It’s early August, which means it’s football season eve, and while we could dig more into the Regents of the University of California and how they’re handling realignment, we’d probably end up rehashing too many similar topics. Something we haven’t hashed? What this season means for Iowa State.
We live in a golden era of Cyclone football, one in which they enter this season having posted five straight winning records, something the program hadn’t previously managed since the 1920’s. Matt Campbell, arguably the greatest coach in Iowa State history, remains at the helm. The Big 12’s lone power is in a state of transition.
Still, existential anxiety persists. There’s the circumstantial variety, which always swirls for Iowa State when conference realignment is active. But there’s the internal sort as well. Will Campbell continue to stay in Ames? For how long? Has the program already peaked?
This year is likely no less defining than any other in Campbell’s tenure, but it’s widely uncertain. The roster is undergoing more turnover than virtually any other in the nation, and seven of the other nine Big 12 schools all sit in the same four-to-eight-win territory, in terms of their roster’s quality on paper, as Iowa State. What does this mean? Iowa State could be the same quality team and win four games or win eight games, depending on factors largely outside its own control. Some of the big questions for Iowa State are originally the big questions for their conference rivals, like Texas and Texas Tech.
Wins and losses, though, are a lot of what matters. The winning-record streak is meaningful. Making bowl games is meaningful. Finding your way into or around the top 25 is meaningful. There are circular elements to being a good college football program, recruiting chief among them. Win games, and it’s easier to get the talent that will help you win even more games. Win games, and it’s easier to generate the donations that will help you hire future coaches and coax future recruits, again winning even more games down the line.
It’s a rebuilding year, then, yes, but even in that, there’s room for disappointment. Fail to make a bowl game? That’s a disappointing season. Lose to one of the three “bad” opponents—SEMO, Ohio, and Kansas? That’s a disappointment, and could constitute a disappointing season if nothing good-enough offsets it.
There’s also room, though, for upside. Beat Iowa or Oklahoma? That could make a season by itself. Win eight games? Now we’re cooking for next year. Sneak into the Big 12 Championship, because somebody has to be the second team? Fireworks.
The line is probably at bowl eligibility this year, provided there isn’t too long a losing streak at any point or a loss in one of those three real must-win games. It would be an added benefit, too, if Hunter Dekkers had a smooth, strong year under center. You don’t necessarily need a great quarterback to win in the college game—it’s not as QB-dependent as the NFL. But it helps to have a compelling face of the program for all those circular reasons we addressed earlier, and Dekkers, if competent, will be that face. Also, if you want to win a lot in the college game, you do need a pretty darn good quarterback. And the benefit of this stage in the rebuilding/competitive cycle is that the upside remains high. Last year, we knew where the ceiling was for last year. We’re less confident right now in where the ceiling is for 2024. If Dekkers is good, it could be quite high.
Back to baseball:
What Was the National League Doing Yesterday?
If I’m the Padres, and to an extent the Dodgers and Phillies, I’m looking around today as confused as a grandmaster whose opponent just left their queen exposed. Atlanta tried the lottery-ticket system again after hitting on every play they made last year. Milwaukee upgraded, on the net, but dispatched with the player arguably capable of impacting a playoff game more than any other guy in baseball (Hader’s led the league in WPA before, guys). The Cardinals got better, but they traded a valuable center fielder to do it, and the Mets got better…maybe? I’m not sure they did. I’m not sure Darin Ruf is going to be better over the rest of this year than J.D. Davis would have been.
Where this leaves us, in the NL, is that the Padres really are darn near the best team on paper in all of baseball, according to FanGraphs (which admittedly surprised me). Atlanta is right there with them, and the Dodgers and Mets, in order, aren’t far behind before you get to the American League teams. Three of those four best teams in baseball will be on the same side of the NL side of the bracket come October, with one of them facing another in a best-of-three Wild Card Series played entirely on the road. At the moment, it appears likeliest this road team will be the Padres, and that they’ll be hosted by Atlanta, and that the winner will be playing Los Angeles in nearly a full reversal of the order of strength we just laid out.
The Mets did get Jacob deGrom back last night, and the Cardinals got Yadier Molina back, and both of those upgrades are significant within the context of each team (even if Molina’s bat may really be done). They don’t replace trade deadline action, though.
The Cubs: I’m Mad Too, But Not at Them
Everyone seems to be mad at the Cubs now for not trading Willson Contreras, and/or for not extending him this offseason. It seems fans and writers would rather the Cubs accept less value than they think a player is worth or sign that player for more than they think he’s worth than, well, try to win baseball games. I can empathize with this. I also want those I care about most to shoot themselves in the feet.
Make no mistake, the Cubs have been shitheads to Willson Contreras. It’s hard to know the threshold which must be met to constitute “contract extension talks,” but whatever that is, they haven’t met it since 2017. They nearly forced him to the arbitration table this spring.
But now, they’re proving themselves correct on a few different fronts. The market appears unlikely to give Contreras the contract offer he would have required to sign this offseason, judging by its unwillingness to trade him for any prospects the Cubs viewed as valuable enough to justify a trade. His price, then, is lower, and with the qualifying offer piece of this, his cost to the Cubs will be lower than it would be to any other team signing him, something that pairs well with his own perceived desire to stay a Cub, something that—if real—would lead him to take at least some level of discount relative to the market rate. Just as they did with Kris Bryant, and with Anthony Rizzo, and with Javier Báez, the Cubs seem to be reading Contreras’s market well.
The argument goes that because the Cubs haven’t been trying to extend Willson Contreras, they won’t. This is wrong. They’re at least going to try. Everybody has their price at which they’d sign Willson Contreras. Willson Contreras has his price at which he’d sign anywhere. The Cubs don’t have good alternatives at catcher for next season—Yan Gomes is a good fit in a platoon (possibly with another catcher who often DH’s), P.J. Higgins has great offensive results and terrible offensive contact numbers in his first smattering of MLB plate appearances (at the age of 29, just one year younger than Contreras), and Miguel Amaya is an uncertain prospect (redundant, I know) still on the mend from Tommy John surgery. Gomes’s platoon-mate is either Contreras, Higgins, or someone like Christian Vázquez. If the Cubs think they can get the most value per dollar out of Contreras in that role (with the added benefit of him being a more than capable DH and potentially a capable first base option at times), they’ll sign him. There’s no universe in which they aren’t trying to extend him except for the universe in which they agreed to trade him yesterday for a disappointing return. They would have done that and accepted the upgrade from the compensatory draft pick had they no plans of trying to extend him. They didn’t do it. They’re going to at least offer an extension, probably at some point this winter, possibly so late that fans are mad again because the Cubs are driving a player to a deadline and refusing to overpay for him.
Another piece incentivizing re-signing Willson Contreras is the retention of Ian Happ. The Cubs couldn’t get what they felt was a worthy return for Ian Happ, and now, pre-free agency and any offseason trades, their 2023 roster is two or three wins better than it would have been had Happ been dealt. Those two or three wins are a lot. They cut the gap between the Cubs and a playoff berth (on paper) by about a quarter. It’s undetermined how desperately the Cubs will try to field a playoff contender in 2023, but having Happ on board makes it less expensive to try, and conversely more expensive to not try. Having a better short-term catcher becomes more of an urgent benefit. Willson Contreras is expected to be a good short-term catcher.
One of the worst parts of all this idiocy is that it partially ruined a couple great moments last night. Willson Contreras tripled. Ian Happ robbed a home run. The Cubs lost 6-0 to the Cardinals, but the first steps towards competing in 2023 with those same Cardinals, and with the Brewers and maybe Pirates, were taken. Nobody seems to want to believe that.
R.I.P. Vin Scully
Finally, our laments on the passing of Vin Scully, who lived a wonderful, long life and still leaves us sad. There are many better-equipped to pay him tribute than we are, so we’ll leave it at this, but what a gift he was to the lives of so many.
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Viewing schedule for the day, second screen rotation in italics:
- 12:10 PM EDT: Toronto @ Tampa Bay, Kikuchi vs. Beeks (MLB TV)
- 12:20 PM EDT: Philadelphia @ Atlanta, Wheeler vs. Morton (MLB TV/ESPN+)
- 1:05 PM EDT: Seattle @ New York (AL), Castillo vs. Cole (MLB TV)
- 1:10 PM EDT: Arizona @ Cleveland, Henry vs. Bieber (MLB TV)
- 1:10 PM EDT: Detroit @ Minnesota, Alexander vs. Ryan (MLB TV)
- 2:05 PM EDT: Baltimore @ Texas, Bradish vs. Pérez (MLB TV)
- 2:10 PM EDT: Boston @ Houston, Hill vs. Urquidy (MLB TV)
- 2:10 PM EDT: Kansas City @ Chicago (AL), Singer vs. Lynn (MLB TV)
- 4:05 PM EDT: New York (NL) @ Washington, Bassitt vs. Sánchez (MLB TV)
- 6:40 PM EDT: Cincinnati @ Miami, Minor vs. Alcantara (MLB TV)
- 7:05 PM EDT: Milwaukee @ Pittsburgh, Peralta vs. Beede (MLB TV)
- 7:45 PM EDT: Cubs @ St. Louis, Steele vs. Mikolas (MLB TV)
- 9:38 PM EDT: Oakland @ Anaheim, Kaprielian vs. Ohtani (MLB TV)
- 9:40 PM EDT: Colorado @ San Diego, Kuhl vs. Snell (MLB TV)
- 9:45 PM EDT: Los Angeles @ San Francisco, Urías vs. Cobb (MLB TV)
Not a single game today that doesn’t include a playoff contender or a Cy Young contender or have an MVP contender on the mound.
