Roster Wars: Cubs vs. Padres Playoff Preview with Data, Matchups, and Edge Cases

Ten minutes into this playoff preview, the mood is set: grateful to be here, and just dangerous enough to make it count. We walk through the NL landscape with clear eyes, then zero in on San Diego—their one true ace in Nick Pivetta, their star power in Machado and Tatis Jr., and the late-inning sledgehammer of Mason Miller and a locked-in closer. From there, it’s all matchups: how our elite defense compresses innings, why a righty-heavy Padres rotation plays into hot lefty bats like Michael Busch, and how Seiya Suzuki’s late heater can tilt a short series.

We break down the Padres’ structural gaps—thin rotation behind Pivetta, a real defensive liability in left field after Laureano’s injury, and a lefty-leaning lineup that invites our left-handed starters and mix-and-match bullpen. Then we run “Roster Wars,” scoring each position and pitching slot: Cubs take first, second, short, left, catcher, DH, and Games 2–3 in the rotation; Padres own third, right, Game 1 starter, and the high-leverage bullpen; center field and the dugouts are pushes. The net? Chicago’s advantage lives in the middle: force contact, stress their defenders, and reach three runs at Wrigley—where Boyd/Shota starts plus modest offense have meant a 17–3 reality.

The plan is practical and repeatable: don’t chase Pivetta’s curve, hunt early-count heaters, push pitch count, and avoid giving Miller a clean eighth with a lead. Use our depth to win the fifth through seventh, where San Diego’s plan thins before the strikeout cavalry arrives. It’s not swagger; it’s structure. Tight Game 1 is likely. Games 2–3 tilt toward Chicago. And yes, we say it out loud: Cubs in three.

If this breakdown helped you feel smarter about October baseball, tap follow, share it with a Cubs friend, and drop your series prediction and pick-to-click in a review. Let’s make Wrigley loud.

Thanks for tuning in!

- Carl & Mahoney

Chapters

• 0:00 Solo host, sponsor, and setup
• 2:10 Establishing the playoff theme: gratitude
• 6:45 NL playoff landscape and Cubs path
• 11:50 State of the Cubs: injuries, roles, and form
• 17:20 Why San Diego is the toughest matchup
• 20:50 Home/road splits and lineup confidence
• 25:10 Padres strengths: Pivetta, stars, late bullpen
• 31:20 Padres weaknesses: rotation depth, defense, lefty splits
• 37:40 Roster Wars begins: infield and outfield
• 46:30 DH, catcher, rotation, bullpen, bench
• 55:20 Managers, series scoring, and probabilities
• 1:03:30 Game-one reality, keys, and predictions
• 1:10:00 Closing gratitude and postgame plans

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:04

And we're clear. Good morning, good afternoon, and evening, Chicago Cubs fans. Welcome back to the Monday Morning Cubs Show. Today is Monday, September 29th. I am Carl. There is no Mahoney today for the playoff preview show. I regret to inform you guys this is just a solo show, but I am well researched. I'm going to do the best I can to prepare everybody for what should be a dominant performance from the Chicago Cubs. And maybe not dominant, but certainly competitive based on what we saw from the last three games. And coming out of like really just a tough stretch, so to say, before that last weekend, there's a ton to talk to about the show. If you guys get a chance, follow Mahoney on Twitter. Send him some love. Little bit of an emergency. I'm not going to get into like HIPAA stuff, but he's got two young kids. We stretched the show around his business, working with the kids when we can get it on Monday morning. Something came up today. So you're getting a Vince Gully. You're getting a classic old school Mike Sturk, Carl ripping a show for you guys, just talking about what's on my mind as we go into the playoff format. I have a theme we'll establish for the wild card. We'll do just a little bit of a player over uh playoff overview, a status update on where the Chicago Cubs are at right now. This is going to include roster rotation and just like a heads up. The roster isn't due until 10 a.m. Tuesday. So a big thing to do on Monday is just kind of speculate. What are we going to do with the 26 guys? We're going to get into that. I did a ton of homework on the San Diego Padres. When I say a ton of homework, I mean like I've done research before on stuff. I know more about the San Diego Padres than the San Diego Padres know about the San Diego Padres. If that makes sense. I have so much confidence in what I'm going to tell you guys about the San Diego Padres. And then I'm doing a format called roster wars, which I used to do with Barstool Baseball, which is where we're going to take the two rosters. I've mapped out. We're just going to go point by point who's got a better first baseman. How do we match up second, third down the list, including manager, bullpen, bench. And if I forget anything, I'll write it down along the way and I'll barf it at the end. That's called a roundup grab back. Those are the six things we're going to do today. The show is sponsored by Thirsty Vaquero. Thank you to our good friends at Thirsty Vaquero, a Mexican-style soda, 90 calories per 16 ounces, with a signature spicy finish and a huge partnership for us because as we're getting the show up and running off the ground, this is like a 20-year show, guys. This is a long-term big play here. We've been selective, not necessarily selective, but just cautiously, you know, working through the sponsorship partnership aspect of it. So to get lined up with Thirsty Vicero, it's not just big for me. It's not just big for Mahoney and the money. It's big for all the maniacs. Because now we got some juice behind the show. We have an official partner. It's a Mexican-style soda. It's a non-alcoholic beverage. You can use it as a mix or you can have it standalone in the cooler. Throw it on some ice. You don't believe me how delicious it is. Check it out on Amazon. All bite, no rattle. Thirsty vaquero. We got watermelon, we got mango, we got chili with a little bit of salt pepper in the lime. The flavor profile is unbelievable. You can get it at Yaksis, you can get it at Sluggers if you're going to the playoff games. I repeat, you can go into Yaksis, you can say, hey, can I get a Thirsty Vaquero? They're going to have it unless we're sold out by this point. Because it's flying off the shelf, my friends. Same thing goes for Sluggers. Check it out. Thirsty Vaquero. Want to thank those guys again. Mexican style soda, signature spicy finish, all bite, no rattle. You will not know what this flavor profile is like until you try it for yourself. That is a Monday morning cub show guarantee. And again, thanks to them for sponsoring the content. This is why we have playoff shows. All the information I'm going to dispel about the San Diego Padres today, all of it is brought to you by Thirsty Vaccarrol. So in that spirit and theme, let's do what we do with every Monday morning cub show, and we got to start things off with a theme. Where's our hat at as Cubs fans? And I think in the same conviction that I'm very grateful and blessed to have a partnership with Thirsty Vaccarrol, I feel so lucky and grateful to be in the playoffs. Especially when you consider the fact Kyle Tucker fell off a cliff this year, guys. Justin Steele is out for the year. Shodan missed almost two months. Jamison Tayan's going to miss like 10, 12 starts. Javier Saad missed most of the year. We're talking about like the entire starting pitching not, save for Matthew Boyd. We sat through an entire season of Ben Brown, by the way. Like we survived a year where we were like Ben Brown's a starter. Miguel Amaya missed over 130 games. Probably the worst bench I can ever remember for a marginally competitive Chicago Cubs team. Like I know the bench in 2011 was terrible, but the bench in 2013-14 is better than what we see this year. We have such a terrible bench, still 192 games. And I don't mean to shit on Nico Horner and saying this. This is in conjunction of saying how lucky are we to be 92 wins hosting playoffs. We're in it. We're in a full season playoff for the first time since 2018, and that's a one-game wild card against the Rockies. You can even go back to 2017. And I'm asking you guys to forget about 2020 in the process. Obviously, the most forgettable season. So, like, really, I don't know, if you include the one game wild card, it's been sevens eight seasons, nine. So with Nico Horner, the fact he leads our team and wins above replacement on baseball reference. When you talk about not really having superstar talent, Pete Carl Armstrong for four and a half months of the year was an odds on lock to be top three MVP getter. Kyle Tucker for the first three months of the season, superstar. Say Suzuki, first half of the season, superstar. People were bitching that he didn't make the All-Star team and talking shit in the Boston Red Sox series immediately following the All-Star break when Say Suzuki hit that home run. People were dunking on Major League Baseball. You guys can't make this guy an all-star. I think he has eight RBIs in the second half, notwithstanding the last four games of the season. So just going back to Nico Horner, the team doesn't have a classic bat of superstars. We don't have, I mean, Michael Bush has stepped up, one of the most underrated players in baseball, but this is just to say why do I feel so lucky and grateful to be in the playoffs? It's been so long since we had a full season playoff, especially hosting a series at home. You know, we should feel grateful and lucky. Now there's obviously huge stuff. Cade Horton's out. The Cubs continue to lie to us about injuries. Why do they do that to us? Why can't they tell us Kyle Tucker's hurt? Why can't they just tell us Cade Horton's ribs were fucked up? Why did Craig Counsel have to go to the media and say things were going to be just fine? Like that's just a quick note on Cade Horton. I know he's out for the playoffs, and that just completely ruins how I feel about dominating in a certain way. Like it completely ruins the fact that when you go into a playoff series, you could say, well, Cade Horton's going to give you six of the toughest fucking innings. Those guys are going to see all playoffs. 1.03 ERA in the second half. I mean, probably the rookie of the year. Probably obviously the Cubs' hottest arm since Jake Ariad in 2015. So not having him for the playoffs, okay, obviously that sucks. People are walking around pouty face. People are pouty faced Kyle Tucker 1 for 12 since he came back. He's hit the ball hard a little bit, but like people are just pouty face about a lot of things right now. And the reason I'm saying all this is I just want to set a theme for the playoffs, for your own personal well-being, for mine, for the maniacs, for everybody who's associated with the Cubs playoff run. At this point, Monday, Monday morning, I encourage everyone to feel as grateful as you can because these seasons are so few and far between. 84, 89. You want me to go back to 45? 45 World Series against the Tigers? And that was the 11th time the Cubs went to the World Series since 1906. You think Cubs fans were feeling pretty good after 45? They just lost the World Series. We're going to bounce back. Went 39 years without going to the playoffs. 84. 89.03 07-08. 15-16-17. 18-1-game playoff. 2020 COVID. 2025 hosting the Padres. I just took you back to 1945. I took you to 1945 so casually that if we can't be grateful about the 2025 Cubs being in the playoffs, sure, our starting pitching should be better because Cade Horton should be here. And we are we haven't had Justin Steele for the entire season. He's the heartbeat of that clubhouse, much less being by far our best pitcher. If we can't feel grateful, that's just a tough situation. Because at this point in time, I do feel good about how we match up with the Padres. The Padres are terrible against lefties. We're going to get to the Padres in a second. I'm still establishing the theme, not just for this show, but for you this week. For anybody who gives a shit about the Chicago Cubs. You're talking to your buddies. I want that group chat humming with positivity. Your dad can be mad. Let the older guys in your life be salty. Because they're salty. That's fine. Tough day on a gym. Let them be salty. But you should still have some hope. You should still have some fight in you. You know? I feel like the Cubs without Mahoney doing the show right now. I'm down without Mahoney. That's like not having Kate Horton. We're gonna bounce back and have a good show. You guys will know a ton about the Padres when I'm done with this. But first, just a quick playoff overview. Alright? Again, all this brought to you by Thirsty McCarroll. And you know what? Fuck it, I gotta slide this in here. It's my seven-year wedding anniversary. You guys know Stirk Family Farms. We're running a promo. Promo code is 929, the number's 929, that's her wedding anniversary, 29% off the entire store. So you want to support Mrs. Carl? You want to support my marriage? It's a good one. It's a good one, guys. We're in business. 929 is the promo code. We got an eye cream, Wagyu beef tallow eye cream. I know people just want to listen to me talk about the Cubs, if anything, solo show. Vince Gully. Um, we got Wagyu beef tallow eye cream for overnight treatments. We got the miracle bomb. We got lip balm, new flavor, sugar magnolia. Just with a tie-dye wrapping, if you know the song, if you know the meaning. Just a real nice, flavorful sunshine daydream on the lips. So check that out. Promo code 929 for the 20, uh, for the seven-year anniversary. Seven years. A lot of people don't know that know that about me. Happily married, seven years. Love Mrs. Carl. What a wonderful woman. Uh, and if it were up to her, I could literally just say, hey, babe, I'm gonna go to the Cubs, play. I'll be back in a couple days after the wild card. And she would say, Don't end up in a ditch face down. Call me if you need anything. That's good love. Um playoff overview. Gotta sneak into ad reads when you can. Brought to you by Thirsty McCarroll. All right, there's 12 teams in the playoffs. I think people know most of this by now. But just a quick rehash. There's six, obviously, on each side each side. Top two get a buy, which means there's four series being played in the opening wild card round. Number two is gonna play the winner of three vs. six, and number one plays the winner of four vs. Cubs are in the four vs five. One is the Brewers, five is the Padres. Two, Phillies, no Zach Wheeler. They're playing the winner of Dodgers and Reds. Dodgers look like trash lately. They're pitching so beat up. We're not here to talk about the Dodgers. We're not here to do scouting reports on the Mets, who didn't make it. We're not here to get into the Reds. I'm just trying to be specific and general, I should say. I'm trying to be general about the playoff overview so you kind of know where the Cubs fit into the mix here. Nobody's that deep in the National League. If Zach Wheeler was going for the Phillies, that would be a big problem. So they have got some questions, starting pitching talent, but not that much experience. The Dodgers have major issues with their starting pitching, and the Brewers are 18 and 20 since they started the four game or five-game series against the Chicago Cubs. They went 12-12 in September. 17 of the last 20 pennant winners. Okay. So of the last 10 World Series, the AL and NL representatives of the last 10, right? There's 20 representatives, 20 pennant winners over the last 10 World Series. Of those 20, 17 have had a winning record in September. Brewers are 12 and 12 in September. Cubs finish 14 and 11. I'm not saying that's a guarantee anything. It's just a little indication, little context for you to sprinkle on where the Cubs are at. Generally speaking, about the playoff overview, as the four seed. Are the Dodgers that much better as a three seed? No, I think we have the same record. The Phillies could be much more dangerous. Again, I have to go back to it. No Zach Wheeler is just such a huge issue when we talk about seeing them in a seven-game series. Should we get to the NLCS? And as far as I'm concerned, the Cubs are a better team than the Brewers. So just an over quick playoff overview. How do we feel about this? Yeah, I'm grateful we're in the playoffs, but then I'm also kind of looking ahead and saying, all right, I think the Padres might be our toughest matchup. I think the Padres might be our toughest matchup. Because even without Cade Horton, I'm comfortable playing the Brewers. I'm comfortable with how our lineup lines up against them. And if we should get to the NLCS, it's just a much bigger consideration with how many teams are on the other side of the bracket. So I can confidently say I can put the Cubs in my head, I can see it's in the NLCS. If we get past the Padres, I'm very comfortable with how we line up with the Brewers without Kate Horton. I mean it. The lineups look so good over the last couple days. And I'll get into some more specifics about where the Cubs are at right now. But just as far as a playoff overview, Brewers 500 in September, 18 and 20 last 38. I'm glad they're the one seed. There's nobody that deep on the National League. I can 100% picture the Cubs being comfortably in the NLC. I'm not predicting this, I'm not guaranteeing this, but just as things line up, even without Kate Horton, how many times am I going to say his name today? That's the last time. Even without 22. 18 and 20 since playing the Cubs or Brewers. So just put that shit out of your mind. I want to play the Brewers. So here's where the Cubs are at right now. And this is important to remember that like the magic number was two going in the last weekend. The Padres swept. So the Cubs needed to take two or three in order to guarantee home field to have home field advantage in the situation. We swept the Cardinals. So I know we looked like dog shit against the Mets and the Reds. One and five was at one and six over seven. Just terrible situation. But we're hanging runs. We were, I mean, obviously 2-0 Sunday, but sweeping the Cardinals to finish the year, unbelievably huge. And the other consideration here, I think we can lock ourselves into this. Kyle Tucker will DH in the playoffs. That is what I would expect. I think it'd be crazy to have him play right field at this point, even if say is kind of a butcher. Because one of the big things we talked Monday morning come show is trying to figure out this triangle of Moises by Asteros, who is sensational last week. I believe the third best player on the Cubs last week. Say Suzuki's in this triangle, Kyle Tucker's in this triangle. We have three guys all valid enough to be at DH in October at this point. I don't care the limited experience at by Asteros. The question is who plays right field? If Kyle Tucker's ready to play right field, then you put Kyle Tucker in right field. I don't think he is. I think it'd be crazy. And I'm not even cracking jokes about doing steroids when he was in Florida. I'm not trying to make light of any of this stuff. What I'm trying to say sincerely is that I don't think Kyle Tucker is in any position to play right field. So where are the Cubs at right now? We're playing, we played well against the Cardinals. I think what we saw down the stretch, that one through nine, I think that's basically it. I think it's Bush one, two Horner, three E and half, four Kyle Tucker is a DH. And the other important consideration here is the Padres, all they're starting pitching is right-handed, which is a huge blind spot for the Cubs. Because it just completely throws off the whole ethos of where's Michael Bush in this lineup if he's in it at all, which is just crazy to say. He's like seventh in the National League in home runs this season. Overall, he's a top 10 hitter in Major League Baseball. I'm going to repeat this just so people are we're all on the same page about this. Look it up. Pick a metric, pick a combination of metrics. All in, Michael Bush is a top 10 hitter in Major League Baseball. The full package, getting on base, slugging. The problem, obviously, when you make this argument, guy doesn't see lefties. He's kind of heavy platoon in his numbers. Alright, fuck it. As far as the playoffs are concerned, hopefully we don't run into lefties. I mean, that's like honestly the best case here. It's like, well, we don't see left-handed started pitching. I got good news for you guys. We won't. I don't think we would until the NLCS against Ranger Suarez. You want to talk about deep playoff preview for the Chicago Cubs? I believe the one through nine that we see regularly down the stretch of Bush leading off, Horner two, Hap three, Kyle Tucker four Sey Suzuki five. That's the one through five against righties, and I think we're only going to see right-handed pitching. So as the Cubs right now, I feel very good. And then here's a great statistic I got from locked on Cubs. Love those guys. 17-3 this year at home with Boyd and Shoda on the mound, and we score at least three runs. That's where the Cubs are at right now. We don't have Kate Horton. Okay, fine. We got two lefties. The Padres are way worse against left-handed pitching. We're going to get into the roster in a second here. But the Cubs are 17-3 at home with Boyd and Shoda, and they score at least three runs. And the biggest question we had down the stretch was the offense. The offense looked so alive. The offense feasted against the Mets and the Cardinals, notwithstanding the obviously, guys, I know we only won 2-0, six hits on Sunday. We had already guaranteed clinched. We already climbed the mountain. So if you throw away Sunday, those last five most meaningful games of the season, how many runs did we score? I think we scored over 40 runs. Matters the most. We just went out and hung a ton of runs. So how do I feel right now? Obviously, I started the show saying I'm feeling grateful. I'm also feeling a little dangerous. I'm also feeling a little dangerous with how hot the lineup has looked, and then the stark realization that 17-3 over 20 games started by Boyd and Showder this year at home, where we score at least three runs. I can get behind that. Can we score at least three runs against the Padres? Finally, Bush and Say are red hot. Michael Bush had eight extra base hits last week. Three doubles, a triple, four homers. Say Suzuki at five homers the last four games of the season. We talked about this Monday morning cup show. We talked about this with Joey Molinero on Thursday night. How much does it take for Say to get going? If you're telling me Say has hit five homers the last four games, I'm telling you we have the absolute best version of Say Suzuki going to the playoffs. For as cold as that dude's been the last two months of the season. If he's red hot right now, I don't give a shit about the last two months of the season. Do you mind if I feel good about Sei Suzuki and do you mind joining me? I think that's a total sensible place to be with Sei Suzuki. That the guy hitting fifth in our lineup is that same version, June magic, early July, the guy we were pissed in make the all-star team, the guy we were calling a snub. That's Say Suzuki right now. If the playoffs started two weeks ago, I'd be freaking out. I think that's a very fair thing to say about Say Suzuki. No Kyle Tucker's. Right now you're telling me Kyle Tucker still got 12 plate appearances, was somehow drawing walks with a busted fucking leg, hitting the ball hard enough. I mean I'll f I'll I feel good. I feel good. And Michael Bush being red hot, knowing we're just gonna run into righty, ready, ready, righty, ready, righty, ready. All it is righties. Padre's just righties. Ready, ready, ready. Also means no Justin Turner. Not to throw shade on that guy, but Craig would put him the first second Craig gets a chance to put him up against a lefty, he will. And as far as that's concerned, the bench matches up perfect. But Biosteros against all righties coming off the bench for a late pinch hit. For who? Maybe it's Shaw? Willie Castro goes to third? We'll get into it with the roster wars. I'm gonna I'm gonna sit down and literally go position by position, bench by bench, Cubs versus Padres, and kind of how we match up. But the opening title of just this segment here, Baller Strike, I feel great about the Cubs strike right down the middle of the plate. That's just right down the middle of the plate. And again, if if I said I I haven't talked about him in a minute here, but like if the offense was slow and we had Cade Horton, I'd be able to convince myself into feeling good about winning a game three to two. I'd say, let's get game one, let's see if we can get hot game two or three. If Cade Horton's going for us, we can grind the offense has been rolling. Start Colin Ray. That's a joke. That's a joke. Do not crash. My point is you could start a Colin Ray, you could start a Jamison Tan who's good at home during the day, two o'clock game starts. So we feel good about the Cubs right now. And I know people shit about the bullpen. The Padres have some filthy stuff at the back end of their bowpen. I want to say the Padres lead Major League Baseball in the second half with a 29% strikeout rate. The Cubs are second to 28.4. So there's some crazy statistic like that. Because people look at the Padres bullpen, they go, shut down. Nasty. Tons of K's. I'm jumping the gun here. I'll do the comparisons later. But overall, again, just overall, how do we feel about the Cubs? We feel good. I should feel you should feel good. We don't have a reason to feel bad. The defense is premier. We're gonna do a comparison with the Padre. Our defense is so much better. We're at home day games. I'm not talking about Craig Council right now. A lot of people are, well, Craig's not good in the playoffs. Let him be bad for us before we start complaining about that. Milwaukee Brewers fans, in my DMs left and right, wait till this guy, wait till this guy blows it up for you guys on purpose. I will wait. Until then, I hold my judgment. I say Craig's a smart guy, we pay him 8 million for a reason. He's won multiple World Series championships. He scored a game-winning run in 97. He was the NLCS MVP in 2001. Talk about a grinder 15-year big league career. Didn't really get regular playing time until his 30s. Which is why I think he's pretty hard on these younger guys. You got to earn it. He lived through that different era, steroid era. Guys just didn't retire, so you really never got a chance. Completely different conversation. I'm just saying I know a lot of people are going to shit on Craig Council before these games even start. And I hope those people are well outside of Cubs fandom. I hope those are just the outsiders. If we got insiders that are talking shit about Craig Council, you got a group chat, somebody's sniffing on Craig Council, somebody's somebody's bitching about them, just kick them out. Put them on probation. That's a huge thing we used to do. Friendship probation. If you're in your 20s, you got a group of guys, you guys are going out, eight guys, six guys, whatever. You guys will go out, you hang out, you do stuff, you get that group of guys. Don't be afraid to put somebody on friendship probation where there's kind of a not a group shun, but necessarily where the group is communicating to that guy in the chat. We need more from you. You got to be better. Can't be bitching about Craig Council off day before we start a playoff run. Do we agree on that? And I got to circle back on these, on these things. We swept the Cardinals down the air. That's huge. We earned the magic number. The Padres didn't lose the magic number. We earned it. Kyle Tucker is probably going to DH. That means we got a little butcher in right field. That's okay. That's our only weakness in the field. And even then, I believe Sey Suzuki still grades out average, even though he just makes bonehead play after bonehead play in big moments. But we just got, if that's the worst we can do. When I go through some of the guys playing for the Padres, roll your eyes. Somebody bitching about Say Suzuki. We're 17 and 3 at home. Boyd and Shota start. This is a locked-on cub statistic. I didn't look this shit up. Matt Covey looked this up. I'm just repeating it to you guys. They're 17-3 at home with Boyd and Showday and at least three runs scored. If that's wrong, blame those guys. Bush and Saya red hot. Those are the questions. We come in. Are guys cooling off? Hap was our best player since August first. Kyle Tucker's off the I.L. Bush and Seya red hot. Nico Horner actually a little cool this week, but in the second half, our best player. 84 weighted runs created plus this week. Same thing with Dansby. So I hope I've answered that question. How do we feel about the cuck? I feel fine. I feel good. I'm as prepared as I can be for how we are as a mix without our number one for the season in Justin Steele, and then the guy who became the number one in Kate Horton. You know, with severe questions. I don't give a shit. I don't because we're we're in a position now, and we've looked at this team for so long and been like, we need you guys to score five, six runs if this is going to be worth anything. We have qu I know the bullpen's performed well, but we just have questions. We don't have Mason Miller. We got Andrew Kittridge. These are way different scenarios. So the fact we came out and just smashed the the we're coming into playoffs with so much juice and momentum. Those guys forgot about today. They don't give a shit about Cincinnati, they don't give a fuck about the Mets. They parted when we swept Pittsburgh when it mattered. When we took some time off, we fucked around, and then we looked each other in the eyes this weekend against the Cardinals against our longtime rival, said these games matter. We gotta go out and set a tone. We smashed Miles Michaelis when it mattered. When it mattered, we went out and beat the shit out of the Cardinals on Saturday. And so when it did matter at all on Sunday, we still blanked them. So we gotta talk about the Padres now. No, I think the easiest way to do this, we have um three big strengths and three big weaknesses for the Padres. And I think it's fair to just go through, be honest, there are strengths of this team. They are a good ball club, right? We're not saying that San Diego Padres are bums at all. We're not playing the Reds. If we were playing the Reds, I'd say there's these guys don't belong in the playoffs. So Padres 90 and 72 this year with a ton of injuries and a real inconsistent bullpen and pitching staff. I mean, they're starting if you think we have starting pitching problems, they do have a number one. They don't have a number four. They have a one and a bunch of five. They don't even know who would start game two or three. Where we're curious, okay, what's our mix and match? Should we go boyd one or do we go boyd two? Do we go shade show to game one, show to game two? Now I say I'm talking about their strengths, so I'll say these are the strengths for the Padres. Nick Pavetta is their number one pitcher. Nick Pavetta is extremely difficult to hit. 129 hits in 181 innings. I can't he's given up less than less than seven hits per nine innings. 6.4. 190 strikeouts and 181 innings. So what does that mean? Anytime you're looking at pitchers, one of my favorite stuff, favorite three statistics to group together. Innings pitched, hits surrendered in strikeouts. If you're one to one to one in those three things, you're a very good pitcher. If you throw 100 innings, you give up 100 hits and you strike out 100 batters, you are a very, very good major league pitcher. You're you're striving to have a one-to-one golden ratio, as I would call it. Now, what's trended differently in modern baseball now, guys have become harder to hit, but that's also because players are trying to hit more home runs. Players are taking more pitches, willing to get to two strikes more often. So batting average has gone down substantially. Hits surrendered have gone down substantially. Home runs have gone up. Uh, that's wrong. Walks have gone up, I should say. The strikeouts have gone up. That doesn't change the fact for a starting pitcher, Pivetta. This is where it's crazy. So 180 innings, not even 130 hits. So the margin on that, now you're just talking about a guy who's just like, okay, this stuff, I don't even have to go to StatCast and tell you. I will, obviously. I will tell you guys. But when you see it like that, you can just look at the back of a baseball card and you see guy 129 hits and 180 innings, the stuff's gonna be filthy. This stuff's gonna move so much. He's gonna have just filthy breaking shit, and he's gonna have a ton of swing and miss. And that's obviously then evidenced by the fact 190 strikeouts, 181 innings. So some other interesting, just like subjective stuff. He's a big Canadian. This stuff matters to me when I sit down and I look at like where do players come from before they get in the big leagues. When you see a Canadian, they're they're very good professionals, and then this is such a weird thing to talk about. But like Canada, there's something about the way they breed baseball players, which we're now scratching with Australia. Australia is putting unbelievable players into the minor league system because the cultural mindset of every day's a grind, every single pitch, every at bat, be a good teammate. There's like a lot of hockey shit that crosses over into baseball. And so, like, there's just something about the the culture. Canadians work their fucking dicks off. I'm being dead serious, too. I'm trying to give you a little extra juice on like Nick Pivetta. You got a big 6'5 Canuck who then comes down to the United States to play college ball and kind of get into the system. Every second anybody's seen this guy's always graded out as just having nasty fucking stuff. So that's their number one pitcher. He's extremely difficult to hit. He's been their number one pitcher all season long. He's emerged a little bit later in his career. He emerged just like a little, like he wasn't he wasn't shit when he broke into the league. He was with the Phillies for a while. And I do think I have some insight on this because now as I recall talking about Pavetta, he was teammates with Jake Arietta. Obviously, Jake and I hosted starting nine together. Um, and I heard just the amount of stories and stuff we get. And as he's talking about Pivetta, it's a guy just the second he puts it together, people are fucked. And when you look at his career, he's been almost, you could say, bad until the last three seasons. And it's just not putting everything together. It's not like he gives up a ton of home runs, not like he walks a ton of guys, it's not like he just started being difficult to hit. It's a guy who now at 32 years old is really rounding out his shit. His first year at the Padres, he was servable, serviceable with Boston over his career, but just gave up too many runs. So that's just giving up the home run when you can when you got runners on second and third. That's giving up the double with two outs and then giving up the single at two outs. It's just not finishing and closing stuff. So he's obviously some adjustment has been made with Nick Pavetta within the last year. Everything's glove side, so that means if a right-handed hitter for Pavetta, everything's gonna work away from Nick Pavetta or away from the hitter for a right-handed hitter. So when you say glove side, he's a righty as glove is on his left hand. Everything for Nick Povetta is gonna work glove side. Even his forcing fastball, like Cade Horton, even his sinker, which he hardly throws, but his cutter, heavy glove side, sweeper, obviously, heavy glove side. And then a calling card, the curveball. He throws it 22% of the time. It's it has almost twice as much vertical drop as your average major league curveball. I'm gonna repeat this just because it's like, did he just say twice? Yes. Nick Pavetta has approximately twice as much vertical drop on his curveball as your average major league pitcher. So that's tough, dude. I mean, I'm just you gotta spit on it, you gotta take it, you gotta put yourself in a position where you don't see that pitch. You know, do you swing early? Early action is what it's called. Are you early action guy against Pavetta? He's tough to fucking square up. And so guys are gonna be in the box against Pavetta trying to get a pitch. There's a reason his ERA is under three. So game one, I do like Matt Boyd for the Cubs. We'll talk about that in a second. These are the biggest strengths of the Padres. Number one is Nick Poveta. Number two is the star power on paper. And this would be number one if it was just star power. But I gotta say star power on paper, because on paper, they do have six stars, like Machado's first ballot hall of fame or Tatis's first ballot hall of fame. And if they were really nice guys, they'd probably they'd probably be in contention for unanimous first ballot. If Manny Machado wasn't spikes up, if Fernando Tatis Jr. didn't get busted for PEDs age 23, these guys are near unanimous first ballot Hall of Fame talents. Third base in right field. On paper, now in practice, Machado's season this year is alright. He's he's been okay. Tatis Jr., almost six wins above replacement, just elite defensively, like just an unbelievable leadoff hitter. Fucking hits the ball so hard, so much force. But somebody's got the somebody's got a tummy ache. Somebody's been sitting out the last couple games, a little bit of a stomach flu. But it is a strength. I mean, dude, you look at the lineup, you go fucking Machado and Tatis Jr. are in the middle of the lineup. Those are superstars. Xander Bogard's not plays, gets paid like one, as is Danzig Swanson. But Jackson Merrill, who has a 630 slug, I believe, since August 1st. I believe Jackson Merrill, who's got half of Pete Pete Crow Armstrong's wins above replacement in center field. Jackson Merrill was sensational last year as a rookie. I believe from Maryland, a high school draft pick. We'll say 22nd overall, 15th overall by the Padres. Guy accelerates through minor leagues. Lefty bat, 6'30, slug since August 1st. Star power on paper, huge. Huge with the San Diego Padres. But it's on paper. I know I just said Jackson Merrill's been awesome the last stretch. He was shit the first four months of the season relative to what his skill set is. They have superstars on paper. That's the second thing. Nick Pivada, very difficult to hit. That's their biggest strength. That their number one, they're center of the mound. This guy, 129 hits, 181 innings, healthy bulldog, 6'5 Canuck. Will be coming out for heavy swing and miss. We'll be challenging guys so he can get ahead 0-1-1-2 and just throw the filthiest fucking curveball you've ever seen. He would love to do that. That's their biggest strength. Because if he's doing that, I mean the Padres need two runs. Now the second most important thing for the Padres, they have they got the guys who can hit him. Machado, Tatis Jr., both righties. So we're going to get to a weakness, though. You're going to be surprised. They're two big superstars right-handed. So wouldn't you say those guys smash lefties? Padres are trash against not trash, but they're not good against lefties. And there's a reason for that we're going to talk about. But the last strength, the third strength, Mason Miller's pitched in 22 games for the Padres. He has given up a run in just one of those games. He's scoreless in his last 20 outings. I believe he struck out 42 over his last 21 innings. Surrendering, I believe, just four walks or four hits in nine walks. Four hits in his last 20 appearances. Now Mason Miller came over from the Athletics and the Padres. They're going to use him in the seventh inning and the eighth inning. They're going to use him in just high-leverage strikeout situations. So when we get the runner on first and third and one out, then you're going to see Mason Miller. You're going to see Mason Miller in the exact situation. So the last situation you'd want to see Mason Miller is when you see Mason Miller. Because their closer Suarez. Like this is a strength. He leads Major League Baseball in saves. He's got 40 saves. Or at least the National League. He doesn't give, he's given up 45 hits in 70 innings. So we just talk about the one-to-one. 70-something strikeouts. Huge strength. You have Mason Miller just comes in seventh, eighth inning, throws 106 miles an hour. So those are that's overview strengths. Star power and paper, Nick Pivetta's a number one. Mason Miller and Mason Miller working off the closer Suarez. Now here's the weaknesses. After Nick Pavetta, they have no starting pitching. They've got Dylan Sease has a five VRA. You Darvish has a five VRA. Randy Vasquez, Michael King. We're talking about guys would not last three fucking innings against the Cubs. I'm not trying to be mean. I know Dylan Sease has dominated us before. Dylan Sees is not going, is hmm, this is where I'll bite my tongue. At least we're trying to figure out. Would you go Boyd? Would you go Shota? And what do we think? What do we think about Tayan? Some people are talking about bullpen game, Siroca. That's just an ego check for Jet. Get that shit out of here. We have Boyd, Shoda. Taeon would be their number two. All of our pitchers would start game two for these guys. That's their biggest weakness. After the two guys in their bullpen, Mason Miller and Suarez, they got big questions. They got this Jerry Estrada guy that looks good on paper. People hate his fucking guts. Do one ounce of research from San Diego Padres insiders. They're like, get this fucking bum out of here. They hate his guts. They're talking about, well, it depends. If we win game one, then we should start Randy Vasquez. If we win game, if we lose game one, then we gotta start Dylan. They're out to lunch on starting pitching. They also have an awful defense. And that's because Ramon Loriano, who is their left fielder that they traded for from the Baltimore Orioles, fouled the pitch off his hand, is out for the rest of the year. I don't think there's a chance. Like Kate Horton could come back in the NLCS. I think L'Oreal's just done. Now here's the huge windfall from that. He's an elite outfielder. Elite. Jackson Mill, uh Jackson Merrill and Tatis Jr., I mean, that's probably the best defensive outfield, even if Tatis Jr.'s had a step down defensively from winning a platinum glove a year or two ago. I think if you look a little bit like he's he's had maybe a lackadaisical season in the field. If you're looking at L'Oreano and Jackson Merrill and Tatis Jr., though, on paper before a series, holy fuck, you can't run. You can't run on anybody. Ball in the gap, if the wind's blowing in. I mean, I it would be impossible for me to imagine a situation where we could get an edge out there. That's such a tough outfield. Lucky for us, L'Oreal's out. So here's the adjustment. If you're a Cubs fan from Chicago, I'm gonna throw a name at you who's their left fielder now. You're gonna puke. Gavin Sheets. I wish I could make this up. They go from having one of the best out in 10. Now you have a huge liability. Jackson Merrill's gonna have to shade more towards left center, and you're just gonna create a huge swath of fucking territory that now Tatis Jr. has to cover. Whereas if you had Loriano and then you'd be able to mix and match, do different stuff, shifting in the outfield would make it basically make it impossible for guys to hit an extra base hitting their strengths without hitting it 110. So when I say awful defense, the fact that Gavin Cheats is in left field, because I believe Gavin Cheats or Ryan O'Haren or Aries, first base, they did the first base is pick your poison with that. Luisa Ray is an undersized first baseman. They don't want him to play first base at all. They traded for Ryan O'Haren, who's been good against lefties from Baltimore. He's a butcher in the field. He's a, let me repeat, he's a butcher in the field. Jacob Cronenworth is their second baseman. He is one of the worst second basemen in Major League Baseball. Xander Bogart's great first step, awesome range, just about the worst arm at shortstop. Now, obviously, Manny Machow is one of the best defenders of all time. Their catcher, from the Kansas City Royals, he's a good catcher. Jackson Merrill's solid up the middle, but their weaknesses, their blind spots in left field at first base and second base are significant. I have to repeat this again. The left field first base, second base defense from the Padres, it is so awful. And then the other weakness I just have here quickly is we'll get into the lineups. I want to do I want to do roster war comparison. They have so many lefties. The Padres just have so many lefties. Obviously, Machado and Tatish Jr. are righties, and Bogartz is a righti. O'Hearn, lefty, Gavin Sheets, lefty, Jackson Merrill lefty, Cronenworth, lefty, Furman lefty. Is he? Or Rise lefty. Doesn't strike out, doesn't hit the ball hard. So Furman hits righty. I'm a moron. But basically, here's the situation with the Padres lineup. When you talk about the lefties and the influence the lefties have. Cronenworth has been better this year against lefties than historically, especially lately, but he's still not good against lefties, generally speaking. Arise is better against righties. Jackson Merrill's better against righties. Ryan O'Hearn for his entire life is way better against righties. He's a big lefty. This year he is better against lefties, though. Something weird. I don't know how that works. And then Gavin Cheats, obviously. He's their two-phase righties. That's the meat and potatoes of the order. So when you say, well, what about Machado and Tatis? Those guys crush lefties as righties. Like they should be way better. Well, the rest of the lineup is the rest of the lineup needs to see right-handed pitching. Tatis and Machado can handle a lefty righty. Positional split doesn't really matter. The bulk of the Padres order is significantly better against right-handed pitching. O'Hearn is unique right now because he is having a better season against lefties than he is against righties, especially since he's going over to the Padres. Is that an adjustment? Is that luck? Because historically speaking, he's trash against left-handed pitching. So we're just talking about weaknesses for the Padres. They're pitching after Nick Pavetta and the top two guys in their bullpen isn't just bad. It is downright awful and atrocious. There is no confidence in that pitching staff either. Mike Schild is using Matsui. They're more Achisio or something. They just sent him, he's not gonna even be on the playoff roster, and he's one of their hottest bullpen arms. So I know fans are up in arms. Insiders around the Padres are just like, what the fuck are we doing with our bullpen right now? And if we see a guy named Jerry Estrada, he is tough to hit, 108 strikeouts and 75 innings. Remember when we talk about ratios. I think he's given up about 68 hits, 100 something strikeouts go in 75 something innings, but 12 homers, which is a big home run rate if you're gonna be a shutdown reliever guy. So I see mistakes over the middle of the plate, and I think over the last month, two months has not been nearly as reliable, has lost confidence from his manager, you know, teammates, etc. So just weaknesses for the Padres after the pitch, after Pivetta, after Mason Miller and Suarez. Every other pitcher the Cubs are gonna see, not named Mason Miller, Suarez, or Nick Pivetta, we have a huge advantage on. I mean huge. We have an advantage with the defense, and there's just so many lefties. If we're gonna have to go Boyd and Choda, let's keep in mind we still have three serviceable lefties: Pomerans, Rogers, Tealbar. And I don't care that they're not Mason Miller at this point. I'm just saying we have three lefties that we use in high-leverage situations all the fucking time. They have so many lefties. So I think we're at the point we should just do a quick roster war comparison. I want to thank all the maniacs that are tuning into the playoff preview show. It's good to just get this shit out here and get you guys, get everybody thinking about just how exactly do we match up against the Padres? I know they're 90 wins, 72. We've played them before. I know Machado and Tatis are going to the fucking Hall of Fame. You know, I know we don't have Kate Horton, and the offense has been struggling. But we looked red hot down the stretch. Say Suzuki, five homers in four games. See all I need to see. Michael Bush, he had like an 850 isolated slugging last week, eight extra extra base hits out of the leadoff spot, and we're just gonna see right-handed pitching from the Padres. I have to repeat this like we're only gonna see right-handed pitching. So let's do some roster wars. Roster wars. I don't have an intro. I don't have a sound bite for this. I don't have Mahoney with me right now. It's just me and a Thirsty Vacero. It's you guys were getting ready for the playoffs. Two o'clock tomorrow, Wrigley Field. Who's going to the game? I looked at the ticket prices. Standing room only$100 before taxes and fees, probably$125 to get in the door. To get an obstructed seat's like$150. Who's going to the game? If you're going, go to Yaksis or Sluggers beforehand. You don't even have to get a Thirsty Vacero, but the fact they're fucking serving it, I think, is like you want to send some good vibes. Just going to those places are like churches, which is blasphemous as a practicing Catholic. But what I'm saying is it's it's a special place to get ready for day baseball at Wrigley. So with that in mind, let's just do some roster wars. What I'm going to do is I'm going to announce the position. I'll say who the two guys are, obviously. I'll give you what their wins above replacement are this year. And I'll just say, like, generally speaking, here's just a little nugget. You know, what do we know about him? So first base, Michael Bush versus Ryan O'Hearn for the Padres. I have I'm scoring this for one full point to the Cubs. And we'll do this like Ryder Cup. If I think it's a tie, we'll do half points. If I think we have an advantage, we're going to do a full point. Michael Bush is a better player than Ryan O'Hearn. He's a better defender. He's a better at bat. Now, Ryan O'Hearn, big lefty, came over from the Orioles, probably got a second shot of life going to San Diego. People love playing in San Diego, especially mid-year trades. I would say it's top three place people play. I know guys don't like how much taxes come out of it, and I know there's just like generally speaking, some guys don't like being in such a casually, like kind of forgotten about outside of San Diego. The Padres are fans are awesome. But people are, you know, you think about the Dodgers. You're going to think about the Giants before you think about the Padres. Also helps the Giants won three World Series championships between 2010 and 2014. But the Padres largely, it's such a fun place for guys to play. They love playing there. O'Haren comes over from the Orioles, which is not people do not like playing for it, it's complete opposite. And has really thrived. That said, Michael Bush is about 4.5 wins above replacement, a top 10 bat in Major League Baseball, a top 10 slugger in National League. Top 10 played appearance in Major League Baseball, I'd say. Top 15. You want to argue with me on that? 15? Does that feel better? I don't think it's 10. Fine, it's 15. You can say outside 20, I'm going to say go fuck yourself. So just slight advantage. Advantage Cubs. Up 1-0. We'll go to second base. Jacob Cronenworth, two-time all-star to start his career. I believe he finished top 10 rookie of the year voting, maybe fifth or sixth, and then was an all-star back-to-back seasons. Lefty went to Michigan, and traditionally was like a fundamental second baseman. If you hit it to him, he should make the play. His defense has gotten worse every year. And so is his bat. Now he's played pretty well down the stretch here, but he's just like a milky Midwest kid from Michigan. Like I don't, you see Jacob, his name's Jacob Cronenworth. Just take one look at the guy. You know, and it's exactly kind of like what you think he would be. Um he is a good player. He's more of an offensive than a defensive player. There's no, we're not comparing this. Nico Horner is like a top 10 win above replacement guy's all value. He's been red hot the second half of the season, hitting for more power. Will win a platinum glove this year at second base, I believe. He will win the gold glove for sure national league. The question is, is Nico Horner get to get a platinum glove this year? And without even being biased, I'm saying this is uh scored 2-0 now in favor of the Cubs. We have an advantage at first base, we have an advantage at second base. Okay, third base, we got Matt Shaw versus Manny Machado, and I've dogged Shaw, I've loved Shaw, I've done everything about Shaw. We don't really need to spend too much time on this one. You know, Manny Machado's the first ballot Hall of Famer. Just about as good as a third baseman as anybody's ever seen in Major League Baseball. He's the player's third baseman. Players love this guy. You say who's the best, people put him routinely would say he's the best player in baseball. Players. Not fans, not front offices, not the owners, not the managers, the fucking guys in between the line playing the game. You say, who's who's give me your top three players in baseball? Maybe Machow's gonna make just about every single person's list. He's so good defensively, and he's such a casual, relaxed, professional hitter. Never, never rattled. The only time that guy gets rattled is when he's fucking John with the other team, which I don't even think he does anymore. I don't think he gives a shit. He used to be real fired up. Never rattled. Cool as fucking customer. It could be 0-2, bases loaded down three. I'm gonna say nice things about Manny Machado here. We're playing him. I got nothing but respect for that guy. Matt Shaw's the complete opposite. He could be Matt Shaw could be the most rattled guy I've ever seen wear a major league uniform. Matt Shaw have a good game, sit down at the post-game press conference and be like, it's nice to have a good game because I don't have any confidence. Matt Shaw would be like, it was good to get a hit today because I think my teammates hate me. I thought I was going to AAA this weekend. So I want to thank my teammates for being nice enough to me for putting me in a position to hit that fastball. That guy is so fucked. And when I say but that's a good thing in the long run for baseball. He's just an odd ball. I don't, I would imagine he's probably like, you know, in the grand scheme of things, maybe a little bit of a like in the grand scheme, I'm saying of Major League Baseball Clubhouse, he probably skews a little bit more towards the introverted. I almost said weirdo, but just kind of that introverted, passionate, dedicated guy who's like kind of it's not that he doesn't care about the relationship, or he doesn't care about the social high or care about that stuff. I think he isn't capable of functioning within it. I think he's just a really nice boy who plays as hard as he can, wants to be so good, wants to contribute to the team. He's adjusting in real time to Major League Baseball. He's a great defender, undersized, a lot of pop. Love that combination. You can always put on more fucking size, you can always add a little muscle, you can always just continue to build the strength and stuff, but he has pop now and he weighs like 195 pounds. So huge advantage to Machado, though. We're scoring this one in favor of the Padres. It's two to one if you're keeping track at home. Now, shortstop to me is simple. To other people, I think they would call it a tie between Danzy and Xander. But I just have Dansby as a better player. If you want me to say, I'll do the wins above replacement. Four and a half from Dansby, which is more than Manny Machado at 4.1. I try to tell people throughout the year there's so much Dansby does that adds up. His defense is elite. It's more than elite. He's the captain, the guy on the field. He's calling the fucking pitches. He's telling you when to make the pickoff. He's telling guys in the dugout, he's gonna throw you a change on two strikes. He's doing so much, he's doing more than Cred Council is for guys day-to-day. I'll guarantee you, Danzu Swanson does more on the day-to-day for his teammates than Cred Council does as an influence to get ready for games, scouting report-wise, matchup-wise, adjustment-wise. Out for shifting. I bet Danzu Swanson has a bigger say on where outfields why where outfielders position themselves than Cred Council. I'll go and I'll go ahead and guarantee that Danzby Swanson has a bigger say in how the Cubs take the field in Cred Council. And I think he's been good enough. He hasn't had breakout. He had a breakout month. I think it was May. I want to say he was great in May. You know, he he'll get hot for three or four days. He's great against fastballs. And I think he's gonna hit eighth. Which, if you're telling me Danny Swanson is gonna hit eighth in your lineup, I'd say we have a pretty good fucking lineup then. I think that's fair. Xander Bogart's good range, puss arm. And the crazy thing about Xander Bogartz is he's still got great chase. He still has great discipline. So when I say he's got great chase, he doesn't swing at stuff outside the zone. He's still a complete at bat. Like everything Xander Bogartts does, he does well except for. He doesn't swing the bat hard anymore, and he doesn't find the barrel anymore. His launch angle is outstanding. His batted ball profile, like it looks good. He looks good on paper. There's literally the one thing holding him back. He's not squaring it up. So the results are just weaker. Guys are making outs. He's making way more outs than he should for his discipline, his his whole background package, which just to me goes into like a are you strong enough for the season? Do you take care of your body? Are you work are you literally working to be explosive? Are you fucking going having a big dinner after the game? You know, are you gonna go smoke a bowl, have a big fucking meal, go sit in the hotel, have a couple drinks? You know, I don't know, I have no idea who he is, but when you look at the profile of what type of player Xander Bogarts has turned into, he still does everything well, he just doesn't hit the ball hard anymore, which is so rare. I wish I could explain how unique Xander Bogartts is just turned into like it's an older guy in your softball league who like just doesn't have the same pop as he used to, but he's like still hit the ball to him, he's gonna make an out. And he still has a little step, but the arm's gone, power's gone, that's Xander Bogartz. And he's their shortstop every fucking day. I think he's getting paid way more than Dansby, too. Way more. Advantage Dansby. I've had this 3-1 Cubs, roster wars. We're in the infield, we're gonna go to the outfield, left field. Hap versus L'Oreal is a conversation, at least. Hap versus Gavin Cheese is not a conversation. Ian Hap is our three hitters, but our best player since August, is to be fucking ready to go for his first home field. I mean, when's the last ever? He hasn't played a home playoff game in front of fans at Wrigley Field since 2018. The mar forget about 2020. I think we should all agree just not to listen to anybody talking about 2020 stats, playoffs that never happened. Ian Hap over Gavin Sheets, Ian Hap four wins above replacement, most of those earned in the second half, has been awesome in the second half. Our three-hitter, Gavin Sheets, just a butcher everywhere he goes in the field. Puss arm. Big bat, big swinger, needs mistakes, needs a ton of mistakes. Ian Hap will grind himself into a mistake. Gavin Cheats is getting into the box just praying. Can you please? Can you can you just please make a mistake so I can hit this? I shouldn't say put he has an average arm. Some of the worst range you're ever gonna find from a left fielder. I can't even like the you think major league left fielder, okay, fine, you're gonna play as bad as Gavin Cheats, you better be Carlos Lee El Caballo. You better be Moises Allu pissing on your hands hitting 40 home runs. Oh, Gavin Cheats is just he's just a big slow left on left, just has a real hard time hitting off speed, just needs shit over the middle of the plate. So it's easy to give an advantage to Ian Happ left field. I'm scoring this. It's four to it's four to one cups. This is why, and I'm not doing this to be by a certain exercise to pound my chest. Just being logical and going through this position by position. Alright. Now, right field we probably have Say Suzuki. They have Fernando Tatis Jr. That's an advantage to the Padres. That's an objective advantage on paper to the Padres. I will throw a caveat silver lining in here. If Say Suzuki's got five homers in those last four games, he's the best player on the field. If he's going into the series hot and timing and foot down and all that shit ready to go, he's the best. I don't give a fuck about. Because Sey Suzuki hot is the best player on the field. So the question is, is he hot? The answer to that is I don't know until they play again. I like I'd have to watch, right? Is he gonna be hot? Is he hot on Tuesday? Is he gonna deliver on Tuesday? No, I don't know, and you don't know, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise. We don't know. What we can do is look at his last four games and say he's hit five homers. I think that's as close as we can get to making an assessment on it. Say Suzuki's fucking perfect. I gotta watch the F-word. But for Tatis Jr., he's a better player, guys. He had a little bit of a stomach bug. I don't know if that's diarrhea or if that's COVID. I don't know if that's a bad infection from a tattoo or a skit, like he could have gotten an ear pierced and something acted up, but got an ear infection, couldn't sleep, was cranky. I don't know what the I don't know what the injury was. I just know he was out down the stretch. I make nothing of that, and I could care less. If he was out the entire season and was coming back right now, it wouldn't make a difference. He is, you know, he's his he's tier one talent. He's tier one run, throw, hit for power. He has every every tool you could possibly imagine. All of them. And they're all elite. So he played down the stretch. He hit two home, he's hit three homers in his last four games. That's not great. Five strikeouts I can handle. And the average, whatever. He's gonna swing and miss. He's got chase. But he's such a good player. Can I take a step back for a second and just say, man, I feel lucky that we get to watch like a playoff game and Tatis and Machado are coming to Wrigley Field.

unknown: 59:13

Woof.

SPEAKER_01: 59:15

How many first ballots are there? Freddie, Mookie, Nolan Arenado. We got first ballots playing. These are guys are in their playing at their game. I mean, Machado's probably towards the end of his prime, but still saying prime, these guys are ready to fucking go. What a challenge for us. How lucky are we? We'll go to center field for a second. PCA and Jackson Merrill. I mean, I want to go PCA, trust me. I want to. And right now it's four to two. We have an advantage at first base, second base, shortstop in left field. They got us at third base and right field. We're in center field right now. It's four to two. And ultimately, I'll just tell you guys I have this as a draw. Pete's been brutal second half. Was good last week of the season. Brutal second half. First Cubs player to Go 30 30 30. Absolutely garbage second half from Peter Armstrong. For a long time of the season, he was the most valuable player in Major League Baseball by metric standards. I'm not just saying that because the Cubs were good and he was the spirit of it. Like, look at the fucking numbers. Guy's gonna win a platinum glove in center field. I'm talking about tomorrow on paper. If Jackson Merrill didn't slug 630 the last 50 games of the season, I would defer to Pete because Pete's body of work. Jackson Merrill has been red hot and can go get it too. He can't get it the same way Pete can. Nobody can. Pete is Pete's better than the difference between Pete Carl Armstrong as a center fielder, one, who's the next best center fielder, is the same difference between the second best center fielder and the fucking 20th best center fielder. There's no comparing outfield. Pete Carl Armstrong is the best outfielder in Major League Baseball and top three defender. Mix in the Patrick Bailey catcher from the Giants. That guy's sick. That guy changes games just the way he catches a baseball. Pete's on that level. Jackson Merrill's been rep. Jackson Merrill can can go get it. He might have to get it more now, obviously, left field, Gavin Sheets. Jackson Merrill's just been red hot, but Pete's had a much better Pete's a better six six wins above replacement to 2.8. The fact I even just outed that, people are gonna say, fuck, of course Pete Cronstrong. But I'm talking about just a three-game series here. So I do I have it split. We're Ryder Cup. This is a half point. This is a half point. Because I can take arguments either way. Pete on righties is much better than Pete on lefties. And all the pitchers not named Nick Pavetta are in the kill zone for Pete Crow Armstrong. I'd like to say we haven't really seen it's just like a little bit of good stuff from Pete down the stretch isn't enough to overcome the fact that man, that was the worst September. That was the worst, like it just never got better. It just got worse and worse and worse. Okay, so a little bit of a flash at the end of the year. Jackson Merrill, huge flash at the end of the year. Which one are you taking? This is a good argument. If if maniacs have a convincing argument for why I should say Peter Armstrong over Jackson Merrill, I'll I'll listen. Do you guys think I'm gonna tell you guys no, you're crazier than I am? Which is a severely amount of crazy. I have a four and a half to two and a half. Let's just keep going. DH, Kyle Tucker, Luisa Rise. Kyle Tucker. Hurt Kyle Tucker, Luisa Rise, hurt Kyle Tucker. Luisa Rise, batting champ, all that shit. I don't hit all the fucking singles you want. There's not one pitcher who's afraid of Luis Rise. The only situation you don't like it is with a runner on third less than two outs. Okay, so if that situation happens, Luis Arise is the best hitter in baseball. He's the I maybe not. The numbers will back me up and say this and that, whatever, ground outs. The lowest strikeout rate in baseball by a whole lot. We say Nico Horner doesn't strike out. Luis Rise never strikes out. Ever. Ever. He's her DH though. 1.3 wins above replacement. No slug. Rarely takes a walk. Always puts the ball in play. And a weak lefty. You know, Kyle Tucker hurt. I don't give a fuck. Kyle Tucker over Luis Rise. That's easy. That's easy. That's 5.5 now to 2.5. We're five and a half. We're up three shots on a on. I almost called them the Europeans. On the Padres. They do have European colors. That brown. That brown and yellow. That's something I'd expect the Europeans wear. Catcher, I just went Carson Kelly's just like Carson Kelly would win this up against just about any NL catcher, not named Patrick Bailey or JT Real Muto, maybe. Maybe Ruimuto's having a shitty season too. Not that who cares what the catcher from the Phillies are is doing this year. Carson Kelly's having a better season. Yeah. They traded for Freddie Furman. Furman for Mean. I don't follow him. They traded for him from the Royals. And he's serviceable defensively. I mean, light hitting, 70 OPS plus, 30% below league average with the Padres. He was 15% below league average. This is the catcher for the Padres. Came from the Royals. They traded for him from the Royals. 15% below league average offensively with the Royals. They trade for him. As the Padres, 30% below League average. Non-threat. Now, he could have a big hit. They all could. He gets his time in the box just like anybody else. This guy stinks. I mean, Carson Kellett, like we've been doing this forever. Is he really a cleanup hitter? How many times do we see him hit cleanup? He's going to hit sixth where I like him. And he bombs mistakes. I mean, you throw him a mistake. He's just looking for that cement mixer that doesn't have the right break to it. He just hunts mistakes. And that's why he's had a great season. Kind of a real good approach. I'm going to call it a sellout approach. I don't mean he's a sellout. I mean he's selling out when he's in the box to drive it. He's like, I'm here to, I'm going to fucking mash it. I don't know how many more years I got left in my big league career. I'm getting my foot down. I'm looking to yank and pull the ball. And that's a huge change Carson Kelly had for the Cubs this year. That's a big reason why he's got 3.6 wins above replacement. And if Miguel Amaya was healthy all season long, you're having a conversation right now, like who's starting in the, like, which is crazy to say. Miguel Emmaya, young catcher, suit sensational talent. And like Carson Kelly, it would probably is probably if this is a crazy hypothetical, but like if Amaya was healthy all season long, it would take a lot for him to be the starting catcher in this situation because Carson Kelly's been so good. So we're just going to score these again. That's six and a half to the Cubs now. To just two and a half with the Padres. The Padres' advantage I have again, third base with Machado, right field with Tatis Jr., and I got a wash in center field with Jackson Merrill, 630 slug last 50 games. I got the Cubs at DH. I got to sit catcher, left field shortstop. I got to sit second base, first base. Now we get to the starting rotation. There's three games. I like the Cubs in two of the three games. I don't they have an advantage game one with Pivetta. If we had Kate Horton, good luck, guys. We don't. Nick Pivetta is better than any of our starting pitchers. But Matt Boyd, Shoda, and Jamison Tayan are way better than you, Darvish and Dillon Season, Michael King, and Randy Vasquez. So how do you guys score this one? Do you want the first and the fifth, sixth, seventh? Or do you want 2-3-4? Probably two, three, four, five. We throw in Colin Ray. I mean, Colin Ray is like in would you re I'm trying to do the best I can to explain where the Padres are at with their starting pitching without demeaning them because it could go and just shove it up our ass. But like if we're being honest, Colin Ray is better than the four guys they're considering for the last two starts. James Atlanta's better than those four guys. We have four pitchers that would start game two for the Padres. But Pivetta's very good. So I think it's it. I typically would say this could be a split, but I have one point here to the Padres for Pivetta. I have two points to the Cubs because it's a three-game series. If you have arguments with this, just make them to me on Twitter, Carl's Beef. Just let me know. Just say, hey, I actually think it's unfair you're doing it this way. But the way I'm looking at it, there's three games started. Now we may use an opener. I think that's fucking crazy. Whoever's talking about that on social media, shut up. Deactivate your account. We haven't used an opener one time this year. We're gonna go make Showday warm up in the second inning. He's never done that. Or are we saying he needs to do that? That would be that leadership decision making F minus. We're not doing grades, but that's an F minus if we do that. Bullpen, I Padres have it, top heavy. Mason, Miller, Suarez have us. But we've got depth. I mean, I'm not shitting on our bullpen. Kittridge, Brad Keller. Is Palencio officially back? We have three lefties. I mean, typically we don't have one lefty. We have three lefties. Bring them in, and I'm not saying it's Andrew Miller. You don't feel that good. I don't even know if we feel good. You don't feel bad. They bring in Drew Prime ans, you're like, he can get it done. They bring in Caleb Tilbar, you're like, hey, this guy was out of the big leagues for five fucking years. This guy's tough, 38 years old, was a college pitching, was out of professional baseball, coaching college pitchers, then got back into professional baseball, then got back to the big leagues, and has had a great season for us. He's blown, whatever. You're gonna blow it's 162, you're gonna blow games. You take the mount in high leverage, shit's gonna go the other way every now and then. And then Rogers, like, whatever. Don't love, don't walk anybody. Don't love them. But we need a lefty. It's like, all right, that's not a bad third lefty. That's not bad. Kittrich is awesome, color's awesome. We don't have the guaranteed three strikeouts. We don't have the guaranteed you're in big trouble. We don't have the guaranteed you're not getting an extra base hit, which Mason Miller and Suarez are. You don't have that guaranteed fuck you. They have guaranteed fuck you. We have better action for, hey, we need a guy in the fifth, need a guy in the sixth. We have better action for the outs in the fifth, the sixth, and probably the first two outs of the seventh. First out of the seventh. I don't know. Mason Miller, they're using him in the seventh, but usually with runners on base. Usually in a situation we need him seven, clean eight and a score as nine. So that is advantageous because they do have shutdown fuck you stuff, which plays obviously in October. We've got more of a mixed grab bag, which is going to play better in a seven-game series. We play great in a five-game series. Play great if it's one of those. We score five, they score four in the first two innings. Then I like our bullpen a lot. So we're weighing the different variables. The most important thing I can't get away from, though, with their bullpen with the Padres, is full Toledo. Holy Toledo. Runners on base, late game situation. They have big time strikeout stuff. We do not. Bench, that's a huge. I cannot state, even though I said this was the worst bench that we've had in a long time. Willie Castro's terrible. Terrible since traded for him. Is mostly because of Moises Biasteros. Moises Biasteros is by far the best pinch hitter in this series. Moises Biasteros is one of the best left-handed hitters in the series. We don't have a spot for him on the field, so he's on our bench. Moises Biasteros is a better left-handed hitter than. I mean, do we want me to say he's better than Luis Rice? I think he's probably a better better at bat than Luis Ryze. I think he's a better at bat than uh I don't want to insult these big leaguers. Like O'Hearn, Cronenworth. Sheets. I mean, I think I think Moises is probably a better bet to get you a line drive. A Rise, that's different. That's a batting champ. I gotta watch myself here. Willie Castro plays all over the field. The Padres bench is so thin. It's so thin. We're talking about Jose Iglesias. Jose Iglesias was a name 13 years ago. Good for him. He's still playing. Good for him to still be a utility guy getting reps, you know, down the stretch of the season. Playing second base, I got like the Padres fans like him a little bit to be clutch. He's got like a 660 OPS. That would be like us liking Nicky Lopez, which I like Nicky Lopez as a guy. I'm saying in a playoff situation, in dire situation, going to the bench. Padres fans, they like Jose Iglesias. That's crazy. The other guy they have is a young fellow named Bryce Johnson, who is a 6'190-pound outfielder, would play left field. Some people, not anybody, really like 10% of Padres fans, are just throwing out, like, well, what about Bryce Johnson in left field over Gavin Sheets? Because Gavin Sheets is such a butcher in left field. Bryce Johnson's not a butcher. And he's hitting like 360, which is crazy. How about that? He's hitting like 360 in 84 plate appearances this year. He hasn't not played a lot for the Padres, but he has played well. He's got 26 hits, I believe, in 84 plate appearances. However, many 70 at bats, something like that. It comes out to like a 360 average. He's on their bench. He's not fuck, I don't, 80, he's not fucking good. We're talking about uh he's not good. This isn't a guy that they're waiting to break in. This is Bryce Johnson from the Padres. This is a guy with 200 career bats, came up with the Giants, played with the Padres. Uh going into this season, 88 career games. I think he's got he's got two career homers in 143 games. I can't believe I'm even talking about this guy. A career 305 slug. He's just been pretty good for the Padres down the stretch here. And he's getting two at bats here and at bat here, pinch round here, two at bats here. Here's a start. That's their bench. Now, Willie Castro's been absolute shit for the Cubs. Willie Castro has like, what, eight years? How much time does Willie Castro have? Six full seasons? What's his service time? 705 games? Willie Castro has hit more home runs in a week than Bryce Johnson has in his entire career. Willie Castro has scored more runs in a month than Bryce Johnson has in his entire career. If we're just saying purely from like a playoff standpoint, okay, it's 3 30 in the afternoon, it's a sixth inning, shadows are setting in, the gravity of the situation setting in. Willie Castro is a much better utility player than Bryce Johnson. Willie Castro is a much better utility guy. And if we're going to talk about hometown favorite at bats off the bench, the Padres are like, well, we've got Jose Iglesias could come off the in a pinch, literally, to pinch it. You know, in the sixth, seventh, eighth inning, whatever. Come in for Furman, for mean, put a put a ball in play. Oh, that's so pathetic that I now have the strength and confidence to say I'd much rather have Justin Turner. I know he's been brutal this year. He's actually above average against lefties, but if we're gonna do this fucking game where we look at the bench players and we go, all right, fine, Bryce Johnson and Jose Iglesias off the bench for the Padres, which is severely inhibited by the fact that Ramon Loriano breaks his hand is out for the season. So now Gavin Cheats has to play left. Their bench stinks, my point. Their bench is trash. Is ours awesome? Is Willie Castro awesome? Is Justin Turner awesome? No. No. No. Biasteros is pretty good. Biasteros is pretty good. And the collection of that is significantly better than what the Padres have on bench. Significantly. Manager, we're just going to call this one a split. This is easy. This is the last one. Manager. Mike Schilt, Craig Council. Split. I don't know. 92 wins, 90 wins. Council hasn't done anything in the playoffs. Guys love playing for Schilt because he's a player's manager. I think he looks at the media and he's he's it's I don't think anything gets out of his clubhouse. He's an old school baseball guy, and I don't think he really bitches at a superstars. I don't think so. I mean, I think he can get mad and flip a table, and we've got higher fucking standards and that, and he can get into that kind of mode and all that stuff. But I think he's a pretty good guy to be managing a team with Machado, Tatis, Bogards. You got some big ass contracts on that team. So I think he's obviously like you gotta give Schultz credit for that. And he's done extremely well since leaving the Cardinals organization. He was good with the Cardinals. I could never understand why they fired him to bring in Ali Marmel. I think that was just because Marmel, what? He was closer with Yachty, or he was a closer bridge to Yachty or something. I don't know. I don't think Yachty likes Schilt. I don't think Schilt gives a fuck. Craig Collins, on the other hand, I am so excited to see this guy manage a series because what the fuck? What are we getting from this guy? I have no idea. And this is where his legacy will be more defined in the following two to three games than it was in the previous 162. We will how we view Craig at the end of this season will be entirely from here on out than what has transpired to this point, which I think is fair. Because for a 200 plus payroll, you have good players, they played well. We got to the point where the four seeds not like we won a division, we didn't send any records, we were really good for a little bit. I think this is this is like we accept this. From Craig, I accept this satisfactory. This is a good, acceptable season for$8 million. Last year was not. You are one for one in seasons. But what do we care? I mean, I want, let's get to the NLDS. Let's play well against the Padres. I'm excited to see how he manages the pitching staff and the bullpen because there aren't obvious decisions to be made. It's how hard is it to manage a pitching staff when you have Cade Horton going game one? How hard is it to manage a pitching staff? Let's use 2016 as an example. Oh, we're gonna go to Chapman. How hard is it to know that John Lesser starts game one and Ariada starts game two there? How hard is that to throw Kyle at like that's pretty those decisions were all pretty easily easily telegraphed. This is what we're doing. Alright, what are we doing now? I don't know. Now, as we talk through the roster wars here, I think I've scored this now as official 10 to 5. There were 15 total available points. And those were from how many? Yeah, we had 15 available points. I have the Cubs 10, I have the Padres five. I have us with a better first baseman, second baseman, shortstop, left fielder, DH, catcher, starting pitcher two, starting pitcher three, and a better bench. I'm split on center field and manager, and I'm giving the nod to them at third base, right field, starting pitcher one, and the bullpen. Which in a three-game series pretty much sucks. That they have like the two superstars, the best number one and the best bullpen. So while it is skewed like 10 to 5, like it's kind of they have a really good five. They have they have just about the best five points you could have on the board. You know, how much do we care that Nico Horner's a better second baseman than Jacob Cronenworth? We'll see. You know, if we play if we played each other 100 times, I would expect the Cubs to win 57 games. 56 and 44. If we played 100 games, if we played 99, 100 games, but we did three-game series for 33 weeks. I'm not saying we just lined up played 100 days in a row. If we just did this exercise, we're gonna play we play 100 series. I would expect the Cubs say 103-game series. Let's just do this a hundred times. I would expect the Cubs to win it at home?

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:21

60? 60? 58, 59? Is that fair?

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:31

That's where my head's at. So this is the Monday morning Cubs show. We're talking that we talked a lot about the Padres today, how we match up with them. Went through just a brief playoff overview. I was just go looking up a picture of a bracket. How fucking hard is that? Just overall thoughts, guys. National League. We get through Padres, we're staring on the Brewers who are 18 and 20 over the last 38. Who are struggle, who are struggling to get the magic. Their identity is magic, and they don't have it right now. Perfect. Let's go play those assholes. You know, and then from there we have the Dodgers and Phillies have no pitching, and the Reds should not be in the playoffs. There's no a team with 83 wins, 83 and 79. Congratulations on the playoffs. It's crazy. So, like, excuse me, I'm going back to the original team of the show. I feel very grateful. We're in a position, we have a we have a great path forward to win a pennant. I'm not saying it's a lock. We aren't favorites by any stretch of the imagination. We're not cooking with gas. We've lost our number one pitcher. Lost both our number ones this year. But Kyle Tucker's back, folks. James and Town looked really good out. You know, I think Matt Boyd's a nightmare matchup for this Padres, particularly guys like Gavin Sheets and Jacob Cronworth. Machado and Tatis are tough matchups. Doesn't for Nolan fucking Ryan. Our tough matchups against Roger Clements. Those guys are tough matchups. It wouldn't matter. But we want to look at the other seven guys in the lineup. I think Boyd's a great matchup for O'Hearn. I think it's a great matchup for Cronenworth. Sheets. I think he's a great matchup for Rise because he can pitch him in. And Luisa Rise pitch him in and freaking ground ball to third base 95 out of 100 times. Never seen anything like it. Two hop chopper to the left side. Done. Done. Done. It's something crazy about me likes the fact that Shelby Minaga has given up 12 homers in his last 34 innings because he's he's he's got to have at least solved something. He has to know what's missing, and I think that adjustment comes, and he has pitched in huge games before on what I would say are comparable stages for him. World baseball classic. Not for Americans, for a Japanese player, I think it's just as big for him. Go represent the country like that against the United States of America, against whoever the foot. Who's he pitching against? Dominican Republic? That's that's big time. And he's delivered on these stages before. So I got tons of confidence in him. If we I don't even know a world where we get to Colin Ray, but he was my pitcher of the week last week. I don't know what's in here. How do I sit there watching Colin Ray pitch for the Cubs? Like, okay, that happened quickly, but again, I'm gonna go back. Colin Ray, I'd rather have them. Michael King, Randy Vasquez, Dylan Caesar, Udarvision. Those are the four other pitchers for the San Diego Padres. Once we get past Nick Pavetta. So tomorrow, 2 p.m., we gotta win for I mean, you have to you want to win the first game. I guess if there's one big message from this, it's like the first game's obvious the first game is very it's gonna be very difficult. And I think the Cubs are huge favorites in games two and three of this, if if it comes to that. If we lose game one, we're gonna be. We're not saying that's a guarantee, but just how do we feel emotionally and psychologically as we're going through this week? Is it is it all over if we lose game one? No. Do we have to smash Nick Pavetta? No. Do we have to hang fucking 10 runs on the Padres game one? No. We gotta pitch well, we gotta play good defense. Be nice to knock Pivetta out before the sixth inning. It'd be nice if Nick Pavetta threw five innings. And then I could just at least get what do they have in that sixth and seventh inning before I see Mason Miller and Suarez? Because we are so much better than anything after Nick Povetta. And so much better than anything before Mason Miller and Suarez. That includes starters and whatever else slop they're coming out. If they don't trust Jerry Estrada, let's roll. Does that make sense? So uh just rounding up some things. This is the Monday Morning Cub show. Appreciate everybody who's tuned in. If you want to subscribe to the show, now would be a good time. You know, hour 20 solo show here, Vin Scully getting you ready. Hour 23. If you have a chance to just throw a subscription on here if you want to, if you want to, no fucking pressure. If you want to review, you know, I'm at five stars is great, guys. Helps with thirsty vicero, helps with content, I suppose. Who gives a fuck? You know. Send Mahoney a nice message. Find him on Twitter at TBidness. You can follow me at Carlsbeef. This is the Monday morning cub show. I'll leave you with a prediction. I do think the Cubs win this in three games. And I do think game one is a two to two game in the eighth inning. You know, I don't know where we win it or if we lose it. I do know that if there is I do know that we win game two of this series eight to one, eight to three, nine, ten to three. And if we do have to play a game three because we lost game one, then I think it's the same thing. I think we smash Club's huge favorites in game three, huge favorites in game two. Game one, just be nice to win it. Be nice to win game one, save the bullpen. Pick to click for the series, say Suzuki, five homers in the last four games. I think he's just gonna be red hot, dialed. First pitch hunting, foot is down, timing's down, no more bullshit. I think Ian Hap, too. I'm gonna pick out Ian Hap, I'm gonna pick out Ian Hap confidently. I'm gonna pick out Sei Suzuki confidently. And I'm gonna keep my fingers crossed that Fernando Tatis Jr. has some bad salmon, some bad sushi. Maybe the diarrhea comes back. You know, I'd like to see him play just as a baseball fan, but as a Cubs fan, it'd be nice if he had a little tummy ache. I we're not going there to finish the preview to say we need him to sit out. I'm just, you know, strategically speaking, if he didn't play, would love it. He probably will. So I got a lot of respect for the Padres. I think they're a good team. I think the Cubs do have edges across the field, across the board, and if those edges show up, then I think the Cubs win the series. I think we go into the NLDS. I think we see the Milwaukee Brewers, and I think they're a team that's 18-20 over their last 38, and there's a huge advantage for the Cubs there. And I think we take over Milwaukee American Fun field with our fans. But first, we have to beat the San Diego Padres. So what I'm gonna do is sign off here with you guys. Thank you to everybody who's tuned in. I'll be back after game one. We're gonna do another podcast. Hopefully, Mahoney, it'll be either me or it'll be me and Mahoney, or we're gonna figure out the mix and match for this. But we'll have post-game podcasts released after immediately. We'll record immediately after each game through the wild card round, and we'll revisit this again in the division series. I just want to say a heartfelt thank you to everybody who's listened to this, who's tuned in, who gives a shit about what we have to say about the Cubs. Um, you know, one of these days I'll sit down and explain better, you know, in any detail just about how much this means and just this journey to get to this point with you guys where I'm sitting here doing a solo show previewing the biggest Cubs game in seven, eight years. Uh, it's been a crazy journey, and I wouldn't trade it for fucking anything. And I mean that. I mean it inside, and I cannot thank you enough for the people that have been with me. Thank you to the maniacs, and let's go beat the San Diego Padres. Let's run it down their fucking throats. Go, Cubs.