2015 Chicago Cubs Special

This year's Cup's Tina Scrappy. Is this the one that will finally put an end to the championship route? A sub-wrestle by Arnaud Paul. Cup, Cascova.

Paul, you feel this up for grabs. Just walk up. Please appeal. There's a crime to love!

In series. The field is ready to abrupt. On his three outs away from Sydney, the Cubs to the National League Championship series. If you feel like you can't sit still, you are not alone.

I wish all of you could be right here at this moment. And the O2. How great is that? Oh, this is wonderful.

Well, it might have been. This is Joe Kilgionon. And this is my very special dedication to the 2015 Chicago Cubs. What you just heard was highlights from the National League Division series.

Cubs Cardinals and Chicago Cubs victorious winning the best of five in four games before going on to losing, also in four games to the New York Mets. I'm going to recap the 2015 season. This podcast is normally comedians talking sports in which I have a comedian friend of mine or even an enemy. Which isn't the case, usually their buddies of mine.

Where we talk sports for about an hour. And since the year 2015 has come into a close, I figured why not dedicate this final podcast of the year. It's been a long time. It's a long hiatus.

I missed you. I miss you all very much. I hope you missed me too. And I'm back though.

And in 2016, we're going to be doing this regularly. Some things came up. But I'll talk about that later with you. I'll be going back to doing this once a week starting in January, which is a good time to bring a sports podcast back.

You got the NFL playoffs. You got some bowl games. Basketball in hockey gets exciting. That's when basketball in hockey, I really get into anything before Christmas.

It's just, eh, the teams are feeling each other out still. And then we'll have a countdown to spring training. But right now I really do want to recap the 2015 Chicago Cubs. It's been an amazing offseason season even.

It's last week they signed Jason Hayward to a mega deal, taken away one of the Cardinals best offensive players. The best all around player in the Cardinals. Matt Carpenter is probably their best offensive player. But Jason Hayward is a stud.

He defensively runs the base as well. He does all the little things. And only 26 years old, which is very young for free agent, which is why he was so heavily sought after. And he'll be the Cubs center fielder with Schwarbur on the left and Solaire on the right.

Schwarbur and Solaire were the playoff heroes, the two best offensive players, and both very young. That was what was so exciting to me about this. 2015 Chicago Cubs. How young they were.

Young and fun is easily how you describe them. I'm a little emotional right now, believe it or not. After playing that video, which I've watched once or twice a week since the season ended, I always get a little teary eyed. Something about that called pad hues.

Damn it, he's good. That's why I miss listening to Cubs Radio broadcast, now that I live in Los Angeles. I didn't miss a single Cubs game because I pay $24.99 a month for MLB.tv. Best money I spend.

Give the password to my friends for free because I'm cool like that. I'm a very good human being. Bet you didn't know that about me. And yeah, so I didn't miss a single game.

I watched every game because I could watch on my phone so even if I was out and about. Guess what? Joey still has Cubs bill. I still got to see.

I still got to see the rise of Jake Arietta. John Lester looking like an ace after a bad first month. I got to see Chris Bryan come up to the show, go over for three Ks in his first game, come right back out to the next end, go two for three with three walks. Resiliency.

That's where I started that young man. Your unanimous rookie of the year, Chris Bryan, 26 bombs, 99 RBIs, 855 OPS in his first full season. It was even a full season, had to wait eight games, but it was well worth the wait. I got to see Kyle Schwarber get called up for a week in just DH in which he looked amazing and you're thinking how could they send it back down?

They did anyway. And that's why I learned to trust Theo Epstein, the Cubs president, the GM, Jed Hoyer. He's got no what they're doing. That was the thing too about this whole season was that you started to see the bandwagon Cubs fans start to come back.

The ones that left after the last three seasons of just terrible baseball. And the reason I first of all, I'm obsessed. I'm always going to die hard. But the reason I stayed optimistic through it during the rebuild was because they were honest.

Theo, on day one, he said, look, this organization's disaster. You guys haven't won over 100 years for a reason. I'm going to walk into the office. You guys still are operating on Dell computers.

What are you doing? I got to change everything. So I used an algae to build a mansion. You got to start with the basement.

I think I'm not an architect. But I got to manage and you start at the ground level, which in the Cubs case was the farm system and the front office, those two things. They had to bring that organization, that franchise, into the 21st century. And who better than half Theo Epstein?

A guy who started in the San Diego Padres organization after he graduated from Yale with a degree in economics. And while he was working in the Padres front office, he decided to have him to mess around and go to law school at night and get my JD, but never take the bar. Just mainly doing that so that when agents try to rip me off, I can tell them where to go. Fun fact about Theo Epstein's grandfather co-wrote the movie Casablanca.

I know, crazy, right? So I stayed patient through this rebuild. There were times where it was very hard to watch the team. You know, when you had, who was that Nate Schurholz is your right fielder?

Who had a decent one half of the season? When you had some bad players on those teams where you're just like, there's no future with this guy. The Dale Swain years. But it was just a sad bunch to watch.

But you could tell I was paying attention more to double AAA during those seasons. And a lot of people will be like, oh, the rebuild. All that rebuild before. No, no they didn't.

I don't know why I gave those people such deep voices because that's really how they sounded my head. There's a difference. And this goes with all sports. There's a difference between rebuilding and just being bad.

For some reason, dumb sports fans think, oh, my team was bad. So they're rebuilding? No, your team's just bad. Like the 2006 Cubs lost 97 games.

Were they rebuilding that year? No, they just sucked. You don't rebuild when you trade three really good players from Wampiaire, which is what they did, and they signed Jack Jones to a three-year deal. That wasn't rebuilding.

Those were just bad moves. They thought they could be good that year. The 2012, 13, and 14 Cubs were legit rebuilds. Where they took the assets they had, they flipped them for more young players.

They signed pictures that they knew they could flip around like a pomohalam, like a Jason pomohalam, who we got back, like Scott Feldman. Scott Feldman traded my go-down in history. That almost makes up for that horrible Lou Brock trade back in the 60s. I don't know if that actually immediately hurt old men barking at my ear through old style and cigarette smoke.

You're out of your fucking mind, you know? That famous mortal tree. But the thing about that, we got Scott Feldman, flipped him for Jake Arietta, Pedro Strope. Pedro Strope was our setup man who had times made you want to pull your hair out, but overall was one of the better setup men in the National League.

It's a good picture overall. And then Jake Arietta, your Saoye young award winner. That's right, the 2015 Cubs brought home some awards. They did very well at the Oscars and the Grammys.

Ricky Lear-Brynd, Saoye young Arietta like I mentioned, manager there Joe Madden. Anthony Rizz was fourth in MVP voting. That's pretty solid too. He's a young man, turn 26 in August.

The core is exciting for this Cubs team. Yeah, there's some moments though in particular that I want to address, then I want to address the off-season and tell you what I'm very excited about going into the 2016 year. Dexter Fowler will be missed. But one of my turning points of this moment for me as a fan was when Fowler against his former team, the Colorado Rockies, hits a two-run bomb to give us a lead.

It was a comeback coming from behind win. And that was like our first come from behind win. And it was one of those games where I'm like, man, this team's in every game. This team could be in every game.

Because before the season started, my prediction for the Cubs, I thought they'd win 85-86 games compete for the wild card. Maybe they made the right trade at the deadline for like a veteran bat. I thought they would need like another bat, which they didn't get. Instead they called up Swarber, who's nickname, we're still floating around.

Some people are calling him Baby Bull. Some people are calling him Bam Bam. I think Bam Bam Bam is going to stick. He just looks like one of those badass dudes, you know?

He's not going to take shit from anybody. Like they haven't listed at six foot. I don't think he's that tall. I think he's more like a 5'10, just wide shoulders.

Do his all state linebacker in high school in Ohio. He's a badass. So that moment when Fowler hit that, I remember going, okay. Then it started a string where we had tons of come from behind wins.

I think they let all the baseball and walk off wins and come from behind wins, which you can't walk off on the road. You know that or you want to be listening to this podcast. I would hope so. So Fowler was big right there.

Then another turning point for me was, it's not so much like the moment itself wasn't like a six-game winning streak or something like that, which the Cubs had to share up. It spoke volumes to what kind of team this was going to be. Chris Bryan comes up and he's doing pretty well. He's driving in some runs, but it took him 80 some out of bats to get his first home run, which was, you know, for most rookies isn't that big a deal.

But for a guy like this who had the previous season in the minors, all professional baseball, 43 home runs and lead spring training in home runs, it was a little surprising. It was a little worrisome even. You're like pressing is trying to what's going on. He finally gets that first dinger up in Milwaukee against the Brewers, obviously, in Miller Stadium, Miller Park.

I can't talk. Fuck you. And I'm a little rusty. I haven't podcasted in a while.

And when he hit that bomb, what was cool about it is right when he's approaching first, you could see everyone in the Cubs dugout going, what do we do? Like we got to give him a hard time, some home getting in the silent stream and they all just go sprinting into the clubhouse. So when Brian steps home and goes into the dugout, the dugout is completely empty. Check the video out on YouTube.

It's pretty hilarious. You can even see him with the ground space. He goes running right into the clubhouse, probably give him shit, say that's for you guys, you know, whatever. I don't know if he went back there.

I don't know if he went back there. My feelings or if he was like, what's going on boys? Huh? We doing this?

We getting some high fives? We going to strip club later? What's going on? Okay, he's on the board.

Home run number one. He used to it. That moment right there, I'm like, all right, this is a fun team. Then they had like the tradition of every time someone got a big hit or any kind of hit or the helmet, the signal to the teammates, the rally bucket, you know, that was kind of fun when they put buckets over their head when they're trying to rally in the night.

This was just a team where I think it all starts with Joe Madden. That move was huge. That really was in him at his press conference. I'm talking playoffs this year.

I'm talking World Series this year and it seems going to believe it. Game at Joe. I believed it. That's right, Papa Joe.

I believed it. What a manager. Well, I mean, you'd heard the hype about how great I knew he was great. You heard about how awesome he was in Tampa.

You saw the results there, how he took this failing loser franchise and turned around to make him a power off in the AL East on a minimum budget, which is not easy. You know, young players coming up, feeling relaxed right away. We hired him like a week or two after we told Rick Rhett D'Ria, who was a 2014 manager, who actually had the last couple months of 2014 because we're looking good. I think they finished like 32 and 28 in August and September.

So they're thinking, yeah, why not give Rick Rhett D'Ria another shot? You know, we brought Solera up. You know, Bias came up, although he was striking out every other at bat. You know, let's get this guy into the world.

So they told Rick Rhett D'Ria, we're going to have you back. But then Joe Madden becomes available. Sorry, Ricky Boy. I do not fault the O and Jad for going.

When a guy like Joe Madden becomes available, you go for him. It's that simple. And I'm sure Rick Rhett D'Ria had some hurt feelings, but you know, can't feel too bad for you. You've got paid.

He comes paid you for not doing shit this past year. People remember that? Do you guys realize that? He was still on your contract.

So he got paid for just sitting at home. Don't feel too bad for him. It's always cracks me up in sports. There's always some story where a guy gets fired and they're like, who's the player's fault?

You know, and it's like, no, I don't feel bad for these guys. You don't like, look, yeah, it sucks to get fired, but not when they're making millions of dollars. And I have no problem when a team fires a coach for any reason. I think the average sports man will still do the whole wall.

Like, oh, cheers and plan. It doesn't matter. He's the leader. He's up top.

Buck stops with him. I would be totally OK with it. If like a front office was like, we hired him to win World Series. We didn't win World Series.

That's your buy. No, obviously it depends on circumstances. You know, but some team where they spent, you know, $200 million, like the Dodgers, they just fired down madingly. Some people might be like, well, they went to the playoffs.

I mean, he got them there. The players, you know, that point is like, no, he's gots to go. We spent a lot of money on this team on paper. We should have beat a lot of these teams.

We didn't. He's gone. That's how that works. But yeah, Joey Madden, I'm trading fun.

Last game in the West Coast, a new animal day. The competitors who left field, players got taken self as the cheetah. They hit where they were like different Hawaiian nights, where they all dressed as like Hawaiians for a road trip. The one road trip, the West Coast road trip because it was a late night flight they wore pajamas.

Everyone wore pajamas. There was a team picture of them all in different pajamas. It's hilarious. And that happened to be the night.

Jake area throws no hitter against the four mention Los Angeles Dodgers. I was lucky enough to be at that game. Had great seats. Thanks to my man Roy Wood Jr, the Daily Show's newest correspondent.

The star of the new Trevor Noah season. Check him out, Roy Wood Jr. his performance is my main studio. Go see him the best.

And he's killing on the Daily Show. He hits me up going, hey, Cubs Dodgers Sunday night. It's going to be ESPN tickets around me. I'm like, dude, you're too nice.

I'm going to buy you an extra large Pepsi, just because you're that cool. No problem. Is that what I got? I'm like, what am I?

I made money? All right, I'll get you a Dodger Dog, dude. But only if the Cubs score first. Because that's how my dad used to do when he took us to games when we were kids.

He'd be like, you don't get ice cream unless the Cubs score. And many times we didn't get ice cream. And it caused a lot of pain, some hunger, even. So we're there.

A few other comedians, Steve Byrne, big dude. Not a big dude, but I was going to say big buddy in mind, but that makes no sense. Great comedian. Felipe Sparsa, Sarah Tiena, Felipe's wife, lovely lady.

Can't remember her name. And there we are. Felipe's a Dodger fan. So we're having some fun back and forth.

I started to feel around the fifth inning. That slider was looking tight. That cutter was looking tight. Area was in command of all those pitches.

They weren't really getting good contact against them. I started to feel them, but you know who you don't want to say anything. But I also told myself, this is 2015 Chicago Cubs. Beginning of the year, I almost knocked on wood at a situation in which the announcer said something stupid.

And I'm really bad with superstition, especially with the Cubs. I always knock on wood. He's like, shut the fuck up. Stuff like that.

Stuff like that has to happen. I was very superstitious when he came to my Chicago Cubbies. I just freaked my dog out a little bit there, by the way. But this year, I said, no more of that.

Because none of that is real. Superstition, none of that's real. Cubs didn't lose because of a goat. They didn't lose because of a black cat.

They lost because they weren't good. So I'm like, no more knocking on one of them. That crap matters. I never liked it when people would say old Samo Cubs, whenever the Cubs would lose or blow it or something like that.

Say, no, it's not the Samo Cubs. These are the same jerseys. These are different human beings wearing them. The 69 team has nothing to do with the 2015 team.

As a matter of fact, the entire 2015 team was not alive when the 1619 played. So don't give me that shit. Be better than that. So right around the fifth inning, I got that no hitter.

I started feeling good. Cubs took an early lead, Chris Bryan hit a tumor. And Bomb comes up to nothing. They get a lot of offense going after that.

Seventh inning, most of them down. Eighth inning, most of them down. We go to the ninth. First batter, strikeout.

Feeling great. Everyone's buzzing. Even the Dodgers are standing up going, wow, this is something. And they just got no hit like two weeks before.

Second batter, Jimmy Rollins, leadoff hitter. Swings him into the pitch in the dirt. ESPN, Sunday night, baseball camera. Zoom, what is this?

Fine. Joseph, Matthew, Killgown. And Steve, William Byrne. I don't know.

No name. There we are. Cheering right there. I'm wearing my Samberg throwback, 1984 Cubs jersey.

I'm wearing my Cubs fated hat. I had a beard at the time because I was just being lazy. So I looked extra like red and mean. And I had a real intense look at my face.

And then they get the strikeout. Utley. Everyone's going nuts. We're having fireworks.

Cheering. I'm freaking out. I've never seen a hitter before. This is not a hit before.

I'm going to blast. I'm just getting tacked. I'm just getting tacked. I'm just blowing up.

And I'm like, damn. You're running ESPN. ESPN, you're on the camera for like four or five seconds. I was obviously, it was nuts.

Man, I'm like, I can't figure it out. I can't figure it out. I'm like, oh, it's going crazy. I'm like, holy shit.

People are texting me pictures because they took pictures of their TV with me on it. I'm like, oh, this is great. So I posted a picture on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, it's blowing up all that. I'm meeting in comments from people going, hey man, even when you're happy, you look pissed off.

I'm like, dude, I'm intense, man. I had that like, that's what kind of sports fun I am. Like, I'm cheering, but I'm very much like, fuck you. I do this.

You know, I'm like that kind of grind in my teeth sports man. And then one of those, yeah, I can't do that. Not that guy. So yeah, that was another highlight area.

September went in nice play off, got to play off more each game, more and more intense. And I noticed Joe Madden changed the managing where he would pull players earlier for defensive replacement. He had no problem pin shading with the moment was right. And that's the thing I love about this guy's manager because like, it's not always in the eighth or ninth inning games or one to last.

Sometimes they're one to last in the third or fourth inning. I don't know what time double header against the Reds. This was late July, I want to say. And he did Brian Adeok.

I was kind of doing for Adeok. But third inning comes down three, nothing after the first third inning. And then he's going back, it's three, one. We have second and third pitcher spot do up.

He's like screw that Brian, go back. Because this is the game right here. He gets a base at tied three, three, boom, third inning on. It's a new ball game.

That's how you win baseball. What do you do? Brian, Brian doubled right there. I think I think the father was coming after us.

He's going to be after us. He's going to be a fourth, three, 90% of that's how they went down. But damn, what a fun year. What a fun year.

I remember talking to Brian McGowan who was a comedian that interviewed last on this podcast, meeting his talking sports. And we were just talking about like, when or lose, this is just the start of something special. And almost makes me think of that scene in Happy Gilmore when he says it's shooting McGowan. Hey, shooter, the way I see this, we've only just begun.

And then they play some cool like late 90s music. I'm not really sure what song they got you going. That's the way I saw it this 2015 team. Like we've only just begun.

And the Cubs fans did, they were cool because I was actually that one game playoff that took place in Pittsburgh. I was happy it took place in Pittsburgh. A lot of Cubs fans were, damn it, we finished 97 wins, one game behind Pittsburgh. We just won one more.

I think we had the tiebreaker so we could have had that one game playoff and really how great would that have been. And I was like, no, I wanted it in Pittsburgh. I had flashbacks to the O8 playoff run where I remember it was against the Dodgers. We went down like four to two in one of the games and like game one.

And I remember just seeing like the like, it sucked out of that stadium because there's too many people who could afford tickets to Cubs playoff games who aren't real Cubs fans who immediately go into that mode of here we go again. And they've got that shit vibe and that shit energy that Joe Man is on such a great job keeping away from this team and really doing a good job of changing the culture. Because look, I know it's been 107 years, but you're not 107 years old. So it hasn't been 107 years for you.

It's been 30 years for me. You know, I don't have to, 31 actually had a birthday recently a few months ago. And so yeah, I don't and it wasn't really not even 31 years because I only started remembering watching them. I was like five.

It was 26 years of I had to deal with our world series. I know it sucks listening to other Cardinals and Sox fans, but just, you know, drop that negative bullshit. And I didn't want those fans fans who hadn't been paying attention to the Cubs being at an important playoff game like that because if they had been paying attention to the Cubs, they would know that this Cubs team are never out of a game. That was the 2015 Cubs could be done seven nothing in the first inning.

And I would still have confidence that they would make a comeback because that was the type of character this team had. So no, I didn't want them there. I wanted that game in Pittsburgh. I wanted that game on the road because I wanted them to go down one nothing and have every game, lose jerkoff fan that graduated from some big 10 school and it's living in some Lincoln Park apartment with his four idiot friends who took out his bonus money to buy the tickets, you know, you know, the type of same people who when they hit like 30, they go to settle down, they marry some skank at them at the bar, then they immediately move out to the suburbs because the city's to dangerous to raise children.

You know, those losers can't stay on those people. I didn't want any of them there. So here we are in Pittsburgh, Jake Arrieta versus Garrett Cole to the top pictures in the national league and Arrieta from the second half on hit the most, the best second half in baseball history. Just completely dominant 0.69 or 81211 record.

Like, are you kidding me? What are you doing Jake? Guys are free. Really a lot of people will be like, what was the difference between him and Baltimore versus what he became in Chicago?

Well, age, I mean, he's not 29 years old. We got him, he was 27. That's usually when the pitcher enters their prime. And in Baltimore, he never threw the cutter.

He learned in harness the cut fastball in Chicago. And our pitching coach is very good at turning pitchers around by simplifying their mechanics. You do those two things. That's huge.

That's big. That's big. Learning a brand new dominant pitch. His other pitches were already good in learning the new mechanics helped us control.

Yeah, he became a different pitcher. Since we got him in half way through 2013, he's been a freak. And he throws a complete game shut out. But what was really cool to me, how the game started, Fowler gets a base hit.

It steals second. Schwabur, who's got 22 years old, has such great play discipline, sees a pitch on the outside, doesn't try to do too much with it, just flares it down the line, goes with the pitch, lands fair, Fowler scores easy, boom, whomp, whomp, nothing. And you see Schwabur at first base all jacked up looking at the dug. Let's go, baby.

Come on. I actually like it when people bring that kind of intensity to baseball. Because baseball could be a game where people could get a little lazy. You know, a little like, oh, you know, they could get a little bit like nine year old playing right field thrown in the air, not really paying attention.

Kickin' dirt, that kind of thing. So his intensity was there. And then later in the game, he hits the ball into the Allegheny River, which by the way, yeah, it's a great job not having a camera on that fucking idiot. TBS was terrible for the playoffs.

Hey, they suck. Stick to reruns of Seinfeld, because you guys are killing it in that department. Love you for that as a network. Yeah, so Schwab, when he hit that ball too, he did a little bad flip, just kind of like get off me ball, just blasted it.

And apparently he called that shot. He told people he goes, I'm gonna hit one off a coal, because I guess it becomes a base coal like a couple weeks earlier and coal kind of dominated him. He's like, I know what he's got. I paid attention.

I know what he's bringing to the dance. He doesn't see my moves yet, though. He doesn't see all my moves. Fowler later hits a homerun, comes with four, nothing.

Everyone goes crazy. I actually spiked my friend sunglasses off the wall at the sports book at the Fomingo. Then he kicked me out, believe it or not. Nobody really went up to me and said, hey, you should calm down.

I guess I was just in such a crazy psycho mode that people were like, no, we should get that guy's space. He might open fire, which I didn't even go on any, so don't worry about that. And I would never. John Lacky, he was the Colonel's pitcher that shut us out.

I looked up Lacky's Plaf numbers. I remember right around that time when Dan was guy, I could plaf numbers. I remember thinking, this guy's like 36. He had a great year, too, at a 2.7 ERA.

He was their best starting pitcher. Overall, John Lacky. You know, we know it was heard later became a bullet pitcher. And what the Cubs do in the off season?

First signing, John Lacky. Two year, $32 million deal. Great deal for the Cubs. Only committed two years for him at this age is awesome because they're going for it in 2016.

And nothing indicates, you know, his velocity state of the same, everything seems like he should be the same pitcher. I mean, you can't expect a 2.7 ERA again. Just like you can't expect a 1.73 ERA. And you know, you're just going to be a little bit of a dropback.

But I still expect a lot of Luster and Lacky to be a hell of a top three. And in the process of weakening the Cardinals. Like I mentioned before, we took a word, took Lacky. It's great.

So the Cubs won that series best of four years. So emotional to beat the Cardinals, the hated, dreaded rival Cardinals who really has an organization kind of reminded me of the Red Wings and hockey where as a Chicago sports man, I hate them. I guess I could throw the Packers in this too. As a Chicago sports man, I hate them.

But damn it, they do things right. They always do things, but they always have a good farm system. They always spend money in the right places. They always have good management.

They play a certain style of baseball. Those two other Red Wings and hockey, Packers and football and the Cardinals and baseball. I think I'm really excited about that. I'm really excited about that.

I'm really excited about that. Those two other Red Wings and hockey, Packers and football and the Cardinals and baseball. I think I don't think there's going to be equivalent to those three. Where their teams as a Chicago sports man, it's in my DNA to hate those teams.

But damn it, do I respect them? You know? Being the most fantastic though, because you saw Jorge Solaire who had an injury play 2015 up and down. You know, if you reach for your look good, only hit 10 home runs.

We're all like 265, right field defense. It was weird because the early part of the season looked really strong in right field. And then just kind of looked at the bad routes and everything. And then I feel that even overall it was really shaky.

Kyle Shorber at times did look incredibly lost in left field. He's more than made up for it though. Guy had five home runs. Would have been the story of the playoffs offensively.

It wasn't for Daniel Murphy, the homophobic bigot from the Mets who made a deal with the devil. I'm pretty sure. The guy at 11 home runs there. He was like seven or eight in playoffs.

And that bullshit. You know? I can't stand the guy. There's always some Irish guy who makes me feel like, oh dude, I normally root for you because I like that.

But I can't root for you because you're a bad person. And you get that smug. You know what we look like? We look like.

We look like this actor's name. We always play this smug jerk with a toothpick in his mouth. The guy who made me to lead to end up trading to the White Sox alone. Because that team just, you have any guy in the White Sox jersey that's white.

And he looks like trash. Just had some empty socks. He looked like that dude. Look at the guy's name.

He's a catcher. But that's what Daniel Murphy looked like. Just this smug guy that when he got to the plate, you know, dug into the batter's box, crouched a little bit. And you're like, who's this jerk off?

Who's this Sally who hits seven or 11 home runs in the regular season? A guy who's a below average player. This thing about the playoffs, you know? Someone gets hot and all is another hero.

So that's what really killed us against the Mets though. That one guy. I mean, the first couple of games we lost four, one, four, two. So we really just hit her away.

And Arietta against the Mets had a real shaky start. And if anyone thinks that's he choked, you're out of your mind. He was going into his 250th inning, which before that his previous high was 180. I don't care who you are.

You can condition as much as you want. If you've never experienced it before, it's going to be different for you. This basketball one from EZ96 to a 91, 92. So yeah, that's not joking.

That's just wear and tear. That's just someone else. I hope that would monitor his innings early part of 2016, just keep him strong toward the end. You got conditions while not worried about injury with him.

But yeah. So that was the bummer there. It stuck loose in the Mets though. I was in a depression for a while.

I didn't leave my house. I didn't bathe that and feed myself. That's for sure. And it was rough, but there was a lot to take away from that.

Like I mentioned, Jorge Solaire, Kyle Schorber, Rizom Bryant, and his as well as you'd like to see in the playoffs, Castro, who I need to talk about now, who had a great August and September. Big turning point 15 again was moving out as a Russell shortstop. Long overdue, but again, that shows you what kind of manager Joe Manimas. Because a lot of teams would be like, I don't want to mess with the chemistry.

Stronger casters were still young. But like it's like, no, this guy is better than him. Russell is a better shortstop than Castro. That's put Russell there.

And he did it. And that was the big thing. Like we at the trade deadline, we had a Tommy Hunter, a bullpen pitcher who was not good for us. I think went four into the four ERA.

So it was like, all right, fine. You were better than our previous number five starter Wada, but still not like an impact move. But our impact moves really were moving Russell's shortstop and bringing up shore over full time. That was those were huge moves and big keys and missing Russell for the NLCS.

He got injured in that deciding game at Riggly against the Cardinals game four. That really hurt too because it shook up the defense. He got biased who was in AAA the whole season had dealt with a lot, you know, a sister dying in the year, he had an injury for going in and out who had been learning how to play second base while going back to shortstop, who looked very shaky there. You know, and so Brian probably was trying to, you know, overcompensate for that.

And you got everyone trying to fill in. And just one little piece. It's like an engine, one little fuck up. And it could really, you know, it could really change the whole dynamic of the defense.

And that's what happened. But Sterling Castro was traded to the New York Yankees for Adam Warren and, uh, Adam Warren, I said, right? And Brendan Ryan, Brendan Ryan, the guy that they might even caught. He's kind of like an defensive replacement guy, you know, can't hit for Dick.

And, uh, and sometimes we're mad about that. Like, I hope you're tricked, Kestros. Look, Kestros was like our eighth best player. We were going to have to move somebody and we were placing with Ben Zobras, who granted will be 35 when the season starts, but just came off winning the World Series with Kansas 0, which we hit a great year in the plastic of 20 hits, 10 of them for extra bases.

The guy is a winner. He played left field. He played right to the plate third base, first base, second base and still hits. We will and he's the type of bat that this offense needed.

The Cubs were two, a strikeout or home run type of hitters. They struck out way too much. Castro included. Now I know Kestros was only 25, three time Austin.

I'm glad we went to second base, but if he was started 2016, the way he started 2015, then we want to be able to get shit for him. So let's sell him high a little bit. Adam Warren is a guy who pitched great as a starter last year and in the bullpen. He had a 3.4 ERA combined between those two and 17 starts at the area in the low threes, which pitching in the A.L.E., which has a lot of great offenses.

I mean, that'll central is not a dominant division at all baseball, but I think this guy could be someone who knows, maybe if Jason Hamill pitches like Jason Hamill, the second half as opposed to the first half, he might get replaced by Adam Warren. I think it's a good move and a free up second base for Ben Zobrist. Adding him, this guy Zobrist walked more than he struck out. He barely strikes out.

He's got a very low strikeout, which was just what the Cubs needed. Add in Jason Hayward that mixed to lead off, I'm assuming. I like him as lead off because he also stole 23 bags. We added more contact and better defensive players.

We got better at every facet of the game going to 2016. It shows that we're going for it this year. Zobrist is a four year deal. They both took lots of money to go to us.

All three of the big three agents we signed. Trevor Kale, four, Kale who was great in the end of the year. All four took lots of money to come with the Cubs because they know there's something special going on here. I think our core is in place.

I think Zobrist will be good for three of those four years. Even that fourth year, he's a guy that will graciously go to be an bench player. Hayward could opt out after the three year mark of the four year mark, at which point we're going to have even more revenue coming in from a new TV deal. I have no doubt about what we signed if we need to keep him there.

If not, who knows, maybe someone else will open up, but I'd like to keep this young core together as long as possible. It's exciting times. Yes, darling was a fun player. I think he's going to do well in New York, but again, he was like our seventh or eighth best player, guys.

Can't get too sad about that. He was a guy that often hit into double plays. You know, he did that stupid swing that he started to fix with the end of the year where it's like, oh, let's go start on a breaking pitch on the outside corner. He'll then shoot his hips out for third base, reach out, even though the ball's foot outside, flick his wrist over trying to pull the ball, start going with it and go out and weakly into double play.

And he doesn't pay attention on the field. It's like a little league player earlier. This dude's fucking writing his name in the goddamn sand. Incursive, mind you.

Incursive. So yeah, I mean, it's said to seem like I said before, but this team is so much better on paper going into this year. You guys are going to love watching Ben Zobers play baseball. Got a very high baseball IQ.

Jason Hayward is just a defensive stud. He'll handle center field, no problem. Almost reminds me of Andre Dawson, who was a four-time goal-clover as a center fielder before he became a Hall of Famers or right fielder. And I think Swarber will be much better in left.

I know he looked atrocious out there at times. The guy's an athlete though. He may look a little stocky, but he's an athlete. He was a catcher the whole year until he didn't start playing left field until he was up in the pros.

So I think with a whole spring training, working in left field solely, they're going to throw him in the catcher every now and then as well. But I think we're fine with Monteiro and Ross. Ross is really just kind of like that leader. He's like that guy that tells you some more stories.

He's like that guy that every bar needs to be like, all right, you've had enough every now and then. That old grizzled guy that you're really like. He's like the uncle that doesn't tell race the story. He's like, we've got a couple good races.

He's like, hey, dude. He's like, no, that's cool. He's like, that's my black guy. But not the bad one.

I'm trying to paint David Ross in a good picture, but also let you know what kind of grizzled veteran he is. Well, again, baseball, I'm excited for the 2016 season. I know I got a lot of hockey to watch still and my fantasy football team is, you know, I need a nice night tonight, but I might be in the championship again for the third time in the last four years, which would definitely raise me to expert status. The Bulls are looking tricky.

Again, I don't just talk Chicago sports if you're listening to this for the first time. I talk national sports, but you know, it starts with my passions, my teams. The NBA season really starts after Christmas for me. Same with hockey, but yeah, hockey is a little exciting this year.

You think about Patrick came in the best player in the league. He went from almost being in jail to kind of MVP. So got a lot of sports stuff. So again, thank you for coming back to listening to Canadian talking sports.

I'm going to be bringing out a lot of cool comedian guests. I might even do podcasts like this, which is me rambling for 45 minutes. We'll see how it goes. I want to end with this.

This is something that really opened my eyes about what kind of year the Cubs had and how the culture around the Chicago Cubs is changing, not only in Chicago, but nationally. This is toward the end of October. I was talking with a couple of comedian friends of mine, one's adult and one's a Kansasan, one's a Kansasan, one's a Kansasan, and the Kansasan, obviously not been killing it, but at the time they were looking very mediocre. They were all talking about their football teams and stuff.

And then they looked at me and I'm like, yeah, I'm a Bears fan. And they both said, hey, man, at least you got the Cubs. And everything myself, that is going to be the first time anyone has ever said that to me. Hey, at least you've got the Cubs.

No Chicago sports man has ever been told that. I got to tell you, it feels pretty good.