Lineup game 1:

Happ
Rizzo
Bryant
Schwarber
Contreras
Heyward
Baez
Caratini DH
Kipnis

Hendricks

All fine by me.

They suck.

Lets hope todays start for yu goes better than his last post season start. Then again they need to score more than one run to win as it is.

I'm pretty confident in Darvish. I'm the exact opposite in the offense.

1. Ian Happ, CF
2. Anthony Rizzo, 1B
3. Willson Contreras, DH
4. Kyle Schwarber, LF
5. Kris Bryant, 3B
6. Jason Heyward, RF
7. Javy Baez, SS
8. David Bote, 2B
9. Victor Caratini, C

And today's game is postponed because of the weather. That seems pretty aggressive to me, the radar isn't *that* bad.

Might have something to do with last nights yankees indians game having a rain delay and taking a forever to be played.

Burn it all down.

Agreed. And I'm OK with that. Thank god for 2016. It has been kind of a mess since, but watching the Indians get bounced AGAIN the other night was a reminder that falling short of winning it all doesn't mean you're ensure of ultimate success the next season(s).

But yeah, the Rizzo/Bryant/Baez combination has been total trash in postseason play since the World Series. I think it was something like a .130 collective batting average.

I don't know if you need to burn it all down but at this point I wouldn't be eager to lock anyone up for a long time.

It's only 2 games but I'm not impressed with Ross in the micromanaging playoffs.

What does burning it down get us? Most of them are at the low end of trade value and only plus side is young promise of 15-16. Then again is this on the cubs for not finishing the final part of development?

Considering everyone is about to be a FA, burning it down and not resigning them is essentially the same thing. But it also means that rolling out this same group that has had the same problems since the 2nd half of the 2018 season would be incredibly stupid. I will admit that last offseason's talking point about "someone from the core has to go" was stupid, but most of those guys now have virtually no trade value. You'd get a helluva lot more back for either Contreras or Happ than any of Rizzo/Bryant/Baez/Schwarber.

While it's disappointing this group as a whole never could exceed what they did in 2016, I think we all agree the bigger failure was the inability to supplement or meaningfully add to that group through either the minors or FA/trade. That's obviously almost entirely the FO's fault - they talked a lot the last few years about updating and retooling their development process, but it's not like they forgot what to do after this core group graduated (regardless of how much or little credit you give them for the various guys' development). The talent coming in completely dried up and they misallocated a ton of money. Even still, I can't get over the fact that they still couldn't add to the payroll at all the previous 2 offseasons and even being able to add a little more could have made a difference. Maybe that's just delusional on my part and whatever fundamental problems this offense has would have sunk the team these last 2 seasons anyway.

2015/2016 can never be taken away, and the overall success of the last 6 years easily blows away any Cubs period in just about everyone alive's lifetime...yet it still feels like such a wasted opportunity. Had they won the World Series last year instead of 2019 (IOW, less immediate success) would I feel differently?

It's only 2 games but I'm not impressed with Ross in the micromanaging playoffs.

I can only think of 1 thing that this could possibly refer to, and that would be pulling Schwarber for defense before the 7th in game 1. Micromanaging or not, he basically had been doing that all year with Schwarber (first with Almora, then Maybin, then Hamilton) in any game they led late. And Schwarber's bat wasn't one this year that they really were missing once he was pulled.

The only other criticism I can think of is leaving Hendricks in too long in game 1, and that's still probably debatable. In the chatter, I said I thought Kyle should come out after the 6th since he wasn't his normal self, and maybe he should have been pulled after the back to back singles but before the HR. I wouldn't call that micromanaging though.

Not sure what else this could refer to? PH for Caratini in game 2 and losing the DH? Caratini also sucked this year.