mul21

That all arguably applies to Castellanos, too, except against righties. I'd argue that there's a lot of unknown with Castellanos just with him not playing half his games in the cavernous Detroit park, especially with his penchant for doubles and fly balls that could turn into HRs.

Stupid would be not recognizing that they were conceding the season and claiming that trading away a 5 WAR pre-arb player for nothing is "reorganizing." I'd argue the reasons for trading away Tommy Pham were a little different/worse than trying to parse between 'reorganizing' and 'rebuilding'. Yeah, he was brown and outspoken. Can't have that horsefeathers in Missourah.

Those are some insanely rose colored glasses you're wearing. I'm also amused by the sudden faith in the team by many after a hot streak where they beat up on garbage teams. Living here as a Cubs fan is a weird deal.

I know it’s going to happen. I’m resigned to it. But does average bat, great glove get you in the Hall now for catchers? What’s the difference between Molina and Jason Kendall, AJ Pierzynski, Benito Santiago and a half a dozen other similar catchers who aren’t in the Hall and have no chance to? Are we lowering the bar to 30 career WAR and being a good teammate on a WS winning team? Even if we assume that Molina is one of the best half-dozen defensive catchers of all time (a point I’m not conceding), he doesn’t hit nearly as well as Bench, Pudge, or Carter did. Molina is much closer offensively to the non-HoF defensive greats like Sundberg and Boone, the difference being that Molina had a slightly longer stretch of offensive adequacy. I’d argue that Molina is not the best catcher of his generation. That’s Joe Mauer even when excluding the numbers he racked up when he was primarily a 1b. Or Buster Posey if you want to expand the definition of generation a bit. Molina is basically on the same level as Russell Martin, trading offense for defense. I’d argue that Molina is not even the best catcher in Cardinals history. That’s Ted Simmons, who belongs in the Hall way before Molina does. That said, I know Molina is going to the Hall because a bunch of sportswriters say so, without much beyond anecdotal support for their reasoning. I’ve got six or seven years to get over it. I’ll be fine. I hate defending Yadi, but Fangraphs added framing to their defensive WAR and he's now the #1 defensive catcher of all time in fangraphs value, and over 50 career WAR, which is 13th best in MLB history for a catcher (3rd amongst his peers, less than 2 WAR behind both McCann and Martin). That's at least close to HOF worthy to me. Catcher WAR MLB History ETA: Framing stats start after 2002, so historical rankings probably shift somewhat, but those guys could be hurt just as much as they are helped by it, so he likely ends up in a similar spot. I'd be shocked if those don't get some revision at some point. There's no way in hell the guy added nearly 50% to his total value just from framing and there's other guys I certainly don't buy are losing as much as they did with that figured in.

Yeah, I was all but checked out for at least a solid week before last night's hilarious loss. Now I'm 100%. Could not give less of a horsefeathers if they end up doing well, and pretty much hoping that this FO goes down in flames. Why are we rooting actively against our FO, the best we evet had and top 3 in baseball? Mostly because of their enabling of a domestic abuser and partially because the owners are garbage people who support awful things politically.

I'm just more embarrassed about my reaction to it. I threw my remote against the wall and shattered it and kicked a box fan and dented it. :dontknow: I waited until after the single that broke the camel’s back to throw my remote.

Soccer and ?????? Surely you're not suggesting that ice hockey has the same pace of play as soccer. SURELY it's even more irritatingly fast paced and low scoring Shouldn't you be trying to figure how to not give up over a run per inning when you're on the mound for the Reds?

Outside of general inflation, Rizzo doesn't really deserve that kind of contract, because he's just not at Goldschmidt's level. I get that he might not want to hit FA at 34 (vs 32), so maybe you make it 6/110 or something like that. But Goldy was coming off a 5.1 fWAR year (after 5.2, 4.9, 7.2 the three years before that). Rizzo hasn't been above 5 since 2015, and we're potentially looking at two straight years under 4. You’re right, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he has his eyes set on that benchmark anyway. I’m sure he’s thinking this next contract will be his last shot at a huge payday. Maybe they meet in the middle but I think he’s gonna want to get paid regardless. I just don't see Rizzo as that kind of guy. He's got a different perspective than most because of the cancer scare and he's probably generationally wealthy already based on what he's made. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if he took a discounted deal to stay in Chicago. I'd expect either that or a total cut of ties when this deal is up.

Why? He's not a guy who's likely to age well. Being done with him after the 2021 season seems like a pretty good time to part ways.

That was such a good play by all 3 guys. The stop and flip by Javy, the bare hand grab and turn by Russell, and the pick out of the dirt by Rizzo.

There's a reply somewhere in the Cerami thread about how his walk and K rates are noticeably higher with RISP meaning pitchers are pitching around him almost every time he's in that situation. Probably a combination of him not getting nearly as many pitches to hit and him expanding the zone to get the job done. I don't really blame him for a slight change in approach in those situations, but when hot Javy is behind him, he definitely needs to lay off those pitches out of the zone better.

I'd guarantee Maddon hates red assed Hurdle. One enjoys his glass of wine, the other is busy shotgunning Milwaukees Best This is hate speech. I am an avid wine drinker and also an imbiber of mass quantities of cheap beer. #LoveIsLove Seriously, you can do both. Why do you hate fun? But Hurdle is a red assed turd who needs to go away.

Heyward is 4 for his last 11 with 3 walks, so I'm hoping he's coming out of his slump. He's hit into a few unlucky hard outs in that span too. He certainly doesn't look hopelessly lost like he has in the past.

I get that you think he's a clueless old coot with nothing to offer, but the guy has proved over a long period he's good at the non-game part of his job, whether it be managing personalities or teaching the game, so this is a pretty bad take. And before you go on a Sofa rant, yeah, he's handled the Russell stuff really, really badly.

The craziest part of this is the next closest guy had like 153 singles by the time he hit 100 HRs. Edit: Russell Branyan with 172 is the next closest. :lol:

Yeah, that combined with healthy Zobrist, fixed JHey, and normal seasons from other guys is pretty exciting. I'm inclined to shoot Almora into the sun, but even he's shown signs in the last week of not being terrible.

What in the seven hells are you on about now? It’s not that hard That's what she said.

19/30. Giants one is a little unfair.

I realize this is the crap on Almora thread, but metrics say you're completely wrong about this. He had the 2nd biggest gap between expected catch % and actual catch % last time I looked and the only guy ahead of him was Kiermayer. Out of curiosity, because I can't find the exact metric you're referring to, are you talking about the 108 innings he's played this year or the 918 innings he played last year? https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/outs_above_average

He doesn’t make a cool diving catch once every 2 weeks that is largely needed because he’s so slow, though I realize this is the crap on Almora thread, but metrics say you're completely wrong about this. He had the 2nd biggest gap between expected catch % and actual catch % last time I looked and the only guy ahead of him was Kiermayer.

Keith Law trolling Bob Brenly is A. The best thing B. The greatest thing [tweet]https://twitter.com/keithlaw/status/1117547703548960768[/tweet]

You saw the one that was a called strike right? And sure big leaguers don't swing at them. Right.

he was a decent pitcher for the dodgers in the mid 90s but he kinda sucked by the time the cubs got him...and yeah, blisters. Ah, yes, that rings a bell now. I think I've voided all but Sammy, Kerry, and Brant Brown's dropped fly ball from that era of the Cubs out of my brain. Or I drank too much in college.

Who the F is Ismael Valdez?

I think he could've managed to make that in nine years. Me too, especially as that will be post-strike and with a new CBA. But it's undeniably a gamble - both on his own performance in the interim and the players' resolve holding. Harper would have been a FA at 30 - seems very probable to me he'd be able to get at least a $150 million deal then, and for less than 9 years too. I'm sure he hated this whole disgusting free agency process, with the sham the owners have turned it into, and you can't knock a guy for taking 330 million dollars. But this ended up being a very team-friendly deal. This is the thing that people who are bitching about this deal don’t seem to understand. The total dollars is a big number no doubt, but the guy literally has to average 3.2 WAR over the life of the deal to make it worth it. I’m baffled by fans freaking out over it.