Spring Training games thread

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

Brewers going with the opposite, I don't know if I recognize a single dude in their lineup. 

[Bertz]

Not that there's no fat to trim off the 40 but adding all three of Carlson, Kingery, and Conforto feels wasteful.  Just call up Cowles to warm the bench for a week.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Yeah there's 2-3 LHSP they face in the first 3 series plus defensive replacement opportunities, feels like common sense to have Alcantara fill that gap.

[chibears55]

Horton with another good start and the regulars looked good with the bats, let get this season started 

[CUBDOM4life]

Brown pitching in relief again 

[Neuby]

 

 

DL him.  

 

 

[Stratos]

7 hours ago, Bertz said:

Not that there's no fat to trim off the 40 but adding all three of Carlson, Kingery, and Conforto feels wasteful.  Just call up Cowles to warm the bench for a week.

Carlson has hit LHP a lot better (.757 OPS) than RHP in his career, he could possibly play in RF sometimes vs LHP with Seiya DH'ing, especially if Shaw is scuffling.  Conforto probably won't get much playing time when Seiya is back and everyone is healthy, he's blocked everywhere and he'd be on the team as insurance in case of injury somewhere or Mo scuffles.

I can't see Kingery ever getting a start even if an INF lands on the IL.  He'd be a PR and riding the bench in case of mid-game injury.  I think Shaw as the only backup INF is fine as long as they never start him at DH, which would be easy since he can move around and give regulars some rest at DH vs LHP.

However, but it would be nice to have a good PR in the 9th for Mo and Kelly/Amaya.  Carlson only has average speed.

[Bertz]

 

 

[Jason Ross]

6 minutes ago, Bertz said:

 

 

Feels all like the correct choices. Ben Brown as a reliever feels like a good space for him right now. Having him stretched is fun, but he can do some time in the BP and then stretch out if we really have to. Assuming with Rea and Assad and Steele on the way back, there would be time to make it happen. But he's just a dynamic arm due to his stuff so I'd rather utilize it than have him as a break-in-case-of-emergency.

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

FanGraphs standing projections came out. Cubs are at 84 wins, winning the division over the Pirates by one game.

Nobody but the Dodgers winning more than 87.

https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/projected-standings

[CubinNY]

11 minutes ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

FanGraphs standing projections came out. Cubs are at 84 wins, winning the division over the Pirates by one game.

Nobody but the Dodgers winning more than 87.

https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/projected-standings

Not really against this post, but why do people continue to give these projections when they are off by so much every year? The Cubs will very likely win the division walking away, but if they win it with 84 wins, something will have gone very wrong. 

The Cubs won the division in 2007 with 85 wins. The last time a team had less than that and won was 1997. 

Edited March 23 by CubinNY

[Stratos]

Read somewhere that the plan is for Brown to stay slightly stretched out via a multi inning relief role.  He pitched 2 innings last time

[squally1313]

30 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

Not really against this post, but why do people continue to give these projections when they are off by so much every year? The Cubs will very likely win the division walking away, but if they win it with 84 wins, something will have gone very wrong. 

The Cubs won the division in 2007 with 85 wins. The last time a team had less than that and won was 1997. 

Because it's a data point backed by a bunch of advanced statistics and we're all (mostly) baseball nerds desperate for baseball stuff? Are there better projections out there? I've generally found the FG stuff to be the best in terms of the underlying data, and throwing it out because they miss on perfectly projecting the records in a 162 game season rather than just using it as a way to see how the Cubs measure up against the other teams seems silly. 

[CubinNY]

3 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Because it's a data point backed by a bunch of advanced statistics and we're all (mostly) baseball nerds desperate for baseball stuff? Are there better projections out there? I've generally found the FG stuff to be the best in terms of the underlying data, and throwing it out because they miss on perfectly projecting the records in a 162 game season rather than just using it as a way to see how the Cubs measure up against the other teams seems silly. 

It doesn't matter what it's backed up by when it's so obviously inaccurate. If you want to say the Cubs should win the division, that's great. But saying they are projected to win with 84 games and win the division is not likely to happen, and gives the face validity of "backed by a bunch of advanced statistics". It's nonsense dressed up in fancy clothes. 

[mul21]

30 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

It doesn't matter what it's backed up by when it's so obviously inaccurate. If you want to say the Cubs should win the division, that's great. But saying they are projected to win with 84 games and win the division is not likely to happen, and gives the face validity of "backed by a bunch of advanced statistics". It's nonsense dressed up in fancy clothes. 

I'll skip your opinions on calling things inaccurate just based on the fact that you  missed the Cardinals winning the division the year before the Cubs with 85 wins when they won it with 83 in 2006.

[JBears79]

1 hour ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

FanGraphs standing projections came out. Cubs are at 84 wins, winning the division over the Pirates by one game.

Nobody but the Dodgers winning more than 87.

https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/projected-standings

Surprised fangraphs likes the Pirates so much. I think they are a little underrated but I dont see them being that much better than last season even if Konnor Griffin comes up and lights the league on fire.

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

6 minutes ago, JBears79 said:

Surprised fangraphs likes the Pirates so much. I think they are a little underrated but I dont see them being that much better than last season even if Konnor Griffin comes up and lights the league on fire.

They really like the SP on the Pirates.

[Bertz]

The non-rational part of my brain does not like the offense getting red hot right before they go north.  You're wasting bullets.

[We Got The Whole 9]

Thinking any baseball season would go by with the high watermark at 87 wins is ridiculous. I get, within the context, that its exciting to see the Cubs among the best teams and winning the division, but it seems like a pretty useless exercise overall. 

[We Got The Whole 9]

7 minutes ago, Bertz said:

The non-rational part of my brain does not like the offense getting red hot right before they go north.  You're wasting bullets.

OTOH I like seeing Busch and Shaw go yard finally 

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

Shota was solid today, Yankees had their A-lineup or close to it. Last two FBs were 93 in the 5th.

[mk49]

3 minutes ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

Shota was solid today, Yankees had their A-lineup or close to it. Last two FBs were 93 in the 5th.

I agree.  He wasn't great, but solid.  He threw more sweepers today.  Maybe, he was testing against RHH?

[CubinNY]

1 hour ago, mul21 said:

I'll skip your opinions on calling things inaccurate just based on the fact that you  missed the Cardinals winning the division the year before the Cubs with 85 wins when they won it with 83 in 2006.

Because once every 20 or so years, things happen.

[squally1313]

16 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

Because once every 20 or so years, things happen.

Thing happens in 2006. Thing happens again in 2007.

"once every 20 or so years"

I know, it's besides the point of what you're saying, but if you're going to, for the umpteenth time, criticize statistical models as being flawed/wrong/useless, you should probably make sure that your counter argument is factually correct. 

It's a heavily regressed model based on conservative projections that has proven to come closer to reality in the aggregate than most other projections. If I had 30 quarters and I said that I was going to flip them all 162 times and my prediction was that each one would be heads 81 times, I would certainly be wrong compared to the results, but the process for my prediction wouldn't be flawed.

As it is, it's a tool to compare how different teams project relative to each other in the hypothetical 'if every team played the season 10,000 times' way, because it's March 23rd and we don't have better 2026 data to use. If you want to come up with your predicted standings and we can compare the two and see who was closer in total, I'm happy to come back to that in October. Getting mad at otherwise highly respected stats sites for not having mastered the ability to predict a 162 game season is tiring. 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

The point of the projected win totals is not to most accurately predict everyone's win totals.  It’s an easier to understand representation of team quality that is backed by the most accurate individual projections at our disposal.