Cubs (Hendricks) vs Dodgers (Buehler): 9/9/24, 9:10pm

[UMFan83]

I love that it’s been former Dodgers that have driven in several runs for the Cubs today between Bellinger and Busch. 
 

Screw the Dodgers and their “our baseball team should try to win as many baseball games as possible even if we have to spend a lot of money” mindset. 

[JHBulls]

Surely it’s not a team directive that ball boy/chair dude literally goes sprinting in the path of the RF’er. Imagine crashing into Mookie Betts. 😂 

Edited September 10, 2024 by JHBulls

[Eeyore]

[Geographyhater8888]

5 hours ago, Stratos said:

Noticed the Cubs have the 5th best team ERA in the MLB.  13th in xFIP

Which is why when people point to disappointing seasons from Cody Nico and Swanson being 50 runs behind last season and the pen struggles the ERA to FIP ratio is is the baseball gods/devils evening these things out.

Also nice to see this Counsell managed teams only 4 wins below their expected pythag record instead 8 last season with Ross. I guess that’s why they gave him $40 million?

 

[Bertz]

Didn't some people around here start getting on Busch the last few days?  lol

[Outshined_One]

1 hour ago, Bertz said:

Didn't some people around here start getting on Busch the last few days?  lol

To me, he's in an odd spot at the moment.  He's on pace to be a 2-3 WAR 1B, which should put him among the Top 10 1Bs in the major leagues, but it's unclear if he will take a Rizzo-like jump in production, or if this is the level we can expect from him going forward.

I think it's going to come down to internal evaluations in the offseason, because, facially, he is an excellent piece in a hypothetical trade for someone like Vlad Jr.  At the same time, last offseason, he would have been an excellent piece in a hypothetical Pete Alonso trade, and now Busch is on pace to have a substantially better season.

[CubinNY]

The things I like about Busch are his defense and his bat to ball skills. The things I don't like are his age and his slugging. If you can find a better fit, do it. He's not that special. The main thing he has going for him is his contract. That should not stop the team from improving the position if they can. 

The team needs slugging. 

[Bertz]

10 minutes ago, Outshined_One said:

To me, he's in an odd spot at the moment.  He's on pace to be a 2-3 WAR 1B, which should put him among the Top 10 1Bs in the major leagues, but it's unclear if he will take a Rizzo-like jump in production, or if this is the level we can expect from him going forward.

I think it's going to come down to internal evaluations in the offseason, because, facially, he is an excellent piece in a hypothetical trade for someone like Vlad Jr.  At the same time, last offseason, he would have been an excellent piece in a hypothetical Pete Alonso trade, and now Busch is on pace to have a substantially better season.

For sure.  It does look like he's going to settle in as a 1st division starter rather than anyone with major starpower, though 1B is pretty starved for starpower at the moment.  It's Vlad, Bryce, Freeman, and then a big gap before a handful of guys like Busch in that ~120 wRC+ neighborhood.  Unless you're literally getting Vlad I don't think there's anything to be done at the position besides finding someone better than Wisdom to take some of those RHH at bats (Taylor Ward?).

Edited September 10, 2024 by Bertz

[Bertz]

One kind of under-discussed piece of the Bellinger opt-out discourse is that a big hit to his WAR is tepid defensive grades that don't seem to be based on any loss of skill.  Some of it is circumstance, the finger injury pushing him to DH for a month and PCA pushing him to right, but also just generally his grades in CF are down for the year. 

But he's just as fast as he was last year, his sprint speed is actually up a fraction of an MPH from '21-'23.  I'm not really aware of any good reason a 29 year old can lose competency in CF without speed-loss being the driver.  If he were a full time +5 CF with his current offense he'd be a smidge under 3 WAR right now and very likely to cross that threshold by the end of the month.

[Andy]

10 hours ago, UMFan83 said:

I love that it’s been former Dodgers that have driven in several runs for the Cubs today between Bellinger and Busch. 
 

Screw the Dodgers and their “our baseball team should try to win as many baseball games as possible even if we have to spend a lot of money” mindset. 

You're absolutely right about this, though they basically have a cheat code of a TV deal. It goes through 2039 at an average AAV of $334M, and there's simply no way anyone else is reeling in anything close to that. I'd be somewhat surprised if the Cubs were getting 1/3 of that from TV.

[squally1313]

22 minutes ago, Bertz said:

One kind of under-discussed piece of the Bellinger opt-out discourse is that a big hit to his WAR is tepid defensive grades that don't seem to be based on any loss of skill.  Some of it is circumstance, the finger injury pushing him to DH for a month and PCA pushing him to right, but also just generally his grades in CF are down for the year. 

But he's just as fast as he was last year, his sprint speed is actually up a fraction of an MPH from '21-'23.  I'm not really aware of any good reason a 29 year old can lose competency in CF without speed-loss being the driver.  If he were a full time +5 CF with his current offense he'd be a smidge under 3 WAR right now and very likely to cross that threshold by the end of the month.

Baseball Savant has his arm strength and arm value down a good amount from last year too, FWIW. Similar to your point, can't see someone at this stage in his career losing arm strength, but it's possible he made a few throws last year he didn't this year, be it accuracy, pure velocity, etc. 

[Bertz]

24 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Baseball Savant has his arm strength and arm value down a good amount from last year too, FWIW. Similar to your point, can't see someone at this stage in his career losing arm strength, but it's possible he made a few throws last year he didn't this year, be it accuracy, pure velocity, etc. 

Honestly with his shoulder that might be a thing?  Though it's in line with '22 so it might be a SSS "limited opportunities to really uncork one" deal.  Either way that's a run or two a year not 10.  

These are his CF fielding runs prorated to 1200 innings the last few years

'21: +4 (28.0 ft/s sprint speed)

'22: +6 (28.1 ft/s)

'23: +5 (28.3 ft/s)

'24: -3 (28.4 ft/s)

Really hard to not assume SSS here.

[Irrelevant Dude]

3 hours ago, Andy said:

they basically have a cheat code of a TV deal. It goes through 2039 at an average AAV of $334M, and there's simply no way anyone else is reeling in anything close to that. I'd be somewhat surprised if the Cubs were getting 1/3 of that from TV.

All the more reason there SHOULD be a salary cap in MLB.  Not that there ever will be, but the fact that one team lucked into winning the TV deal lottery shouldn't give them a significant advantage over every other team for a 20 year period.  Most players would benefit more from a cap with a floor than they ever will from a handful of teams having the ability to spend over a luxury tax threshhold.

[CubinNY]

7 minutes ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

All the more reason there SHOULD be a salary cap in MLB.  Not that there ever will be, but the fact that one team lucked into winning the TV deal lottery shouldn't give them a significant advantage over every other team for a 20 year period.  Most players would benefit more from a cap with a floor than they ever will from a handful of teams having the ability to spend over a luxury tax threshhold.

A salary cap benefits the owners. All these owners can pay whatever they want to pay for whoever they want. Some choose not to do that. If they cannot they should get out of the sport.

Without going too far out of territory- it's socialism for the owners and capitalism for the players—a microcosm of the USofA.

[Irrelevant Dude]

4 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

A salary cap benefits the owners. All these owners can pay whatever they want to pay for whoever they want. Some choose not to do that. If they cannot they should get out of the sport.

Without going too far out of territory- it's socialism for the owners and capitalism for the players—a microcosm of the USofA.

It benefits some of them, but there are only a few teams that really blow past the luxury tax threshhold, so it really doesn't change a ton at the top end.  But, combined with a floor, it forces the bottom third of teams to spend more money than they otherwise would have.  A cap can be implemented in a way where the total of player salaries is comparable or even higher than it was in the pre-cap era, while also helping to establish a bit more competitive balance.  MLB is never going to be the NFL in terms of payroll parity, but having some teams spending 3 or 4 times as much as others just doesn't make sense.  The "other owners can do it too" argument doesn't work, because we already know they won't.

[CubinNY]

6 minutes ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

It benefits some of them, but there are only a few teams that really blow past the luxury tax threshhold, so it really doesn't change a ton at the top end.  But, combined with a floor, it forces the bottom third of teams to spend more money than they otherwise would have.  A cap can be implemented in a way where the total of player salaries is comparable or even higher than it was in the pre-cap era, while also helping to establish a bit more competitive balance.  MLB is never going to be the NFL in terms of payroll parity, but having some teams spending 3 or 4 times as much as others just doesn't make sense.  The "other owners can do it too" argument doesn't work, because we already know they won't.

The owners will never agree to a cap with a floor and that is equitable to players like the NFL and NBA have. Not in a million years. 

[Andy]

1 hour ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

It benefits some of them, but there are only a few teams that really blow past the luxury tax threshhold, so it really doesn't change a ton at the top end.  But, combined with a floor, it forces the bottom third of teams to spend more money than they otherwise would have.  A cap can be implemented in a way where the total of player salaries is comparable or even higher than it was in the pre-cap era, while also helping to establish a bit more competitive balance.  MLB is never going to be the NFL in terms of payroll parity, but having some teams spending 3 or 4 times as much as others just doesn't make sense.  The "other owners can do it too" argument doesn't work, because we already know they won't.

The problem with this logic is that we already know what the MLB owners want out of a salary cap. They proposed one during the last lockout and the numbers were insultingly ridiculous. They only want one if they can further lower the money being spent on players, and the players are never going to propose or agree to one unless it increases the money spent on players.

[chibears55]

Ed Howard playing SS for Iowa tonight 

[Stratos]

12 hours ago, Bertz said:

One kind of under-discussed piece of the Bellinger opt-out discourse is that a big hit to his WAR is tepid defensive grades that don't seem to be based on any loss of skill.  Some of it is circumstance, the finger injury pushing him to DH for a month and PCA pushing him to right, but also just generally his grades in CF are down for the year. 

But he's just as fast as he was last year, his sprint speed is actually up a fraction of an MPH from '21-'23.  I'm not really aware of any good reason a 29 year old can lose competency in CF without speed-loss being the driver.  If he were a full time +5 CF with his current offense he'd be a smidge under 3 WAR right now and very likely to cross that threshold by the end of the month.

This has been my argument as well.  He's essentially the same athlete he was last year per statcast.  He's still in his age prime so it makes sense.  The EV and max EV is also the same.  I think typical results to expect going forward next year should be somewhere between last year and this year.  He's still a good ballplayer and there's no reason to be down on him.

The contract isn't surplus but it's fine for a FA deal considering he isn't signed into his mid or late 30's.  Only thing is it doesn't look like we need a CF anymore and that's where his value is highest, but Seiya isn't a good RF so...