4-3-2019 - 6:20p CDT - Braves scrimmaging against YMCA pickup team

[Sammy Sofa]

I think that’s a bit revisionist on Willy, remember the 2017 he was coming off of. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was pretty much untouchable last offseason.

 

And to me, that highlights how much they got blindsided by just how much framing matters. There was some kind of disconnect or something, because they obviously weren't unaware of it, but I think they were behind the curve. If Miguel Montero can be as valuable as he was (and I know those Fangraph numbers have been revised), than there's no reason to hold onto an obviously seriously flawed catcher like Contreras just because he swings a decent bat at a position where guys are lucky to last long, and that's the kind of thing I would hope and expect this FO would beat most everyone else to.

 

It's all hindsight now, but it's too bad they missed the window where you could get great inflated value for a guy like Contreras as a catcher. At this point I'd rather they try and make him a corner OF, or maybe 3B.

 

Ugh; what a mess.

[Cubswin11]

I think that’s a bit revisionist on Willy, remember the 2017 he was coming off of. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was pretty much untouchable last offseason.

 

And to me, that highlights how much they got blindsided by just how much framing matters. There was some kind of disconnect or something, because they obviously weren't unaware of it, but I think they were behind the curve. If Miguel Montero can be as valuable as he was (and I know those Fangraph numbers have been revised), than there's no reason to hold onto an obviously seriously flawed catcher like Contreras just because he swings a decent bat at a position where guys are lucky to last long, and that's the kind of thing I would hope and expect this FO would beat most everyone else to.

 

It's all hindsight now, but it's too bad they missed the window where you could get great inflated value for a guy like Contreras as a catcher. At this point I'd rather they try and make him a corner OF, or maybe 3B.

 

Ugh; what a mess.

I’m still skeptical framing matters as much as some sites value it.

[Sammy Sofa]

Well, at this point we pretty much have to hope you're right.

[Cubswin11]

Well, at this point we pretty much have to hope you're right.

I mean do you really think Tyler horsefeathering Flowers is like the 3rd best player in MLB because of it? Or Montero projects to be a top 25 player in 2019 because of it? It matters, I don’t think it matters as much as they are attempting to value it as and it also varies year to year on guys and there’s a ton of moving pieces to it.

[Sammy Sofa]

Wait, who is saying that about either guys?

 

But yeah, I do think it is basically THE most critical part of the position. Now, whether it's being tracked accurately, I don't know. My own dumbed down take is that Contreras moves his glove/arm way too much when catching and it screws up a ton of calls.

[Sammy Sofa]

I wonder if there's anything to the idea that catchers would clearly benefit from more time in the minors than pretty much all of the other positions.

[Cubswin11]

Wait, who is saying that about either guys?

 

But yeah, I do think it is basically THE most critical part of the position. Now, whether it's being tracked accurately, I don't know. My own dumbed down take is that Contreras moves his glove/arm way too much when catching and it screws up a ton of calls.

BPs projection system says that, which seems like a ridiculous amount of weight to put on framing. I do think it’s important and Willy needs to get better (early indications are he is) and agree with the things you mentioned as things I’ve noticed too. Our staff of soft tossing MF’ers who can’t command probably doesn’t help either. You can only frame so well when you set up in one quadrant and your pitchers are missing in the complete opposite one.

[ConstableRabbit]

Sure, if the ask was just Javy I would’ve done it. My guess was that it would taken multiple of Javy, Schwarbs, Willy, and Happ and I get why you don’t do that. I don’t necessarily agree with it but I get it. And yeah I don’t get the pitching thing because we just spent on that at that point on.

 

Personally, I think it would have taken a couple of those guys and then some prospects, and I would have been than fine with the main duo being any combination of them. Now, I'm a baseball idiot, but I don't think any pair of those guys being replaced the Yelich puts the 2018 Cubs at the same or worse than they were in 2017. I think the most valuable pairing at the time would have been Baez and Contreras, and a FO supposedly as ahead of the curve as this one should have been really horsefeathering aware early on that between catchers typically having a pretty short shelf life AND Contreras needs to hit a ton to offset his framing that he was a prime sell high candidate.

 

Instead we just have him and horsefeathers AND the current horsefeathering OF, which feels insane to type. How have they horsefeathering botched so many aspects of this team SO spectacularly in such a short frame of time?

You wanted to trade Javy and Contreras for Yelich coming out of 2017?

[17 Seconds]

were we supposed to be impressed that our 2 high first round picks platooned for 3 war in cf?

[Sammy Sofa]

Wait, who is saying that about either guys?

 

But yeah, I do think it is basically THE most critical part of the position. Now, whether it's being tracked accurately, I don't know. My own dumbed down take is that Contreras moves his glove/arm way too much when catching and it screws up a ton of calls.

BPs projection system says that, which seems like a ridiculous amount of weight to put on framing. I do think it’s important and Willy needs to get better (early indications are he is) and agree with the things you mentioned as things I’ve noticed too. Our staff of soft tossing MF’ers who can’t command probably doesn’t help either. You can only frame so well when you set up in one quadrant and your pitchers are missing in the complete opposite one.

 

Ah, gotcha; I was going by Fangraphs.

 

But yeah, good point about the pitchers the FO has gone after; I think Contreras' framing would be more serviceable if they hadn't inexplicably bucked the trend of stocking bullpens with power arms and went with control/finesse/spin rate/groundball/whatever the horsefeathers guys instead. If stuff that just has me baffled; there's zero chance the FO weren't aware of his catching issues, but they clearly decided to go all in on him, so why mostly go after pitchers who would HUGELY benefit from a good or great framer?

[Sammy Sofa]

Sure, if the ask was just Javy I would’ve done it. My guess was that it would taken multiple of Javy, Schwarbs, Willy, and Happ and I get why you don’t do that. I don’t necessarily agree with it but I get it. And yeah I don’t get the pitching thing because we just spent on that at that point on.

 

Personally, I think it would have taken a couple of those guys and then some prospects, and I would have been than fine with the main duo being any combination of them. Now, I'm a baseball idiot, but I don't think any pair of those guys being replaced the Yelich puts the 2018 Cubs at the same or worse than they were in 2017. I think the most valuable pairing at the time would have been Baez and Contreras, and a FO supposedly as ahead of the curve as this one should have been really horsefeathering aware early on that between catchers typically having a pretty short shelf life AND Contreras needs to hit a ton to offset his framing that he was a prime sell high candidate.

 

Instead we just have him and horsefeathers AND the current horsefeathering OF, which feels insane to type. How have they horsefeathering botched so many aspects of this team SO spectacularly in such a short frame of time?

You wanted to trade Javy and Contreras for Yelich coming out of 2017?

 

I don't think I ever didn't want to trade Baez before Russell completely imploded.

 

But no, I clearly never said that I was championing the idea of trading those specific guys for Yelich back in 2017. I DID really want the Cubs to trade for Yelich, and while I would have been very surprised at the time if they had traded Contreras for him, hindsight shows that's the kind of thing that I wish the FO was willing and able to do. I just don't get how they seem to have been on board with the whole "framing is actually really, REALLY valuable" thing from early on, yet decided to go all in on Contreras as their starting catcher seemingly on the basis of his bat carrying him, when plenty of teams have been getting comparable or better value from that position from guys who can't hit worth a damn.

 

So, yeah, at this point I wish they had traded him, or that they had tried to move him to a different position (especially since I think they knew they weren't actually going after Harper for a while).

[Cubswin11]

were we supposed to be impressed that our 2 high first round picks platooned for 3 war in cf?

Happ contributing to a good chunk of it as a 21/22 year old wasn’t not impressive.