PCA

[Rcal10]

2 hours ago, thawv said:

Yeah, I guess you're right.  It just looks like 3B is going to be a black hole until Shaw is ready to take the spot. 

Right now Morel is a much better hitter than Shaw. Shaw isn’t exactly lighting it up at AA either. And Morel has been the most unlucky hitter in MLB. If he was putting up his expected numbers you wouldn’t be saying he shouldn’t be playing. Sure, maybe he should DH more, if they had another 3rd baseman who can hit(as you say, Shaw, maybe). But then if those two guys were in the mix with the others that would mean 6 spots taken up by 8 players. That would mean more missing and matching. 

[Rcal10]

20 hours ago, chibears55 said:

Hoyer needs to make a deal for a bat ASAP..

Time for a couple of bold trades to upgrade the lineup and bullpen..

 

You make these statements all the time. But who? Who are they going to trade for? Who is trading now? And what position is this bat going to play? Sure, I can see catcher. That would be great. So tell me a catcher they should trade for who a team will realistically trade. Maybe Jansen? How about the pen arm? Who do you suggest? IMO it has to be the lock down guy. Cubs have plenty of journeyman pen arms to fill middle relief. (And to mess up too). Don’t care to add another reliever who isn’t elite. But again, who is trading that? 
I understand frustration, but I just don’t think it is nearly as simple as you try to make it seem. And again, if not catcher, who are they bringing in and who sits because of it? 

[thawv]

1 hour ago, Rcal10 said:

Right now Morel is a much better hitter than Shaw. Shaw isn’t exactly lighting it up at AA either. And Morel has been the most unlucky hitter in MLB. If he was putting up his expected numbers you wouldn’t be saying he shouldn’t be playing. Sure, maybe he should DH more, if they had another 3rd baseman who can hit(as you say, Shaw, maybe). But then if those two guys were in the mix with the others that would mean 6 spots taken up by 8 players. That would mean more missing and matching. 

I agree.  But Morel is the least of the evils at 3B.  He's just keeping the spot warm for Shaw.  Whenever that is.  I'm not suggesting that Shaw is better right now, or should be up.  But what we have right now as optionss are not the answer.  

[Outshined_One]

29 minutes ago, thawv said:

I agree.  But Morel is the least of the evils at 3B.  He's just keeping the spot warm for Shaw.  Whenever that is.  I'm not suggesting that Shaw is better right now, or should be up.  But what we have right now as optionss are not the answer.  

It could be worse; this team could have traded for Brett Baty, as some people wanted to do over the past two offseasons.

[Rcal10]

43 minutes ago, thawv said:

I agree.  But Morel is the least of the evils at 3B.  He's just keeping the spot warm for Shaw.  Whenever that is.  I'm not suggesting that Shaw is better right now, or should be up.  But what we have right now as optionss are not the answer.  

So it has to be Morel at third. Fact is if the rest of the team was playing defense like they are supposed to be playing it, Morel being below average wouldn’t be that big  deal. He is still getting comfortable there. And Madrigal isn’t flashing GG defense either. And HE CANT HIT. Wisdom is no better than Morel at 3rd so beteeen him and Morel batting I would take Morel. If Shaw starts hitting and comes up and IF he can play a decent third base, maybe then the conversation add Morel to it. But for now, be sure of no other options, Mirel has to play 3rd most days. 

[squally1313]

45 minutes ago, thawv said:

I agree.  But Morel is the least of the evils at 3B.  He's just keeping the spot warm for Shaw.  Whenever that is.  I'm not suggesting that Shaw is better right now, or should be up.  But what we have right now as optionss are not the answer.  

Lol that's where we are at with our 24 year old clean up hitter third baseman with a .380 xwOBA huh? Excited to hear about Matt Shaw just keeping the spot warm for Christian Hernandez after he has an average rookie season. 

[Rcal10]

47 minutes ago, thawv said:

I agree.  But Morel is the least of the evils at 3B.  He's just keeping the spot warm for Shaw.  Whenever that is.  I'm not suggesting that Shaw is better right now, or should be up.  But what we have right now as optionss are not the answer.  

Got to hand it to you thawv. You are very consistent with your belief of rushing guys to the majors, and assuming they will be better than what the Cubs have at the position you are putting that player at. You are doing it again with Shaw. Let’s let him play at AA and see if the position is just waiting for him to fill it out. 

[sneakypower]

after Morel suffered a seemingly historically bad first couple weeks stretch defensively, he's appeared to find his footing i actually haven't really deemed him a liability since and he's even flashed some nice fielding upside with more reps

admittedly i haven't watched every inning, so feel free to correct me if this is a misconception

Edited May 31, 2024 by sneakypower

[Rcal10]

6 minutes ago, sneakypower said:

after Morel suffered a seemingly historically bad first couple weeks stretch defensively, he's appeared to find his footing i actually haven't really deemed him a liability since and he's even flashed some nice fielding upside with more reps

admittedly i haven't watched every inning, so feel free to correct me if this is a misconception

I have watched pretty much every game and with the naked eye, I  agree with you. I feel more comfortable when a ball is hit to him then in the beginning of the season. But the start guys will tell a different story. By advanced stats, he hasn’t improved. 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

6 minutes ago, sneakypower said:

after Morel suffered a seemingly historically bad first couple weeks stretch defensively, he's appeared to find his footing i actually haven't really deemed him a liability since and he's even flashed some nice fielding upside with more reps

admittedly i haven't watched every inning, so feel free to correct me if this is a misconception

The throws have gotten more consistent, if not perfect, which is good because that's been the most persistent problem.  The other issue that's shown up more recently for me is just not fielding balls within his physical footprint, I've seen several (hard hit) ground balls he tries to react to but ended up between his feet and arms.  These aren't 1 star plays by any stretch, but more underscores that there's probably not any one thing defensively he does *well*, which makes it really hard to get to average if he has stretches of struggling with throws.

[JD94]

Shaw is fine in AA. He has a 132 wRC+. Walk % is very nice. K % is around 20% which is more than fine. I mean his batting average is .239, but his BABIP is .283 which I’m assuming is below average for AA. 

[Rcal10]

17 minutes ago, JD94 said:

Shaw is fine in AA. He has a 132 wRC+. Walk % is very nice. K % is around 20% which is more than fine. I mean his batting average is .239, but his BABIP is .283 which I’m assuming is below average for AA. 

Same can be said for Morel at the major league level. His BABIP is very low. He should have a much higher BA and slugging. 

[Stratos]

1 hour ago, sneakypower said:

after Morel suffered a seemingly historically bad first couple weeks stretch defensively, he's appeared to find his footing i actually haven't really deemed him a liability since and he's even flashed some nice fielding upside with more reps

admittedly i haven't watched every inning, so feel free to correct me if this is a misconception

Morel's OAA and runs prevented has been almost twice as bad in May as April.   He's the worst fielder in the MLB this year among fulltime fielders according to Savants total "Fielding Run Value" stat which uses all statcast measurements.

I agree that per the eyeball test he's seemed better in May.  Don't think he's made as many throwing errors or other errors.  But apparently he's just not getting to balls.

He has been unlucky offensively apparently, but he also has -0.1 WAR so far this year.  He has been banged up though.

Unless they want him to be a DH longterm they just need to keep him at 3B for most of the year to keep learning and develop instincts or send him to AAA.  So far in his career he's been a pretty big failure for the Cubs in terms of handling the development of his fielding.  Someone as raw as him should never have been molded as a supersub.

[Outshined_One]

51 minutes ago, JD94 said:

Shaw is fine in AA. He has a 132 wRC+. Walk % is very nice. K % is around 20% which is more than fine. I mean his batting average is .239, but his BABIP is .283 which I’m assuming is below average for AA. 

This has been discussed in some detail in the Minor League forum, but there's some weird horsefeathers happening with offenses in the Southern League this year, to the point where people think MLB is tinkering with the balls down there (again) since offensive productivity is down across the board.

All this is to say, take the numbers with a grain of salt.  Shaw was hot to start the season and hit a prolonged slump, but it seems he's come out of it this last week, and I think that's more important than hard numbers like wRC and BABIP.

[Tryptamine]

18 minutes ago, Outshined_One said:

This has been discussed in some detail in the Minor League forum, but there's some weird horsefeathers happening with offenses in the Southern League this year, to the point where people think MLB is tinkering with the balls down there (again) since offensive productivity is down across the board.

All this is to say, take the numbers with a grain of salt.  Shaw was hot to start the season and hit a prolonged slump, but it seems he's come out of it this last week, and I think that's more important than hard numbers like wRC and BABIP.

Exactly, for example, Moises Ballesteros and his .782 OPS is the 7th highest OPS in the league right now. Matt Shaw's .752 OPS puts him in 13th. 

[WhyCantWeWin]

I thought it was known that AA still uses a different baseball. 

[Outshined_One]

29 minutes ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

I thought it was known that AA still uses a different baseball. 

From what I've been reading, it's different from the tacked ball used last season.  This is more like when MLB subtly mucked with the baseball to deaden it without making any public announcements, like they did in the majors in 2022.

[thawv]

On 5/31/2024 at 11:38 AM, Rcal10 said:

Got to hand it to you thawv. You are very consistent with your belief of rushing guys to the majors, and assuming they will be better than what the Cubs have at the position you are putting that player at. You are doing it again with Shaw. Let’s let him play at AA and see if the position is just waiting for him to fill it out. 

Bud, I said that I'm not suggesting that Shaw's better, or that he should be up.  He's up when he's up.  But when that time does come, I think he takes over 3B.

[thawv]

On 5/31/2024 at 11:50 AM, sneakypower said:

after Morel suffered a seemingly historically bad first couple weeks stretch defensively, he's appeared to find his footing i actually haven't really deemed him a liability since and he's even flashed some nice fielding upside with more reps

admittedly i haven't watched every inning, so feel free to correct me if this is a misconception

About 1 1/2 weeks ago, he was dead last of ALL defensive players in baseball with a -9 OAA.  Today he's still dead last and ranks 263/263 at -10 OAA.  His last couple of weeks have not been awful, but it's still not good.  Much more playable lately for sure.  He has made a couple of nice play for sure. 

 

But we have to ask ourselves.  Do those plays look like nice plays because he doesn't normally make those?  Are those plays that the average third baseman makes anyway? 

[We Got The Whole 9]

Morel should be a DH. Problem is, so should Seiya. 

[Rcal10]

1 hour ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Morel should be a DH. Problem is, so should Seiya. 

And they have no one who can hit who should play 3rd.