Aaron Kennelly

[tweet]https://twitter.com/MrBrianKenny/status/962436640466702336[/tweet] [tweet] [/tweet] How can the Lester signing be an example of one that worked out when he's only won 1 World Series for the Cubs so far?

"But how are the Cubs going to build a pitching staff with no pitching prospects?!"

Ian Happ.

I, being a very smart Brewers fan, am glad we didn't sign a 31-year-old Yu Darvish. Now we can just sign Jake Arrieta, a 31-year-old, instead. He should fit right in with our other big signing, 31-year-old Lorenzo Cain.

http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/aygtmyc.gif

Wait until Chatwood ends up being better than all of them.

Oh my god, we never have to watch John Lackey pitch again.

I'm pretty sure it actually bumped the Brewers up to the best team in MLB. That's how these things work.

That's incredible value. *collusion hate shield* They really need to fix the whole system if this is going to happen now. But if it is going to happen, I'm rather pleased it happened to our benefit. And I'm pleased it happened in a year we had some $ to burn and all the other top dogs had to wait it out until next year. Add some good value to the books and prepare to add Bryce to it. And just hope there isn't a strike.

Added the best SP, also added the best-value SP, re-did the whole pen, and nobody else has signed anyone and they only have a few days to do so.

As per usual, never doubt Theo.

I bet it happened in a high-leverage situation in the laser tag game.

lol "show" He called the horsefeathers poop.

Yu is going to announce that he is signing with the Cubs and then he'll show up at the free agent camp and say "Y'all thought this show was over, motherfuckers!?"

Yeah, I’d be happy to see Travis back on the Cubs. But after how bad he was last year, I’m not sure him being horrible in Spring Training and inevitably ending up cut is the best reunion possible. Let him go off on his own and try figure things out and we can always try again at some later date.

Also primed for a bounce back this year: The Duker. I'm not gonna kill anyone this year, I swear. The curse has been lifted, I am sure of it.

I'm fine with saying 2016 is arguably Lester's best. There's some stuff in his batted ball data that suggests his batted ball luck wasn't all luck. Fantastic numbers for things like xBA and xwOBA. Really low exit velocity, particularly on fly balls, which also had more loft under them than usual. A low % of pitches barreled. Granted, he's been great in these facets every year -- even last year. And we have very few years of data on this stuff, so it's impossible to measure against his early Boston years. But, 2016 stands out as a great year for him in those areas. Also, for the years we have spin rate numbers, his spin rates on all his pitches were the highest in 2016 -- mostly by significant margins. So his stuff might have been a little more nasty and harder to square up. But, mainly I'm OK with saying it because he's basically been the same pitcher every year. 4-5 wins. 200-210 innings. Save for the mid-career hiccup when he lost the feel for his cutter for a couple years, he's mostly been the same guy for a long time. Velocity has been about the same. Movement on his stuff has been about the same. His repertoire and pitch mix have been about the same. It would be difficult for me to say definitively which is his best season when he has like 5 or 6 of them within a win of each other. 2014 seems like the best bet. He had his best periphs in the most innings. And he outpaced his periphs in ERA, too. But there are things in the periphs that might lie to us, too. Pitch framing. Just plain getting screwed with bad calls from umps behind the dish. Some variance in ball/strike order and swing/miss order leading to weird things. A few fluky home runs screwing things up. Within a win or so of difference, it's going to be awfully tough to strip away all luck and randomness, even if we can take away things like defense. So I think it's fine to look beyond the periphs for something else when it's that close. Regardless, UMFan's point stands. Lester is a year removed from being his normal self. Last year was ugly, and his age and injuries certainly aren't harbingers for success. But his main problem last year was with what happened when batters made contact with the ball. High HR/FB. High BABIP. Extremely low LOB%. He had an ERA larger than his FIP, which was larger than his xFIP. And as I said earlier, his batted ball numbers from last year contradict the notion that he was hit hard. Of 99 pitchers with at least 400 batted balls against them, Lester had the 18th lowest average exit velocity. Of pitchers that threw at least 2,500 pitches, his xWOBA was 22nd lowest. He also allowed the lowest Contact% of his career. I think he's a decent bet to bounce back, despite his age and injuries.

I think Mojo made this joke 40 pages ago. But I'll allow it, because we are all bored and want to die Yu, Yu, Yu oughta know!

It wouldn't be the worst thing anyway. The Cardinals won 83 games last year with 25 guys that didn't want to be there.

Not as cool as that ring above... but I bought one of those rings gobigred posted about and it had the correct year engraved on mine. Mine was the Rizzo edition of it. Seems like it's exactly the same as the replica rings that were selling for much more, but what do I know?

This season is going to be hilarious.

Hmm... I thought for sure I was going to be right this time.

I'm calling it. Yu signs within the next 6 hours.