Monday Morning Cubs Show

Heartbreak, Pride, and the 2025 Cubs

• Carl + Mahoney • Season 2 • Episode 67

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The season ended on three runs we should’ve survived—and one we couldn’t score. We walk through the Game 5 knife’s edge: the Brewers’ gutsy plan to start with velocity, the Cubs’ sixth-inning chance that died on a 3–1 heater, and why three allowed on the road should have been enough. It hurts, but the bigger headline isn’t heartbreak—it’s pride. This team brought back belief with elite infield defense, real leadership, and a clubhouse that kept punching long after the rotation started fraying.

We get specific about what actually cost the series: no Steele, no Horton, Shōta’s late-season home run spike, and too many innings entrusted to patchwork starters. The bullpen—our “island of misfit arms”—mostly did its job; October just punishes thin margins when the bat rack goes quiet. Then we map a pragmatic offseason path. Forget the splash that warps the roster. Kyle Tucker’s price doesn’t fit the puzzle. Schwarber locks you into a DH-only reality you don’t need if you trust Moises Ballesteros’s bat and Owen Caissie’s upside. Instead, invest where October games tilt: two rotation arms who create weak contact at Wrigley and a leverage bullpen that shortens nights with power, angle, and strikes.

We keep it honest about fit, cost, and identity: keep the infield as a core strength, make DH a flexible slot shared by Seiya and Ballesteros, and give Caissie a real runway. Add a switch-hitting utility infielder for coverage. Build redundancy so “Colin Rea in leverage” never happens again. The next step isn’t louder—it’s smarter. If that sounds like your kind of baseball, stick with us. Subscribe, leave a review on Apple or Spotify, and tell us: where would you spend first—starter, bullpen, or bat?

Thanks for tuning in!

- Carl & Mahoney

SPEAKER_00:

Good morning, good afternoon, and evening Chicago Cubs fans. Welcome back to the Monday Morning Cubs Show. Today is Monday, October 13th. This is not a special edition show. We're not getting ready for the Dodgers. We're working through the fact that the season's over. Welcome back to the show. It's Carl. This is just a solo show here. I don't, again, every time we do this, I do it like this. I'm gonna say I'd like to keep it to 45 minutes here. Honestly, who knows? Who knows? Shout out Mahoney. Another little scheduling conflict thing here. I want this show out Monday morning. And there's some scheduling stuff today. We wouldn't be able to get to it later to tonight, possibly tomorrow afternoon. And I I just personally like we gotta have the conversation now. It's Monday. It's Monday morning. You're going to work. You know, last Monday you went to work, Cubs were in the playoffs. Right? Friday you left work, you felt great about yourself. Monday we get up. I can't be the only person who feels like a complete bag of shit or dicks or shitty dicks. I feel like the worst I could possibly feel about myself because I want the Dodgers. I want the NLCS. I wanted to see the World Series graphic painted at Wrigley. I can't tell you how much I felt in my heart of hearts that we had enough shit in this roster to win tight, close ball games. Such good defense that we saw against the Padres. You know, we have an island of misfit toy veteran bullpen. I'm going to go through this stuff, talk about like why do I think it turned out the way it turned out. But I'd be remiss not to say off the top, the theme of the show is I'm proud to be a Cubs fan. The theme of the show is right now with where the organization is. If we did this show a year ago, I'd say these people are jabronies. If we did this show two years ago, I'd be ripping my hair out of my head. You know, I did these shows three, four, five years ago. You've heard me talk about the Cubs. I don't know if I've ever scratched an element of pride that I have for where the team is right now. And maybe it's more fitting for me and my character to flip a table, to motherfuck everybody. You know, Kyle Tucker, you let me down. Craig Council didn't get the boys ready to play. One run in an elimination game. I mean, there's a lot of stuff. I suppose if you want to get mad, and what I don't want to do is encourage you otherwise. Like you should feel how you want to feel. You want to be mad, be mad. I got by there so mad. Hate Kyle Tucker. Never want to see that guy again. You know, that big strikeout, Ashby, game five, runners on first and second. Michael Bush singles up the middle, then Nico Horner gets hit in the foot. We're thinking to ourselves, we have our three-hitter up, Inase Suzuki. People are really mad. And to a certain extent, you're in an elimination game. You score one run on the road after playing extremely well in game four, battle in game three. There's stuff to be mad about. I definitely have anger. I don't think it's this like reactionary, I can't believe it. Like it makes sense. When we go through the roster and we will, we're gonna talk about our pitching staff. We're gonna talk, we're gonna talk about the bullpen, we're gonna talk about the starters. Colin Ray in a game five. I am gonna work through, we're gonna work through our game five thing because I owe that to you guys. We're gonna we're gonna work through. So at least you have some information in your head, and maybe I can help, and maybe I can't. And if I can't help, I'm sorry, I mean that. If I can help, absolutely. You know, at least try and put some better thoughts in your head as we go into the offseason. You know, but I think it's I think it's fair to look at the 2025 Cubs and feel very proud. You know, Jed put together a ball club I enjoyed watching for almost the entire season 162. There's lumps in there, really frustrating lumps. You know, now is not the time for that. Mahoney and I are gonna come back. We we'll do a full report card season breakdown episode. This is more just about the fact the season just ended this past weekend. You know, we've been doing a lot of rah-rah on the Money Morning Cub show. A lot of solo stuff, a lot of deep dives, getting people ready for games. And so for me personally, selfishly, waking up and not having that, you know, that's an emptiness. We're gonna fill it. I don't know how. We'll get to the programming part of this later. I think off the top overall, I'm proud to be a Cubs fan. I'm not telling you to go start a fight with somebody who isn't. I'm not telling you should feel the way that I feel about the Cubs, but it's very easy to look, especially since the Lester, Theo, Jason Hayward days. There's been almost nothing to be proud about for an extended period of time. There's been no team that made me want to go sit at Wrigley Field alone until 2025. Because I loved watching these guys play. The infield play is as good as anything I've ever seen on a major league team I cared about. I can't even begin to tell you how proud I am. The infield play. The leadership. You know, and the fact that I'm trying to pick myself up off the ground after losing a game, I thought we could have won. And I thought we should have won. And I thought the advantage just favored ourselves. So let's talk about it. Before we do, obviously, show is brought to you by Thirsty Vacero, and I can't thank them enough for the partnership down the stretch of the postseason. Now, as it stands, we have some conversations moving forward about what type of role Thirsty Vacero can play in the Monday Morning Cub show. How do you like what does that partnership look like moving forward? I will say I am beyond grateful that they propped up the Monday Morning Cub show down the stretch, into solo shows, into building and strengthening uh the relationship with you guys in the community. And the show is growing. I we don't need to get into specifics, but drastically throughout that postseason run down the stretch, um, through the first two seasons, and I'm real proud of where it's at. I have an extensive personal history of doing podcasts. All right. The amount of people that are showing up for the Monday Morning Cub show right now, um, we'll say is is beyond plenty to make me feel unbelievably grateful that we have this community. So, like without moving forward here, I gotta say thank you. Thank you to everybody that's shown up, not just season long, if if you're relatively new here, if you've shared the show, if you've reviewed it and given it a five star on Spotify and Apple that's allowed me to go out and get a sponsor like Thirsty Vacero. If you can take five seconds right now and do it, that's obviously great. Seeing that counter go up in the postseason, where I want to say at the start of the season, I had like seven reviews on Apple, which it's up to 117 now, I believe. I think we had 20 reviews on Spotify, up to like 180, 190. And that's a reflection of the partnership in the community that we're building, and purely a reflection of the fact that Thirsty Vicarol put me in that spot. So if you guys get a chance, support them. Which is a Mexican-style soda with a signature spicy finish. That's all bite, no rattle. Three bold flavors. They work great as a mixer, they work great as a non-alcoholic standalone. You know, call me crazy. I know most people think I'm just sitting around boozing non-fucking stop. You know, however true that is, of course. Consider your sources. Uh the the non-alcoholic aspect of it is quite, it's it's quite delicious. Thirsty Vicero is. Would you believe an endorsement from me on that? It's absolutely delicious, and it's also refreshing. And there's only what 15, 16, 17 grams of sugar, maybe less per huge serving. I had a Coca-Cola the other day, it was at 55. I couldn't get off the couch. Am I even allowed to say that? I'm not trying to get sued here. I'm just saying, from the perspective of how I personally feel drinking a thirsty of Carol, because of the low sugar alcohol content or whatever those are, the sugars, are they I we're rolling, baby. Because of a lower sugar content, I feel better about myself. A much lower sugar content. That's not even a copy. I don't even know if they want me talking about that stuff. I do know 90 calories per 16 ounces is one hell of a serving. Real fruit juice, real agave nectar, check them out on Amazon. They'll ship right to your front door. I just got a fresh case of lime chili pepper. With that signature spicy finish. Perfect for a party, perfect for you, perfect for lunch. That's Thirsty Vicaro, guys. The other thing, tag them, follow them, let them know social media. Hey, I heard about you guys. They're huge on Instagram. What do they've got like 10,000 followers on Instagram? They're huge in Texas, they're huge basically in everywhere except where I have any presence at all in the least bit. In the least. So we're expanding. It's at Yaxis. You can go on Clark Street, you can get yourself a Thirsty Vacaro and a Vaquero bomb, which I think is pretty badass. You know, we're sitting here talking about the Cubs, we got Vaquero bombs. That's a nice touch. So we'd like to see them around next year. Right now, I'll just say thank you very much to Thirsty Vacaro for popping up propping up the postseason run and enabling me to do these solo shows to strengthen our relationship with you guys, with the maniacs. And again, shout out Mahoney. He's gonna be back. This schedule, I couldn't ask for worse time for work schedule stuff to get flipped upside down. And this is part of life. Especially with he, 40? I'm 38, going on 57. You know, it just gets it just gets a little bit more difficult as we're older. That's the commitment that we have to you guys. Show's not going anywhere. We'll talk about programming later. We got to get back to game five. So we lost game five to the Brewers on Saturday. Okay, I was very proud before that game started. Winning two games at home in the NLDS should put a lot of juice in your tank as you reflect on this team. You can't call them pussies. You can't say when they're backed into a corner they didn't try their best. You can say that they gave up or that they weren't prepared. And I think the easiest way, look at our starting pitching. That series was decided by our starting pitching. We couldn't get out of game one. We did not have starting pitching for game two. Like, we just didn't have it. Boyd game one trash. Showed a game two, absolutely terrible. Beyond terrible. And we didn't even have a starter for game five. Like, no offense to Drew Pomerance. Pomerance. He shouldn't be in the big leagues. And I don't mean because he sucks or anything. I mean because he retired. Because he was at home on his couch like a year ago. Like, he hasn't pitched meaning, meaningful baseball in the big leagues. Since 2019, he was terrible. He made 20 appearances in COVID with the Padres. He made 27 appearances the next year, spread out all over the season. Then was injured, then was done. This guy literally has not he has one start to his belt in 2019 in Milwaukee as an opener. He stopped taking the mound eight years ago. No, Chris Bryant was not just our third baseman. Chris Bryant was our third baseman and a perennial MVP candidate consideration. The last time Drew Pomerance was taking the ball as a starter in the big leagues. Now I know we use him as an opener, but what I'm trying to do is explain to you that our game five starter was playing Fortnite a year ago. I don't know what what is he like doing? He's where is he from? Mississippi? Deep sea fishing. If he's from Tennessee, he was hunting. He was in a deer blind. That's what Tennessee guys do. They drink whiskey and they sit in deer blinds. Somebody's from Tennessee. I got a lot of respect for how much those guys hunt. I can just picture Drew Pomerantz fucking around, you know, making duck calls when he gets a phone call from Jed Hoyle that says we need a lefty. And he started game five for us. I think people realize just how drastic that is, how substantial it is. We'll get we'll get into the I Little Ms Fit toys in a second here, but we only put five runners on base all game Saturday. And if you include the way they do balls, uh what is that batting average of balls and play? Say Suzuki's home run technically doesn't count because he wasn't on base. So from the perspective of we have to get runners on base, would we put no? I think we put five or six guys on base all game. What'd the Brewers do? Ten or eleven? It's an elimination game. Elimination games are simple. And if you've been really mad about this, I can just crunch it down very simply. If you can't score four runs, you don't deserve to win. You just don't. Um in an elimination game like Game 5 Saturday, you needed four runs to win that game. We've said that before. If you score four runs in the postseason, you're giving yourself like a 70-something percent chance to win. Scoring one run and being so lame offensively, and maybe this is why I should be mad, but it's just one game. The bats go ice cold. You know, the Brewers had good pitching matchups for us, especially going to McGill to start game five because we hadn't really seen him at all, and we had tagged them in the first inning of every game that series. So for the Brewers to take a bold stance and be like, fucking, here comes McGill, first inning, pumping 102, 103, like all the energy in the world, that's outstanding. Like that's just an outstanding decision. Then to turn it over to Mizorowski in the key for Mizorowski threw 54 pitches, 37 for strikes. So he's throwing, I believe that's like 70%. It's around there. And typically he's closer to like 55, 58. So he obviously was a better version of himself than we have seen, than we did see in August. And so you want to give credit to Mizorowski, but to me, he's such a young buck, like just such a young guy, can't really walk, just doesn't really know his head from his butt cheeks. So for me, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna say credit to Pat Murphy and the Brewers. Because what they did to Mizorowski was say, we don't know if you're gonna be on the postseason roster. So I don't know how closely people were following this towards the end of the season, but they had basically made Mizorowski feel like he wasn't good enough to be on the postseason roster, and then towards the end had put him on it. I thought there was some controversy about whether or not it would be him or Reese Hoskins. I thought there was controversy about whether or not they'd be able to find a spot for Mizorowski because where would you trust him? Quinn Priester became more trustworthy, Chad Patrick was a more trustworthy right-hander for him. There were questions about Brandon Woodruff. If he would be back for the playoffs, obviously not, obviously out. That was a huge, huge benefit to the Cubs, especially for games three and four, because it created this issue who was going to be their starter after Quinn Priester. They didn't use Priester game two, they use him as they use him as a starter in game three, they used an opener in game two. But just generally talking around this stuff, the way the Brewers matched up game five after how the first forward went, I thought was really solid. And Mizorowski obviously pitched his dick off, but that only takes us to the fifth inning. That only takes us to the fifth inning, and I want to say at the time it's two to one. Saya had hit the solo. They hit a solo off Pomerans, William Contreras on the first inning. Saya comes back top of second, hits an opposite field, so now it's one to one. And they're riding with Mizorowski, who's just pumping heater over the zone, and does have a severe power advantage over just about every player in the Cubs lineup, except Seiya. I would say that. Because you just need to run into it. You just need to barrel up his ball. They're gonna fly. And we're with Colin Ray at this time, and that's where the conversation starts in the fourth inning of like how much longer do we think can Colin Ray give us three scoreless? Do we trust Colin Ray enough to give us three scoreless innings and take us into what would have been the top of the fifth? And it's right there in the bottom of the fourth. Righty on righty gives up a solo job to Andrew Vaughn, who I believe was just like his second home run since mid-August. He'd been ice cold in September, power-wise. I think he's hit a couple bubbles, but his power surge had fallen apart. Andrew Vaughn, solo job against Colin Ray in the fourth inning. That's all they needed to go up 2-1. You know, Miz is shutting it down. Miz shuts down top five. You know, Palencia. I thought Palencia was solid. But really, I mean, what are we doing if we're not just gonna come down to runners on first and second? Nobody out. Andrew Ashby's pitching against Kyle Tucker. 3-1 count. Fastball right down the middle. And I keep calling him Andrew Ashby. His name's Aaron Ashby. I don't give a fuck. Good luck to that guy in the NLCS. Andy Ashby's his cousin. Also lefty, also played big leagues. But runners on first and second, nobody out. Down one. People might have wanted to see a sack bunt there with Kyle Tucker, who has one career sacrifice hit, one career sacrifice hit in 3,158 career played appearances. So then the idea of like sack bunting against him when you know they're gonna bring in a righty, first base open against, say, uh, who's got a high strikeout rate, it makes all the sense in the world to let Kyle Tucker swing away. And furthermore, it makes all sense in the world for us to assume Kyle Tucker can do his job there. It's totally fair for us to think that Kyle Tucker, the guy who's supposed to be in the middle of the order, who's supposed to be able to deliver in these moments, can at the very least advance runners. Or how about this, at very at the very least, have a played appearance that puts the ball in play, that raises the like heart rate of the game, or does anything to put any type of pressure on the Brewers. So it gets a 3-1. Masterful stuff. You know, he spits on balls outside the zone, his lower half is hurt. The amount of rollover bad swings from Kyle Tucker the second half of the season, there's no doubt about it. He would have been so much smarter to go on the IL at the first sensitivity of his injury. Because the idea that he's a fifth 550 million, whatever it is, and we got a little bit of stuff I want to talk about with free agents later in the show, with like outlook into the winner and some stuff I like. You know, but that's probably the only moment in game five where I can really pinpoint something and go, fuck you, man. Fuck you. What'd you think he was throwing you? 3-1. It's a lefty whose power pitch is 99-100. I'm not saying 9900 is easy to hit, but let's assume that you listening to this are a half a billion dollar baseball player. That's what people think of you. And let's further assume this is the biggest moment of the season, that you have him 3-1, that you like you get paid to see 9,900 mile an hour fastballs, and not only that, you're also one of the better guys in the world at hitting them. 3-1. Ashby on the mile. What do you think we're getting? This is really the one part of the game that got that if I want to be mad, if I want to walk around mad, if I want to drop the F-word, if I want to say F this guy, F that guy, it's probably it's probably just Kyle Tucker in the top of the sixth inning, nobody out, runners on first and second, chance to compete against Ashby. Now, we're not holding the runner on first base. Andrew Vaughn's playing back, probably towards the outfield grass, I would say, or closer to the outfield grass. He's not holding on a runner at first base. I don't think so. I gotta go back and look. Because if that's the case, then that creates a huge hole on the right side of the field. I don't think I thought he was playing behind the runner to prevent that from happening while still having double play depth up the middle from the Brewers with terrain. Do you understand what I'm talking about with a runner on first base and a runner on second base? Runner on first base, obviously the first baseman's gonna hold that runner on. And obviously the second baseman's gonna pinch more towards the middle of the field, which on the right side of the field creates a very large hole, about twice the size of a normal hole if there's nobody on base for someone to roll a ground ball through the right side. I thought Andrew Vaughn in the top of the six was playing behind the base runner to take that away so that Taran could pinch more up the middle. And even then it doesn't matter because we don't get the ball put in play. Now, who thought Saya Suzuki after that hit a ball in the gap? I thought Saya smoked that ball. And Churio with a bad lag in left field makes the play. They had good outfield defense, even though Churio had a bad hamstring. I know people were mad Isaac Collins wasn't playing that much because Perkins was in center field. But you have to tip your cap where it's due, and this is a situation. Brewers fans hated how much Murphy was playing Perkins, because he's obviously not a good hitter, but Murphy was drastically prioritizing having range in center. In doing so, you get to put Cherio, Churio, you get to put Jackson Churio in left field, even though a bad hamstring, he's a good outfielder. And he gets a good jump on that ball over his head. Now, Isaac Collins is also a good outfielder. So as we're talking through these different circumstances, could Collins have been in left field to make that play against say, you know, Anse Suzuki? Does he get a bad jump? Does he trip and fall? That ball wasn't it wasn't that spectacular of a play for you to sit here and ruminate on it. So I don't know why I'm doing that. And then Ian App with another, you know, big postseason moment, strikeout. We can't we can't sit here and bitch about that guy, though. The three-run homer in game four. It's like pick and choose your battles here, guys. They're not perfect. And one of the like inherent parts of watching this game and following this game is understanding it's just so unbelievably difficult that a great play today or great player today could just easily be shit tomorrow. And if we seen like Pete Crow Armstrong this season falling off a cliff without an injury, that was insane. We're not ready to have that conversation yet. We're just staying out game five. A little bit more about the series, and then I do have a look ahead. I have a look ahead just a little bit for like free agency and stuff. But that Andrew Vaughn solo job against Colin Ray in the fourth, into us top six, runners on first and second, nobody out. Then Tarang uh, you know, hitting the insurance home runoff, Andrew Kittridge, all but guarantees it when Abner Yuribe has thrown 13 pitches this season. And one thing we flagged in the game five preview would be great if we put Yuribe in a situation where he has to keep going, or they're out of he's their last stud. Inherent in that was it's a tie game or the Cubs have a one-run lead or an uncomfortable usage of Euribe. Because keep in mind, Yuribe hurt, never throws more than 30 pitches, has pitched two innings once all season long, which was back in like May. So this is a guy who is elite, but in just such short and small doses. If it was two to one and they went to Euribe in the eighth, I would have felt more comfortable. But that Tarang insurance home run than let Yuribe just take a real big deep breath, even though he's given up four home runs in 75 innings. Like I thought, based on Euribe's usage, there could be an opportunity. That would have been a tie game. Maybe we're down by one, maybe we're up by one to break it open. A two-run lead there. That was something though that it was that kind of went the Cubs' way when they brought in Yuribe up to. I know it sounds crazy, but there's a little thing in the series where I'm like, all right, we haven't seen this guy at all. He's only thrown 13 pitches, he's been off the last like five days. He does need some rhythm, he does need some consistency, but they can never ask that guy to do more than he's capable of doing, which is one inning. And he ended up getting two innings for him. And season ends just like that. Season's over, pack your bags, you go home. And what's left are guys like you and me just sitting around thinking about the Cubs. What could have been, should have been that game we could have won. We held them to three runs at home. I thought the island of misfit toy bullpen was good enough. If you told me we're going to a game five NLDS, the Brewers don't have any starting pitching, and they're only gonna score three runs, would you take that? I know at the start of the season, if you said we're gonna go to game five NLDS, do you take it? The answer is yes. But if I told you the Brewers were gonna have Game 5 NLDS on the road in Milwaukee, they're only gonna score three runs, they don't have a starting pitcher. And here's how we've won the last two games 4-3 tough, 6-0 blowout. I'm interested. Send me a send me a tweet. Uh couple other things. Sirius completely decided by starting pitching for the Cubs. Cade Horton's ribs are broken, whatever. Just if he's pitching game one and we have that lead, if he's pitching game two with a lead, you know, can he go game one against Freddie Peralta with a lead? Or if we had to use Kate Horton in game two, taking a three-run lead off an opener, I would have felt pretty good about that. We we just no starting pitching at all. Like we just Matt Boyd in game one, I have no idea what that was. Especially if you saw him pitch game four. And it sucks that probably the guy who was throwing at the best on the stretch, Jameson Tayan, got screwed into pitch in game three. You know, would he have looked better game one or two? These are the this is such terrible questions, but if we're isolating how do the Cubs lose that series, I mean, we just have no competitive starting pitch in game one. We have no competitive starting pitch in game two. Uh and then when it gets to game three, we're like, maybe we get three scoreless from Colin Ray. Are we serious? Colin Ray was like our number seven starting pitcher going into the year. I mean, so that's a good way to think about it. Like at the start of the year, if Colin Ray and Javier Azad were equally healthy, Javier Azad would have gotten the nod over Colin Ray. There's a good point in time for this Cubs season where they're like, we like Ben Brown more than Colin Ray. Colin Ray pitched a lot this year for the Cubs at$4.25 million. And I have a lot of respect for Colin Ray. But we're just talking about being in a situation that's 1-1 elimination game, bottom four, Colin Ray's on the mound for the Cubs because we literally have nothing else. So how mad do you want to be? Do you want to be mad that we don't have anything else? Well, why don't we have anything else? Kate Horton's cracked ribs. How do you plan for that? You're not talking about shoulder stuff that you have an eye on. We're limiting the pitch count. All it takes is like one deep Oklahoma cough. You know, the grizz mint gets lodged in the wrong part of your throat. You cough it up and crack a rib and can't play in the postseason. So now our starting pitching is put us in a position where Colin Ray is throwing in the bottom of the fourth inning against the Milwaukee Brewers to go to the NLCS. Like, sure, I buy into that. I did at the start of the series, I'll say it after the series. I still like the mix of guys we have. I'm just trying to find the context and where you can say, this is this is frustrating. Holy shit. Holy shit. Now, granted, you know, Mizarowski is obviously very talented. So as Nolan Ryan in 1969, go look at that starting pitching staff for the Mets and how much he contributed to a world championship. You know, Mizerowski's as talented as anybody who's ever picked up the ball in the game. That he had lost mentally was not nearly as tough as Pat Murphy likes from a pitcher. And they had cultivated him appropriately so that when he does get the ball in game five, that dude was ready to roll. And we're talking about a prospect who is so highly heralded that they put him in the all-star game after like six career appearances. Obviously, the entire baseball world has a tremendous amount of respect for Ms. Rowski and huge potential outlook about where he's going. And at the same time, the Brewers are using one of the top prospects in baseball who throws 103 miles an hour and a guy they love, they want to love, I should say. They come to we're grinding with Colin Ray. 4.25 million dollars a year. A guy who had to go to South Korea to learn how to throw a splitter. There's a lot of issues with that despair, that that discrepancy of having elite power stuff on the mound, even if it's a prospect that they're not as hot on down the stretch. But that's a real telling moment. And obviously, Andrew Vaughn, who's got negative war on the season hitting the go-ahead home run, you know, that just sticks. That sticks to us. So when I look at the series decided by starting pitching game one, game two, game five, you know, three of the five games the Cubs, we're just, we don't even have we have we don't have them. We don't have it. It doesn't exist. And still for us to almost we all we could have. We could have, which goes back to the opening comment. I'm proud to be a Cubs fan. I'm proud of the way this team battled. I wish this season ended differently. I wish we were playing in the NLCS. I wish we scored four runs. You know? I wish we were able to figure out a starting pitching advantage or figure out a better matchup. We didn't. You know, we just get beat 3 1. And sometimes that's the way this game works. You want to come out and flip a table, knock your socks off. I will not be joining you. You know. I just I can't. I have way too much pride in this team and myself as a baseball guy. So just running through, these are the pictures we used in that game five. Pomerant shouldn't be in the big leagues. Went through that. Went through Colin Ray, who's probably our number seven starter. You could say number eight if you want to have the Ben Brown argument. I mean, Daniel Palencia pitched well. Daniel Palencia has less than 100 career innings. That guy grew up so much this year. That guy became a gangster shutdown reliever this year, even if he has mechanical flaws we've talked about on the show. He looked good. Less than 100 career innings. Not anybody with any amount of like, I've done this before, I'm going to get, I'll show you guys what I'm capable. That's the first time we've seen Daniel Palencia. I got nothing but good things to say about him. Obviously, giving up that big one to Churio in game two sucked. But you can go back to our starting pitching and just said we that wasn't a competitive game for us. It wasn't. Our starting pitching is just not competitive. We have a 38-year-old Caleb Tielbar who was coaching college pitchers in South Dakota a couple years ago. Like if you go back, look at him before like COVID. Caleb Tilbar's way outside of baseball. I'm not talking about like Caleb Tilbar got hurt and started a comeback and one team released. The whole league was like, fuck off, buddy. Caleb Tielbar ends up playing independent baseball in Minneapolis or something. That guy's career ended 10 different times 20 frickin' years ago. And he's out there competing his dick off for us. Obviously, Kittridge, a trade deadline guy, whose last two appearances in the postseason, I believe, gave up runs. I don't think we saw Kittridge in game four. And then Brad Keller, he hasn't been good at baseball since before COVID. Like he was a good starter when he broke into the league, but even then, this is a guy who's the career up and downs on Brad Keller has been nothing but down since COVID. He had a 4.2 war to start his career. Then it went down to three. Then it was like 1.8 in the shortened season, which is fair. Since that COVID season, he has completely fallen off a cliff. And the Cubs were able not just find, identify, develop, put him in a position where he's pitching meaningful baseball for us. You know, and he fucked up against the Padres. I get that. But Brad Keller, absolute nobody. Brad Keller, I repeat, absolute nobody. And these guys, Pomerance, a number seven or number eight in Colin Ray, Daniel Palencia, Caleb Tielbar, Andrew Kittredge at that home run to Bryce Terrang, that wins Stings. And then Brad Keller. That's three. Give me these guys, and they say we're going to go to Milwaukee. We're going to give up three runs. Is our offense good enough? And the answer is no. Our offense could not score four runs to win that game. This could have been the shortest show in the world. I could just sit down and say that. And we'd be fine walking around. But is your comp as you're like compartmentalizing what are we mad about? Kyle Tucker, the second half, and all this stuff. All that stuff comes down to baloney. Not winning the division. It's an elimination game five on the road. I tell you, we give up three runs. Do you take that bet? Some of you say no. But what did Vegas have the Cubs team total at? Three and a half? Isn't that the playoff total? So it's really just flip a coin. Do we score more than three and a half runs? Do we not score more than three and a half runs? Do we score less? Which one is it? We scored less, now we're at home. Is it any different if we win game one or game two? Yeah, probably. Obviously. Obviously. If we had Cade Horton, if we had a healthier, normal Shoda, what happened to him? 17 home runs his last 13 starts, last 12 starts. I think he gave up 17 home runs in his last 40 innings pitched. 45 innings pitched. That's almost that's almost a home run every other inning. That'd take a home every seven batters. Barry Bonds juiced to the gill, facing double-A pitching. I don't know if he has that home run rate. Probably. But that showed a dead arm, wheels fell off, and then when that falls off, you're losing the command. You're losing your ability to throw it to the top of the zone while you're simultaneously losing the spin and explosiveness on your ball that allows you to make mistakes. So he's having a harder time getting to the places where he has success. And then when he does make a mistake, the ball's way flatter compared to when he is sharp, when he doesn't have a dead armor, whatever his problem is. His mistakes are much sharper, much harder to square up, and he's making a lot less of them. So that's just like a twofold moral mistakes, and those mistakes are big time mistakes. And that's what we saw from Shoda. I mean, basically, second half since he came back with August. And if I have to mention Justin Steele, I will. Justin Steele is the best player on the team. He's the best pitcher on the team. He's the fucking toughest guy on the team. He's he's the only guy on that team who can look at credit counsel and tell him to suck his dick. He is, without a doubt, the perfect Mississippi baseball player by all measures. And a regular Joe for that. Like a regular beer drinking, fucking topaco spitting, just a solid family man raising his kids. That's the guy to give the ball to. We didn't have him all season long. What do you make? One start? No, we have no Justin Steele. What do you mean we have no Justin Steele? I mean we have no, we just have no Justin Steele this year. 92 wins without your number one pitcher. Can I get a list of teams in baseball history who can do that? Who can outperform when you lose your number one? So that's a shitty way to think about the Milhae Burger Series. We don't have Justin Steele. We may not for a little bit next year, too, right? He's out. He's rehabbing. He's got Tommy John. He'll be fine. I'm just, these are the things that should make you feel better as we're coming out of the season. Just like if this goes our way, yeah, sure, whatever. And if my grandma had balls, she'd be my grandpa. That's a totally valid way to think about it. If we had Justin Steele, I'm sure we would have been much better off. Who knows? Maybe we're hosting that elimination game. Still, answer again. I'm going to give you a game five elimination game on the road against the Milwaukee Brewers. They're only going to score three runs. At the start of the season, I'm going to offer that. That's behind door number one. Behind door number two is go compete. Go have yourself a 23 season, a 24 season. Go have a 21, a 22. Go have yourself a 20 or an 18 or a 19. Go have yourself one of those. Or do you take the NLDS game five where you know the other team's only gonna score three runs? I will pause patiently while I let you mull that over. Because I mean I think it's pretty obvious. I think it's pretty obvious which one you're taking. Game five, 2017 NLDS. Cubs scored nine runs. Max Scherzer started. And the Cubs scored nine runs. If I said 2017 NLDS, this isn't a long time ago. The Nationals are only gonna score three runs. Are we gonna take that? On the road. Are we gonna take it? I think the answer is yes. I think most people watching this are smart enough to say, yeah, of course I want game five NLDS where we're only giving up three runs. So so far be it from me to say I'm proud of this Cubs team, and that I do think it was a great season. All things considered. And we'll be back for a Monday morning Cub show where I'm gonna shit on the things that need to get shit on. I'll do my homework so that I'm in a position we're gonna give out report card grades or we'll do something. You know, say a PCA, Ian Hap, not necessarily hap, he he picked it up August 1st. Kyle Tucker falling off a cliff. So do we want to talk about Kyle Tucker first? Because we got a look-ahead note here. My last note on this list this is the original point. It was a great season. Sit through enough of these seasons and then you'll have an argument with me. 2016 World Series Champions, 2015 out of nowhere, NLCS, 20 2003 with Mark Pryor, Kerry Wood, great season from Sosa, the Bartman year. I have that third as like Cubs teams I found that were just an awesome ride to follow. Number four, I have 2008. That was an awesome season to follow. They almost won 100 games and just beat the living shit out of every single team they played. Did I get that right? That's the 2008 Chicago Cubs. They just they steamrolled. What did they win the division by? They went 97 and 64, won the division by seven and a half games. And that's a season everybody remembers when the Brewers traded for CC Sabathia, and then he proceeded to throw 130 innings in 17 starts. That's an average of seven and two-thirds. He threw seven complete games, 2008, CC Sabathia for the Brewers. Everybody loves talking about that year from the Brewers. They finished seven and a half games behind the 2008 Cubs. We've steamrolled everybody that year. I believe that the St. Louis Cardinals were almost 13 games out of first place. So that 2008, we got swept in the playoffs. But that regular season throttling that we gave people to win that division was outstanding. Way better than the year before in 2007. And then number five on the list, I have the 2025 Cubs of teams I enjoyed following, start to finish. The first three months of this season are the best first three months of this season, notwithstanding 2016. 2016 is almost impossible to compare to because of the World Series Championship. But if you think Ape if you think there's a better April, May, June available to us than what the 2025 Cubs did to like lift our spirits too. Hey, the Bears might be good. They play tonight. We'll figure that shit out later. Right? Do we want to have this like deep esoteric conversation about how just fucking miserable it is to be a Chicago sports fan right now, of how little hope there is. This Bernard kid with the Blackhawks, are they finishing in last place again? I'm not even and I don't even care about the Blackhawks. I know people listening to this do. And like, sure, fine, we're not to care about them. I care about them more than I care about the Flyers. You know, I'm not saying whatever. My point is, it sounds to me like they ain't gonna win shit this year. You know, all the moral victories White Sox fans get to lap up. That's all you have. I enjoyed watching Shane Smith this year. He looked to be pretty good. Colson Montgomery should be a stud. Should be. And hopefully one day he's on a team that's playing competitive baseball. I don't know. And I don't know how close that is. I think the Tigers are obviously very good. The Guardians have not gone anywhere. Like the Kansas City Royals continue to get better. Have Bobby Witt, Vinny Pasquantino just hit 35 homers and 100 RBIs. Do you want me to be specific at about the outlook for the Chicago White Sox, how terrible it is? I mean, we said we sat through Matt Nagy into Matt Eberflus with like John John Fox John Fox was before that. We've had Ryan Pace and Ryan Poles call shots for our teams. Now, obviously, Ben Johnson's saving shit. Obviously, Ben Johnson cooks at a completely different level than everybody else in the city. But if I'm going back and saying April, May, June, for the Chicago Cubs 2025, what they did. How PCA went from being a guy where like maybe he hits 230, maybe he can get on base at a 295 clip, maybe he slugs 380 and steals 75 bases. And it's just a bat out of hell, and somebody people hate dealing with. This guy hit 30 home runs, 30 doubles, and stole 30 bases for the first time in the history of Chicago Cubs that dates back 150 fucking years. Never happened. Pete Carl Armstrong did it. Says I'm just talking 2025 season. What's there to be proud of? There's a huge fall off. That August fall off, whenever Bears news started rolling around. But the Cubs carried not just me, not just you, so many people across the season. At a time when nobody in Chicago is carrying anything. If anything, it's like as bad and embarrassing as it's ever been. Now, Ben Johnson could flip that narrative, and obviously, one good Bear season is worth a lifetime of mediocre baseball. That's how this city operates. From my perspective, my chair talking to people. Guarantee you, one good Bears season with a Super Bowl victory, every single person in this city is going to take 80 wins max from their baseball team if they could get a Super Bowl. That's how I feel. And maybe not everybody, but so many. So many. And where the fuck have the Chicago Bears been? Where? Won seven games under Iber Flews, then lost more? So two and two tonight, you know, obviously big opportunity against the Commanders. That has really nothing to do with the 2025 Cubs, unless we're willing to say what did the Cubs do for us? Why am I proud? I can't tell you the last time I really, I mean, I cared, I was in it. It has to be the 2019. It has to be when the Chicago Cubs were on that 2019. They blew it. I was wearing the Lucky shirt, working for Barstool. I think I went to like 14 games in a row at the end of the year to try and will him to victory. I think that's the last time I really cared. Then COVID, then the sell-off, then I had to watch Frank Schwindell, who was a fine player that they put on the roster for regular playing time. Again, fine. You know? How much more do you like Matt Shaw than Patrick Wisdom? I loved Patrick Wisdom. I thought he was a fine player. I'm just trying to give you guys some nuggets about where we're at. And specifically, I wanted to talk about this team as it pertains to other Cubs teams. I have it fifth in my lifetime. I have it fifth in my lifetime. In the earliest I'm willing to start the counter is 98. I was born in 87. So, like, no, I didn't, I mean, I could have had a hard time explaining the infield fly rule before then. Like, I couldn't like I think your fandom starts when you know how to keep score. If someone says, yeah, it's a 463, you know how to work the book, then you can start talking about your fan. So for me, that's 98. What is that, 28 seasons? So of 28 seasons, I've got this past one fifth. So many forgettable. So many forgettable. So that's the original point. When I say it was a great season, I mean you obviously, if you want to disagree with that, I don't think you pay too much attention to the Chicago Cubs baseball or Chicago sports in general. I think to say it wasn't a great season is for you to just be some big dump in your pants where you think if you make it this far, obviously we're going to the World Series. It's an elimination game on the road against the team who has won the most games in Major League Baseball with their top pitching prospect on the mound all fired up, whether or not I have respect for Mizorowski or not. Starting Trevor McGill into Mizorowski. There's five innings of 103 mile an hour fastballs. We lost that game. We gave up three runs. If I told you again at the start of the season, are you taking that? The answer is yes for most of you. So let's look ahead. Let's look ahead and accept this was a great season. It captivated us. It brought us back into the Cubs, the way we should feel about this team. Now, expectations are higher for next year. Expectations are higher this offseason than they were last. And now we build from this momentum. That's my personal opinion. If we come back next year and it's a 92-in season and we lose in the NLTS, I'd be stunned if I was sitting here with a shred of positivity and it was lost the way it was lost. But we find ourselves in the moment. This is the first time Craig Council has taken a team, won a playoff series, takes us to the NLTS. We lose in the again, I can't keep saying it. So here's what I got for you guys. You can still enjoy the World Series. You can still enjoy it. And if the Brewers win it, that's fine. If you want to cheer for them, knock your socks off. If you want to cheer for the Dodgers, because it's a more exciting brand of baseball. You know, personally, I'm a nationally guy. I will enjoy the World Series. And I do have a tremendous amount of respect for the Brewers, as I showed throughout our playoff previews, and talking about how balanced and difficult it is to beat that team. You know, I don't like any of this idea that it would be a waste too for us to go to the NLCS. We just get smashed by the Dodgers. You're pussy. Or whoever says that to you is a pussy, or lives their life like a pussy, or is just a terrified person. They just go through life scared. We were gonna get beat by the Dodgers. Why? Wrigley Field's a tough place to play. Wrigley Field's a very tough place to play. Have some pride. I don't like the idea, it doesn't matter we just get smashed by the Dodgers. The reality is we'll never know because we lost. So as we talk about free agency and winner, I this is burying a lead. I hope you guys are okay with me saying this. I don't want to see Kyle Tucker in a Cubs uniform. I'm not talking about whether or not we should, if we have the money, do you think, Jed? I'm saying I don't want him around the Cubs. I don't want anything to do with that guy on a massive contract. I don't want to listen to another question about Kyle Tucker's competitiveness, make it a big story in the media. He played for us for one season. Right now, the experts are saying he's gonna get about$45 million a year.$45 million a year. That's 56 Moises Biosteros. That's 50 Moises Biosteros will get$700,000 next year. That is 56 Moises Biosteros. 60 of them. It's so many of them. For one Kyle Tucker, that's crazy. The other thing, too, Kyle Tucker does create problems with the fact that say, you know, so what are we gonna do with Say Suzuki in the DH role? Is he a DH every day? Can he play right field every day? He's on the books for 17, 18 million, and he's an effective right-handed hitter. So if we're gonna go, okay, now we need to give Kyle Tucker 50 million, that's crazy. And there's no someone's gonna outbit us. It's gonna be LA, it's gonna be the Yankees, it's gonna be the Mets. It's gonna be somebody. I know the Mets a crazy idea, but like don't rule him out. Don't don't rule out the Rangers. Don't rule out the Padres. He's from Florida. Don't rule out the Braves. Rule out the Braves. You can rule out the Braves. You know. But don't rule in the Cubs. That would and if we do end up signing him, that's a different conversation than what I'm having. What I'm having is I don't want to. I don't want to give him money. I don't want to negotiate with his agent. I don't want to consider what the lineup looks like with this guy in it. Because it's a pain in the ass to deal with this bullshit. He's hitting three. My ass, you're hitting three. And then when he comes back, he's got to hit three. No, I'm really mad about how poorly he fell off. I'm mad about the way he managed his I. I'm mad about the way the Cubs and him did the is he gonna be with the team when he rehabs, he's going down to Florida to rehab, better be doing steroids down there. Wasn't that salty and shitty. In all of his great moments, they just stopped after the all-star break. And then it just became this big old fucking dump in his pants. Now, let me just say this, guys. On a contract year, you're playing under the spotlight of the Chicago Cubs. For you to throw a dump in your pants like that for a solid 10 weeks, where we we don't know how many people is he bad or is he hurt? Is he not good or is he hurt? And then all that back and forth about finger jammed, it wasn't jammed, it's not a knee, he didn't follow off all this bullshit. And we don't have the media reporting around the Cubs. We don't. There's the athletic and they're 670. And the guys from the athletic do a good job. They take their stabs. I shouldn't say they, I can say Patrick Mooney and Shadabdo, and I said his name in wrong. So I can't say his name, and I'm sorry. Off the top of my head, I'm gonna fuck it up. Sharma, he's awesome. He's deep, he's in the weeds. Mooney, in the fucking weeds of the storytelling, but those guys are telling stories, they're not poking Jed, they're not poking Tom. Like that there's only a handful of guys, there's nobody from the Sun Times who's got tenure that can look at these people and be like, kiss my ass. That I don't believe you what you're saying about Kyle Tucker. And this show isn't supposed to turn into like we don't have the right people to hold him accountable. My point is how poorly the Cubs managed Kyle Tucker's injury, whatever that was down the second half, and the extent to which it was covered and it was transparent to fans, because we don't have the third party, we don't have the guy from the Tribune in there. I don't I don't believe that. I'm gonna publish this anyways. The Cubs, it's full state control media. It's it is the Soviet Union, it's USSR, it's 1973. You think you're publishing one bad word about the party, we're taking you to the gulag. That's how the Chicago Cubs treat the media, and that's why I have no certainty about what the fuck happened with Kyle Tucker for the last 10-11 weeks of the season, why he was just so bad. Why? Plate discipline, and obviously unbelievable. This guy doesn't have to swing the bat and he's gonna get on base at like a 330 clip. Never seen anything like it. But bearing a lead here, I it's not that Kyle Tucker, the Cubs won't sign him. I'm making the initial argument we shouldn't even consider it. Unless it's unless he wants to take$25 million. My ass. It's never gonna happen. And it just creates more problems. You know? So internally, here's some of the things I have in mind. We have three young players that I do think sincerely should at least have the chance to be everyday big league. And Moises Biastero's own case again, Kevin Alcantara. Kevin Elcantara probably will not find that opportunity with the Cubs because of PCA. Now, maybe he's in left field, but he's got to hit for more power if he's gonna play in left field. And you guys can, whatever, scoff all you want. But like Ian Happ's good for what is it, 25, 23, 25 jacks a year. Kevin Alcantara's not right now. So if we're gonna say, all right, keep Alcantara around, replace him in left field, I've heard a lot of chatter of people that want Ian Hap traded. Correct me if I'm wrong, no trade clause, four wins above replacement this year, 23 homers, 87 walks, a 340 OBP, a full 100-point difference between batting average and OBP. Only slugged 420, which is his lowest slugging percentage since 2018. So you don't like to see that. But we also did mess with Ian Hap, leadoff, this and that. I know there's a huge part of the fan base that never wants to see Ian Hap play another game again for the Cubs. And again, I'm not going to discourage you from your own personal sentiment towards the Cubs. I think that's a wrong position to take. I think you can send him out 150 times. You don't have to worry about him that much. He strikes out more than I'd like. He strikes out a lot more. He has almost 470 strikeouts. He has 472 strikeouts in the last three full seasons. He's got 620 strikeouts in the last four years. He also averages 155 games played. And over the last four years, which I believe, what's the duration of the contract? He signed that extension for 24, 25, and 26. I think we get our value from me and happen, is what I'm saying. And he plays solid defense. You don't worry about the guy. As you're thinking ahead next year, a lot of people are like, just trade him. Ape, no full trade. I believe he has a no trade clause as part of his three-year$61 million extension. Because he just watched Rizzo get traded, Chris Bryant get trade, all the stuff. I think he's like, hey, I'm I'll sign cheaper for you guys if you don't fuck me like that. So which situation is Ian Hap leaving the club uh leaving the Cubs? The only situation I can think of would be a trade with and being dead serious. You guys are gonna think I'm crazy about this. Who has the best golf? He might go to Philadelphia because there's there's really good golf you can access from Philadelphia, and obviously New York, the Northeast has really, really, really good golf. You guys think I'm crazy. If it were up to him, he'd be on the PGA tour. Now we're getting really long in the tooth. But I'm talking about this in turn, what's our internal outfield? Because if you look at the infield, obviously Shaw Swanson, Horner Hap, uh, or Shaw Swanson, Horner Bush, one through four. I mean, you're crazy to talk about that. I'd like a utility infielder that hits switch or hits lefty to add to that, to add depth to that. But as far as I'm concerned, we have one of the best infields in baseball, all metrics considered. The outfield Peter Armstrong falling off a cliff, he's not going anywhere. He's a center fielder. He has the most important offseason of his life out of him. I do think we're locked into Ian Hep in left field. So when I talk about internal guys that could come up and get playing time next year, I don't think Say Suzuki could be a right fielder. I think it could be Owen Casey. And I do think Say Suzuki can be a right fielder in a DH, but I also think Biosteros has to start getting regular playing time. If you're gonna pinch hit Moises Biasteros in the top of the eighth inning in an elimination game down two against one of the best setup men in baseball, against one of the filthiest relievers in the world, if you have that confidence with Moises Biasteros to spark something for us, how the hell did he spend the year in triple A? Fine, don't answer that. Don't answer that. Instead, just think about next year's roster. And specifically, as I'm talking about, I don't want Kyle Tucker around. I mean there's a bunch of reasons. I focus mostly on this objective. The price tag's simply too high. The value you get from him, it just it's not there. This could be a completely different conversation if he hits a three-run homer in the top of the sixth inning off Ashby on that three-one count. And I'm saying there's no way we're in the NLCS without a guy like this. So I'm also accepting the fact while I'm talking through this that there are really minimal uh moments along the way that can have huge impacts on the way I feel about this. So I want to accept and acknowledge that that stuff is out there, but then I also want to get into the specific thing. I said seven, you can have 70 or 60 Moises by Asteros for the cost of one Kyle Tucker. It doesn't work like that. But if you're telling me 750 grand for we could get 350 plate appearances, 400 plate appearances from the left side as a DH. That I think in my heart of hearts, I think is one of the best left-handed hitters I've seen come up in the Cub system. Like I have every expectation that he's gonna be better than Michael Bush as a hitter. Michael Bush is a top 15 hitter in Major League Baseball right now. That's what I think of Moises Biasteros. That's why I think as we're talking about next year, I know the free agency conversations are gonna start to pop up. And with the outfielders, there's three huge names. Kyle Tucker, Cody Bellinger, and Kyle Schwarber. How funny is that? Tucker's way projected to get way more than the other guys. The problem with Schwarber, too, for the Cubs, he's basically locking himself in the DH every day. And he's gonna cost every single bit of seven year, he's gonna he's gonna cost every single bit of$150 million, I think. He's at least a six-year,$25 million contract to be a DH and hit 50 home runs in the big leagues, doesn't play a lick of defense. But that so then if you put in Kyle Schwaber into the Cubs lineup, which I know people are gonna love to see and say and all that shit, now say it's Suzuki's your everyday right fielder, and that's a that's a problem. Because I'd rather you say in right field twice a week. And I'd rather have if Owen Casey's as good as we say he is, and then people go, well, what the fuck are you gonna do with the rest of this money then? If Kyle Schwarber doesn't get it, can Cody Bellinger get it? It doesn't make sense because the other position he plays from outfield would be first base, and we don't need help at first base. But there's really there's three huge outfielders. One of them's Kyle Tucker, and I'm saying, I don't want him. And we're definitely not gonna spend an hour on this, but just from perspective, as we're walking around this week, we're gonna see the NLCS, Bears play tonight, a lot of conversations in the Cubs chats across the world about do we keep Kyle Tucker, do we bring him back, break the bank for him? And I'm just trying to just give you guys a lit. Here's a couple other things to think about. And I've seen people say if we don't bring back Kyle Tucker, we need Kyle Schwarber. You know, we need if we can't get Tucker, get back Schwarber. Schwarber makes us worse defensively because he can't play defense in the guy that we would have DH. Instead of having a mix of Casey, Say Suzuki, I already threw Alcantara under the bus because he can't play left field, he won't play center field, but at least he can go down to spring training. And Moises Biasteros in the back of my head is the most important consideration of this because he's also the type of player Jed can do this seven-year$35 million extension to because you're just a DH. You're only going to get 350 plate appearances, and this is where I hope almost an hour into this full show, I have your trust to say I think Moises Biasteros is going to be one of the best left-handed hitters in baseball. This is my own personal opinion. I don't scout the guy, I don't develop him, I'm not throwing batting practice. I just know what I know it when I see it, that I see it. That's good stuff. That's so good that we don't need to give half a billion dollars to Kyle Tucker. So where do we give the money? I think it's a obviously goes right towards the pitching staff. There's three big pitchers available. Framber Valdez, who's 32 next season. Ranger Suarez, who's 30 now. This was considered his 29 age season. Next year will be considered his age 30 season. And he's got about 250 less innings pitched than Framberg. Framer's got more success in the postseason. Both of those guys are just tough bowling ball lefties, heavy sinker, and then Dylan Sees, who I don't even want to hear that name around the Cubs. He's the complete opposite of what this team needs. He's strikeout only. We need guys that pitch the contact, keep the team in rhythm. Obviously, you can get your strikeouts, but like we have this elite defense in a ballpark that's tough to hit at, generally speaking. I think it'd be crazy to go out and get Dylan Sees because he just puts so much stress on your ballpen. And he throws 110 pitches every time. Five innings, 110 pitches, nine strikeouts. Great. Who's got the next four innings? And he does it every fifth start. So there's a little, whatever. I like Dylan Sees. I think he's fine. Go ahead. Perfect. They don't bring up, don't bring him in. We don't need that. We definitely don't need that. There's a second-tier starting pitcher, Zach Efflin, Mary, Merrill Kelly, Chris Bassett, Zach Littel. Like if we get one or two of those guys or something, that's fine. That's a good, it's not great. We're not world beaters, but like you understand when the postseason comes around, like Cade Horton is one of the best pitchers in baseball, as far as I'm concerned. Is he Paul Skeens? Not right now. But like he's in the Hunter Green conversation. He's in the second class of first-tier pitchers in the world. Justin Steele is in the second class of first-tier pitchers in the world. On the front, maybe third. I don't know. He's a good lefty. It's not like we have to come in and add a ton. I'm not like compelled to be like, all right, let's give Fran Bur Vellis. Because the other thing that comes with free agent contracts, big ones, are the years. It's like I don't want to give Dylan C six fucking years. You know, I don't want to see Ranger swore as 37 years old making a start for the Cubs because we had to give him extra years to fucking outbid the Phillies or something. This is how this works. I don't want to see, I don't want to get into these albatross contracts. I want to see us spend a lot of money intelligently. I want to see money invested in the bullpen. And there's stuff that has to happen, obviously, with club options, player options. There's a lot of people that are opting out. I'm only talking about what I know for sure to be the bona fide unrestricted free agents. And the top three I have as pitchers are Framberg, Ranger Swarz, and Dylan Sees. And the top three outfielders I have are Kyle Tucker, Bellinger, and Schwarber. Even though Schwarber's a DH, I don't know why they call him out an outfielder. But that's the research on that. And if Jed says instead of one of these guys, I'd rather get three second-tier pitchers. And for purposes of comparing the 25 team, Colin Ray would be like a tier ass pitch six, seven, the last tier of pitcher,$4.25 million. Like there's a couple names out there that are worth, to me, in my opinion, three years and$45 million. There's a couple of these like Jameson Teon types. I don't want to go to four years. I'd rather overpay three years than go to four years. And we have serious questions in the in the farm system about whether or not we can internally develop pitching. Because I haven't, I just I don't see I've seen Justin Steele do it. We drafted Kate Horton in the first round. We've we've had the worst job converting draft picks into meaningful starting pitchers for the Cubs. Even Kyle Hendricks is a trade from the tight uh from the Rangers. We just don't bring it up. So that's a different offseason conversation, you know. And then the trades. To me, it's trades. We talk about Alcantara, you know, there's trades out there to be made. And we did just have a very good draft of outfielders that hit lefty that people like a lot and are professional on bullshit. You know, I don't think there's a Cam Smith on the board. But just 25 2025 seasons over, looking ahead to this winner, infield locked, infield solid. Miguel Omaya will be hopefully he's back and healthy. Because I haven't even talked about catching, mostly just be in the back of my head. Um, Miguel O'Maya's been out the entire season, one of the better young catchers in baseball. So we're solid at first, we're solid at second, we're solid at short, we have Matt Shaw at third base. We do need some depth, but this idea that we need to go spend a just just on load. We need to get Bregman, you know, okay, yawn. We need to figure out the triangle of right field, right field reserve, and DH. And we need to do it knowing that Say Suzuki is on a team, that Moises Biasteros is in the farm system, and that Owen Casey is he good enough. That it really comes at like if Owen Casey's a guy who can hit 25 homers in 500 plate appearances, we'll say 450. If he could hit 20 homers and 450 plate appearances next year, then we are, what are we? We're feeling unbelievably good. So say Suzuki will get 19 million next year. He should get 500 plate appearances. This year 650, that's a lot. Last year, 585, that's a lot. But that's who the player he is. So, as you're thinking about next year, do we bring back Kyle Tucker? You're gonna have to weigh the cost against other needs. We have to add depth to the starting pitching staff. I would like to see us spend money on the bullpen, not just like unload for the sake of unloading, like here comes Kirby Yates or whatever that got TJ Yates, whatever that guy's name was, got$76 million, pitch like shit. Tanner Scott pitched like shit. I don't mean tier one bullpen. I mean we need to go out and get our right fucking guys and not be afraid to spend money, okay. I can't believe we spent 10 million on that reliever here over two years. You know, or we gave this reliever eight million dollars for one season. Who these relievers are, we'll go through at a later show. But that's where my head's at. If we're gonna increase payroll, I'd rather see it in these buckets and dumps so that we have elite bullpen depth. We have more starting pitching depth, so that's I mean, obviously, people don't love this. It's as it's as simple as me to how do we win 95 games next year? And then you get to the playoffs, and that question will be answered by the elite star power in the lineup. And I'm saying this crazy thing. Obviously, I got I'm high on Moises Biasteros. It would be if they add Schwarber's at DH, they trade Biasteros, they trade El Kantara, and they want to make the team better that way, so be it. I get it. And I'm not saying Kyle Schwarber's bad or this and that. I'll say we're way down a rabbit hole on talking about the free agency and the winner considerations. And these unrestricted free agents. And make some decisions for yourself. What do you think? Do you think it doesn't matter if we start, say, Suzuki and right field for 162 so we can get Kyle Schwarber to DH? That's probably fine. And then we could just stash Biasteros and Casey's depth and just say if somebody gets hurt or you can play every fifth day, you haven't earned it. Craig doesn't like playing young guys, anyways. So if we got to talk ourselves into that. And then finally, I'd be stunned if Cody Bellinger signs a deal with the Cubs. That would be the third time he's done it. He gets traded every time he does it. There's got to be something in Cody Bellinger's mind where he's just like, I don't want to deal with this anymore. I just can't. And anybody who's saying, well, he had a better year than Kyle Tucker, it's a little bit different when you hit behind and in front of Aaron Judge with the short porch in right field. That's just a different. We're not doing that. I'm not going to do the Cody Bellinger versus Kyle Tucker comparison. I will say it is never too early to start talking about next year's roster. You guys should try and enjoy the World Series. You know, don't sit around and bitch and say we would have gotten smashed by the Dodgers anyways. You don't know what would happen. The only way you'd know is if it happened. And we don't know what would happen because it didn't happen. So shut up about that. And I'm being nice when I say that, but please, for your sake, not just mine. Alright, now programming announcements for the Monday Morning Cup show. Again, thanks to people that have tuned in this season who have grown the show and put this into a place where this show is going to be something for a long time. This was the season. We started it last year. The team fell apart in June. It made it almost impossible. It did make it impossible. So there's a selfish personal thing here where what the 2025 Cubs did was give me a reason to get back behind the microphone, talk cubs, and build a community out around diehards and siccos. This is not the most fan-friendly show. There aren't clips or graphics or cute tests or anything like that. This isn't. Did you hear about the time Ryan Dempster took an edible before? No, and I'm not calling out Dempster for taking edibles. That's kind of a weird shot. This is a place for sickles and maniacs and diehards and people who love the Cubs and like get mad after a loss and get way too happy after a win. This is a place for people who just can't help themselves from thinking about what the roster looks like next year. So we've spent a lot of time, it means a lot, especially the last couple weeks, to really just fucking go balls to the walls on this. During the season, I don't know about mid-season. And then this is the or offseason, then this is the challenge I have. The thing's called the Monday Morning Cup Show. Can I publish it on Wednesdays? See, this is the stuff I don't know. I I have no clue. I could not be any worse at when it comes to this stuff. You know, I don't do I want to do a show about the World Series? Should I do a World Series preview show? Would people listen to that? Do people care? You know, I know I don't want to turn this into a Chicago Bears Monday show. Bears lose. Alright, everybody, here's what happened to the Bears game. You know, I like watching the Bears. I don't know if I want to turn this into a Bears show. Then we gotta get Bears people involved. Then you gotta put it on video, then you gotta clip it. Now you're talking now. You're talking about something that isn't what this is supposed to be, which is supposed to be the Monday morning Cubs show, a place for Cubs fans, a place for people who give a shit about. You know, the Chicago Cubs on some deep level. And what format it takes moving forward, I'm not really sure. I don't know. I know I want to do a report card show with Mahoney. Um and I want to keep this community growing, and I want to keep putting content out there and keep talking about the Cubs. So as I say that to close this out, if you got like it's not like, hey, if you have an idea, like fucking everybody's got an idea. If you have a good idea, or something you'd stand behind, or something you think, you know, I'm trying to figure out is does this thing morph? Does the Monday morning is it a Monday morning cup show, and then I do shows on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday breaking stuff down? Do we put that somewhere else? Do we have guests on? Do you guys want to hear me interview people so they could give you the most canned answers? I could do fake interviews and tell you what people are gonna say. Do you want me to do that? I'll take it a thousand different directions. The most important thing is I just want to say thank you to the people that have followed, thank you to Maniacs for propping up this season, giving me something to give a shit about. This has been an extremely important year for me. And you know, a lot of lingering questions about me, a lot of lot of speculation, a lot of stuff has been said about me that I have not addressed uh in any substantive matter for a number of reasons. And so we're coming to a point where that will be. And I'm trying to figure out as it lines up with what is the Monday morning Cubs show, where's it going, what type of identity are we trying to take. I'm proud of what we've done down the stretch and the community we've built and all the people we've been able to bring together, sent 90 people to Cubs Games the last two years. You know, there's a bunch of shit to be proud of to build off of. And I'd be remiss not to end the final show of what has been the 2025 season into postseason, the game five NLDS loser recap show to just say thank you very much from the bottom of my heart to the people that have enjoyed this and allowed me to keep it going. It means more than I can explain. So I'll just say again, thank you, and I love you guys. There's more coming. Go Cubs.