Rob

Best comp I can think of is Andruw Jones in his 20s. Transcendent defense. 30+ HR power. 20+ steals. Strikes out a bit more than average. Fluctuating walk rate that's sometimes pretty good. There's also ways to tweak a Mike Cameron comp to make it work pretty well.

I'm not attached to any specific names. Mike Soroka wouldn't have been anybody's top 3 choice last year -- but if he'd stayed healthy and done what he did for Arizona this season, we'd have been thrilled with the add. I just want three good healthy arms. One rotation, one bullpen. I don't care where the third one goes. We're dealing with small samples the rest of the season. It's entirely possible for a #3-4 guy type to outgun a Skubal the rest of the way. No sense in blowing up the farm for any of the arms I see on the market. Just grab the cheapest reasonable options and hope they're pumped to be in a playoff race.

Of course, a no-trade list is not really a no-trade list. It's a "you have to incentivize me to waive this" list. Most of those lists are now populated by teams the players think will be in the market at the trade deadline -- such that they can get an extra $1m relocation fee or whatever for agreeing to waive. It's just gamesmanship. The number of players that wont actually accept a trade to a team on their no-trade list is pretty small. 90+% of them just want a bribe to do so.

Nah. With his speed and power, PCA always had a chance to BABIP his way to crazy numbers. And I think that's part of this. But that's not to take away from the plate discipline improvements -- which appear to be real. He's making much better swing decisions.

It's worth noting that Javy batted .299/.371/.515 and put up 2.0 fWAR in 47 games there. He was actually worth a pretty good prospect haul. Just not this much.

He heard that.

Not this early. Not with our pitching staff. Maybe around the 7th inning if the lead is holding up.

Lol Dansby.

Angel Guzman and Junior Lake are the correct answers.

1. Please no. He's a piece of human garbage and I don't want my money going in his pockets. 2. Please no. He was bad in Japan last year. 3. Please no. He's 35 years old. There's not much reason to suspect he's going to get any better than he was last year. 4. Please no. He was never all that great to begin with. He had two great years - 2018 and 2020. For the rest of his career, he floated between a 1 - 3 fWAR guy. 5. Please no. He'd be a distraction for the clubhouse. 6. Please no. Only the chuds would be excited by that signing, and I hate chuds and want to deny them any happiness.

Take it and run with it. I haven't written an article here in like a decade.

If that metric doesn't already exist, it should be pretty easy to manufacture. Compare baseline performance to monthly splits or preferably some sort of rolling 10 game average. Calculate who has the largest standard deviations. Compare. I'm not a math guy or a programmer, so I'd love to be told how wrong I am.

Cubs hitters are currently leading the league in walk rate. PCA, Busch, Dansby, and Amaya are all sporting career best figures. I'd be curious as to the how/why so many guys are taking big steps forward.

I was just looking at this. He's still on pace for a 4fWAR year and tied with Busch for the second best position player on the Cubs. I guess defense is still important, eh? Edit: I see he's also running a career-high walk rate.

Fellas, I think Dansby may be coming out of his funk.