cubsclapp

Yeah, this bothers me less than the Mets series. The Dodgers are a legitimately great team this year. The Mets were a mediocre team that had four good pitchers happen to stay healthy for a year and Daniel Murphy. The 2015 team was pretty awesome in the NLDS. This team skated by with some great pitching and luck. They were playing the Cardinals and facing No. 3 starters (Wacha, Garcia, and Lackey). This team had to face the nastiest starting pitcher in baseball right now twice and Max Scherzer (including out of the bullpen in Game 5). They scored 6 runs over 8 innings against Gio Gonzalez (owner of a sub-3 ERA himself). The offense is definitely slumping and pressing, but this was an elite unit for the entire second half. It still is an elite unit. One that isn't on top of their game at the moment... and largely because they're facing aces and nasty relievers every single game. The opposition in both series has been doing very little against the Cubs' starting pitching as well, because those are actually good pitchers. The bullpen walking the world and serving up more meatballs than Chef horsefeathering Boyardee makes it look much worse than it's really been. This offense didn't all of a sudden become horsefeathers. They ran into awesome pitchers that are executing and that's what is usually gonna happen. Notice how the Cubs actually had a rally going when Ross Stripling was in the game and Kenley Jansen came in and quickly ended that. Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer, Gio Gonzalez, Sean Doolittle, Ryan Madson, Clayton Kershaw, Rich Hill (who we knew was an awful matchup for this group), Yu Darvish, Brandon Morrow, Kenley Jansen... even if the Cubs were on top of their game at the plate, they'd likely be doing very little against these pitchers if the pitchers executed, which they have been.

The heck?

Way.

Actually happens all the time. In basketball. Just send the luv a bulls to the airport and get this done. In seriousness, I will believe my team gets a FA like this when I see it. Sorry. I don't see it happening. Did you miss them signing Jon Lester and Jason Heyward?

He's 14th among MLB qualified starters in K/9.

saying that you have no interest in winning the division if they only win like 85 games is dumb and you know that you don't actually feel that way. it's like at the beginning of the season when david was saying that if the cubs didn't get off to a scorching start, that he didn't care about their record being good at all. you're trying too hard. You're responding to something that nobody said. I just said I too want them to win the division. Meaning I want them to win the division. But the fact remains that if we can't win a crappy division then it goes down as an embarrassing season considering the talent we have compared to the others. And in that case, why would I feel disappointed? I'd feel annoyed and embarrassed. There's like no scenario where I could be embarrassed about a group of players that just won the World Series. Disappointed and super frustrated? Absolutely. But, I also know they're going to be awesome again regardless of how this year goes and basebally things happen.

Fernando Kelli has 47 stolen bases in 50 games. The next-highest in the DSL is a guy with 26 stolen bases. Kelli also leads the DSL in on-base percentage (.470) and is 10th in slugging (.492). He's third in OPS at .962.

I know scouting stat lines of DSL dudes is probably a waste of time but this guy caught my eye. http://www.milb.com/player/index.jsp?sid=milb&player_id=667350#/career/R/hitting/2017/ALL

It's beautiul. Seeing the ball so well and his balance seems much better since adding in the subtle toe tap.

This is a weird thing to say about a guy that is fourth in the major leagues in defensive runs saved. Especially when comparing him to a future third baseman.

I like the DBacks value more than the Rockies just because of the pitching but the Rockies bullpen can be lights out at times. I have a feeling Arizona is going to be a very tough out for LA if they get out of the coin flip game. I agree. Before tonight's blowout, anyway, the Diamondbacks were third in run differential and second in the majors in starting pitching ERA, despite pitching half their games at Chase Field (Coors Jr.). Their SP fWAR is behind only the Dodgers. And they've of course added a huge bat in JD Martinez, even if his defense will make Schwarber look like Heyward in the outfield. Greinke will go in the WC game obviously (so then Game 4 of the NLDS), but Robbie Ray, Zack Godley, and Taijuan Walker are all still very good. The lineup is pretty much ass at the bottom, but Pollock, Peralta, Goldschmidt, Lamb, and Martinez are a terrific top-5. I would not be in the least bit surprised if they beat the Dodgers. It would be at least a 35% shot, anyway. The Rockies? Well, even with playoff randomness and basebally things happening, it would be super tough. Jon Gray has been up and down since returning, and their other young arms have predictably been regressing. Their lineup is awful after Arenado and Blackmon. They would probably need Coors Field weirdness to help out a lot.

Game-winning dongs to stay in first place and keep the horsefeathering Brewers where they belong might as well be worth 2-WAR.

I'm guessing the Tigers would want to pay at least some of it to acquire a couple prospects. I think that's the only way to really allow themselves to tell their fan base that they traded Verlander. Regardless of what he is now (which still seems very good), he's a legend there. Just basically "selling" him couldn't go over well. But, I mean, if the Tigers paid some of it... would we really care about giving up a couple of these prospects to get Verlander? But yeah this is what was so great about the value of the Quintana deal is it allows something like this (especially with all the money coming off the books).

He looked really nasty in this game (better than 3 ER in 7 IP says). Was sitting 96-97 and hit 98 on his final pitch... pitch 119. horsefeathers them for letting him throw that many pitches (they were trying to tell themselves they were still alive in the WC race). Really it's just been the walks, and he was much better there the last 2 games. Watching this game, I wouldn't have thought anything about his command issues. Go get this guy and start him in place of Lackey on Sunday in Milwaukee. It actually makes sense for both sides to just send Lackey to Detroit in the deal to offset like $6 million in salary and so the Tigers can have an innings-eater down the stretch.

Are they really that obvious about it? Lmao The Tigers announcers literally said, "The Cubs have scouts here tonight... there's _" and they named the scout on the broadcast. I couldn't make out the name though. They brought up the Cubs' scouts multiple times on the broadcast. Then their MLB dot com beat writer confirmed that. Just all the quotes from this postgame from Verlander, Avila, etc made it feel like they assume he's gonna be traded.

8 BB in his first 20 innings. 16 in his last 18 1/3 And he's still walking fewer batters than he did in the minors (it was over 6/9 IP -- nice -- in his last three MiLB stints/levels). Some regression was inevitable, but yeah it's been a bit extreme now. I'd wondered for a while why teams weren't being more patient with him. Even when he wasn't walking guys, his command was still pretty bad and he was getting bailed out by swings. Obviously his crazy movement is part of that. But perhaps teams indeed are being more patient on him now and forcing him to throw strikes, because few people actually hit him anyway.

He could and he almost certainly would.

Yeah, he's 11th in fWAR now. Not bad for a "No. 3" starter having a "down" year.

Thank god.

This isn't going to end well today. Vogt is about to dong and tie this stupid game I expected the same. I don't know why he took that 2-0 meatball.

Unfortunately -- and of course -- that first game against the Nats will be with Edwin Jackson pitching for Washington. But yes, the overall point is a good one.

Seems like a good time to share this. http://thebiglead.com/2017/07/13/the-cubs-gave-up-far-too-much-for-jose-quintana/

The path to him being even a 3-WAR player will be very difficult. It's hard to see him being better than average defensively, and he plays a position(s) where finding very good to great offensive production is not hard. Going by FanGraphs' right fielder and left fielder rankings, there are 26 qualified corner outfielders with at least an .800 OPS. It's like what we always say with Schwarber. To carry much value, he's going to really, really have to hit. That's how it's likely going to be for Eloy too. And we know he's fully capable of being a monster, but just saying he pretty much has to be in order to ever be worth over a couple wins.

Like you said, it's about the next few years. That he can help them hopefully contend to win the whole damn thing this year is just a bonus. They'd make this same trade in the offseason. To me that's the ultimate question: did they overpay now for a run at immediate success? No. He wasn't going to be able to be had for cheaper than an Eloy/Cease-led price in the winter.