Chicago Cubs News: Latest OOTP simulation suggests trade for Yoan Moncada?

Do you think you can run the Chicago Cubs in a more productive way than Tom Ricketts, Jed Hoyer, and David Ross? Do you remember when Twitch played Pokemon? If the answer to either of those questions was yes (or even if it wasn’t) this is going to be a fun new weekly edition to Cubbies Crib.

Out of the Park Baseball 24 is a PC game that offers the most realistic simulation baseball experience on the market. That is going to be the medium through which we will control our alternate-universe Chicago Cubs team and lead them to the playoffs and hopefully beyond. 

Chicago Cubs (Real World)

Real Team Week Record: 3-5

Real Team Overall Record: 28-37

Real Team Out of First Place: 6.5

Real Team Out of Last Place: 2.0

Chicago Cubs (OOTP World)

OOTP Team Week Record: 3-5

OOTP Team Overall Record: 28-37

OOTP Team Out of First Place: 6.5

OOTP Team Out of Last Place: 0.5

We received some interesting offers for the players that you all chose to either DFA or put on the block that I think can make the team better now and into the future, but it’s up to you which moves we make.

Here's a link to a Google Drive that contains screenshots of the recaps of the games we played as well as stat breakdowns for our pitchers and hitters for last week.

The top of the order is struggling. The 1-3 of Nico Hoerner, Dansby Swanson, and Ian Happ went a combined 15-for-79 which is good for a combined .190 batting average. 

Christopher Morel has played some DH, some 3B, and some CF. While two of his hits were for extra bases and one was a homer, he only had a total of four hits on the week and batted .167/.200/.333.

Patrick Wisdom was cold and got a couple of days off, but is turning it around with a .538 slugging percentage for the week. 

Matt Mervis was incredibly bad this week. He racked up a -0.6 WAR for the week by batting .120/.154/.120 with a .274 OPS and nine strikeouts against just one walk and three singles in 25 at-bats. 

Mike Tauchman, Seiya Suzuki, and Trey Mancini were all exceptional this week. It may be worth it to look at moving them up in the order (even with Cody Bellinger eligible to return this week). 

The pitching was pretty solid aside from a couple of rough performances. Michael Fulmer pitched twice and only gave up one hit and no runs. Aside from a blow-up by Adbert Alzolay and Julian Merryweather, everyone was pretty great this week. 

This week the questions center primarily around:

• How do we handle the bats that were ineffective last week? 
• We received some very interesting trade offers, do we make a move yet?
• We’re now six and a half games out of first place and less than half a game out of last place. Should we be buyers or sellers right now?
• There are a ton of trade partners out there, which teams should we prioritize a deal with?
• We’ve got a fair amount of players eligible to return from the IL, what moves should be made?
• Are there any more players that should hit the block considering the returns that were offered for the three castoffs from last week?

Goals for the season provided by Ricketts:

• Don’t suck completely this season (win 73 or more games)
• Build a top 6 minor league system (currently: 25th)
• Improve Team Chemistry this season (currently: content)
• Improve your record in close games this season 
• Improve your international amateur finds
• Reach the playoffs in one of the next three seasons

Here’s the link to this week’s batch of questions, let’s do this!

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