach Your Nation, I think I think guys like Cody and Prez.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was just shouting out Brendan Miller from CHGO, you know, fucking Stuckermeyer still doing it.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: Beer Money still out here, still slinging Cubs takes, and then that fan base and that ethos and that that community and all these different subcommunities of Cubs fans, and then and then in the same way I've talked about that iceberg analogy, it's the same fucking thing.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_00: The Cubs Phantom runs so deep, there's so many people who watch every single day where it matters, where the result matters and the performance matters.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_00: So then when you see Dansby Swanson say things like, Well, you can't really try harder at baseball.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Dansby, you were the first overall pick.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_00: You are one of the most gifted guys in Major League Baseball from a complete person standpoint.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_00: You have tremendous values, you come from a great family, you have an education from Vanderbilt.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_00: You part of you getting drafted first overall by the Braves is the fact that you're so unbelievably, or I should say first overall by the Diamondbacks, and then immediately trade it to the Braves, is because you're so unbelievably marketable in that entire part of the country.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_00: You are handsome, you are rich, Mallory is a world-class athlete.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure your family life behind the scenes is so much fun.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: I I just like cannot even imagine.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, could you just not say that you you can't try harder at baseball when you have so much God-gifted, uh present uh talent and such a wonderful infrastructure behind you that's allowed you to be an everyday MLB shortstop in conjunction with your talent?
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like Tim Corbin, the head coach at Vanderbilt, considers you his like ultimately best player, and that guy has coached what like uh 60 big leaguers?
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm saying big leaguers, how many professional players?
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you go think of a player, and he's like, There's nobody that compares to Danceby Swanson.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't know you can't look in the camera and tell me you can't try harder?
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_00: How does that work?
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_00: How would you tell Tim Corbin that when you were a sophomore?
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_00: Would you when you're a sophomore at college?
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_00: You guys lost a road series in Mississippi State?
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_00: Would you look would you look Coach Corbin in the eyes and go, Coach, I would, but we just can't try harder because you can't baseball?
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_00: Or would Coach Corbin demand more from you guys?
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so where's the breakdown between that and now?
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: Is it the 177 million dollar contract?
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_00: Is it cups fans are annoying?
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: Have we gotten to you?
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: Is this experience more than more than you wanted?
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_00: And would you rather be playing somewhere like I don't know, Seattle?
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, play you were do you want to go play somewhere you fly under the radar a little bit more?
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_00: Would that make you happy?
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to go play for Cleveland Dansby?
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_00: Or is 40,000 every single day you take the field at Wrigley Field enough?
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_00: So now again, I go back, could be injury, could be some other stuff, but it's the language, it's the tone, it's the message we've gotten from the Cubs.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what I'm willing to do is I close this show.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just putting my faith in this team and this lineup and these guys.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_00: That the that the team that started the season is actually who they are, and that the team that's seven and twenty-two over their last 29 has been through what I would call just an anomalous, ridiculous, statistical bust that is largely driven by the league trying to be more aggressive with breaking shit, and the Cubs failing, and them just going deeper and deeper into this hole.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so now we're in our big adjustment phase.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_00: Council gets ejected, PCA wins player of the week, is by far the hottest player in baseball right now over the last two weeks, and doesn't give a fuck.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I don't care at all.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I love the way his attitude and demeanor is shaping the season.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_00: And something I was hesitant about was when he got into that tiff with that White Sox fan, told her to suck his dick.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking to myself, Ken Griffey Jr.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: would never.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the category you need to be not saying he is, you personally, PCA, need to be pursuing.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_00: You need to be getting up in the morning and being like, I that's the level I want to be at, because you can be at that level.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_00: You have the talent, you have the capacity, that's what you want, right?
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, he's on fire right now, and he's a chippy motherfucker.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the adjustments he's made this year, not just with the bat, with the attitude.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and so you can learn a lot from a bad experience.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_00: You can learn a lot from being called out like that.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: So let's see what we got with him, you know.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_00: Ian Hab cuts down strikeout, says Suzuki gets a little power surge.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_00: Moises by Asteros gets consistent playing time.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_00: Nico Horner has been, you know, not Nico Horner for the last month.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, can we get him to be a little bit like Nico Horner?
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then in the meantime, like Ben Brown has given up a home run in his last 56 innings.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_00: Jamison Tant can't go five innings without giving up multiple home runs.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_00: Ben Brown has gone 10 times that amount, has given up zero home runs.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_00: A guy I never thought I'd be positive about on this show.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_00: Has stepped up and proved me wrong.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_00: Where I have said forever, fuck this guy, I'll never be anything.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_00: It would take a traumatic, urgent experience for this guy to ramp up his perspective to just say fuck it and take the brakes off.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_00: Just whatever.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_00: What's that line?
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_00: Took the took the restrictor off the governor plate, got gave the red dragon a little extra juice.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's what you need with Ben Brown.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_00: You need to get the you need to get the restrictor off the governor plate with this guy.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's off.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll guarantee you where Ben Brown was before.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, you have the ball on Thursday this week, kid.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's just hit his head like I got the ball Thursday, I'm getting the ball Thursday, I'm getting the ball Thursday.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh sh who we playing?
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, watching just just trying to figure out what it is versus the guy now is like, give me the ball, can't wait, and I'm gonna shove it up their ass.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna challenge people, I'm gonna be over the zone.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, it helps that he's throwing a good two-seamer this year.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_00: But like, what a sign, huh?
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if we can get a couple starts from Javier's side, if we can get Eddie Cabrera to turn a corner, you know, Shodi Imanaga looked good enough in Colorado in a situation where I was like, maybe he gives up six home runs.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not asking for the rest of the season, I'm asking guys.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_00: We have 13 games against teams below 500, and then we play the Brewers.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, this is now where the focus is, these next 13.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_00: So that when we go and play those Brewers, win that Brewers series, play them four times.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_00: Play them four times at Milwaukee, which we should have a big presence in.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_00: And like working, looking ahead of those two weeks, these next two weeks, these next 13 games, right?
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm dead serious.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_00: Eight and five next 13 into the Milwaukee series is gonna be good enough for me.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's may not be good enough for some of you guys.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_00: But if I see eight and five over our next 13, I didn't expect the adjustments tomorrow.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think we're gonna score 15 runs.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think we're gonna blow people out, but I do think you're gonna see incremental gains.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_00: So that like throughout this week, I should say throughout this weekend, because then we're back home on Monday against the Colorado Rockies for just a perfect opportunity to win three in a row.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you could you could not have a better opportunity to win three in a row than Colorado at home days after you lost a series in front of a packed-out courses field filled with Cubs fans.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_00: When you went and you just fell flat on your face, embarrassed yourself two times in a row in completely different fashion.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_00: Started pitching doesn't show up one day, bullpen's gone the next day.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so now we got game three.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_00: We come out, we just smash him, counsel gets ejected, Bregman gives the best post-game conference interview or best postgame interview of the year.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, fine.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_00: I get it, Matthew Boyd's out, I get it, Jameson Tan's out, I get it, Cade Horton's out, Justin Seal's not coming back, Jackson Wiggins, you're never gonna fucking see.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_00: I get it.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_00: But like I'm looking at what we have right now, I'm looking at the schedule, and I'm I'm just trying to figure out a way can we get into July with momentum?
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we get in July with momentum, there's the all-star break.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is the end of the first half.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_00: We get in July with momentum, we can get in the all-star break with momentum.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if we're in the all-star break with momentum, we got guys rested up.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're talking about a great second half.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_00: But we can't have a great second half if we don't go out, we don't play good baseball against the Giants.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I'm choosing to be positive about this.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because it'd just be so easy for me to say today, say, fuck the Easter Bronis.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_00: We're not doing a show.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking through any of this stuff.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_00: We don't give a shit about Craig Council.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_00: Fire him, fire Jed, fire Craig.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm boycotting, I'm not boycotting shit.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_00: Who am I joking?
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be I'd be the biggest liar in my life if I told you I'm done with this team.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now they are relegated to TV2 for tonight for the USA versus Paraguay.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_00: Badawai.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_00: Is that how you say it?
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is how I would say it in Oklahoma.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_00: Paraguay.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, we're playing Paraguay today.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_00: Badawai.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we better win that game.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I love soccer.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_00: I love following soccer.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_00: I love the players, I love the athleticism, uh, the storylines.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's just sensational.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_00: The coaches change teams like every 18 months.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_00: Star players leave in the middle of the night.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's just an unbelievable event.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_00: So very excited for the World Cup, you know, not just as an American, but like, yeah, I said I got emotional yesterday watching Mexico and South Africa because it was just crazy, it's crazy.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's just crazy how much this shit matters, right?
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then you turn on TV two and you see the Cubs in it.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's 6,000 people at Coorsfield, and you're sitting there going, these motherfuckers.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I know the payoff for us, the cost of going through all this, of as I talked before, what's the benefit?
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_00: What's the cost?
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_00: The cost is we gotta sit through this.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_00: We gotta, we gotta put up with a bullshit baseball team and uh a team that's injured and a team that's flat and hasn't performed over the last 30 games and has just completely given up a historic start to the season in what would be otherwise called dramatic fashion, dramatically giving it away.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, uh, but here's the payoff.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna turn this fucking shit around.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_00: The dog days of summer will not be sad and somber, not even as they were last year as we fell apart in the second half.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, we're gonna be Building momentum.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're in play at the trade deadline, Joey Skubicki.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_00: I got I got your mailbag.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_00: Are we selling at the deadline?
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_00: No, we are not.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, is it any different if David Ross is our manager?
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe up to this point in time.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_00: But then it's like, are the next four months any different if David Ross is our manager?
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I love David Ross.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just, I'm in positive mode right now.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_00: You have the most positive, optimistic version of me, which is why I just can't, I just can't easily say, yeah, dude, fucking, we'd be so much better with David Ross.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it's it's like, I don't, I think we'd be slightly better with him through this point.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he'd have absolutely no impact on injuries.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's a fact.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_00: Guys are still banged up.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but no, I'm not, I'm not selling.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and I'm not even thinking about who we can't.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's no trade value on that team, guys.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_00: None.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_00: Zero Zilch.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_00: We have no, we have absolutely no trade value.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_00: Eugenio Suarez hit fucking has hit a thousand home runs in Major League Baseball.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_00: He got traded last year for a bag of balls, and he was good.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_00: He was good.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where I'm at.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, Skibicki, I appreciate you for sending that one in.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I appreciate I appreciate um you maniacs more than you know, and for just keeping the positivity.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe if it's not even positivity, it's just been like we've gone through this this slump together, this this stretch together, into this weekend together.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_00: We've been in this in this boat together.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so like I'm not jumping off with a life preserver.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm not, but did I do a Titanic analogy?
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not getting saved by the who saved the Britannia?
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to think.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_00: Or did the Britannia was that the first ship that got sunk in World War in World War II?
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_00: Did that trigger World War I?
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_00: No, the fucking assassination triggered World War I.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I thought who saved the Titanic ship?
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_00: The Carpathia.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_00: The Carpathia, the RMS Carpathia.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm not jumping off the lifeboat and hoping the Carpathia is gonna come pick me up.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're in the fucking lifeboat together.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, we're gonna row this picture shore and we're gonna get off.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go to the beach bar and we are going to put a beating on Thirsty McCarrow with the tequila.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_00: You have my word on that.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you, the light at the end of the tunnel for us after we go through this bullshit is gonna be playoff baseball.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you know that that emotional ride, that that first pitch of playoff baseball is gonna be worth all this.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I'm hanging on to.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_00: As a diehard Cubs fan, as a baseball guy, is somebody who is relentlessly passionate about the stuff that matters to me.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like if it matters to me, it matters to me.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now the opposite end of that is like if it doesn't matter to me, like, I mean, you will not find somebody who could care less.
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_00: But if it matters to me, like the way the Cubs do, um, then we're gonna ride.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna ride.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I invite you guys to join me on this journey.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_00: I understand not everybody will be positive.
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_00: I understand not everybody wants to go down this path with me, and I want you guys to know that that is completely okay, and I respect you, and I think that you have every right to feel that way.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm gonna start digging my own path here.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_00: All right, I'm gonna start clearing the brush because the beaten path is for the beaten man.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_00: All right, and I'm gonna go carve my own lane, and I guarantee you it's gonna be wide enough for every fucking maniac on this show.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_00: In the meantime, if you guys enjoy the show, share with a friend, you know, throw a review on Spotify.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in the comment section on on Spotify under my legal name, apparently, because I don't know how to log in as fucking Carl and Barstell Carl's dead.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, it's Michael used to go into Spotify.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_00: You'll see I'm in there talking to people, you guys got questions.
• 1:09:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's a it's an easy way.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because I typically would say, like, send me a DM on Twitter, but I I apparently I think do you have to pay for I don't know how it that works.
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how that works.
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so if it's something where like you can't send me a DM because you don't pay for Twitter, but you want to get a message to me, you can you can just tag me in a tweet and say, Can you DM me about MMCS?
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Or like I have an MMCS question, can you DM me?
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I will get it, I'll immediately message you.
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you.
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_00: I know there's dozens, if not hundreds, of maniacs that are in like that I'm in regular communication with out throughout the season.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think of this, that?
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_00: We're okay, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it helps me put the show together and it helps me have a sense of like really just how mad are people, or whatever.
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of the basis that I draw.
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, when I put outlines together and I do my research and I put my thinking cap on on the message that we have.
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the message that we have is I don't give a fuck about what's happened up until today.
• 1:10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Today is a new day.
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Today is San Francisco Giants, 9.15 p.m.
• 1:10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, Javier Assad.
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_00: I guess was this Braden Braden Roop?
• 1:10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Landon Roop?
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Rocky Mountain, North Carolina, come and get it, motherfucker.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know the boys are getting off the bus tonight.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_00: I know Craig Council's gonna give us our best effort, and I'm not giving up on this season yet.
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, I'll be back on Monday with Mahoney.
• 1:11:15
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be celebrating a series win against the Giants.
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody, be safe, drive safe, have a safe weekend, don't do anything stupid.
• 1:11:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, God bless, and just last time.
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you guys very much for riding with us through the last couple weeks.
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's been shitty, but things go according to plan.
• 1:11:32
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have a much different show on Monday.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Go Cubs.