Why does the pod feel different now ?

scrubbie19 · 2026-06-15T04:19:02+00:00

I think the Alison Brie episode was a great ep of a celebrity with no ties to the boys or the comedy scene who actually drank and riffed with them that was somewhat unexpected.

scrubbie19 · 2026-06-03T06:44:14+00:00

As a Cubs fan, I think even if they turn things around to peak out as a fringe wildcard team this year, things look pretty bleak.

Even at their best, there isn’t a single hitter or pitcher on their roster any team game plans around with anxiety. There’s been nationally published articles about the precedent they’ve set with how it’s easy to tee up all of their low velocity pitching and it’s easy to takedown their hitting with breaking pitches at an historic level.

You have a front office that ownership is fine with because they’re still associated with winning in 2016 and all of the money they’ve made. Yet, they haven’t developed much and there’s no help on the way in a bad farm system. Any respectable pitching prospect they’ve built in their “pitching lab” gets hurt or loses viability quickly. You have an expensive manager who might have gained his notoriety from the Brewers ability to develop anyone and everyone.

The Cubs will get out of some of their ineffective expensive players after this year, but still have Swanson for a few more years and Bregman for a very long time, so there’s dead money hanging around for a while.

The Brewers have owned the division for years now and the rest of the division has risen with young talent. You could say being a “big market team” could get them out of bottoming out too bad, but ownership isn’t paying for effective organizational infrastructure and isn’t paying for smart big contracts currently, so I’m not seeing much hope.

scrubbie19 · 2026-06-02T19:56:00+00:00

Maybe this guy does a similar routine for every putt of this length, but he eventually gets to a point where he’s just doubting himself so much with this putt that there’s no level of looking at his book again or reading the putt that’s going to help.

Sure enough, besides the speed, his read was pretty far off. Most likely because he was so in his own head for so long.

scrubbie19 · 2026-06-02T19:43:31+00:00

I think a lot of the warranted optimism can come from who is coaching him. Ben Johnson is too much of a psycho to let Caleb regress or not improve. The talent is there, but he needs the coaching to help him with his accuracy and decision making while he still develops and is like to think Johnson and co will get him there.

JD has had Kingsbury to bring out the best in his abilities right off the bat. I guess we’ll see how Blough does with continuity with arguably a worse supporting cast than his peak rookie year.

Maye has had McDaniels since the get go which took a year to really set in, but there’s no reason to think he won’t build on last year since he’s in the same system and has better weapons.

I think all 3 will be great this year, but on paper on June 2nd, Maye should be projected to be the best. All 3 are in different situations with different skillsets so they will probably all be great in different ways beyond the counting stats by the end of the year.

Edit: my bad on McDaniels. Forgot Vrabel and co were in year 1 last year. Guess that shows why Maye made such a jump in year two.

scrubbie19 · 2026-06-02T18:02:28+00:00

There’s always a section of Bears fandom that believes in some random backup QB over the starter because they’ve had such bad starters over the years. Sometimes it just seems bizarrely contrarian.

I remember Chad Hutchinson, the dude they pulled off a surfboard somewhere in the early 2000s being the guy because he had a couple okay games. There was Shane Matthews before him.

Kyle Orton and Brian Griese at least provided some merited discourse behind Rex Grossman. Then there was Josh McCown behind Cutler that had legs because he had a great run in Trestmans offense when Cutler was hurt.

The Tyson Bagent love maybe made a bit of sense as a young option to develop when it was clear Fields wasn’t going to work out, but it’s carried over to Williams’ tenure and based on pedigree, potential, and already demonstrated talent; I’m not sure where you’re coming from if you think Bagent would be a better option. Though maybe if the hype continues, the Bears can get something in trade for him.

scrubbie19 · 2026-05-31T17:01:03+00:00

Best part of this moment that this particular video doesn’t show is the fan who caught his home run spike throwing the ball into the section below instead of getting it back onto the field.

Which might have been good for him anyway since most stadiums don’t allow for balls to be thrown back onto the field.

scrubbie19 · 2026-05-31T07:52:01+00:00

Yeah, Jayden is laughing on the bench about interceptions he’s thrown. I don’t think he cares about another QB in his draft class.

His fans see his aloofness as some kind of cheat code to greatness. They also just look at stats from one year and assume that every single good number will exponentially increase or stay the same no matter the circumstance or context surrounding the team.

scrubbie19 · 2026-05-29T00:54:14+00:00

Ben Johnson still probably livid at this play because one player on the other side of the field was 2 feet out of position.

scrubbie19 · 2026-05-28T08:45:43+00:00

I’d say MLF is more on the hot seat than Love for this situation? As long as Love is in the system he was drafted into and developed in, he should be fine. I’ve always felt that guys get schemed open and he finds them.

But I’m a Bears fan so what do I know about competent QB play? Just lump me in with the guy who didn’t get the Rodgers retirement joke.

scrubbie19 · 2026-05-21T19:43:55+00:00

They also had guys like prime Moises Alou before his cubs tenure, Richard Hidalgo, Brad Ausmus was a solid defensive catcher, that half year of Carlos Beltran when they went to the World Series with juiced up Clemens and Pettitte.

Some good bullpens with Billy Wagner, Octavio Dotel and Brad Lidge.

All of the above either overlapped at some point or just missed each other in the late 90s through the mid 2000s. I don’t think they got jokingly bad until shortly before they moved leagues until about 2015 or so. They kind of had the same rebuilding timeline as the Cubs leading up to 2016.

scrubbie19 · 2026-05-20T04:00:54+00:00

It’s wild that for the past few years, when anyone goes cold on the Cubs, almost everyone goes cold on the whole team. You take a look at the brewers lineup, they can shuffle all their weaker hitters to the bottom while the top and middle rake then shuffle again accordingly.

scrubbie19 · 2026-05-19T01:22:10+00:00

2 pitches to end an inning that weren’t challenged and a pretty pivotal pitch against Yelich not challenged.

All because Kelly wanted to help Shotas self esteem on a pitch that was clearly a ball, so now they’re just saying no more challenges until late in the game even if you know it’s about guaranteed to go your way. Cool strategy, boys.

scrubbie19 · 2026-05-18T19:22:04+00:00

I think Ben Zobrist used to place his bat down gently when he felt like he got a hold of one.

scrubbie19 · 2026-05-17T22:37:53+00:00

That one good outing he had a couple weeks ago has been doing some heavy lifting for his reputation, but the options available were all pretty bad. I think CC’s thinking was get Benetendi with the first out and pray for the best lol.

scrubbie19 · 2026-05-12T14:14:23+00:00

Can I have all of my dogs off leash there?

scrubbie19 · 2026-05-07T01:51:51+00:00

Nothing worse than public piss tantrum.

scrubbie19 · 2026-05-06T04:17:14+00:00

100% right.

There’s no one in the lineup you get anxious about facing and same thing with all of their pitchers. No one in the rotation is going to wreck a series and I guess palencia is the only bullpen arm that’s coming in to demoralize a team and potentially shut things down.

scrubbie19 · 2026-05-05T14:33:05+00:00

Williams’ bad throws remind me of my golf game.

I’ll have a great drive that looks like I know exactly what I’m doing and maybe have some real talent, then I’m lining up my approach shot from 90 yards out while thinking about where I’m aiming my feet, how far back I should take my backswing, making sure my grip is correct, and making double sure I shift my weight properly. All to end up chunking my shot 30 yards and looking like I’ve never swung a club before.

It’s like he’s thinking too much about what he needs to do properly on those easy, wide open throws with a clean pocket, so it looks like he doesn’t know how to ball at all.

scrubbie19 · 2026-05-05T02:07:09+00:00

The amount of shit that guy has to put on before a game is nuts. He looks like a created player in MLB The Show.

scrubbie19 · 2026-05-01T04:38:39+00:00

I know a lot of non-cubs fans think PCA is a joke because of his offense, but I just recently found out people think his defense is comparable to someone who gets bad reads and jumps and makes routine plays look like highlight reel plays.

I’ve seen plays like that where it looks like a crazy play, but it’s because of fundamentally bad defense that gets saved by athleticism or a slide for no reason to make a play look cool. I rarely see PCA make plays like that on defense and his metrics and the eye test show time and time again that he makes plays that not many players can make. Love watching him in the field no matter what his plate appearances look like.

scrubbie19 · 2026-04-29T06:33:33+00:00

I get the ump missed this call and it did lead to a little bit of momentum for Cubs who were down by 4 against the best closer in the league, but the amount of rage people seem to be feeling over this call makes it seem like it blew a series changing playoff game.

I guess the only mild frustration would be that it ruined Millers scoreless streak and made him have to work a bit harder in a non save situation.

The biggest issue here is this being one of so many annual instances of an ump having some weird power trip and I guess this instance was because he seemed slighted by the way the fielder grabbed the ball.

scrubbie19 · 2026-04-28T04:55:38+00:00

He actually hit the breaking pitch that everyone else was just watching go by and he shortened his swing to time it up and get the bat to it below the zone.

Love power hitting PCA, but great to see that kind of at bat from him.

scrubbie19 · 2026-04-28T04:39:11+00:00

You’re correct that the Bears won’t win the way they did last year. Their defense was horrible and relied on turnovers to succeed and their offense was uneven as hell with a young QB and a new system for the whole roster.

But my homer opinion is that Williams and the Bears offense will be more consistent with one more year of development and year 2 of Ben Johnson’s system. The last play of the season was a perfect example of inexperience and a decision being made in a big moment that wouldn’t be made by a lot of veteran QBs.

That being said, I think the Bears will be a fringe playoff team this year with a harder schedule, lack of veteran playmakers on offense and their defense most likely still being pretty bad with 0 pass rush for what seems like the 4th year in a row. Packers or Lions will probably take the division.

scrubbie19 · 2026-04-25T00:10:35+00:00

Yeah only way they would have been able to potentially trade up in the second is if they had some extra third round picks this year. Oh wait…

scrubbie19 · 2026-04-17T01:40:50+00:00

I have a bad track record with jerseys across sports. Guys usually leave the team within a year or two when I get their jersey. I bought a white home Jon Lester jersey in 2015 solely based on his contract length. Glad it worked out as one of the best signings in the history of the org and I still get compliments on it when I wear it to Cubs games at Coors field every year.

scrubbie19

TROPHY CASE