Pirates (German) vs Cubs (Imanaga): 9/4/24, 6:40pm

[Tryptamine]

7 hours ago, Stratos said:

Counsell did the right thing.  His job isn't to create fan-friendly moments around individual player achievements at the risk of making Imanaga more tired for his next start during a playoff hunt.  If Counsell were to give up on the season in early Sept he should be fired.

25 additional pitches from Shota is giving up on the season? 

[mul21]

51 minutes ago, BigbadB said:

Don't they blackout games when you are within the market? I'm still fairly new to being back in the Illinois area, so I don't quite understand the blackout rules.

Yeah, if you're in the Peoria area and can get the games via a cable outlet you're going to be in the blackout area.  I have MLBTV but get blacked out of the Cardinals games and use a site called Methstreams that's been pretty reliable for those games.  I've used it to watch the Bears too when the games aren't on down here.

[BigbadB]

2 minutes ago, mul21 said:

Yeah, if you're in the Peoria area and can get the games via a cable outlet you're going to be in the blackout area.  I have MLBTV but get blacked out of the Cardinals games and use a site called Methstreams that's been pretty reliable for those games.  I've used it to watch the Bears too when the games aren't on down here.

I was with DirecTV until this past Monday. They had Marquee. Now I have Starlink/You Tube TV. I get NBC Sports Chicago, but not Bally's or Marquee. Don't care about the Cardinals, but would definitely like to be able to put a Cubs game on whenever I want. I googled Fire Stick and Marquee app and it appears you can get Marquee that way. I'll probably just do that and maybe cancel Hulu/Apple during the Summer months next year to balance out my monthly spending. 

[We Got The Whole 9]

What do you guys think the plan for Pearson is? He's made 10 appearances for us now and the 3 HR stand out (as still being an issue), but so do the 2 walks. From a usage quick view, they favor his slider over his cutter significantly, nothing else really stands out. I wonder if he gets a shot to start, 

Edited September 5, 2024 by We Got The Whole 9

[squally1313]

4 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

What do you guys think the plan for Pearson is? He's made 10 appearances for us now and the 3 HR stand out (as still being an issue), but so do the 2 walks. From a usage quick view, they favor his slider over his cutter significantly, nothing else really stands out. I wonder if he gets a shot to start, 

I think you just pencil him into the bullpen next year. There's not enough innings to build off of. 63 last year, going to end up around the same next year. Hasn't thrown over 100 since 2019. You can point to his pedigree obviously in terms of his potential, but I think he's shown enough that an offseason of work should hopefully get him into the inner circle of 4-5 guys. Probably always going to be homer happy, but if you can lean on him more in bigger parks/colder weather and rely on PCA to go get everything, he's going to throw strikes and get enough Ks to most likely be effective. 

[Bertz]

9 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

What do you guys think the plan for Pearson is? He's made 10 appearances for us now and the 3 HR stand out (as still being an issue), but so do the 2 walks. From a usage quick view, they favor his slider over his cutter significantly, nothing else really stands out. I wonder if he gets a shot to start, 

Trueblood did a writeup and the long and short was they moved where he stands on the rubber and pared down his repertoire to closer to pure fastball/slider.

I think he's viewed as a late inning reliever, and the 2 inning stints have just been a way to get more work on those changes.  With Lopez hurt, I'd like to see them treat him as the #2 in the pen.  If you've got a September of Hodge and Pearson locking down the late innings with their high octane stuff you can really approach the pen differently heading over the winter.

[Rcal10]

10 hours ago, Bertz said:

Dansby Swanson up to 3.5 WAR.  He's got an okay chance of ending the year over 4

PCA's at 2.2, which is nuts considering his playing time.  With how much his bat has been shielded, particularly early on, prorating his numbers up to 600 PAs would be a bit intellectually dishonest.  But still he's probably played at a ~3.5 WAR level as a 22 year old rookie.  And that's not giving extra weighting to his 2nd half numbers at all.

Just curious. What’s everyone’s favorite punching bag, Ian Happ’s WAR? I am never sure which WAR we are talking about, so I don’t want to misspeak on Happ’s WAR. What do you show it as? 

[Rob]

[Bertz]

2 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Just curious. What’s everyone’s favorite punching bag, Ian Happ’s WAR? I am never sure which WAR we are talking about, so I don’t want to misspeak on Happ’s WAR. What do you show it as? 

He is a smidge ahead of Swanson at 3.6.  Barring a deep slump to close out the season it's going to end up being the best year of his career.

[squally1313]

2 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Just curious. What’s everyone’s favorite punching bag, Ian Happ’s WAR? I am never sure which WAR we are talking about, so I don’t want to misspeak on Happ’s WAR. What do you show it as? 

3.6 fWAR for Happ. 27th in offensive fWAR, Swanson 30th. PCA 73rd in baseball since his first call up (4/24), 65th in baseball since his second call up (5/30).

Bored at work/off day, longer/overly optimistic 2025 post coming.

[Rob]

2 minutes ago, Bertz said:

He is a smidge ahead of Swanson at 3.6.  Barring a deep slump to close out the season it's going to end up being the best year of his career.

Yes and no. He was worth 2.0 fWAR in the COVID-shortened 2020 season. He pulled that in just 57 games. So that was easily his best pace, though it's an open question whether he'd have kept that pace up.

[Soul]

I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that my takeaway from this season will be more or less a decent start to the Counsell era, as long as they finish strong in September.  It's going to be tough to get the WC  although I'm not ruling it out yet.  But Counsell's first 2 seasons with Milwaukee were not good (61 and 73 wins, respectively).  Only in year 4 did he reach the postseason.  So it took awhile.  At least for me, that was a bit of a surprise.

He's had to fight through some abysmal performances from players we were counting on, and a terrible bullpen earlier in the season.  The team is performing it's best right now after all that.  Guys are hitting and the bullpen has solidified.  Maybe I've got my rose colored glasses on.  I'm still not thrilled with Jed's work in the offseason.

[squally1313]

A little cherry picking to do this after the best sustained offensive stretch in a long time, but using full year numbers going into next year is starting to paint a pretty appealing picture on the offensive side of things. The middle of the lineup needs help, but the bottom of the order is far from the black hole it was for most of the year. Projected lineup based just on the current roster:

Current fWAR/Projected full year fWAR/wRC/wOBA/xwOBA

1. Nico 2.9/3.4/96/.303/.312
2. Dansby 3.5/4.1/97/.306/.331
3. Happ 3.6/4.1/128/.351/.354
4. Seiya (DH) 2.8/3.2/133/.359/.340
5. Busch 2.1/2.3/116/.333/.320
6. Paredes 2.9/3.4/117/.328/.306
7. Cody (RF) 1.6/2.0/107/.321/.295 
8. Amaya 0.5/0.7/82/.283/.299
9. PCA 2.2/2.5/91/.296/.286

A little lucky overall on the wOBA v xwOBA side of things, but overall I think you pencil 5 guys in for more than 3 fWAR not even including PCA, Busch, or Bellinger (ranked, by me, in order of how likely I think they are to get there). There were only 75 of those players last year so the good side of the math is in terms of quantity we're clearly above average there. Actual elite quality is obviously going the other way. 44 guys last year over 4 fWAR and I wouldn't bet on any specific player above getting there, to say nothing over 5+ fWAR. That's bad. We've tried to throw mass competency at the wall for the last two years and we end up in the low to mid 80s. Not enough. 

Thankfully we have a couple things working in our direction there:

• We have money. Hendricks, Smyly, and the departed players at the bottom of the roster are soaking up $57m in salary this year and outside of maybe like, Mark Leiter, we have to worry about replacing none of them. If Bellinger opts out, even better (my opinion).
• 10 guys for 9 spots is fine, and there are elite options for that 10th guy. Go pry Tucker away from Houston (and then sign him), prove everyone here wrong and get Soto, trade for Vlad and send Busch to the Ben Zobrist school of defending. If you don't go that route, find a third ace.

[Tryptamine]

PCA since the ASB(153 PAs): .281/.331/.482  5.9BB%  19.6K%  126 wRC+  .324babip

God please let this be who he is as a hitter now.

[We Got The Whole 9]

4 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

PCA since the ASB(153 PAs): .281/.331/.482  5.9BB%  19.6K%  126 wRC+  .324babip

God please let this be who he is as a hitter now.

That would be a top 10 position player. I'm thinking he'll be closer to a 450 SLG, but he does hit a shitload of fly balls to the pull-side. For a guy that just adopted that approach a couple years ago he's pretty phenomenal at it. IDK man, I've been probably a bit overzealous with my enthusiasm for him at times but I'm confident he is going to be at least average at the plate. The total package is so exciting. 

[muntjack]

A 126wRC+ PCA with a long career is a H.O.F.  

[CubinNY]

9 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

PCA since the ASB(153 PAs): .281/.331/.482  5.9BB%  19.6K%  126 wRC+  .324babip

God please let this be who he is as a hitter now.

His hyper aggressive approach will produce a streaky player. If he can learn a little discipline at the plate the sky is the limit. He's special no doubt. 

[squally1313]

1 minute ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

That would be a top 10 position player. I'm thinking he'll be closer to a 450 SLG, but he does hit a shitload of fly balls to the pull-side. For a guy that just adopted that approach a couple years ago he's pretty phenomenal at it. IDK man, I've been probably a bit overzealous with my enthusiasm for him at times but I'm confident he is going to be at least average at the plate. The total package is so exciting. 

I was actually shocked he's only at 31st overall fWAR in the second half. Less PAs than most of the guys in front of him, but was hoping to throw him in the list of potential guys to end up in the top 10 of fWAR next year (which I don't think anyone else on our team comes close to reaching), but clearly not quite there yet. Kinda shows how much we've been missing that real top end talent to be this impressed by his performance and have it ultimately be, as an example, far less than half of the Witt/Judge/Vlad/Lindor levels of performance. 

[Tryptamine]

16 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

I was actually shocked he's only at 31st overall fWAR in the second half. Less PAs than most of the guys in front of him, but was hoping to throw him in the list of potential guys to end up in the top 10 of fWAR next year (which I don't think anyone else on our team comes close to reaching), but clearly not quite there yet. Kinda shows how much we've been missing that real top end talent to be this impressed by his performance and have it ultimately be, as an example, far less than half of the Witt/Judge/Vlad/Lindor levels of performance. 

Part of this is because for some reason he isn't running as much in the 2nd half. He had that crazy 3 SB game, but he's only attempted 10 SB in the 2nd half and he's 9 out of 10. That's 153 PAs. In the first half, 174 PAs, he attempted 17 SB. Despite being on base far less. 

[Derwood]

1 hour ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

That would be a top 10 position player. I'm thinking he'll be closer to a 450 SLG, but he does hit a shitload of fly balls to the pull-side. 

I'm encouraged that 3 of his 8 homers are to center field

[Rcal10]

Does Chapman signing an extension for 6 years make Cody consider opting out? I feel Chapman got a pretty good deal. Even if Bellinger was given 6/$120M wouldn’t he take that over the current deal? I can see him getting that is Chapman got what he got. 

[WhyCantWeWin]

3 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Does Chapman signing an extension for 6 years make Cody consider opting out? I feel Chapman got a pretty good deal. Even if Bellinger was given 6/$120M wouldn’t he take that over the current deal? I can see him getting that is Chapman got what he got. 

Chapman has already put up 6 WAR, I think theres zero chance Bellinger opts out. Chapman earned that contract, Bellinger wouldnt see anything close to it

[Rcal10]

6 minutes ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

Chapman has already put up 6 WAR, I think theres zero chance Bellinger opts out. Chapman earned that contract, Bellinger wouldnt see anything close to it

Well Chapman is getting 6/$150. I am suggesting Bellinger might see 6/$120m. So that is not close to Chapman. I get Chapman’s was is very high. Much of it because of defense. His opt+ is better than Bellinger, but not to an amount that is ridiculous. Bellinger could have a hot last few weeks and Chapman can struggle and they would be pretty similar. TBH, I assumed Bellinger wouldn’t opt out because he would t get close $100M on  a decent long term deal. But now I am not sure. Chapman is 2 years older and strictly a 3rd baseman. And got $25M a year. IMO, that is a lot of money for him.

[Bertz]

5 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Does Chapman signing an extension for 6 years make Cody consider opting out? I feel Chapman got a pretty good deal. Even if Bellinger was given 6/$120M wouldn’t he take that over the current deal? I can see him getting that is Chapman got what he got. 

Kiley McDaniel had an article just today where he had an offhand remark saying he thinks Cody'll opt out, which caught my eye.

Overall we're not going to know until it happens.  It more or less depends on Cody's confidence.  If he thinks he is a star and will prove that next year he likely opts in and aims for next winter.  If he wants to play it safe he'll opt out and bank a new deal this winter. 

[Tryptamine]

Frankly I'd be thrilled if Cody opts out. I wont even allow myself to dream on Soto, but for '25 they could add either of O'neil or Santander and still have 5 to 10M left of Bellinger's money left to spend.