General Cubs Chit-Chat

[seawalrus]

How has Nelson not gotten an ab since his huge game. Ross is not good as a manager imo. Giving torrens or rios abs instead 9f an up and coming guy. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

22 hours ago, UMFan83 said:

Hey Hosmer is off to a solid start!  Ermm...maybe not so far

https://www.bleachernation.com/cubs/2023/04/14/eric-hosmers-start-hasnt-really-been-as-good-as-it-looks/

More

 

 

Sorry for the weird quote boxes, I have no idea how to easily quote different chunks of text without making it look weird.  Kind of frustrating

I’ve been using this software daily for years now and I’ve never seen this happen. How did you do it?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

26 minutes ago, seawalrus said:

How has Nelson not gotten an ab since his huge game. Ross is not good as a manager imo. Giving torrens or rios abs instead 9f an up and coming guy. 

Welcome!

 

There's been 2 games since Velazquez went nuts.  The first was against one of the hardest throwing RH SP in the league, a bad matchup for Velazquez.  The second was after Seiya's return, which further limited the spots where Nelson could be played.  Going forward it's going to be tough for him to get regular starts, since he's got to be the best option at DH from a group that includes Mancini and a LHH in Rios, unless somebody else is being rested.  He could also spell Bellinger against some LHP, which I think we may see since they face lefty starters on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Friday.

[UMFan83]

1 hour ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I’ve been using this software daily for years now and I’ve never seen this happen. How did you do it?

It must have gotten mixed up because the text I pasted in there was bulleted maybe?  So strange 

[UMFan83]

2 hours ago, seawalrus said:

How has Nelson not gotten an ab since his huge game. Ross is not good as a manager imo. Giving torrens or rios abs instead 9f an up and coming guy. 

Omg omg omg a new poster. What do we do? Don’t be weird don’t be weird

H-hey welcome to the board!

Edited April 15, 2023 by UMFan83

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 hour ago, UMFan83 said:

It must have gotten mixed up because the text I pasted in there was bulleted maybe?  So strange 

That actually makes some sense and gives me a place to start looking, thanks. 

[Cubs2023]

 

[UMFan83]

 

 

[Dr. Cub]

Something's off here.  Can't quite put my finger on it, but these last two posts have me pondering..........

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Someone give me the background on who this wisdom guy is and why he never stops mashing baseballs.  He appears to have been some random nondescript 30something who just randomly decided to hit dongs from now on 

[Bertz]

33 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

Someone give me the background on who this wisdom guy is and why he never stops mashing baseballs.  He appears to have been some random nondescript 30something who just randomly decided to hit dongs from now on 

Former 2nd rounder who stalled out as a Quad-A guy that the Cardinals gave up on.  Cubs took a flyer on him before the pandemic, he mashed at the Alt Site in 2020 and got a chance once things started going sideways for the big league club in 2021.

He used to be completely helpless with anything in the top 1/3rd of the zone, but demolish pitches low.  Over the last 15 months he's gone from "worst in the league" to merely "pretty bad" on pitches up.  But he's still just as much of a monster on pitches low as ever so we appear to have a legitimate 1st division starter now.

tl;dr we finally got our own Max Muncy

[Bertz]

It's far from the best story in the early going here, but Madrigal appearing to be fixed is a lot of fun.  That's a fun, unique, and most importantly leveragable skill to have on the bench.

[CubinNY]

No Cubs baseball at any level today really sucks. 

[UMFan83]

Just for fun....Cubs position player fWAR rankings on April 24

Nico Hoerner - 1.2 (9th)

Cody Bellinger - 1.0 (20th)

Patrick Wisdom - 1.0 (20th)

Dansby Swanson - 0.8 (29th)

Ian Happ - 0.7 (43rd)

Trey Mancini is the only other Cub that qualifies but I didn't go far enough to see his ranking.  His fWAR is -0.5.

Pithcing:

Drew Smyly - 0.6 (30th)

Jameson Taillon - 0.5 (t-38th)

Justin Steele - 0.5 (t-38th)

Marcus Stroman - 0.5 (t-38th)

Farther down the list - Hughes (0.2), Alzolay (0.2), Rucker (0.2), Keegan (0.1), Leiter (0.1), Fulmer (0.0), Wesneski (-0.1) and Boxberger last at (-0.2).

 

 

[Bertz]

Feels like Yan Gomes is getting the shaft a bit.  I feel like practically every day the Ump Scorecard says the Cubs benefitted, yet Yan has a negative framing score.  He also has not allowed a stolen base yet, which this year is a borderline miracle.  Like I don't expect him to keep it up, offensively in particular, but he's been kind of great so far?  And that's setting aside any pitcher-whisperer stuff you could potentially attribute to him.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

1 minute ago, Bertz said:

Feels like Yan Gomes is getting the shaft a bit.  I feel like practically every day the Ump Scorecard says the Cubs benefitted, yet Yan has a negative framing score.  He also has not allowed a stolen base yet, which this year is a borderline miracle.  Like I don't expect him to keep it up, offensively in particular, but he's been kind of great so far?  And that's setting aside any pitcher-whisperer stuff you could potentially attribute to him.

I meant to put a similar sentiment in the 1B/C article yesterday and forgot, but yeah even though I'd love a few more hits I'm very satisfied with the catching situation.  I don't think they need to intentionally punt offense from the position(though Gomes raising his wRC+ like 25 points with a single 2/4 game tells you about the sample) , but it feels like there's more demands than ever on the position defensively and the upside of handling a pitching staff/running game very well is bigger than the handful of runs they'd get from marginally better offense.

[Bertz]

6 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

I meant to put a similar sentiment in the 1B/C article yesterday and forgot, but yeah even though I'd love a few more hits I'm very satisfied with the catching situation.  I don't think they need to intentionally punt offense from the position(though Gomes raising his wRC+ like 25 points with a single 2/4 game tells you about the sample) , but it feels like there's more demands than ever on the position defensively and the upside of handling a pitching staff/running game very well is bigger than the handful of runs they'd get from marginally better offense.

Yeah especially knowing now that they're not punting CF offense as well I'm also pretty content with things back there.  

SSS but despite the advanced stats liking him much more thdpitching has been way worse with Barnhart behind the plate.  I'll be interested to see if that trend continues.  Over the course of four weeks that's just noise but if it's still happening mid season it might be worth keeping an eye on.

[jumbo]

21 hours ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

I meant to put a similar sentiment in the 1B/C article yesterday and forgot, but yeah even though I'd love a few more hits I'm very satisfied with the catching situation.  I don't think they need to intentionally punt offense from the position(though Gomes raising his wRC+ like 25 points with a single 2/4 game tells you about the sample) , but it feels like there's more demands than ever on the position defensively and the upside of handling a pitching staff/running game very well is bigger than the handful of runs they'd get from marginally better offense.

I move for a second DH

Already have one for pitcher, go ahead and make one for catcher, too 

[Andy]

2 hours ago, jumbo said:

I move for a second DH

Already have one for pitcher, go ahead and make one for catcher, too 

Hell, they're already testing a 'whenever you want' pinch runner rule now in the Atlantic League, who cares about limitations now

[Bertz]

Among other notes, Sharma days there's optimism that Taillon only misses the minimum 15 days

 

[champaignchris]

35 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Among other notes, Sharma days there's optimism that Taillon only misses the minimum 15 days

 

So the Cubs would need a spot starter for Saturday’s game against the Marlins and Taillon would presumably be starting one of the mid-week games against the Nats. 

[Bobson Dugnutt]

Bellinger back. Torrens DFA’ed. Nelly stays. Nice.

[champaignchris]

19 minutes ago, Bobson Dugnutt said:

Bellinger back. Torrens DFA’ed. Nelly stays. Nice.

As far as I’m concerned, Nelson can just stick in that DH spot until he shows he can’t do it any more. 

[Bertz]

This seems right

 

[Bobson Dugnutt]

21 minutes ago, Bertz said:

This seems right

 

Have there been rumblings about a Mervis call up being imminent? Based on Jed’s interview yesterday that’d be a bit of an about face.