2021 Chicago Cubs September IGT Thread

[chibears55]

I'd like to see the Rays win the WS. I root for fan bases over teams really.

Can't stand the Brewers but would be happy for the fans. Same with White Sox.

Come on you know it gonna end up being a Bryzzo World Series [emoji1787]
Giants and Yankees

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[Stratos]

Come on you know it gonna end up being a Bryzzo World Series [emoji1787]
Giants and Yankees

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Nobody could win that series, the universe would explode.

[The20thK]

Ive been thinking about who I would like to win the WS. Some factors that have been swaying me back and forth are team likeability, formers Cubs, fan base etc


1) Tampa Bay Rays - How this organization stays relevant with such a small payroll is beyond me but id love to see a tem win it all while spending a little more than a 1/3 the highest payroll.

2) Boston - Always felt like they were the "Cubs" of the AL. Rabid fans and a team filled with history. Plus Schwarbs is there!

3) Atlanta - This would probably be more of a nostalgic pick due to TBS broadcasting their games when I was young. Side bar: This is also why I am Cubs fan despite having no ties to Chicago, Thanks WGN!

4) New York Yankees - This is purely a Rizzo pick as I hate the Yankees.

5) Chicago WS - Seems like a well put together team but the fanbase keeps me from wanting this any higher.

6) Los Angeles - Ho Hum if they win. Wouldn't be excited but wouldn't be upset. A team that spends that much should be in it every year.

7) San Francisco - Never cared for this team (probably still some animosity for Bonds being so loved despite being a steroid user) KB moves the needle a little but I have no love for him personally.

8) Houston - Who knows what cheats they're doing this year?

9) Milwaukee - I cant stand this whiny organization. They just seem like they're jealous of the Cubs fanbase.

10) St Louis - Any explanation needed?

If anyone from 1-3 win, I'll be happy. 4-7 would be ho hum and I'd be disappointed if 8-10 won it all.

[Bluefire]

This years playoffs feels so blah to me. No real fun exciting teams in the playoffs, sans maybe the WS. It got the same 4-5 teams (NYY/BOS/STL/ATL/LAD)in the playoffs, got the reigning cheaters, no Trout/Ohtani, no Tats, no Blue Jays youngsters, and of course no Cubs. I think I'd rather watch paint dry on the wall than watch these playoffs.

What I'd like to see (if I was watching the playoffs) would be an all-SEC World Series: ATL/Tampa Bay. Those are the two teams that I have no real feelings about and might be the only match I would watch in the World Series.

But what's likely to happen is a bloody rematch in the WS. A combination of NYY, BOS, LAD, STL, HOU, will probably will be the match and imo that will be a..............SKIP.

[thawv]

I'd like to see the Rays win the WS. I root for fan bases over teams really.

Can't stand the Brewers but would be happy for the fans. Same with White Sox.

Tampa doesn't even deserve a team. They average 9,500 fans a game. To me, that's a terrible fan base. Everybody has an excuse from location, to heat. But at the end of they day, they don't show up.

[Stratos]

Tampa doesn't even deserve a team. They average 9,500 fans a game. To me, that's a terrible fan base. Everybody has an excuse from location, to heat. But at the end of they day, they don't show up.

They needed a decent stadium a long time ago. Florida has tons of baseball fans but they really nerfed the 2 Florida franchises.

[WOwolfOL]

Tampa doesn't even deserve a team. They average 9,500 fans a game. To me, that's a terrible fan base. Everybody has an excuse from location, to heat. But at the end of they day, they don't show up.

I havent seen heat as an excuse, considering it's in a dome lol [emoji23]

[CP_414]

Tampa doesn't even deserve a team. They average 9,500 fans a game. To me, that's a terrible fan base. Everybody has an excuse from location, to heat. But at the end of they day, they don't show up.

Agreed. They should make a full time move in a few years instead of this half and half plan they are promoting with Montreal. There are lots of good options for a new team like Montreal, Charlotte, Nashville, Portland, Vegas.

[1908_Cubs]

Tampa Bay deserves to have a fair shake at having a team; as of right now, the Rays have been given nothing fair. They haphazardly threw together a horrible baseball field, in a horrible location to meet expansion deadlines. They quickly threw together a proposal and this is the outcome; a **** field, in a horrible space for accessibility. Fans show up for things like the Buccaneers (they're hitting 98% capacity this year). Their NHL team hit 5th in the NHL in 2019-2020, too. Both teams are winning championships in front of sellout crowds. Tampa Bay is not a traditional "hockey" town, located in warm climate with no hockey history prior to the Lightening, but they go to the game in numbers (hitting 99.7% capacity in their last "full" season of fans). The issue is that Tropicana Field is located in a stupid locale and fans have zero reason to go, and it's strikingly clear that this is why we see 98/99% capacity for two championship winners in the same city, and the abhorrent attendance for the third, also, a championship caliber team.

The distance between Raymond James (Buccaneers) and Amalie Arena (Lightening) is 5.3 miles. Both are located downtown Tampa and are easily accessible. Tropicana is 21.3 miles away from Amalie and almost 30 from Raymond James! It's not even in Tampa Bay. There is no public transport like a train that runs between the two. It takes hours to get there from Tampa with traffic (there are only 2 roadways into St. Pete, both are bridges, there's no way around them) and they get backed up to hell on weeknights with rushhour traffic. The quicker of the two routes is a toll road, too. And then you get a dingey *** stadium to boot for your trouble and being up stupid late when you can watch every game on TV. Why would anyone brave the traffic, to pay MLB prices, to sit in traffic, to be up until past 12am on a weeknight, while paying tolls both way on top of it? Hell, why waste an entire weekend day doing that? It's not like you end up at Fenway or Wrigley for your troubles. You get the ugliest stadium after the hellacious commute.

Tampa Bay hasn't proven or disproven they don't deserve a baseball team but they have proven to support winning teams time and time again in other sports. It's a great study of how horrible the planning was for the Rays. Blaming Tampa isn't the right thing. Maybe they need to move, but I think they just need a good set up. Tampa is likely one...if they actually have a real home. If not, then move them to somewhere else. But much of the issues that plagued Montreal (horrible field, location, etc) that caused them to move is why we have a Tampa issue right now. I'm for leaving them in Tampa Bay...with a real field, and a real location if possible. Tampa supports sports teams, especially winners. The reason they don't go to games for the Rays is pretty simple and shows up in attendance numbers; it's where they have to go to support them, not the team, not the sport. Baseball can work in Tampa. It just needs to be in Tampa to do so. It's a shame that such an awesome franchise has been marooned on an island (almost literally) by the original planners 30 years ago; the on field product doesn't deserve to be stashed away like that.

[CP_414]

Tampa Bay deserves to have a fair shake at having a team; as of right now, the Rays have been given nothing fair. They haphazardly threw together a horrible baseball field, in a horrible location to meet expansion deadlines. They quickly threw together a proposal and this is the outcome; a **** field, in a horrible space for accessibility. Fans show up for things like the Buccaneers (they're hitting 98% capacity this year). Their NHL team hit 5th in the NHL in 2019-2020, too. Both teams are winning championships in front of sellout crowds. Tampa Bay is not a traditional "hockey" town, located in warm climate with no hockey history prior to the Lightening, but they go to the game in numbers (hitting 99.7% capacity in their last "full" season of fans). The issue is that Tropicana Field is located in a stupid locale and fans have zero reason to go, and it's strikingly clear that this is why we see 98/99% capacity for two championship winners in the same city, and the abhorrent attendance for the third, also, a championship caliber team.

The distance between Raymond James (Buccaneers) and Amalie Arena (Lightening) is 5.3 miles. Both are located downtown Tampa and are easily accessible. Tropicana is 21.3 miles away from Amalie and almost 30 from Raymond James! It's not even in Tampa Bay. There is no public transport like a train that runs between the two. It takes hours to get there from Tampa with traffic (there are only 2 roadways into St. Pete, both are bridges, there's no way around them) and they get backed up to hell on weeknights with rushhour traffic. The quicker of the two routes is a toll road, too. And then you get a dingey *** stadium to boot for your trouble and being up stupid late when you can watch every game on TV. Why would anyone brave the traffic, to pay MLB prices, to sit in traffic, to be up until past 12am on a weeknight, while paying tolls both way on top of it? Hell, why waste an entire weekend day doing that? It's not like you end up at Fenway or Wrigley for your troubles. You get the ugliest stadium after the hellacious commute.

Tampa Bay hasn't proven or disproven they don't deserve a baseball team but they have proven to support winning teams time and time again in other sports. It's a great study of how horrible the planning was for the Rays. Blaming Tampa isn't the right thing. Maybe they need to move, but I think they just need a good set up. Tampa is likely one...if they actually have a real home. If not, then move them to somewhere else. But much of the issues that plagued Montreal (horrible field, location, etc) that caused them to move is why we have a Tampa issue right now. I'm for leaving them in Tampa Bay...with a real field, and a real location if possible. Tampa supports sports teams, especially winners. The reason they don't go to games for the Rays is pretty simple and shows up in attendance numbers; it's where they have to go to support them, not the team, not the sport. Baseball can work in Tampa. It just needs to be in Tampa to do so. It's a shame that such an awesome franchise has been marooned on an island (almost literally) by the original planners 30 years ago; the on field product doesn't deserve to be stashed away like that.

I know the park sucks and the location sucks, but I’m highly skeptical that MLB works in the Tampa area. They averaged 9400 a game this year and attendance has been a steady decline from the low 20’s per game in 2008-2010 to where it is now even though they keep winning.

The Bucs are in the NFL and have 8 or 9 Sundays to sell. While Tampa isn’t a traditional hockey market, the lightning have actually been popular for a long time. I lived in that area back in the mid 2000’s and the Lightning were much more popular than the Rays then. The Rays were a disaster when I was there, but the Lightning were popular. My theory was that because of the season they play and the fact that it’s generally a less popular sport, transplants and snowbirds were more likely to adopt the lighting than to adopt a local baseball team. There were tons of Yankee/Red Sox/Cubs/Braves/Cards fans around when I lived down there. But it’s just a theory.

A nice new park in downtown Tampa would increase attendance without a doubt. I’m very skeptical that it would increase attendance to the point where they’d draw well after the first year or so in the new park. There are probably a handful of other cities without a team where they’d do better.

I hope they get out of the Trop one way or another, but it would be a bummer if it was another Marlins situation.

[thawv]

I havent seen heat as an excuse, considering it's in a dome lol [emoji23]

I've heard of the heat. I guess people just don't want to leave the house unless they're going to water. I can only assume.

[CP_414]

On the field, I hope the Rays lose in the playoffs. I like a lot of their players and I respect how they sustain success, but I just hate their model.

They never go in. They never spend competitively. They make it to game 6 of the WS and trade one of their best starters while adding very little from the outside. The trade worked out since Snell had a bad year. It’s always easier to sell than buy, but the point is that they were on the verge of winning it all and intentionally got worse because that’s what they do. They have insane amounts of very good prospects but they never trade for Trea Turner or Scherzer or Machado or Darvish or Betts. Their goal is to be the frequently competitive team with the tiny payroll and they can achieve that goal with no attendance. The teams that pay the Rays payroll through revenue sharing have the burden of expectations from fans. When those teams are close, they need to try to get better, not worse.

People talk about how big market teams should emulate them, but you can’t do that in a market where there are expectations. The Dodgers have taken the best parts of the Rays model and combined it with the best parts of being a major market team. That’s the organization to emulate.

Eventually the Rays will probably win one because they are frequently good and they get a lot of shots at the playoffs, but I’m not rooting for them.

If every team acted like the Rays, the sport would die.

[thawv]

Tampa Bay deserves to have a fair shake at having a team; as of right now, the Rays have been given nothing fair. They haphazardly threw together a horrible baseball field, in a horrible location to meet expansion deadlines. They quickly threw together a proposal and this is the outcome; a **** field, in a horrible space for accessibility. Fans show up for things like the Buccaneers (they're hitting 98% capacity this year). Their NHL team hit 5th in the NHL in 2019-2020, too. Both teams are winning championships in front of sellout crowds. Tampa Bay is not a traditional "hockey" town, located in warm climate with no hockey history prior to the Lightening, but they go to the game in numbers (hitting 99.7% capacity in their last "full" season of fans). The issue is that Tropicana Field is located in a stupid locale and fans have zero reason to go, and it's strikingly clear that this is why we see 98/99% capacity for two championship winners in the same city, and the abhorrent attendance for the third, also, a championship caliber team.

The distance between Raymond James (Buccaneers) and Amalie Arena (Lightening) is 5.3 miles. Both are located downtown Tampa and are easily accessible. Tropicana is 21.3 miles away from Amalie and almost 30 from Raymond James! It's not even in Tampa Bay. There is no public transport like a train that runs between the two. It takes hours to get there from Tampa with traffic (there are only 2 roadways into St. Pete, both are bridges, there's no way around them) and they get backed up to hell on weeknights with rushhour traffic. The quicker of the two routes is a toll road, too. And then you get a dingey *** stadium to boot for your trouble and being up stupid late when you can watch every game on TV. Why would anyone brave the traffic, to pay MLB prices, to sit in traffic, to be up until past 12am on a weeknight, while paying tolls both way on top of it? Hell, why waste an entire weekend day doing that? It's not like you end up at Fenway or Wrigley for your troubles. You get the ugliest stadium after the hellacious commute.

Tampa Bay hasn't proven or disproven they don't deserve a baseball team but they have proven to support winning teams time and time again in other sports. It's a great study of how horrible the planning was for the Rays. Blaming Tampa isn't the right thing. Maybe they need to move, but I think they just need a good set up. Tampa is likely one...if they actually have a real home. If not, then move them to somewhere else. But much of the issues that plagued Montreal (horrible field, location, etc) that caused them to move is why we have a Tampa issue right now. I'm for leaving them in Tampa Bay...with a real field, and a real location if possible. Tampa supports sports teams, especially winners. The reason they don't go to games for the Rays is pretty simple and shows up in attendance numbers; it's where they have to go to support them, not the team, not the sport. Baseball can work in Tampa. It just needs to be in Tampa to do so. It's a shame that such an awesome franchise has been marooned on an island (almost literally) by the original planners 30 years ago; the on field product doesn't deserve to be stashed away like that.

So, would you be willing to take a chance on building a state of the art stadium in Tampa, and hope they start packing fans in? There's also a chance that it just might not be a big baseball town, couple with everything you mentioned. Which are clearly valid points. The Bucks and the Lightening also don't play on a daily basis every other week in the middle of the summer.

Either way, I think there are other cities that would love to have a team and would put many more fans in the stadium.

[ILMindState]

If the Cubs signed the same players they did this off season but never made any of the trades (including Darvish). Do you guys think they would have won the division over the Brewers or Wild Card over the Cardinals? Would you have preferred that they did rather than making the trades?

I think the Cubs would not have lost 11 in a row with Darvish on the team and might have added at the deadline. That team still would not have been good enough to win the division. They might have challenged for the wild card but I wouldn't want to be in a wild card situation where you're up against a 105 win team with Scherzer on the mound. I guess all things considered the Cubs picked a good year to rebuild/retool whatever you wanna call it.

[JBears79]

I'd like to see the Rays win the WS. I root for fan bases over teams really.

Can't stand the Brewers but would be happy for the fans. Same with White Sox.

Im pulling for the Rays or Giants. I know the Giants have had a ton of success but I want KB to get another ring and id like to Longoria back in the WS.

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