The Friday Show Went Past 43 Minutes Again

One hit will make you question your sanity, but it also clarifies what you actually care about: October. After the Cubs get blanked 7-0 by the Nationals, I talk through the anger, the overreactions, and the one thing that’s still true even on nights like that: this team is in position to make a serious MLB playoffs push.

The big target is obvious. We’re chasing the Milwaukee Brewers, and a division win changes everything, from rest to bullpen usage to whether you’re sprinting through the Wild Card round or setting up for the NLDS. I also draw a hard line between regular season baseball and postseason baseball, because the format changes the rules and it should change how we evaluate pitching, roles, and even what “fair” means.

From there, it’s tactics. I break down why Kevin Gausman getting roughed up can be a matchup story instead of a doom story, why Clay Holmes belongs in the October conversation if he’s healthy, and why the most important lineup problem left on the board is performance against left-handed pitching. We also talk about Alex Bregman looking like himself again and Pete Crow-Armstrong playing at an MVP level, plus why the supporting cast from two through nine is the real difference between “fun season” and “championship threat.”

If you like smart Cubs talk with real emotion, subscribe, share this with a Cubs fan who needs a place to land, and leave a quick review so more people can find us.

Thanks for tuning in! 

- Carl & Mahoney

Transcript

One Hit And Immediate Fallout

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Good morning, good afternoon, and evening, Chicago Cubs fans, and welcome back to the Monday Morning Cub Show. It's technically Thursday, August 13th, which I understand is confusing from a branding standpoint. But if you are listening to the show, you're probably somewhat aware this is a Friday episode. So it's Thursday night, but we're doing the Friday episode for the Monday morning Cub Show. I'm I'm not really in a position to explain how bad the branding has become when we initially launched it. I'm just much more comfortable saying we're gonna talk ball. We're gonna get into the Chicago Cubs. 2026 Cubs are rolling. It is your host, Carl. It is Thursday. We just lost to the Nationals 7-0. We got one hit by Cade Kivali after I made a large public statement about how bad the Nationals are at keeping runners off the board. We get one hit. Say it. Say it. One, I don't like taking his name in vain. But I'm quoting a movie. You know, and a lot of people hear that. They go, This this guy, Carl said, Jesus fucking Christ, a thousand times. I get that. It's performative. But I don't like taking his name in vain intentionally, and I'm gonna do it. But like one goddamn hit, Monty, one hit. So people are mad about that. We're gonna address that. We'll address that quickly. We'll talk about Gossman starting pitching stuff. I want to spend some time on our lineup against left-handed pitching because I think that is the most significant piece of the playoff picture and the puzzle. If we agree that we're going to the playoffs, obviously, you know, without burying the lead, though, like Milwaukee, hello. Something we've been nervous about. Not me personally, I don't give a fuck. But just generally as a Cubs fan base, we talk about the Brewers, you look at the Brewers, you get a sense of who the Brewers are, you go, duh, we can't. Mizerowski's so good. Now, at the time of recording, what are we? Three and a half back? They play the Dodgers. They've lost three in a row. We'll get to Milwaukee. I don't give a fuck about Milwaukee, but we're gonna get to Milwaukee. The most important thing though is before we kick off and get into

Why This Cubs Community Matters

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what I have outlined to be a pretty good Cub show. Deep, deep, solo. We're here. If you're listening to the show, I don't necessarily want to go as far as say, you know, you lose sleep over the Cubs, but like, God bless you, you obviously care about the Chicago Cubs. There would be no other reason for you to participate in this community. An intentional community, Mahoney and I have built on the back of Thirsty Vicarol. Go ahead, fast forward. I did it last Friday episode. I went an hour and a half before I cut to Brian Smith. I listened back to last Friday's episode. I might have mentioned we were about to cut to Brian Smith, and then it was like, here's a tangent. Did you say Earl Weaver? Did I have a chance to talk to you about Mark Belanger yet? Can I consume all of the time you have? No, I can't. I can't. That's selfish. Now, some people have reached out, they said, hey, that Friday show's special. I like the emotional side. You know, I wanted to talk about the two e dad Bregman story that I posted on Twitter. And if you guys aren't familiar, Mahoney and I touched on it this past Monday. And if you're just hearing this for the first time, my buddy's pet my buddy's dad passed away, one of my closest friends. Long story short, they were supposed to go to Father's Day. Father's Day gets rained out, his dad passes away. All the family comes in town. What are we going to do the Thursday before the services start? We're going to go to the Cubs game. What day is that Cubs game? That's the Father's Day makeup game. What happens? Bragman hits the game tying home run. Who's the player? My buddy's dad criticized throughout the season. He's the best Cubs fan you ever met, Bregman. It's just like all-time great story. We're not revisiting it, but there's a ton of energy and emotion that carries over from that. So, you know, if you feel a little panache here, if you feel like the Monday morning cub show is kind of starting to materialize into something that's valuable in your hands. Um, you know, God works in mysterious ways, guys. We there's bigger forces at play. We're going to the playoffs. This is a community for the people who I think the easy way to say is did you not get a good night's rest? Because do you want me to fill in the blank? I don't want to. I we can easily. We got one hit. You don't sleep as well tonight. That's fine. I'm here. I'm with you. That's what the community is about. Um, I say this all the time on solo shows. I mean it. I mean it, I'm gonna deliver. Max runtime is 43 minutes. Max. We go over it's hard cut at 43. I if I go, I could I'm liable to go seven hours because I'm sitting in the chair going, this team deserves it. It matters. We'll go as long as we want, but at 43, we're cutting hard. Why? 43. I mean, we're just we're going into a weekend here. Again, I told you guys last week, I'd sit, I'd watch the tape, I watch the tape, I go, we could cut some stuff, we can be tighter. At the same time, though, we want to be free and easy. It's a Friday, and if you want to be free and easy this weekend, go ahead, fast forward, watch the Cubs tail spin, and then lose your sleep and then go, it's all my

Thirsty Picaro And The Show’s Deal

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fault. Fast forward, I dare you. Because I'm gonna say there's no Monday morning cub show without the Thirst of Vicero sponsorship, right? The Mexican style soda with the signature spicy finish. It could be outside the range of your palate. It it may be it, maybe you're sitting here going, I don't like a watermelon, Carl. Stop fucking telling me about watermelon. You know, I've had all the Lamon Ladron I can ask for. I want no more. You can say whatever you want to me. I'm gonna come back here and say, we don't exist, you and I. There's a whole world where this does not happen. You had to go to a show, you had to log in today. Maybe not log in, you got the pass key, face recognition, or maybe you're free and easy. Again, you know, fast and loose. Anybody can access your Spotify, anybody gets your Apple Podcast. My point though is it took some intent on your part to get to the show. That's on purpose. On purpose. This is not an easy thing to find. Therefore, if you find it and you value it and you're here with it, hmm, what does that mean? It means there's a legitimate value proposition. That's how we've set the show up. You have to come find us. There are no clips. Watch it on YouTube. My fucking cheeks watch this shit on YouTube. We're ch we're talking ball. This is a hot stove. You know, I mean, not really, because the hot stove technically is the offseason, but we don't have the capacity. I don't have fuzzy graphics. I don't have I don't have a fancy producer here. Whip whoosh, swoosh, do you see the fade to cut? No, dude, it's real. This is we're gonna go to the playoffs this year. You're gonna be prepared for it. We're gonna get into left-handed pitching matchups. Why the why does Pedro Ramirez matter so much to the Craig Council decision making right now? And what difference does it make when we get to the playoffs? We got to go, who's the agent? That's a question. We're gonna talk about it today on the Morning Morning Cup Show. I'm just gonna ask you guys, you know, I'll sandbag you with a subscription if I want to. I'll I'll come here and go, hey, we've done this for years and now you got to pay for it. Are you fucking kidding me? I'd rather be dead. I would rather be dead than profit off of our relationships directly. What I'd rather do is just say, hey, you like the show? You like the Cubs? I got a beverage. If you're smart enough and you have enough human humanistic humanity, enough whatever it is, you're on Amazon and you're checking out the 12-ounce cans because it's new to the market. And buddy, again, I said this before, I'll do it again. If I want to do 50 minutes on Thirsty for Care, I'll do it. They're the only reason we talk ball. Check them out. Amazon. 12 ounce cans for your old lady. She goes, I don't know if I can do 16. 16's big, it's too big. When's the last time your old lady said it's too big? They just think about it. I'm not asking you to get vulnerable. I'm just saying. So uh big show today, obviously. Again, you know, I'm taking a breath because I'm just trying, I'm catching the people who fast forwarded. And I'm saying, fuck you. You know, that's what I gotta say to you. Listen to the show, enjoy it, community forever. Fine. But if you fast forward and you see me in Wrigley and you say hi, you're you're dead. You might as well be dead. You might as well be dead to me.

Hunting Milwaukee And The Division Plan

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So uh we are officially chasing on Milwaukee. Let's just get in that segment. Baller strike, Milwaukee's on our radar. That's a strike. Milwaukee's on our radar. We talked about it on Monday. Now, if I seem excited or if I seem enthusiastic, you know, we're three and a half back at the time I hit record. There's a little red button on the computer. I hit I just click it, boom. Now, at the time I hit little clicky, we're three and a half back of a team uh that's played sensational baseball start to finish this year, and it's backed by, you know, I mean, you want to make the argument, make the argument. I guess the more important thing is that the fact that the argument exists is the most important thing about does Milwaukee have the best starting pitch in baseball? Do they have the best starting pitcher in baseball? You know, that that conversation was what turns this podcast into a four-hour show. That's just a question for you guys. You know, and I'm sitting here looking at Milwaukee and going, Vulnerable. Is that a playoff team? Now, how much of a lame old, like old school guy do I want to be to look back and say, hey, ace, I remember Billy Bean's Ace. Ah, I remember. But I know a lot of millennials listen to this. Obviously, you watch Moneyball, but like there's a lot of us that witnessed it before we watched Brad Pitt on screen. You know, and there's a lot of Cinephiles. I fucking hate you guys. You know what? Fine, I'll do it. The Cinephile thing. You like movies? That's great. I like movies. I like movies, I love movies. Who doesn't like movies? The fact there's a whole subculture of people out there that are like, I know more about movies that don't make movies. It's cool. That's the craziest subculture in the world. People that have hit pro and people listen to us are Cenophiles. And respect you guys if you have good opinions. You know, I used to work with a Cinephile. When I say Cinephile, it's like the guys, you're obsessed with movies. You like movies, obsessed with movies. We're maniacs about the Cubs, or people like that about the movie production process. Why am I doing about this about Moneyball? Maybe because I've had this chambered for years. Maybe because I've felt this way for years about the depiction of Moneyball in the relationship with cinophiles and baseball. Knowing there are people listening to this podcast that like when you go out to dinner with your friends, you're just waiting for them to bring up movies. You know, you're on a first date with the girl, you're just you're just dying to know what her favorite movie is, because then you can then make an assessment about their character, whatever the fuck it is. That's a Cinephile to me. Somebody who's like, Did you see Tarant? I saw a rumor Tarantino's picking up the Jerry Garcia project, but Jonah Hill's not committed to like that. Obviously, introduces the Grateful Dead fanatics, but I'm saying the people that are following the news like that, and as it pertains to Moneyball, and why am I willing to go down this tangent? It's just the people that love Moneyball the movie, love the movie. Uh, you know, there's people who lived it before you got to see that shit, and then they go, and that's before they wrote the book. Like they wrote the book, it's 2003, four, whatever. And it's like, dude, I remember sitting there watching Barry Zito just slice people up. Dare Deere making the play against fucking Jason Giombi. That there's a whole universe before people were talking about it, where you go, that's a great team. And the reason I bring up the A's is because they're great over 162. This is the Friday show parallel. This is what we do on the Friday show. We go so fucking deep, you know, we got to sit here and go, what were we talking about in the first place? We're talking about the fact the Milwaukee Brewers are a sensational 162 team. The Oakland Athletics are a we're a sensational 162 team. Okay. They're built to dominate a long-standing stretch of baseball, which is different than the postseason, which is the whole point we've come back to on the show. Is he what matters to you? I'm willing to give you my regular season and my life and my love and my passion on a nightly basis. Wheel Fortune's over, Pat Sajak. Rest in peace. You know, I mean, I'm not doing the rest of peace, but uh, you know, off-air in peace, I should say. I'll sit through fucking Seacrist is my point. Don't make me talk about Sajak. I'll sit through Ryan Seacrist and his horrendous hosting capabilities because I know it's 705, baby. JD's got a good story for me. We are about to roll. First pitch is underway. I I couldn't be more, you know, dress up the regular season as much as you want. Love it. Great, perfect. I'm here for it. I will give it to you. I'm a hedge knight. You have my sword. I'm sworn to your banner. I'm sworn to the house of Chicago Cubs. Whatever you need from me, I got it. Now, the second thing is that we do have postseason baseball. That's different than regular season baseball. That's a unique thing. Right? I go, hey, San Francisco Giants. Go, they're fine. I go, they won three World Series championships in five fucking years. Do people attach to that? No. Outside of the baseball community? No. No. Postseason baseball, that's the ultimate maniac universe. That's where we live. That's why we do the show. I fucking sit down in February, talk to my homie, go, here's what we're gonna do this year. Here's what I'd like to do. Here's here's what's in mind. This is our third season doing the show. This is my 12th season talking about baseball. I'm in it. I'm telling you, the reason you get into it, the reason you listen to it, the reason it's fucking whatever it is, early June, you know, dad's sick, Father's Day plans are coming up, life's all over the place. Now, what gets you the distraction where you go, don't give a fuck about any of that? Sucked into this. There's where baseball comes into play. Now I'm gonna take it one step further and go, it's October. Every pitch matters. That's a different sport, that's a different beast, that's what we're after. And when I say we can chase down Milwaukee, the implications of chasing down Milwaukee are significant when it comes to that moment. Right now, this is where it gets a little preachy. This is where it gets a little. I'm trying to tell you how you should be enjoying the cups. Maybe inappropriate. So the overarching thing that I would say guidance, the the controlling prompt here, you love them as much as you want to love them. There's no way I'm ever gonna tell anybody you like them too much, you're too into it, you got too many cards, you want to get the autograph, you're being weird. There's no weird. There is no you're being too nah, maybe there is too weird. There's restraining orders. You know, there's stories. Go read them. First half of the 20th century. Guys getting shot in hotel rooms because they're banging chicks on the road. They thought that they were there's there, you can go too far in your phantom, is what I'm saying. There is definitely that upper limit. But that upper limit's the 1%. That's the furthest end of the spectrum. What I'm saying is like the spectrum, say we do, you know, 90% confidence intervals. That means you got 5% on either end. I'm willing to go 80% confidence interval and just say, right in that sweet spot, it matters. There's you you can live in this place where it just fucking matters. I'm gonna get mad. I'm gonna get angry. But at the same time, I'm gonna be here tomorrow for you. Is that an abusive relationship? Or do the cubs abuse us? I don't know. I didn't go to school for that. I don't like having those conversations. I just know where they fit into my life. And I and I want to share the way they fit into my life with the community. And and if it seems like I'm talking around stuff, you know, or being a little I hate this word. Why do I say this word? Because it's precise. And by the way, precise is a good word. I encourage you guys to use that word in business lingo. If you're talking to a client, you know, somebody you're trying to get business from, use the word precise. They fucking love it. That's a guarantee. Uh, but it's also distracting me from the broader point of you know, the esotericism around here of me talking around the show. It's just from the back end of it and the perspectives we get into uh meat and potatoes and ball knowledge. You know, the back end of the Monday Morning Cup show is thriving. Uh it's like it's getting to the point where like this is bigger than we thought. This is this is going well. This is that's where the esoteric uh you know emotions driven from of like this sense, maybe you get a you get a taste. Carl's got a little more pep in his step, show's got a little different taste, flavor, whatever. You guys have given it to us. Like, if if the recipe feels, tastes, smells a little different, uh, you guys are in charge of the ingredients. That's the easiest way for me to say it. And I love you for it. You know, so as we talk about, hey, we can catch Milwaukee. Well, the implications of catching Milwaukee have directly to do with our playoff baseball. And playoff baseball is different than regular season baseball. But what brings us here to this conversation is the regular season baseball, which then thus enables us to talk about the playoff baseball, which is the thing that matters most, right? So, like complicated maybe, nuanced if I want to make it, but important. It's an important distinction. It's mid-August, we're out of the trade deadline, we're eight and two since the trade deadline. So, like the big storyline, can we chase down Milwaukee? Yeah, people talk about a lot about this team with the injuries and the depth, the pitching tail, and all this stuff. The the thing over the top, the atmospheric pressure that sits on top of us, and we don't even know about it. Because we don't we're we don't talk about it, except guys like Praz, shout out Praz, except guys like Blake Howell. The the like the diehards in the space want Milwaukee. I want Milwaukee. I want to win the division. I want to have a buy in the MLB playoffs. I want it. I want it bad. That's very important to me. Now we can get Milwaukee at three and a half back in mid-August. Because at this time last year, we were the Milwaukee Birds. We didn't fucking come close to win the division last year. We ruled that thing out three weeks before the season was over. Now there's some danger cooking. Now the question is obviously we come back to how do you catch Milwaukee? I'll say pitching depth, I'm not concerned about. We lose today, Kevin Kevin Gossman pitches today. We lose. You know, six earned and four to change. So some something or other, this and that. We got one hit. We got one hit. You're gonna lose a Gossman start. Lose the one where we get one hit. We're gonna give up six earned on a Gossman start, you know. And I dress this up in the in the lineup review. You know, what how we do the cross content stuff. If you didn't see this and you didn't know this, and if you don't follow me here, then you can't hear this. I try to make it as simple as possible, guys. But if you listen to the lineup review, when we talk about the Nationals, it's a young team that swings about aggressively. They're very talented. A lot of their players have come over from trades of existing MLB talent. So you're just like infusing MLB ready talent uh that hasn't proven itself. So you get an aggressive play. That's why they're under 500, but they swing the bat well. That's why they do shit like get embarrassed in the first two games and come out one hits you the next day and you go, what the fuck? To the nationals? The broader thing is we go on the road, we take a series. We had an off day, Monday, casual, etc. You know, how do you want to dress that up? However you see it, we we could have easily lost that series. With how well the nationals swing it and how poorly allegedly our starting pitching is relative to what you'd expect from a team that spends $250 million a year. That's totally fair. That's totally fair. I'm just asking, like, regular season, it's regular season. I'm not telling you regular season doesn't matter. I fucking I'm sitting here making the point we're gonna catch Milwaukee. We can catch Milwaukee. The show on Monday was all about 18 games. Well, we're three games through, we're two and one through those 18 games. I asked us to go 12 and 6, 13 and 5. I said, could we go 12 and 6 in our next 18? Because after those 18, we host Milwaukee at home for four on like a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Like you could ask for a better situation where MLB's propping this up and going, please, Cubs, be in a situation you can win the division. We'd love to tell that story. If you're Rob Manford, what story do you want to tell? Everyone's cheering for the Cubs here, guys. I don't need any maniacs like with your conspiracy theories. Put those away. Save that for local government. Like, this is right realistically, everybody's pulling for the Cubs except for the 700,000 people that consider themselves Bruce fans, whatever their market is. Nothing. Not the smallest market in Major League Baseball. Period. End of story. We're gonna catch those motherfuckers. They got good starting pitching. We're gonna catch them. We're gonna catch them because we're playing great baseball. And the implications of catching them means can we, in some way, shape, or form, just go right to the NLDS? Would love that. Would love to rest our pitch. Pitching staff. We're going to put our pitching staff, particularly our bullpen, if we are going to catch Milwaukee, right under the psychothetical. Don't you think down the stretch in September, those guys are going to be stressed? Don't you think we're going to put those guys through hell to if we want to catch a central? If we want to catch a central, then Zavarishan's outstanding. Palency comes back healthy. You know, Jacob Webb is not a fluke. He's actually very good, and we have him in rhythm because Jed identified him, right? Like if we do catch Milwaukee, it's our horses are running full speed to catch up. So then when you get to the playoffs, you go, all right, we can rest for a second before we get into the DS. And that's where kind of that dog and pony show we get into September and Craig Council and the decisions we're making about are we chasing down Milwaukee? Are we playing every game like we can't lose it? Or is the gap big enough where we go, we're going to be four, which means we host wildcard round like we did last year against the Padres. That's a very real consideration. Uh and it and it has substantial implications on what again I've described as like the reason we do the show, the reason you care, the reason you go to the Cubs convention and you buy the card and all that stuff. The reason, I mean, maybe not, right? We're Cubs fans, we didn't win shit forever. But like if we are gonna sit here and care, right? You know, Mario's gonna look at me, she's gonna go, what's wrong? Is everything okay? And like, how do I explain to this lady that you know, this lady, lady, my old lady? No, how do I tell the how do the lady I just almost call her a lady again? Why do I say that word? Is that a Chicago word? Are there outsiders here? Do you guys say lady outside? I say lady so much I should never say the word again. But you're sitting there, you're having fucking dinner. Fine, the lady, Mrs. Carl, your old lady, made nice pasta, you know, al dente. You don't even like al dente, you like it soft, but the crunch, you know, it's it's like the texture really is hitting, and that's because she cooked it in the sauce. Now, what is it? Is it pasta? Is it cream? Is it marinara? You know, like a little white clam. So I don't know what sauce you like. I'm just saying she made the pasta and she made it the way you like it. You know, your old lady. And you're sitting there and she's going, How was your day? And you're going, It's fine. That was good. How are you just how are you? How are you? Now the the thing underneath the surface is that David Peterson, you know, can't crack 94 and you're nervous about him. The thing above the surface, or below the surface, I should say, is like we gave Shaw to even I got 22 and a half million dollars, and not one person with an opinion about the Cubs, much less one person who makes decisions about the Cubs, uh sees him as a playoff starter. You know, and she's sitting there going, and yeah, and then my Aunt Nancy, she's got her retirement party Saturday. Aren't you excited? And you're like, I can't wait. We're gonna rip it up, dude. Cannot wait. And in the back of your head, you're going, Peterson scheduled a pitch that day. I gotta be at a family party on Pearson's pitch them. Now that should resonate, right? That should at least hit hit, or maybe it doesn't, you know. Maybe, maybe you've made it 25 minutes in the show, and you're never in a situation where the cubs cross over into your personal life. You can just enjoy them all you want. In that case, just stop listening and go enjoy your life because it sounds like you're the luckiest fucking guy in the world. You have nothing to offer this community because you you're blessed. Go please, on behalf of all of us, go live your life. We will enjoy it vicariously. Drop in every now and then. Tell me what you're doing. If you have no life obstacles that prevent you from consuming the Cubs, you know, I may sound like a crazy person, I am a crazy person, but you'll go down that path in life, you'll encounter it, and then you'll be like, I actually need to take a step back from this, and I'm just gonna go watch the Cubs. I've family part is ditched. Can nope, where's Mike? Where's my has anybody seen Mike? That's what the people in my family call me because that's my name. My middle name is Carl. A lot of people know that. Some people just had to hit the brakes for a second. You know, and and one day you won't hit the brakes, you'll get all of it. Well, it'll be one continuous story. I promise you. One day it will be one continuous story. But I've been at that family party. They go, What's wrong? Wait, how's what's what's wrong? And they don't they don't know we got a double header, we have a makeup game. And you scheduled this family party at three o'clock, first pitch at 120. So I'm showing up, I'm missing six, seven, eight, nine. I missed pregame. I'm lucky to catch the third inning on the radio at home. You know, and by that, it's seven to two. I'm mad, I'm mad. I'm mad. And why am I mad? Because your daughter turned two today. That's a problem. That's a problem. And and maybe not, and maybe I'm not that mad. I'm at the party, I'm present, I'm here. You know, my checking updates. Now there's bigger problems. You know, if you're like looking at crypto prices, you're day trading crypto. You know, you you you have a first inning under half a run bet, you know, on a Cleveland Indians 11 a.m. game game against the Indians. Like, that's a completely different category of problems. We don't make fun of those problems, those are serious problems. I'm here to support you with those problems. If you can't get through life because those problems inhibit you, you know, like the turn to the community. But we're not talking about those problems. We're talking about quite literally, can we chase Milwaukee? Can we catch them? And are you going to be finding yourself in a situation where your wife's sorority sister from college 15 fucking years ago is got a baptism for her fourth child, by far the least one she cares about? And you have to drive to Grays Lake, find a parking spot, you know, it's hot, you're wearing a blazer, you don't the lit the only thing you give a fuck about is what? We just got one hit by the Nationals, we're bouncing out of this thing. The brewers have lost three in a row. Can we catch Milwaukee? That's where that's where the story intersects in your life. And should the people outside of this community, and they're looking at you and they're going, Gary, what's wrong? You know, maybe you're an electrician. You cut the blue cord, you meant to cut the red cord. I I don't know what you do for a living. I just know that you do something, and maybe that something is nothing. But you you're you're you exist, you're fucking real, you're a real person if you're listening to this. And that real person uh, you know, wants to catch Milwaukee. You know, and it's okay. It's okay for the headspace to get, you know, to wander. We're too esoteric.

Bregman, PCA, And The Core Outlook

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Let's get into tactics. So Alex Bregman is our third baseman. Let's get into tactics. Alex Bregman is our third baseman that we paid $35 million for this year. I have bitched about the fact that Matt Shaw costs approximately 2% on annual of what Alex Bregman will cost uh over the next two, three years whenever Matt Shaw hits arbitration. So the years in which we have Alex Bregman, you're paying 50 times what you would get from a major league at least average third baseman now. Matt Shaw's banged up. That's a hard conversation to have because it's like, well, he's he's fucking hurt, dude. So it's a good thing we signed Bregman. I agree with you on that. I agree with you on that. But let's have a second conversation then. Once we agree on it, we agree. We're lucky we signed, we're lucky. Shaw's hurt. If we had just relied on Shaw and he was hurt, and we didn't have a third baseman, we'd be fucked. Or Pedro Mears be playing every day. That's a different conversation. We'll just say it's good call, Jed. Good call. Bragman fits the mold. Why? Well, over the last month the guy's hitting 350. You know? Since the all-star break, he's like the best, you know, Nico Horner's the best hitter in baseball. Who's the second best Alex Braggman? It doesn't strike out that much. I don't know. How do you want me to dress this up? Other than to say Pete Crow Armstrong is obviously the reason we're 20 games over 500. Like the the difference between 20 games over 500 and being marginally over 500 is not correct counsel. It's it's it's not the bullpen magic. It's not the teen team, it's Pete Armstrong showing up every day. Now that guy is so good, I'm uncomfortable talking about him. I don't know how good he is. I don't know. I don't know if I'm talking about Brady Anderson or if I'm talking about Willie Mace. Okay? I don't I just I I I feel like I'm talking about Willie Mace. I I I feel like I'm talking about Ken Griffey Jr. 1990s Seattle Mariner still wearing the royal blue. Where it's it's just obvious what's about to happen. That that's what I feel that's what I feel. You know, so then the question is is it the Brady Anderson fluke? No, it's not. He's obviously proven that. Now do we introduce the Grady Seismore question or the Jacoby Ellsbury question of ultimate dynamic elite player who, because he played so hard and so fast, because he played the game the way he played it, never got to play all of it. I I I'm so wrapped up in PCA. I gotta put him on a side and say we're gonna talk about him. He's at the end of the agenda, which I have allegedly, based on my stopwatch, 12 minutes. So I'm gonna pitch clock myself. Take PCA out of the equation for a second. There has to be somebody else to carry the load. Michael Bush has done phenomenal this year against left-handed pitching when we've asked him to take on left-handed pitching after we platooned him last year and let everybody in the fan base suck his dick. You're the best, you're awesome. You only face ready's so this year, that was a huge thing we've talked about this season. What do we do against the lefties? What are we doing at first base? You know, Tyler to Tyler Wells? Austin? Tyler's somebody from Korea, blows his fucking knee out. So now now Bush goes from being a guy where you go in the right. Now we have elite first base production to we're gonna ask Michael Bush at 30 years old to hit lefties every day. We never did that at the big league level. We're gonna do that. So he's got to take on a little bit more. Nico Horner's gonna sign as extension. He's gonna take on a little bit more, play well first half, or I should say first half of the first half. There's there's a lot of, I should say, the the easiest way for me to summarize this on a pitch clock. There's just a lot of reasons and moving pieces that if you look into the next year and two years and the future of the Cubs, you go, you have no guarantee to be here. None at all. Ian Hap, none. Right now, Horner gets extended, Swaning's on the seven-year deal, end of the season, preseason, PCA is not extended. Suzuki contracts up at the end of the year, Carson Kelly gone. Amaya, not really sure where you are with Josh Ayers. There is a mix of guys where the urgency or the intent to perform well so that you can continue to do the fucking job they pay you to do is very much real and tangible. And those guys, you absolutely capture that. Jed talks about we're trying to get guys to overperform their value. The way you get guys to overperform their value is put them in situations where they're incentivized to overperform. Your contract's up at the end of the year, you get to be a free agent. That's an incentive to overperform what we're paying you. Make sense? Now, Breckman, what makes him so interesting? There's no incentive, you 35 million guaranteed, no incentive to overperform. Last big contract, this guy's over going to sign. And he's been at the forefront of baseball expert conversations since ready 2008. Okay. Since the kid since teenager, before he got his permit, before he could fucking turn on his dad's Chevy Tahoe and drive it around the fucking local church parking lot. People in baseball have been talking about him as a significant player, as somebody who will do great things, and he has done great things, and he's won championships, and he'll retire with $250 something million dollars, $280 million worth of career earnings because he's so fucking good at the game. Now, what's lost in the equation is what? We talk about this on the show. When you get up, you got to want to play the game. Pete talks about this. He's been interviewed, he talks about the intent, the mindset, the focus, and he likes baseball because you can take some time off mentally in between pitches and then you just refocus and lock in on that pitch. Right? And then the capacity to do that pitch to pitch uh is dictated by your want to be on the field and your want to make a great play. In the sense when you get up in the morning, you feel like you're about to go do great things. Now you you're listening to the show, there's a good chance you don't feel that way about yourself, or maybe you have, or maybe you want to. You know, I have in certain moments of my life, there's other moments where I go, I don't want to fucking do this at all, in the least bit, in the least bit, right? Whether it was law school, consulting, your take exams, starting the podcast, maintaining the podcast, whatever the we've all crossed that shit. Everybody, everybody, you are not alone at all. When you've encountered something, you go, Ah fuck today, today, I'm not up for it today. The best version of myself does not exist today. Now, if you haven't encountered that, by the way, you're awesome, you're lucky, you're you know, you you you should embrace that and then maybe just take some advice from a 39 going on 40-year-old guy. Like just roll with that momentum, pal. You know, you feel that, go with it. But that that generally, when I talk about Bregman and and then the PCA and just generally the want to be great, it it's an important distinction to make about the baseball player. But you can't really make that distinction on a broad scale unless you personally are willing to think about yourself and put yourself in this position that you've done something, whatever you do, you you're a wood, you do woodworking, you know, you you run 10Ks, you you do something that you care about that you think is important that you wish other people thought was important. You know, like everybody has that in their life that they they they go, I want you to care about this as much as I do. And so where that unique aspect crosses over uh into this conversation is like Alex Bregman has that sense towards baseball of like I have I love baseball so much I want other people to love it as much as I do. And I understand that I'm a psychopath about it, that I live in a world that is, you know, completely fucking detached from how much this matters to me, but he's psychotic. He's in it, he's an insane individual about having success on the baseball field and delivering results and fucking squaring the ball up and playing a good third base and being a good teammate. He's so psychotically obsessed with it and has been praised for it for almost two decades. That you personally, you again, this goes back to you. Wouldn't you at some point be inclined to take your foot off the gas? Wouldn't if you had one year, your sales guy, every year you crush, every year the the business owner, your CO, the head of sales, somebody's go, hey, hey Joe, great job. We're we're gonna put you on a Peterson account. You know, what do you do? You sell tires. I don't know what you do. You're an electrician, you know, you lay fucking you lay concrete. I respect what you do. I do. I what I'm saying is you do something. And if it and if at some point you've done it well enough for so long, don't you anticipate or expect, hey, I could take the foot off the gas here. You know? Fuck. I'm having a bad four months. People are up my ass. Who's up your ass? Some sales guy named Chad who lives in Elmhurst. Right? Like, like, like just some fucking blowhard. What do he what did he study? Communications at Northern, you know, hit the jackpot because his dad went to college with the guy who owned a business, got acquired by private equity, right place, right time. You find yourself answering to this motherfucker. And at some point you're going, how much money is this guy made? This guy makes all this money in this world. This guy doesn't, this guy doesn't do shit. And I'm not shitting on Northern either. I like Northern. I'm part of the Northern community and living out here, that's probably why they came to mind. So I'm not disrespecting Northern Illinois. A lot of people like to point at me and say, I'm arrogant because I went to Illinois. I shouldn't have gone to school there. I have that my view on education is completely different. What I want you to do is just they locked it on a moment here. You've worked your whole fucking life. You got paid $175 million for work you've already done. The entire community shitting on you. You don't deserve the money we're paying you. You don't do shit. We're losing money because of you. It belongs to somebody else. Four months you got to go through all those stuff. Alex Bregman is popping right now. So many other players would cave, have caved, would quit, have quit, would give you less, have given us less than what we've gotten from Alex Bregman after his initial sensational struggles in the first half of the season. Now he looks like a guy you put Bregman three-hitter in the lineup. It's like Derek Scuobel's pitcher for the Dodgers of the playoffs. Go right ahead. We got Bregman hitting three. Do you feel good? I feel great. I feel great. I feel great. I got five, I got less than I got, I got three minutes of wheel and deal, like six items on the outline. Because this is this is the cost of getting us out, but this is also the cost of doing business with you guys. Because I don't want to monopolize your time. I want to keep it tight and succinct. That's why I'm going to say this following tightly,

Gausman Explained Through Matchups

SPEAKER_00 40:06

okay? Kevin Gossman got roughed up against the Nashville's today. That's because they're the lineup that can rough him up. They're free swinging, they're not thinking. They're athletic, they're young. These are guys that have been traded for because they weren't good enough to crack into the team they were with. So then the Nationals traded their major league talent so that then they could get the young guys. Now the young guys are on the nationals. Now, which young guys, we're seeing this generally, we're saying this broadly. We're just this a stroke that across the entire canvas of the Nationals organization. But they are, in the way that the Orioles are inept at developing pitching, the Nationals are very good at developing hitters and putting putting guys onto the state onto the show stage. That's why it's called the show. Every day you put on the show, they're very good at plugging guys into the show with confidence and saying, fucking go have at it, dude. That's why when you go and you look at the numbers, you go, dude, CJ Abrams is killing it. Now I know he's a top-graded prospect, right? But then like you you go, that's the perfect place for somebody like him to excel. So when you take that in mind and you go, Kevin Gossman got shelled by the Nationals today. Well, Kevin Gossman's a two-pitch pitcher. And I've told you guys before, when you get in the box against Kevin Gossman, you're flipping a coin. Now the Nationals, that lineup is too dumb and not it's it's a weird mix. It's hard to say definitively how I feel in a way that can capture the emotion I have about Kevin Gossman giving up six earned against the Nationals. It's if there's a team in Major League Baseball that's gonna get him, it's gonna be the Nationals. They they're they can't follow the fact that he threw just through a splitter. The high end of baseball, very confused by what's coming next. The Nationals, they're like fastball, got it, up. They're dumb. Now it's it's okay that we lost this game because we took two of three, but you're gonna lose that game. If you have lost confidence because of Kevin Gossman's performance against the Nationals, I'm not gonna call you stupid. It's a complicated thing to understand. I'm gonna draw attention to it and say, don't be discouraged. Do not be discouraged. That's a bad matchup for Kevin Gossman. The Dodgers, elite matchup. The Brewers, an elite matchup. The Nationals, when you get these dumb guys with a bunch of fucking testosterone about making a fucking living in the big leagues, that's where you can run into problems as a two-pitch pitcher if your shit isn't particularly sharp that day. And if you don't understand that, I don't have enough time right now. I I told you guys 43, I'll go to 45. I promise. This is where I go, please trust me. Please. Please. I I can I could prove it. I I'm I'm Matt Damon. And what's it with Goodwill Hunting? I'm at I'm on the chalkboard right now. Now I've done the proofs before. I'm just asking you guys. I'm like, you've seen me do the proofs, right? So like when we get to this point, I go, can you guys just trust me on this one? I'm asking you guys, trust me about Gossman. Uh, and then the starting pitching is all you're gonna see Cabrera news, he's coming back healthy. We have a we have a buffet of options here. The buffet is mostly four and five level quality starters. So that's where the Clay Holmes thing comes into play. Now, Clay Holmes may not pitch as well as David Peterson. He may lay some fucking eggs, he may be this, that, whatever. If the playoffs start tomorrow, Clay Holmes should get the ball game two. I don't give a fuck about the season performance. And that's how the playoffs work. And so we're at the point in the year where we're drawing that distinction. Guys, regular season, we got to put a bow on this thing and look at it one way, and we have to start thinking about the playoffs in another way. And as challenging as this may be, the two things are not nearly as connected as you would like them to be, as logic suggests they would be. Which is why I'd say Clay Holmes can go lay six fucking eggs. But if he's gonna go sit down at the training staff and look Craig Counsel in the eyes and say, Hey, I I have 90 good bullets in me. That guy goes ahead. He just goes ahead. It's just the way it works. Now, some people and a lot of people, it's a human reaction. An element and instinct to say that's unfair. Isn't that unfair to Colin Ray, who's pitched more innings for the Cubs than like any pitcher in the central has logged and whatever. And then we get into this. Isn't that that's not fair? I'll tell you what's fair. What's fair is the best chance of beating the other team. And we have to separate the emotional attachment of I just sat and watched this guy deliver, you know. I'm going, give me Clay Holmes a billion times over. And and while this seems disconnected, I will I will emphatically tell you it is connected to Kevin Gossman losing to the Nationals today. Because we're going to be trigger happy in our assessments and say, this guy should go here, this guy should pitch here, this guy's a good matchup, look at his splits. Shut up. This is this is showcase stuff. This is draft stuff. This is where you go. What you've done before matters, but what we're more what we're more focused on, and what's more important to us is what are you going to do when we when the time comes, when we flip the switch, when we put you under the spotlight. That's how the draft works. That's how who the how the fuck Bobby Wit's five foot nine, 160 gets drafted second overall. Why? Because somebody's smart enough to look at the guy and go, because this is the this where the future, that's where you go, Bob. You're going to turn into this is we're looking at you in the future. I'm looking at the Cubs right now and I'm thinking about the future. I'm thinking about the playoffs. I'm not fucking drafting Bobby Witt second overall because he hit 470 at some fucking slat, no offense to Texas High School Baseball. You know, at some private high school in Texas. Facing kids that are applying to Caltech. No offense, Bobby. I know you went to the showcases. You're a nice boy. But you didn't, you're not who you are because at the at that point in time, people looked at you and said, Oh God, look how good he is against Texas high school players. He's gonna be so good against. They looked at you and they said, This 5'8 guy is gonna turn into something special. And when the special happens, we're ready to flow. Now, this is a fucking tangent past 43 minutes, but the the point is when we talk about the playoff roster, when we're making assessments about the start of pitching, you know, you want to sit here and have an opinion about Kevin Gossman and Clay Holmes, and then you're gonna say Shoda's been here for years, he deserves the ball, and you're gonna say this and this and this. And I'm gonna say none of that shit matters. Telling me Shoda deserves the ball over a clay, a healthy Clay Holmes, even if Clay Holmes hasn't performed to the extent where you go slant dunk number two. Maybe he's gonna have a couple legs in there where we're even talking about it. But any of you motherfuckers out here going, well, Colin Ray or Shoda or Matt Button, like Matt Boyd's a great pitcher. Matt Boyd should not pitch the first two games of playoff series. He's just had you just don't throw, you just don't have that. You are great game three. Would love to see you in a game three and a game seven. You know, would love to see would would could I? I don't know. Would love to see you in comfortable settings in the playoffs. Game one or two of a wild card, we're at home. Like Matt Boyd, nice little sleeper ace piece, sir. Right? We we go back, we go to we owe Gossman one, Clayholmes two, unless one of those two are injured and can't perform. And the people that are going, how the fuck can you say that, Colonel? I'm gonna go back and say that use the same logic. How did how did the Kansas City Royals look? Did they draft Bobby Witt? Because they thought, but Bobby Witt was awesome in Texas high school baseball. He's gonna be great big. They looked at him and they said, You are the piece that will flourish in the moment that gets put upon you. That's how that the draft works and player development works. Okay, now in the same analogy of you looking at a guy and going, even if you haven't done it, even I haven't seen it, you haven't proven it, I have no reason other than saying applying it.

unknown 47:50

Right?

SPEAKER_00 47:51

So Clay Holmes can look bad, Clay Holmes, whatever, applying it, taking his talent, going on the big stage in October, which we have already determined to be a separate and distinct occurrence than regular season baseball. And I'm using regular season baseball to make my opinions. The only thing I care about is was Clay Holmes healthy? Is at the end of the regular season, was he feeling good and fresh? He is perfect. Number two. And then you go Gossman, you go to Clay Holmes. People don't like this. I get it. It didn't pitch well. You haven't seen enough yet. I've seen Clay Holmes at his best. That's why I'm confidently telling you this. That's why I'm confident about the starting pitching. Even though we have a bunch of fours and fives, Chicago sixes. Like, it's good enough to get you through the summer, but yeah, sure, wedding season comes around September. You would like to be bringing some high-end talent around the family. You know what I'm saying? But like you can only get your hands around Chicago Sixes. That's how I feel feel about our pitching staff. But we got a couple inbound leads here. We a couple girls, you know what I'm saying? We have a we have a couple really interesting uh chess pieces on the on the table, so much as say, last couple things here. Again, I'm over the limit. I'll

October Rotation Logic And Clay Holmes

SPEAKER_00 49:01

be quick. Lineup solid, lineup solid, lineup solid. I don't know how to say that. I don't know which way to communicate it to you, but one of the great pleasures you can have as a baseball fan is when you can sit back and you can say, I don't know who's gonna do the damage today, but damage is gonna get done. And you could say that with confidence. Now, again, I do this, we just got one hit, I sound like an idiot. Three games before we scored 30 fucking runs. We're like top five in every category in baseball. Now, obviously, Peter Armstrong being the forefront of the MVP conversation, you know, makes the wheels go around on the school bus. Do not think otherwise. But you have to then be able to look at and go, what if Pete has a bad game? Because like you're gonna have a bad game. What if that bad game happens back to back games in October? Is Pete a bad player? Fuck no. No. Oh, and if Pete's awesome, does that make him awesome? Like he's already done it. He's he's he's done enough where you shouldn't be like judging or measuring or with this the fuck put the ruler away. It's PCA. He's legit. Talking about him. The other people in the lineup, the eight people, the people who hit two through nine, that part of the lineup, you know where you go. We have the suit, we have the best player in baseball. We have the the guy's so good. Uh again, I'm not I don't like like I wanna say I want to say Ken Griffey Jr. Willie Mays comps. I want to go that far. I want to go as far as to say you we haven't seen the fundamentally, we haven't seen the best defensive player and the best offensive player at the same time in the history of baseball. There's always been a better hitter than defender in the history of baseball. I challenge you. Like, I don't I'm I'm I'm run out of time here and I could spend all the time on this. But how good Ozzie Smith was at shortstop is how good Pete Curl Armstrong is in center field. But he's posting offensive numbers that look like that look like Joey Vato's slash line. So now you're telling me like my head, I'm I'm gonna lose my mind over this. I'm gonna lose my mind over how good Pete Curl Armstrong is. And and I'm only bringing it up to say as a as a bedrock and foundational piece to say, forget about Pete. The rest of the lamp's solid. We're like, Pete's gonna go, Pete isn't gonna go, right? The two through nine is gonna have to do something. And some of us played high school baseball, played little league or whatever. Like, you know what it's like being on a stacked fucking team. You know what it's like with the seven-hitter's better than the other team's seven-hitter. You you know the feeling of like being like, our those guys suck compared to us. Baseball gives you that opportunity to compare so directly to compare yourself to the opposition. Football, you go, oh, the coach called bad plays. Basketball, there's that guy was fucking tall. Jim was loud, you know, rims were off. Baseball, you quite literally, it's just on the shortstop, they have a short stop. My better than that shortstop. Now, when the Cubs take the field, I almost always if the other teams in the dugout, they go the second baseman's looking at Nico, he's he's not as good as Nico. The shortstop's looking at Swane, he's going, I don't have that leadership. The third baseman's looking at Bregman, they're going, now maybe, maybe, you know, we're playing the Padres, and their third baseman is Machado and Machado's going, I'm a first battle guy. Bregman's not. Maybe. You know, I mean, I shouldn't say maybe, I'll I'll guarantee, I'll guarantee Machado's doing that. But like, would you rather have Bogartts or Swanson? Would you rather have Cronenworth or Horner? You know, because Cronenworth's looking at Horner going, that guy's he's I guarantee you. Horn he's got the fucking alpha male pony dog and edge on him. Like Swanee has that on Bogart's. I'm just using the Padres as a specific example because they're in the playoff picture, and it's it's the broader conversation of you know the feeling as a baseball player or somebody who likes baseball or somebody who took the field in little league of getting on the field, looking at the other team and going, they're we're gonna get fucking smoked today. You know that feeling, and the reason you know that feeling is because it's easy to tell who's better than the other player. So when I talk about the Chicago Cubs taking the field at the big league level, you you can look at the line up and down the lineup, and maybe sure you have a better first baseman. Maybe, maybe the way you match up, you're better than Ian Happen left field. And you know, you get you the Yankees have a better right fielder than us. Absolutely guarantee. But let's just get all let's get the whole depth chart out spread out. Let's just do that comparison. And it's it'll almost be impossible to beat the Cubs on a gross total, five versus four. Tell me who has give me your shortstop, give me your second, give me all of it, give me the inventory of your fucking roster, and let's just go side by side. Let's just go side by side. That's where that's where the energy on this Friday solo show is. Go sip, let's do it. I know we traded for pitching, I know Xavier Sean is in the back end. I know Tyrone Taylor has been great since we got him, and people want him to save the fact that the Hades app. I need the I got I got all those storylines. Trust me. What I'm just encouraging you guys to wrap your hands around two through nine. The guys that support P. Crow Armstrong, the supporting cast, this is goodfellas. This is Joe Pesci and goodfellas. This is Joe Pesci and my cousin Vinny. This is Oscar Award-winning fucking supporting cast stuff here. This is Michael Corlio and El Pacino original godfather. This is Robert De Niro Godfather 2. Do you want me to keep doing this? Shall I just keep giving you supporting actor?

Moneyball, Cinephiles, And Baseball Reality

SPEAKER_00 54:36

I'll do it. I don't give a fuck. PCA is Daniel Day Lewis. I went at U Cinephiles earlier. All right. I'll I'll close it on this. I have a problem with people that that consider themselves better than others from from consuming fixed media. You you your opinion's fixed, the thing's fixed. It's a it's a little box. Now, if there's somebody listening to this who makes their money reviewing movies, God bless you, respect you, you're probably very fucking good at it. I I'm talking about rank and file internet people that tell me Moneyball's a greatest sports movie of all time. I go, why? The directing, the acting. Fuck your director. I don't who wrote it? Aaron Sorkin? The guy who did West Wing, the fast-paced choppy guy who turned in his scripts on Thursday fucking night for Friday shoots? That guy, that selfish motherfucker. I gotta celebrate Moneyball? Okay, fine. Great movie. Great color grading. You know, you guys really. I mean, what was the bitrate on that one? 99? What's the target bitrate? What would you guys do? Adaptive? It's so beautiful. You know, the cinematography, all that bullshit. But I come back to you guys and say, you don't do a goddamn thing, but watch the movie. You just sit there and watch it. You just consume it, and then and then and the more times you consume it and the deeper you want to think about it, then you come back and you say, This is how I feel about this movie. And the movie, it's over, dude. I'll tell you how the movie ends. You watch the movie over a thousand times, it's the same fucking thing. Now, maybe it's celebrated in film because whatever. You know, we can't we can't believe we got uh what's his name? Fucking Pratt, the big guy, the Guardians of the Galaxy. He's Scott Hadterberg. Why am I blanking on him? He's a good guy, he's a Catholic. It's not Spencer. Fuck. I'm not cutting any of this either. You're just gonna sit here and you're saying it. You're like, it's him. I'm not looking it up. I have it in front of me. I'm not I'm I could easily go to Google right now. If it comes back, it's Chris Pratt. Got it, got it, got it. That's why. Got it in real time. Chris Pratt. Scott Hatterberg. A lot of people want to celebrate him. But I mean, how deep are we on the outline? A lot of people are gonna say, great acting, great performance, whatever. The Cinephiles, they go and they just they put their hand and they say, You're so great. Because for whatever, for what, a couple weeks, a month, two months, how long was principal photography? He was on set, he did a good job, delivered the lines, made it believable that Billy Bean went to Scott Hadterberg's living room, convinced him, you know, don't retire. Scott, Scott Hadterberg would have sucked fucking dick to play in the Mexican league. And and they portray Scott Hadterberg is I'm uh without you, Billy, sitting in the living room, I would never play baseball. Whatever. That's a different thing. My point are the people who who not just that movie, but just in general, they they use their consumption, and maybe I'm mad I can't get tickets to 70 millimeter Odyssey, you know, and it's mid-August. But the Cinephiles that use their viewing hours as reasons to be better than me, better than better than me in an exp explanation of why Moneyball's a good movie. This is too long. I just had that realization. Many people listening to this have had it. Here, I'm too deep on this. I need to let it go. I need to let that go. And I welcome the Cenophiles. You guys are welcome here. Don't feel otherwise. What a close friend from work taught me the difference in like what does it mean to be an executive producer? The Cinephiles are great, they're they live in their own subculture. I shouldn't, I you guys are fine, you're wonderful, whatever. You know, when we put a hat on sale, buy that, go get some Thursday Carol. Um, just don't just don't be like, don't talk shit to people who like something that you think is below you. Like, maybe you just go, they like that. That's cool. That's cool. Somebody likes something I don't fucking like. That's maybe. You know, now people listening are like, did Carl get abused by a Cinephile? I said, No, I didn't. I did it. I don't even I'm I made a small note on the outline. I go, if I get a chance to talk about Moneyball, you know, because I was just in an argument with a buddy about Moneyball, and he's telling me how great of a movie it was. And and and this guy doesn't this guy doesn't know what six four three means. This guy's telling me Moneyball is the greatest baseball movie of all time. I'm going 643. What does that mean? He's going, what? I'm going 6'4. It's the greatest sports movie of all time, 6'4. And he's going, I have no clue. I go, then don't do now. You're gonna get me all worked up, and now I'm gonna have to talk to people about this. And that's exactly what just happened. Um, all right, we don't want the Phillies

The Lineup Problem Against Lefties

SPEAKER_00 59:26

in the playoffs. That's a that's a technical thing. We'll get into that later. Shows we got to avoid left-handed pitch in the playoffs. I got Sanchez and Lazaro. That's a big question mark for us next six weeks. What's our lineup against what's our best night against lefties? I know our best night against righties. I know our best night against righties. We saw it on Tuesday against the Nationals. Off the top of my head, PCA won, you know, Suzuki 2, Bregman 2, something like that. Bush 3, Suzuki Bregman four. What like there's your four? Then you go hat against a righty, then you go hat five horn or six against a righty. Then seven little question. It's like, do we, you know, seven? Is it a is it Carson Kelly? Is it a is it is who's the probably Carson Kelly's the catcher. I can go one through six against a righty confidently. I know Swane's gonna hit nine. You know, that's seven-eight. Is it canforgo in a DA troll? Seven. Is it Pedro Ramirez? Regardless, I can figure out the structure of the first six. The lefty, we are still shuffling decks on, and like that may not matter to you, but it should matter when we get starts against lefties, and you should pay particular attention to like, did Craig do something different to the lineup this time against lefties? Now, if he did, is it related to rest? Ignore it. But is it related to strategy? Pay attention to it. So, for example, Nico Horner sat today, ignore that. That that has nothing to do with Nico Horner's capacity in the playoffs. But in those obvious moments where like guys are all arrested, the whole fucking nine is on play, and then let's just see what Craig does with us against lefties because to win a World Series in advance in the playoffs and have the success that that that is that warrants this conversation uh means we have to beat lefties. We have to there's some good lefties in the National League. I named two on the Phillies. Uh, you know, there's the guy on the Dodgers, there's a guy on the Brewer, there's guys you go that pitch game one or game two for teams. We we go easily ready, game one, game two. Again, if Clay Holmes is healthy. And even if we go Matt Boyd, it's like no team is sitting there going, like, what do we do against Matt Boyd with lefties? Now, some people pull splits and go, Matt's good against lefties. I'm what I'm I'm trying to differentiate, like, don't put Matthew Boyd in the same conversation as Christopher Sanchez and Terek Scobel. Like, don't make the mistake of saying Matthew Boyd has the same stuff as Jesus Lazaro, that he may have better results. I'm talking about October, big stage, playoff format, etc. And there's some good lefties on the National League side of the format that we would have to beat. We have to. So you'll have to excuse me if I'm emphasizing and saying we got to get a lineup for the lefties. And that's where the Tyrone Taylor trade comes into play. We got to get him going a little bit. You know, he played every day for the Mets with great righty lefty splits. Now we're gonna take him say you don't play every day, but we want you to still have great splits against lefties. You know, is that realistic? These are good questions, guys. When you bitch, when you go, this guy sucks. Well, he hasn't fucking played. All right, you go do the meeting. I haven't done that meeting before. I don't give a fuck, go do the meeting. Meeting didn't go well. Why did the meeting go well? I didn't do the meeting. You're gonna make the same fucking excuse for when you don't do well at something. I don't do that. Uh that wasn't comfortable for me. Uh, it's the same thing for this guy, same thing for most of these guys, which is why I would circle back on the Alex Breckman thing and applaud him for having a sensational second half and really turning it on because many guys, myself included, you included, almost everybody listening to this gets paid 35 35 million. I'm not doing well, and you're telling me a bunch of people who can't do the job are bitching at me. Yeah, I'm checked out, though. You can go you go do it, you go host the fucking show. You know, you go book the guests, you go get the sponsors. I'm not fucking doing it. You go do it. You fucking know better, then do better, right? That that's the that's the point of the LSB. Everybody's been there. You go fucking, I'd I I've done it before. You guys are up my ass. I'm not playing, whatever. It's baseball, it's a hard game. Guy bounces back, guys, been awesome. The reason we've got so much comment, we go, hey, I roll in the playoffs, Dodgers show up a regularly. Fuck you, Dodgers. Like the reason I'm actually saying fuck you, Dodgers mean it. Obviously, PCA enables that, but what actually would support the support to us having that at the front is like, well, now Bregman stops now. Bregman looks Bregman looks like Bregman. You know, now we're in a pop, we're we're in a place where I'm gonna start digging into numbers. PCA looks sensational. Bregman's underneath him. Then you start digging into it. You're like, damn, dude, Aceby Swanson's gonna get is on pace at 27 homers this year. Damn, dude, Nico Horner's leading the National League in like every offensive category since the second half started, which like was a month ago. You know what I mean? You're like, you're like, did Nico Horner's getting you know Nico Horner's gonna justify every single dollar of that extension down the stretch. You know, we didn't extend Michael Bush. People we gotta Michael Bush is our first base in the future. Jed did the perfect thing with Michael Bush, he did not pay Michael Bush for his production against mostly right-handed pitching. He brought in a guy for a million dollars, you know, and that guy would have played against left-handed pitching all year long if his knee wasn't blown out. But then Michael Bush gets the reps. So then now we're sitting here mid-August going Michael Bush's everyday first baseman. First, everyday first baseman since who? Anthony Rizzo is the answer to that question. Every in everyday first baseman. Every day. Put him out there. Every fucking day. Take it for granted until you don't have one. Take it for granted until you don't have one. We had Grace. We had D. Lee. I mean, how hard is it? You you we had Rizzo? No, we had Bryant La Hare in 2011. The fuck off. We got Bush. Bush ain't Grace. Bush ain't Rizzo. We're not asking him to be that. And and the fact I'm even comparing him to those guys is a testament to the fact that this show this show needs to rap. It does. I can't be doing this. I cannot be sitting here getting worked up about a hypothetical argument against Michael Bush. It it probably doesn't even exist in this world. I'm just making it up in my head. So then the takeaway, therefore, is we could we'll talk supporting cast. Like my again, I'll go back to the Godfather. El Pacino is Michael Corleone, Godfather crushes it. Joe Pesci. Good fellas. Take the fucking stage. Cake. Done. Gone. Goodbye. Marissa Tomey and My Cousin Vinny, greatest supporting actress in the history of the award show. In the history of the award show. Okay. My cousin Vinny's a better movie than Marissa Tomey's an actress. Godfather's a better movie. And here I'm criticizing Cinephiles, and I'm closing with an analogy for you, cocksuckers. How's that? Up your fucking ass and around the corner, Cinephiles. Godfather is a better movie than Al Pacino is, an actor of the movie. It's bigger. Goodfellows is a significantly better piece of media uh in its totality than Joe Pesci's performances. Pete Carnish can be the best player in the world. Give him all the fucking awards. I don't care. It's great. That's great. We and he deserves it. And he deserves it. And Cubs fans who truly live and breathe with it and fucking die by the fact we win or lose. You we we deserve that. That MVP. That singular mo it's a token. You sat through the season, you watched a particular player, he dominated all season long. And then the reward is that he's he's recognized as the most valuable player in the entire league. And you could have watched any player all year long. You watched that guy, he won the MVP. That fucking matters to you. I'm not taking that away from you. No one is trying to take away that your connection to PCA and how good and fucking awesome he has been for the Chicago Cubs. And I and I gotta watch the F-words. I'm not taking that away from you. What I'm trying to say is Pete is the show, Pete's the business, Pete moves the needle. And for Pete to even be in a situation where he's he's taken over the conversation of baseball where people are going, war is not a real stat anymore. The stat that we have used to tell each other we are stupid for the last two decades is now officially defunct because Pete Crow Armstrong has dominated it so thoroughly that the guys who can't use calculators are sitting here going, Well, if he's that much higher than Shohei Otani, then it must not be a real stat. We had to go that far into the war uh, you know, fucking history books to debate its statistical validity. It took P. Crow Armstrong dominating baseball. And as Cubs fans, obviously we feel good. You can't have a chance without a guy like that. But I'll go back to this you don't have a guy like that if you don't have the lineup behind him. If that infield is so mature and professional, that left field, right field combination that Pete sits in between. I mean, you're taking a gem and you're putting him in the middle of a situation to flourish, and you're letting him be himself. And he's the perfect combination. Now, this is where it's the merger and the marriage, where it's like the Cubs, they obviously have surrounded him in a situation to be successful, but he's also the perfect person to be surrounded in a situation to be successful, if that makes sense. It's not just that the Cubs have fostered him, it's that the Cubs fostered the right guy to be fostered. And so now that we have him here for for years, forever, now blow the fucking lid off on your expectations for the Cubs in the postseason run to get another World Series Championship. I very much am looking at this roster going PCA equals a World Series Championship at some point. Chris Bryant and Rizzo did it. Right? Like, guys, guy, we've done this, we've seen this, we've witnessed this. Pete's way better than all those guys. All right, perfect. Now, Pete, you're in the conversation week of expectation of winning a championship. 110. I said 43 hard cut. I fucking lied, and this is what I do because I get into moments I don't want to give up. I'm not giving this moment up. I'm gonna come back to this. The the the essence and the way you get to the point of saying the playoffs matter is real. And the example I would draw is the Cincinnati Reds last year winning 84 games and getting in the playoffs as a succeed. Like, blow me. I the people at the bottom of that are like we're we're four and a half back of the last wild card. Like, I would I would rather be dead. I would rather be dead than than support that team. We're in mid-August. We got 250 million dollars to spend. We better have so now we do have something to show for it. That's where I'm saying this matters differently. This season is now the future. And now what in what sparks that optimism, what would enables us to sit here and give a shit, is very much Pete. Pete is the switch. Now you turn Pete, now it goes into the second level of the flow

PCA’s Stardom And A Fearless Clubhouse

SPEAKER_00 1:10:46

chart. You got to have the supporting cast and characters before we even talk about pitching. I need the leadership. I need the guys that don't give a shit. That Pete Crow Armstrong went on a podcast and said maybe Babe Ruth's not real and he meant it. He meant it. I'm not I'm not uh he he we're not talking about conspiracy theories. We're not I'm talking about he said Babe Ruth didn't exist. Then he even said Babe Ruth faced pitching that threw the ball underhanded. Then Pete Crow Armstrong was obviously talking about uh a generation of guys that that fucking served on the front lines in France. Don't make me do the war thing. I'll do it. You sat through it last week, I'll do it. Pete Pete looked at the guys who were the same generation of guys were on the front lines of uh France. Christy Mathewson died of fucking gas poisoning because he worked in the chemical warfare unit. Christy Matthewson was in the first batch of Hall of Fame inductees alongside Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, Christy Matthewson, Cy Young. Did I get that right? Those are the first five guys off the top of my head. Christy Mathewson, one of the five of them, died from mustard gas. Where do you get exposed to mustard gas? Well, you have to go to war. You have to go to war. Where do you where are you at war? You're in war. Not at I'm in war, I'm in, I'm in fucking, I'm I'm on, I'm on the fucking supply ship in the middle of the Pacific, and and we're just sending little boats. He's on the he's in the he's exposed to mustard gas. He dies from the complications of mustard gas. Chrissy Matthewson was one of the greatest pitchers ever, one of the greatest players ever, one of the greatest ambassadors of the sport of all time, impacted relative to the people he could impact, uh, the people impacted per capita, I guess you could say then. The amount of people, the percentage of people he was able to impact that he impacted higher than any fucking baseball player ever, ever. Christy Matthewson, Matty, like all-timer guy. And then PCA goes, he was facing under Babe Ruth is facing underhanded pitching. Now, if you give a fuck about the game, I slap that guy. I would slap PCA if I saw him after that. I was so mad about it, I shouldn't have done the Schultz Mahoney. I was about to motherfuck this guy up and down the floor. So bad people go, Yeah, I couldn't be a Cubs fan the way I just talked about PCA, but I can't be you can't disrespect history like that. But then at the same time, it's like, how can I judge a guy who's disrespecting the very history he's making? And that's maybe the men mental space you go to. He's creating history. I can't criticize the his opinion about a fucking area in which he's like he's an artist in Major League Baseball. He's got one of one art on the wall. You go, that's a Peter Armstrong play. That's a Peter Armstrong game. That's PCA. Now, the whole reason I bring this up and is we're gonna wrap this show 30 fucking minutes later than I anticipated, 20 minutes, whatever it is. I'm not doing the math. I'm telling you this. I think we have the right mix of guys where like the fact PCA can just say that publicly, nobody gives a shit. Swanie doesn't care, Swanie doesn't know where jewel is. Swanie doesn't give a fuck about anything. You think Bragman cares with PCA? Like, he's like, I don't, whatever, dude. I've done so much for myself. You saying something stupid doesn't make me look bad. But a lot of those guys in the big leagues are pussies. There's a lot of pussies in Major League Baseball that would turn around and look at a guy like him and go, don't say that shit, you make us look bad. Trust me when I say this. I have been around plenty of Major League Baseball players that are gigantic pussies about what is said about Major League Baseball. Huge pussies. Pete Pete goes out and says the most ridiculous things about professional baseball that have ever been recorded. This guy's gonna win MVP and he's looking into a camera going, Babe Ruth never existed. And he exists in a world where nobody gives a fuck. Not the fans, not the players next to him, not Nico Horner doesn't give a shit, not Jed Hoyer who collects Babe Ruth memorabilia is not gonna be influenced by this because Pete's so fucking good at the game. And ladies and gentlemen, when you get to that point, when you have a player who is so much better than that he can literally say, I don't even know, I don't believe Babe Ruth is real, with zero implications. You have a player who is good enough to win a World Series, you have a player you build around, you have a player who is special, you have a guy who is so far fucking removed from the reality of the world in which he lives in that he actually could be good enough to put eight other people on his back and go do the whole goddamn thing by himself. He is good enough to do that. I'm just saying we don't need to make that bet. We need to continue to support him, and the sporting cast we have put around him is good enough that you should be sitting here August 14th, Friday, getting ready for a great weekend, getting ready for Bears training camp news to be leaking out, get just getting ready for it, baby, because you know it's coming. Labor Days around the corner, kick off to that sweet part of the year where all this shit fucking matters, all the labors of the summer. You know, you reap what you fucking sow. We've put in the time, we've put in the effort. You give a fuck about the Charter Cubs, which allows us to sit here and say, let's go have some fun in October. Let's tighten up the screws a little bit. What we're tightening up is what is Clay Holmes gonna be the two? What does the lineup look against? Left-handed pitching. Is Alex Bregman a hot streak? A hot streak? Is it rolling forward, folks? You know, that's it. Those are the questions because the Kevin Gosswit thing, that ain't a question.

12-Ounce Cans, Gratitude, And Share The Show

SPEAKER_00 1:16:17

Last thing, Thursday McCarrow, 12 ounces. Go to Amazon, buy it. I'll sit here, I'll talk ball, I'll be your friend, I'll go to fucking Cubs games with you, I'll give Cubs tickets away. I'll I will do whatever it takes to help people enjoy the Cubs more. I'm sitting here, I'm staring at so many Kate Horton encase cards that have come in. As I'm building my Kate Horton collection, you know, I got into this thing, I'll talk about it later. It's a behind-the-scenes thing, a work thing, project. People just think, I just talking to my like I don't work. Buddy, I I got so much fucking work to do. We're doing the show because we like to do the show. That's where we're at, folks. We're ripping shows because we want to, not because somebody now obviously Thirsty Pacero is our title sponsor. This ain't no burden. This, this, this ain't no ball and chain luggage. You're dragging to the fucking airport, dropping off, picking up. They lost your luggage. This now, this is a pain in the ass. This ain't no pain in the ass. This is a pleasure, this is a privilege. We've played good enough baseball for this to be a pleasure and a privilege. All right, and so just a nice little break, a lot going on in life. Just ask if you get a chance, you know, and I promise you, I don't make a nickel, a dime, a dollar, whatever, less or more, if you do or don't. Your action has no influence on my material well-being. My material well-being is spoken for. I'm saying for the purpose of the community, if you like the show, and maybe someone who fucking really likes the Cubs hasn't hit the show yet, and you're going, You would love the show, and they're going, I'm busy, I'm whatever. And you know, you're going, Hey, it's gonna hit you in a moment. You're gonna be traveling, you're gonna have a fucking flight's gonna be delayed from Cleveland, and you're gonna be sitting in the men's room at the airport, and you're gonna forget that you're even listening to the show. We're just talking about the cubs, we're just bullshit. I'm your buddy. That's how it works, right? Now, the show doesn't exist without the Thirsty Picaro guys. It's it's a mutual symbiotic relationship. It's they they go to me, they go, We we need you. My buddy, what would it take to get you? We I want rolling weekly. What's it look like? I want your rolling. That's a buddy. That's a buddy coming to me going, We I gotta get you going. I want to put the spark in the I want to get I want to light that engine again because you got the engine. Now I'm sitting here about to post a show, and I'm telling you, my buddy lit the fucking engine, folks. And I've got all these stories. Jake, this and that, Mahoni, important people, you know. So, like, we'll spend time, we'll wait till the off season. We'll we'll put it on video, we'll hang out. We'll I'll let you in a little bit more into the sauce, into the background, into the mystique, into I will answer questions people have asked for years. Maybe. Maybe I won't, maybe I don't give a fuck. Maybe I just want to sit here and watch the cups and continue to maintain this distraction that it's been. Those are different things. The important part as we close, the Thirsty McCarroll partnership. They are launching the 12-ounce cans. It's important. It's so important we had a call about it today. They go, can you just make sure people know? And you just because that's that's real, just just drive it home. Like you guys do a great job. You support the brand. Maybe a lot of you guys have it in the cart, maybe some of you guys don't have it in the cart. It's an auto buy. I'm just saying there's new product, there's new thing. I'm raising the awareness because I'm not talking about the Cubs. I'm not friends with you guys without these motherfuckers. Without these, I'm I'm off to the races. I'm I'm a forgotten piece of history, right? But we still hang out and we still talk cubs, and we have a great team to be excited about for the playoffs. We're gonna have great conversations about them so that when first pitch comes, whenever that first pitch is, so whatever game you get an opportunity to sit down and watch, because you could be traveling, you'd be doing shit. You didn't get to watch the game. So then the chance you do get to sit down and watch a game, which is should be special, it should be cool, it should be it should be a good time, and you should know more uh, you know, than you did uh uh a week ago before the last show came out. That's kind of the way it works. That's the way I see it. That's that's that's obvious. That's I think that at this point in the show, Carl, it's I don't know why I gotta emphasize that. I think it's just because I want people to know that Thirsty Vicero put the 12 ounce cans out and I had a call with them today, and they were like, it'd be great if you could emphasize this. Um and I was like, I'll emphasize that. So I did that in the lineup preview, and then I'm doing the show tonight, and I'm you know, just me. I'm bonded. I'm like, I'm just tied to it. I can't give it up till I know for sure. So it's like I I want to make sure if if if if you saw me tomorrow on the street and I said, Dad, I did I make you aware of the 12 ounce cans? That's a new thing. I don't want there to be any doubt. I want you guys to be like, yeah, dude, you you fucking hammered home the fact there were 12 ounce cans. And with that, the show is now almost twice as long as I initially promised. No hard cut, said 43 minutes, didn't give a fuck. Why? Some people need the extra 40 minutes. You know, you may not. You could have tuned up. Some people enjoy it, you know, those are the people I care about. Until then, you know, fuck it is what it is. But we're we're we're we're into the we're I'll say we're clearly into the next phase. There's been a phase, weird phase. People go, what are you doing? What do you mean you just do these cubs now? What about the bear? We're into the next phase. Alright, we're out of Cincinnati. We have phase one's over, phase two's over. I got so much pep in my step. You you wouldn't You wouldn't believe it till you see it. That's the best way for me to say it. And I and I gotta say thank you to Thirsty Vacaro literally going put the dog and ponies on and thank you guys for riding it and being here and and and giving me enough juice because now I'm in a spot where I'm looking at this and I'm going, thank God I did this. Thank God me and my honey putting the time. I'm so pumped, I'm so excited. I I'm I I just want to go watch the baseball, let it play out so that I could come back here a week from now and go, I told you guys. And then a week later, come back and go, told you guys. Come back a week later and go, told you guys. And that's kind of the vision I have over the next six, seven, eight weeks of this baseball season. As I feel like I'm gonna be in a situation going, I told you guys. I told you guys. And I'm very lucky to be in that situation and have that feeling in me. Thank you guys for tuning into today's show. If you guys get a chance, send it to a friend. I'm not asking for review. Forget their supercaro for a second, give it to a Cubs fan. Maybe he's not on the internet, maybe it's somebody who's a little socially awkward, maybe, maybe it's just somebody who doesn't feel like they fit in someplace. I want to give that place to them. This is a place for them. That's a place for them. So you know that Cubs fan, give it to them. Give it to them and say there's a bunch of guys that get together every Monday and Friday, bunch of fucking lunatics, and we just chop it up about the Cubs. And and and that's what this place is here for. God bless you guys. I love you guys, and I'm gonna see you guys on Monday, and I'm gonna see you guys with Mahoney. Until then, go Cubs.