General Baseball Chit-Chat Thread

[Tryptamine]

This Tyler Fitzgerald thing has me baffled. The guy had 34 major league at bats going into this season, his age 26 season. He's less than a month from 27. FG had him as the Giant's #26 prospect a 35+FV guy. Since coming up this year, he has torched the league. Through 217 PAs he's sporting a ,312/.364/.604 slash good for a 166 wRC+. Oh yeah, he's also playing plus defense at 3B and he's also been a valuable on the bases stealing 14 bags on 17 attempts. He's already at 3.3 fWAR and over the course of a full season he's currently playing at around 10 fWAR pace. 

[Ding Dong Johnson]

53 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

This Tyler Fitzgerald thing has me baffled. The guy had 34 major league at bats going into this season, his age 26 season. He's less than a month from 27. FG had him as the Giant's #26 prospect a 35+FV guy. Since coming up this year, he has torched the league. Through 217 PAs he's sporting a ,312/.364/.604 slash good for a 166 wRC+. Oh yeah, he's also playing plus defense at 3B and he's also been a valuable on the bases stealing 14 bags on 17 attempts. He's already at 3.3 fWAR and over the course of a full season he's currently playing at around 10 fWAR pace. 

A modern day Frank Schwindel

[We Got The Whole 9]

2 hours ago, Tryptamine said:

This Tyler Fitzgerald thing has me baffled. The guy had 34 major league at bats going into this season, his age 26 season. He's less than a month from 27. FG had him as the Giant's #26 prospect a 35+FV guy. Since coming up this year, he has torched the league. Through 217 PAs he's sporting a ,312/.364/.604 slash good for a 166 wRC+. Oh yeah, he's also playing plus defense at 3B and he's also been a valuable on the bases stealing 14 bags on 17 attempts. He's already at 3.3 fWAR and over the course of a full season he's currently playing at around 10 fWAR pace. 

They did it with Yaz and Wade too. They're pretty good at producing these guys. Wasn't Bailey a non-prospect also?

[We Got The Whole 9]

I legit think if Judge stays healthy he will post 7-8 career 50 Hr seasons. He almost has a 1.2 OPS and 400 ISO this year, with an outside shot of a 400 BABIP. A player has never accomplished both in one season. Ruth did both but never in the same season. The year he posted a 423 BABIP he had a 372 ISO. He's the only one to accomplish both in a career. Unfuckingreal how good Judge is. To do this in this era is absolutely nuts. Of course he had to pop-up for the Yankees, of all organizations. 

Edited August 22, 2024 by We Got The Whole 9

[17 Seconds]

his ops is about 50% higher than the best cub

[sweetpeteman]

Dodgers DFA Heyward

[We Got The Whole 9]

Kopech has faced 30 batters with the Dodgers and allowed 1 walk and 1 hit. 

 

That horsefeathers organization, man... I bet he's in their rotation next year pushing for a CY lol

Edited August 23, 2024 by We Got The Whole 9

[NorthsideAvenger]

37 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Kopech has faced 30 batters with the Dodgers and allowed 1 walk and 1 hit. 

 

That horsefeathers organization, man... I bet he's in their rotation next year pushing for a CY lol

Idk if it's the Dodgers brilliance or the WS incompetence or both.

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

 

[We Got The Whole 9]

It's kind of surprising no staff ever decoded that

[Cubfanintheknow]

He keeps getting better with age.

[We Got The Whole 9]

Judge 1.192 

[soccer10k]

Ohtani just hit a walk off grand slam for his 40th HR. He stole his 40th base earlier in the game too.

I think we're officially on 50-50 watch.

[We Got The Whole 9]

Insane. The dude is pretty much perfect. Every tool is completely maxed out. 

[soccer10k]

Can we get him to play the OF for one year? I assume we'd get a ridiculous defensive play every week in the outfield combined with him throwing out like 37 runners on the bases. I mean, he's good at literally everything else in baseball so I'm sure he'd be a gold glover at whatever defensive position he played.

[soccer10k]

I have no idea when the last time something like this happened. We've got about 30 games left and there are 10 teams within 4.5 games of each other for the best record.

[We Got The Whole 9]

50 for Judge. 1.196. 

 

Just sick.

[We Got The Whole 9]

And Soto and Judge go back to back for like the 7th time this year 

 

1.204 now

[We Got The Whole 9]

Since May 1, Judge is hitting 376/506/845, 45 Hr in 436 PA. 580 wOBA in the 2nd half so far.

Edited August 26, 2024 by We Got The Whole 9

[soccer10k]

He’s at 9.5 WAR right now. That’s wild.

Also, poor Bobby Witt, who might put up a 10 WAR season and won’t get a first place MVP vote.

[Tryptamine]

This year in general has been crazy for the fWAR numbers people are putting out. In 2023 you had Acuna at 9.0, Freeman at 7.8 and Betts at 7.6. Everyone else was sub 6.5. This year with about 30 games left we have 

Judge 9.6

Witt 9.0

Soto 7.8

Henderson 6.7

Lindor 6.5

Otani 6.3

Duran 6.0

We might see 2 guys break 10.0 fWAR, 3 over 8 fWAR* and 7 over 7.0 fWAR. 

 

On a sad note

Ian Happ is the highest on the Cubs at 2.8 fWAR which is 59th. There's a very real chance the Cubs might not have a single 3 fWAR offensive player in 2024 which kind of blows my mind. 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

16 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

On a sad note

Ian Happ is the highest on the Cubs at 2.8 fWAR which is 59th. There's a very real chance the Cubs might not have a single 3 fWAR offensive player in 2024 which kind of blows my mind. 

There is 20% of the season left, there is basically no chance they don't get anyone to 3 fWAR?  At full season paces they're on track to have four: Happ very easily, Swanson semi-easily, Seiya and Paredes barely, Busch/Hoerner barely missing

[UMFan83]

12 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

This year in general has been crazy for the fWAR numbers people are putting out. In 2023 you had Acuna at 9.0, Freeman at 7.8 and Betts at 7.6. Everyone else was sub 6.5. This year with about 30 games left we have 

Judge 9.6

Witt 9.0

Soto 7.8

Henderson 6.7

Lindor 6.5

Otani 6.3

Duran 6.0

We might see 2 guys break 10.0 fWAR, 3 over 8 fWAR* and 7 over 7.0 fWAR. 

 

On a sad note

Ian Happ is the highest on the Cubs at 2.8 fWAR which is 59th. There's a very real chance the Cubs might not have a single 3 fWAR offensive player in 2024 which kind of blows my mind. 

Sad, but also not surprising.  It was pretty glaring that coming into the season we had a collection of good players but no great players and while we have a great collection of talent in the minors we also lacked that surefire elite prospect.  Jed should be well aware of this talent gap issue.

That said, 3.0 fWAR is a glaringly low especially when the Cubs had 4 returning players with fWARs over 4.4 in 2023 (Swanson, Steele, Nico, Bellinger).

[squally1313]

Projected fWAR end of season totals (using FGDC, mainly because it's the top one listed):

• Happ: 3.5
• Swanson: 3.3
• Suzuki: 2.9
• Busch: 2.6
• Hoerner: 2.9
• Steele: 3.4
• Imanaga: 3.1

[UMFan83]

22 hours ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

50 for Judge. 1.196. 

 

Just sick.

This made me wonder when the last time the Cubs have had even a 40 HR season.  We've had some mashers in recent years like KB, Javy, Schwarber, Soler, Soriano, ARam.  3 of those 6 have had 40 HR seasons with other teams, just not with the Cubs.  KB came oh so close in 2016 with 39 homers, but a September slump kept him under 40.  Schwarber also hit 38 in his best Cubs season. 

The last 40+ home run season by a Cub was.............Derrek Lee with 46 home runs back in 2005, almost 20 years ago.  Obviously Sosa had a bunch of 40+ HR seasons (7 to be exact), but excluding Sammy, the last Cub to hit 40+ HRs in a season prior to DLee was Ryne Sandberg in 1990 (with 40 exactly).

Every team in baseball has had a 40+ HR season more recently than the Cubs except the Giants and the Pirates.

Only 2 Cubs have ever hit 50+ home runs in a season: Sosa (who did it 4 times, most recently in 2001) and Hack WIlson back in 1930.