Cubs REKAP Podcast ⚾️ (S2 – EP15) – The CHICAGO Cubs are getting hot! 🔥🔥

Cubs REKAP Podcast ⚾️ (S2 – EP15) – The CHICAGO Cubs are getting hot! 🔥🔥

welcome in to the latest edition of our Cubs recap podcast a presentation of our recap YouTube channel and available Audio Only everywhere you get your favorite podcast with my partner and my friend he is Gordon whtm I’m David Kaplan all right GDB let’s talk about we’re recording this the Cubs have won four of five they pounded the Baltimore Orioles and Dean Kramer behind jamus and tyion and a battery of productive at bats now they’ve got to deal with Corbin Burns they’ve got IM managa on Wednesday night we’re taping today and then they’ve got Justin steel so as you look at them right now in your mind I have my thought in your mind are they sellers buyers or do not well we’ve talked about this a couple of times and I actually uh I go back to the conversation we have with Michael Camy on the last one uh they they can’t sell I mean they’re not in a position to sell we ran down that roster and who the hell are you GNA sell you can’t I mean even even when Cody Bellinger fell to you on a three-year deal it it turned out to be a bad contract in terms of being able to be flexible going forward or certainly at this trade deadline Y no question you don’t have any pieces to sell but you’re not in a position by any stretch of the imagination to be a buyer in any sort of traditional sense because the teams the team’s not going anywhere man and and I know you got your Otis the AL back there and you think that’s going to be the key to the whole thing I got it right there Bullpen but it ain’t happening man we we’ve seen close to two-thirds of the season now well over half the season to to know what this team is what its identity is and they’re sitting in last place right now I mean they’re they’re now granted it’s kind of bunched up especially three to five but I just don’t see the run in them that that you might that you might see now they just beat the Orioles they had a nice win against the the uh Phillies recently they got steel and imaga they’re two Allstars pitch in the next two nights fine that’s fine you know who the reds are playing the team that’s right above them in the standings they’re playing the Rockies and the Marlins to go to the break so that’s at least a wash that’s no better than a wash even if the even if the Cubs play their best baseball getting to the break and then you and then it’s a Sprint to the trade deadline I just don’t know there’s there’s also going to be a lot of demand a lot of demand for hitters a lot of demand for relief pitchers we know they could use relief pitchers I don’t know if they’re going to pay the price I don’t know how much of a price they can pay for some of those guys I mean are you going to go out and get tanner Scott from the Marlins I mean he’s he’s got a one something ER he’d be the kind of guy you’d go get he’s gonna cost a lot he’s gonna be top of the market okay let me tell you this Gordon a few things one merryweather’s coming back he is a quality arm he’s been gone for what three months yeah I saw he just made a rehab uh rehab appearance they just brought biggie up from the miners who had a 79 erra and throws 100 miles an hour hey wait hey so his ER is Biggie Smalls pretty much he 79 they are in terms of position players hitting you gotta be honest here Ian hap the last six weeks has a weighted runs created plus that is third in all of baseball that is a large sample size you only guys ahead of him are the kid who had 12 straight hits for the Twins and shoh Otani and Michael Bush if this team wasn’t in last place he’s an Allstar they’re they’re fourth in the division cap in runs per game they’re bottom three in the league in relief pitching and they’ve had they’ve been healthy at times this year with that Bullpen I think that there will be stretches there always are where some of these weak position areas are strengths for a period of time and get on a role we’ve seen that a little bit with with the Cubs Bullpen but uh they are what they are man and that that won’t sustain because the quality just isn’t there in terms of looking at the deadline I disagree vehemently with Carter Hawkins who I heard doing a Cubs pregame show recently Carter Hawkins said the question was do you need to get somebody with some fire in that Clubhouse in that dugouts not I’m not talking about a coach or manager I’m talking about a player somebody that kicks people in the ass and he said that’s all well and fine but you don’t go out and acquire that that’s a quality that a player brings but you acquire the player not the personality and I disagree with them this is the most vanilla boring baseball team that I’ve watched in a long long time they’re not unlikable they’re just not likable do you know what I mean I know exactly what you mean when when the rickets took over that team the irony was a family bought from a corporation and the organization became more corporate right we talked about that a lot at the time well the quote from crane Kenny was we were a corporate owned team run like a family business we be became a family business run like a corporate team right so in other words they admit it so there there’s there’s that but one thing about it you know we know that prior to them when you know Henry front offices and so forth they had uh they had guys like uh zimano that just put it this way they had a lot of fire in that Clubhouse a lot of lot of Competitive Edge and so on that’s fine and and and some of that they they went to a different philosophy when Theo came in but Theo would not have said what Carter Hawkins said because whatever you want to say about how Theo sort of Quantified the skill sets of everybody they Acquired and kind of did it and had all this uh had his sort of Matrix way of fitting everything together that edge was something that he knew he had to have in that’s why Kyle schwarber was drafted that’s why John Lackey was acquired the these and and and by the way when when they were chasing the the the followup to the World Series when they were chasing success after that they wondered if they didn’t have enough of that they wondered if they’d lost that with some of the players they lost and they chase they went after John Jay for instance a clubhouse guy th those so I I I’m with you I disagree with Carter Hawkins on that and I think that they’ve gotten and maybe it’s a top down uh personality thing that trickles all the way down but uh it I would suggest maybe that it starts with Jed because he’s much more sort of meticulous risk averse safe when he’s putting together a team and I think I think that’s what he’s done I mean he’s it’s great he’s got a bunch of good dudes and and and some of them are good players but I don’t I don’t see I don’t see uh except for the guy that wanted to beat up the uh Dugout wall Colton Brewer I don’t I don’t I don’t see much other you know real sort of daily fight yeah the only other thing I saw and I love I’m a huge huge fan of Justin steel not just the pitcher the dude I like how he does his business I got I ran into him at a restaurant had a along talk I’m like that’s my kind of guy right there what he said coming off the field that day wake the F up yes they need more of that they don’t have enough of that you know and you could say you know Christopher Morell is an energy guy he’s a guy that could be that a guy like that at some point with an edge he’s still real young and he’s still trying to figure out where he fits um but you know Dansby Swanson isn’t really that guy he’s competitive on some teams he’s got a skill set but he’s not really that guy he inaps not not really that guy he’s and and uh Suzuki’s not I mean just run down the list and tell me Bellinger’s not no Bellinger the not right right so so I just don’t see it imanaga brings a terrific personality um but he it’s not that’s not the same as as what Justin steel brought correct so so I agree with you I think you need more of that and you know we’ve talked about you’re the economic Juggernaut in the division so you can go you can go pick these players and you have you’ve gone out and got the X MVP in in in Bellinger you’ve gone out and got the the $177 million shortstop with the gold gloves you know you gave you gave your guy ha an extension you went and got the Japanese hitter in Suzuki went got Japanese pitcher in imaga and these are these have all you know you could make the argument that these were all good moves I don’t I don’t necessarily think they overpaid for any of these guys but there you know we’ve talked in the past about this team maybe not uh living up you know the sum of its parts aren’t as but what’s that phrase about you know it’s not as the sum isn’t as good as the part whatever you know what I’m saying yeah exactly and and so that’s kind of where they’re at um and you know we’ve we’ve talked about this you can fool yourself cap you and your damn Otis the owl over there can fool yourselves all you want about where this might be headed but we we talked since April this division will keep most everybody in it at least into August if not through August and if you got any ability at all you can pretend your contenders all the way into September but good luck finishing it the there’s the phrase is the hole is greater than the sum of its parts that’s it and it’s not correct so there correct no question so as you look at this team I’m gonna give you my opinion now if I was sitting in Jed’s shoes first of all I would have done something long before this and if I had to overpay moderately I would have done it I would not be in freaking last place and taking it lying down and that was my problem I’d love to sit and have a beer with him and say Jed I understand you want you don’t want to trade you know a good Prospect but guess what your season is going down the freaking drain you have to save it and I said this on the radio to Jonathan hood and he agreed you might tell me I’m nuts you usually do anyway if George Stein brener was alive and his team was scuffling mightily and needed a closer or a setup man or a catcher he would have walked into that GM’s office and said okay either you fix this goddamn mess or I will and if I do I don’t need need you so get a goddamn closer in here go find a freaking catcher and fix it now and he’ have walked out the Cubs have done nothing like that no and we know why right we know why because this is the new age of front offices most of them cater to the owner’s bottom line as the highest priority well above the priority of winning winning is next if next might be third but the but the top priority anymore is stable bottom line profits revenues and profits that and so if you can fool enough of the people enough of the time to keep buying your damn tickets and your TV packages and you can put enough players out there that people want to watch that’s the goal and then if you can win great um I I think the game has gone backasswards when it comes to how front offices look at things and the Cubs are exhibit a okay so as we head to the deadline excuse me to the allar break and then right around the corner the 30th of July it’s the deadline what I would do is I would go out in acquisition mode but not a rental I I don’t need rental now if you told me oh my God they swept the Orioles they swept Fort St Louis they came out of the allstar break and they won eight of 10 and you’re like wow where’ the Cubs come from from that’s a different story but short of that I got to show my team my fan base my owner guess what I’m done watching this nonsense Brian Cashman just came out and said enough’s enough I’m not gonna watch this anymore because the Yankees have been scuffling the Reds went in and beat their ass uh I would go out and see what’s it gonna take for me to get a guy who I could trol for a couple of years whether that’s uh Bob bashet whether that is Vladimir Guerrero whether that is someone else on another team that’s up the track that says we’re not going to be able to sign that dude so give me a couple prospects you can have him and then I’m extending him I’m saying guess what whoever that player is I’m not saying it’s Vladimir gr because I like Michael Bush but there’s got to be someone out there on a team that’s gonna get paid that they can’t afford that they go all right we’ll trade them to you and then I lock them up and I say to my fan base I mean freaking business this [ __ ] stops no nobody says that yeah and maybe you lock them up or maybe you get a guy that’s right on the brink or a guy that can help next year that kind of thing I but I I don’t think they’re the only ones that are in a position to maybe be looking to do that because I think the reds are in a position like that they they they’ve got um if they’re healthy and things play out going forward the way they think and they’re getting a couple guys back they really don’t have a glaring single need to go spend the farm on but if they don’t feel like they’re buyers they have some short-term assets they can trade off and and take take advantage of the marketplace especially some of these pitchers they’ve got and get guys that might be able to help in the short term not not just not this year necessarily maybe but maybe next year and the year after that I think that’s a tack you’re going to see in this weird Market that we have this year um with there’s potentially a lot more buyers there’s potentially more Demand on hitters than there’ve been in recent years uh relievers are always going to be in high demand um but you could see some of these teams taking this different tack that’s more of a get ahe head start on the off season and I think I think the Cubs I think the Cubs would be wise to do that here’s the other thing we got the draft coming up on Sunday and and so it’s a month later than it traditionally has been these days yeah the there’s a rule change that just came into effect a few years ago you can trade draft picks you don’t have to wait a year to trade a guy you drafted out of your minor league system so you could you could identify and I mean this would be some serious three-dimensional chess but you could draft with the idea that who I’m drafting is going to be a value play in the market to try to help a team like the Cubs who have a high payroll don’t plan to rebuild try to win next year year but maybe they they pick a guy who who might have some value in a trade market and package it in terms of and I’m just looking up the draft order uh the Cubs last year got Matt Shaw at 13 he’s close they’ve got James triantos top five or seven Prospect in their system he’s close so is there somebody you would move off the team and go I’m a slide a prospect in there right now in a Lost season I’m going to get somebody ready with some experience so they don’t go to freaking slow and park next year not knowing what to expect about Big League pitching is there somebody you do that with I’m not sure there’s a guy out there that has the kind of contract that you would do that with right because the guys the guys that would come to mind to me are the guys on multi-year deals or the veterans on multi-year deals um the kind of guys you could do that with might be the kind of guys you want to give more playing time to or uh Hey man well it could be ni Horner it could be why would you do that why would you do that with NI hor because I got second baseman coming where you gonna put ni horn I’m trading him why that to me doesn’t make any sense I like I like niik hor on the contract he I like the kind of player he is I think he’s good for the mix as a winner and so I mean that’s me I mean I hear what you’re saying there is value there but there might be even more value to him on that team that that’s the that’s the Dilemma you face with all these guys they are in a corner man there’s no easy solution at the trade deadline for that team not even close they might be in the worst position All Things Considered going into the trade deadline of any team in baseball because because they could and or should be selling they don’t have clear-cut uh value to sell and if they go try to buy they’re probably going to overpay for as much as they need and it probably won’t get them there they’re they’re boxed in man and I don’t agree that they’re boxed in because they can outspend everybody they got 70 some million coming off the books and if you make an intelligent tro like we’re talking we’re we’re talk player Capital when we’re talking the trade deadline there’s no free agency out there I understand they have the ability to take a contract but that’s a that’s just one piece of the much larger puzzle other teams can do that too and you just you just quoted Cashman if you’re I mean if you happen to be in the same market for a player and it’s about taking on a contract who do you think’s going to be more aggressive the Yankees because that they’re the Yankees that’s what they do right so I’m say you’re you’re not in an enviable position and you might be in as bad a position as anybody in the game yeah I don’t know if I agree that you’re in that let me let me let me ask you this so should should should Jed sell should Jed sell and I’m putting that in the context of this season of of of understanding that you’re you’re probably not going to find the resource that’s maximized this season at this point should he sell and start looking to next year even if it’s a strategic sell uh I again we went through this last week with Michael sarami I don’t know exactly what you’re selling like jamus St tile’s throwing the [ __ ] out of the ball if I trade him with two more years left on the deal it’s I can afford the contract so I better get something really freaking good well so yeah okay so let me ask you this if you’re Jed and and you decide I think we generally agree here the smart move might be to try to make some good deals now that will put you in a much better position next year like you’re not rebuilding but like going into next year you’re in a much better position so if Jed takes that approach and he starts putting some guys on the block with the idea of playing toward next year is that an is that an indictment of the job he’s done and should he be held accountable by the ownership for that yes and yes and let me just say this look I like Jed very much I think he’s a really intelligent guy I think he is at times far too risk averse for my taste you know me you’ve known me a long time I’m much more ready shoot aim oh I shouldn’t but I think I’ll hit and I have more than I’ll miss I would call him in if I was his owner I would call him up Jed we’re having dinner tonight meet me here we’re going to dinner and Jed you’re paying because I’ve spent enough on garbage on this team already yes we’re gonna go get a good dinner and we’re gonna talk and we’re gonna have somewhere where we can be private we can be frank and I’m G say look you got a year left on your deal let me just start this meeting by telling you I’m gon to let you have the last year I’m not firing you wherever we finish at the end of the year but let me be clear I’ve given you a lot of money to spend and I have more I’m willing to spend more if a team has a chance to make a run you must succeed this off season where we’re contending next year or I will make a change you will get your year but I am done taking these baby steps and we’ve got these prospects we no it’s been five years next year yeah that’s a conversation you should have been had last winter correct I mean as fair I’m gonna give you your year I like you very much I think you’re a good person I like you in my organization I feel all that Stu but guess what if we don’t compete in 2025 I will make a change and that does not mean I’m promoting Carter Hawkins I’m gonna make a change so show me I believe in you show me why I should next year extend you and if you do what I’m asking you to I’ll take care of you but you I’m done baby steps here’s our model and in 26 and in 20 no I’m contending at 25 I I I like Jed personally I know you know this I think he’s a good guy and I’ve always had uh good dealings and relationship with him uh I think I think the time’s already there to evaluate I think I think we can fairly evaluate at this point uh I mean this is two years in a row where they’ve added uh expected to be good they were okay last year they took a step forward last year they’ve take taken a a really awful step backwards this year no doubt uh and and it doesn’t give give me any faith that that’s the right guy pulling the strings and making the decisions going into next year I I think he’s in a position right now where if he sells or buys his job could be on the line because it already I think he’s chasing what’s that other phrase I get all these phrases wrong chasing good money with bad chasing bad money with good you don’t throw good money after bad yeah there you go that which which is what buying might be at this point yeah again unless that buying is a longterm buy where well right so again it’s for next year but if you’re buying to try to win this year I think that’s a mistake I I think you’ll overpay and I don’t think I don’t think you can acquire enough that you might acquire enough that you sneak in in this crazy this crazy mediocre NL but there I forget what the diamond did last year I I I I don’t think you would have with I don’t think you’d acquire enough Bullpen I just don’t think that I don’t think there’s an Avenue to a series win in October no but we’ve seen the last two years the Phillies Wild Card sneak in get to the World Series the Diamondback sneak in you can’t even you can’t compare the Phillies because uh the Phillies have Superstars every that two years ago they were hady har they had Bryce Harper and Zack Wheeler then they did they fired Joe gerardi and the next thing you know they’re in the World Series yeah so uh Before I Let You Go the Cubs will pick number 14 this coming draft next week a lot of people projecting you’re gonna take cam Smith third baseman out of Florida State and they believe he’s a FastTrack guy very similar to Matt Shaw who they took last year so if he’s the guy that you take and again we’ll see what they do if he’s the guy that you take that certainly throws a wrench in the Chris Morell plans Matt Shaw they love if you’ve got this kid slated at slotted at third then Matt Shaw’s probably going to Second which means you might see niik horer on the move next winter that’s that’s a big risk to take man because you don’t know where that guy’s going to be or or or when he would be coming now he’s he’s a college guy so that projects a little better it’s a little it’s lower risk it’s classic right it’s classic risk averse type type of a pick but you don’t know when he’s coming you don’t know how long he’s going to be or what he’ll what he’ll be when he gets there uh we got a pretty good pretty good idea what Nico horer is um and and actually we’re starting to get a pretty good idea what what Shaw is so uh I don’t know I wouldn’t be I wouldn’t be sitting there I wouldn’t be making I wouldn’t be getting rid of guys because of who I think I’m going to be drafting in the middle of the first round it’s a good point you could draft him and then trade Nico next winter or TR one of the prospects or you could you trade the guy you drafted no question so I was just about to say to you uh all right Cubs and Orioles have complete their series Gordon and I are going to tape next week once the first half ends as we preview some of the draft picks that could be on the board at pick 14 do they go pitching do they go position do they go College do they go high school we will find out and by the way memo to Rob Manford and the Brain Trust at MLB the dumbest thing that you can’t trade draft picks I know you can trade the player every other league trades picks trade draft picks it would make it a lot more interesting and now the dumbest thing is that the draft is Allstar Weekend it should have just left it alone in June all these guys been sitting around since College season’s over the the team’s drafting hate it you should have just left it alone if you want to do a show do a show in June agree but you should be able to trade draft picks Gordon have a great day man all right you too man appreciate you by the way Otis the AL baby for and one here we go you just remember if they get red freaking hot that owl right there is GNA get credit I’m sorry who Otis the owl who named for the late great Tom Helman the Cubs Clubhouse man his nickname was Otis who who have a great have a great day all right all right for Gordon I’m capap that’s another edition of our Cubs recap podcast presentation of our recap YouTube channel and available Audio Only everywhere you get your favorite podcast for Gordon I’m cap take that

Kap and Gordon discuss the Cubs recent success. Is it for real? What should the do at the deadline? Is Otis the Owl really helping the Cubs? Who are they looking at in the upcoming MLB draft?

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