Thrilho

Been running around and have to keep running around so I can't stick around to chat on all this fun but felt like dropping in some thoughts on the draft. I was throwing shade at Roquan before the draft because the one video analysis I'd watched on him showed him getting washed out on a bunch of plays and portrayed him as having the inability to play ILB. Welll apparently the guy who coached Patrick Willis thinks differently, so I'm gonna go with him over internet guy for this round. I really just wanted to beef up the linebacking corp and get some pass rush going. Roquan seems to be really good at blitzing, with good timing and aggression to get around blockers and then good closing speed to finish it off. Excited to see him blitz. But then there's this thing I keep reading about how the NFL has changed and you need fast linebackers who can stay with an array of guys in pass coverage. This seems accurate to me. We've been hearing for years that nickle is the new base package. So it makes sense to me that you'd want great athletes who can cover so they can stay on the field. Not many linebackers are going to be Urlacher size but still be able to cover like that, so you get a guy who is undersized and fast. As long as he can make it to the play and get the guy on the ground I'm good. And it's not like he's getting trucked by big backs or anything. From what I recall, even Urlacher had a bad wrap for a long time for not being able to handle o-linemen. That's why they went and got the beef to keep him clean. Which leads me to being happy that they added another big body to the line. Obviously, they're going all in with light, athletic guys at ILB and even at OLB with Floyd. So make sure to get as many quality big guys in that D-line mix as possible to try and keep those guys clean. I personally love this idea. It really is a passing league now, so get a bunch of light quick linebackers who can cover and blitz. Maybe they get pushed around a little in the run game, but honestly? If you want to try to win the game by running up the middle on us in today's NFL go ahead and try. This Bears offense isn't going to be one you can try and beat with 20 points or something. They're going to be scoring points and you are generally going to have to throw to keep up. So I'd just as soon build the whole defense on speed and cover ability. But again, love the idea of adding beef to the D-line. Quantity and quality there is going to be what stops teams from running straight at these tiny ILB we've got. Then to the second round. I don't get people getting worked up over this trade. Anthony Miller seems like a very highly regarded player at a position of need for this year. The Patriots can afford to play around with waiting until next year to take their second round pick because they're already guaranteed a playoff spot this coming year. The Bears are trying to get into the playoffs this year for the first time in forever. They're trying to develop their second year QB and get a new offense to gel and also provide insurance to their injury prone receiving corps. And they're trying to do it with quality. They wanted the impact LB in the first round, who is virtually universally regarded as a good pick, they needed to address interior line with a high pick and then they saw a guy they really liked at a position of need. Boom, done. Move next year's second and figure it out later. I really like this guy though. He fills such a key need at slot guy who is a great route runner with great hands and knows how to get open. NFL.com Kendall Wright on him which is fine but he looks wayyyyy better than that. Based on that letter he wrote to the GMs, he's clearly motivated to become a high quality player. He cites Steve Smith a bunch of times, which is cool to me because Smith was a very hard worker who never took plays off and was consistently improving. But when I watch his tape I see him in the Marvin Harrison/Isaac Bruce. I won't say how far down that spectrum he can be, of course. I tried to watch his routes and his double moves, but I think my WR evaluation card is revoked for the time being after the Tanner Gentry debacle of 2017. He really is getting a lot of love though, and his hands look very good in his highlights. And as he notes in that letter he does seem to always be wide open in those highlights, albeit against lesser competition. Love that he's one of these guys who has had to work for it though, and that he's in the mold of a slot receiver/route runner. Should translate quicker than the Tanner Gentry "go deep and jump" mold. Then you've got the center. He seems highly rated everywhere. Pace is clearly using the Saints model of spending assets to firm up the interior line and then fill in at tackle. Which I think is great because Trubisky seems good at avoiding the outside rushers but he should be a lot better off if the interior line holding up. I wanted Landry, but he dropped a full round from where he was projected so clearly there's something I don't know. He's not a perfect prospect, given his size, so if they wanted to firm up the interior line and wait for an edge prospect they really like I'm going to put this one on "Fangio is in the room and they passed." The ILB for the fourth round I'm going on trusting Pace. He's got a pretty good track record with drafting in the 4th round. His first draft he used the 4th/5th round on project secondary guys and none of them worked, but that was a long time ago with Emery's scouts. I'm interested to see if he plays alongside Smith long term or if they have a different plan, because together they are some pretty small guys. I've read where the in Fangio's defense they've got a Mike LB who takes on the o-line a bit more and a Joker (or Jack?) LB who is free to run around more. I'm guessing that to start it's going to be Travathan in that Mike role. Interested to see what happens at whatever point Travathan moves on, because the 4th seems pretty high to take a guy who you'd view as a career backup. I'm interested to see if they move Kwit to edge. I'm hoping so, because they need rotation players there and I'd like to see how he can do. I'd guess they bring back Houston now. Then next year hopefully it'll be a great draft for edge and they can get a guy they really like. And lastly, this team is going to be very good. I think they're making the playoffs, but I think this offseason has solidified that they will be competing for it at least. Pace is kicking ass right now. Anyone who doesn't see it now will see it this coming year. And Kyle, good on you for being out ahead of this train with the positivity. Good times are coming.

Check out Kollmann’s video on Smith. He shows a bunch of videos of teams running right at Smith and the lineman blowing him up and pushing him like 10 yards out of the play. His contention is that Smith would make a great weak side linebacker in the Briggs mold but couldn’t really play inside linebacker. And watching that video I didn’t come away thinking he’d be a great edge rusher either. I could totally be because a lot of people like him but I don’t like his fit with the Bears. Then as I noted earlier in the thread I think edge is a gaping hole and that the secondary is one of the strengths of the team, so I’m hoping the pick isn’t there. Maybe Davenport is good and they could get him lower. I’d be ok with McGlinchey but would rather an edge guy. So although there are a lot of guys who the consensus all puts in the same bucket I’d personally just rather get the one they want. Just my opinion but the two gaping holes are edge and interior line so figure just get a guy there. But we’ll see, I tend to be an uber-apologist who finds a way to view anything my teams do as good if I like the management team.

PFF did their mock and have the Bears going Landry, with Chubb still on the board, no less. That was a "what would I do" mock and not a prediction though. My top choice of guys I think will be there is Nelson, Landry, Edmunds in that order. PFF, Voch Lombardi, and Brett Kollmann convinced me on Landry. Lombardi made an interesting Von Miller comparison just based on size and combine performance. Kollmann (the guy who called Eddie Jackson in the first round last year) mocked Landry to the Bears as well. Lombardi called him the best pass rusher in the draft. If they do draft Landry, check out the two Lombardi vids. He does a great job showing how Landry sets guys up and uses nuance to beat them. He also seems to stand up very well at the point of attack for a guy his size. Good at disengaging from the tackle, great bend and explosiveness. For those who are into combine performance, he did way better than Von Miller in 3 cone. I’m more into the tape though. Lombardi focused a bunch on the Clemson tape where he was consistently whooping both their tackles. I haven’t really looked at Chubb to compare but I’m glad that there seems to be at least one quality edge rusher that will be available at the Bears pick. As usual, I really don’t want a trade down. Hoping they target a guy and take him where they are.

it's not like it's getting doubled up on in the composite I’d just prefer to be able to compare offensive stats between two players separately from their positional value. wOBA is cool because I know the value of a walk for this guy is the same as for that guy. Accounting for park factors and positional value does help normalize things but it muddies the water a bit much for my tastes.

RIght on, any positional adjustment I think is kind of dumb since they’re already getting that in the defensive value. I know OPS isn’t the best to use because on base is more important than slugging. And that a HR isn’t exactly 4 times as good as a single so slugging isn’t perfect. Good response though in general Duke. So much voodoo in there. Javy over Lindor 4ever!

Lindor had a wRC+ of 118 and a .353 wOBA over 723 plate appearances in 2017 Baez 98 and .326 over 508 PA Lindor was a lot better and over a considerably larger amount of opportunities My issue is less with Javy’s rating than Lindor’s. .337 OBP is Castro territory. For comparison, Rizzo had a .273/.392/.507 and 10 SBs last year in 691 PAs. Offensive value of 25.2 (vs Lindor at 22.0). Riz has the same BA and slug as Lindor with 55 extra points of OBP. Put another way, Riz has 57 extra points of OPS on Lindor for 3 extra points of “offensive value. Lindor’s 45 extra points of OPS (plus the extra ABs) made him 10 times the offensive player that Javy is. All I’m saying is that there’s some secret sauce to all this. The big thing to me with Lindor though is that there’s an awful lot of his value wrapped up in the 33 HRs from last year being real, which is a big deal considering that the previous two years he hit 15 and 16. I know Javy’s power is real, so if anyone wants to have this particular debate and hold the Lindor side of things you’d hope his power is real too or that he can keep his OBP above the Castro line.

Silly argument, fun peacocking over being right about Javy tomato tomato.

I appreciate your enthusiasm, but... Sounds good, I'll put you down for the Indian. On a related note, does anyone know how Fangraphs calculates that offensive side of their WAR stat? Like how Lindor's 2017 batting line of .273/.337/.505 with 15 stolen bases pulled in a 21.0 while Javy's .273/.317/.480 with 10 stolen bases was a 2.2? Seems like the sort of thing driven by voodoo like BABIP, Ks, leverage, streakiness. Typical FG BS to rob a player of their actual impact on a game by relying on forecasting stats rather than performance. The type of thing that takes away Hendricks' Cy Young. Given that's the case I'll play it safe use bbref's more results driven WAR (which gave Javy a 2.9 instead of a 2.3 last year). But I think Javy will outperform him by any measure, at least offensively. Let's look at their careers. I don't think it would be unfair to cut out Javy's atrocious 2014 given that they're the same age and Lindor didn't arrive until 2015. So for 2015-2018 Lindor has had a .290/.346/.468 line vs Javy's .276/.320/.469. And that's over a three+ year period where LOTS of people have still considered Javy just this side of hot garbage. Cut a line halfway between Javy's career and this year's slash line and you get a player whose offense is leaps and bounds better than Lindor. There's defense to consider, but I think Javy is going to spend a decent part of his career at short even if the Cubs keep Russell. He might need to play some full seasons at short and do it well in order to beat out Lindor in WAR, but he's good enough defensively to at least prefer him on my team. And I honestly think he'll be enough of a better offensive player to make up the difference defensive WAR. I've got big plans. Big plans.

Alright, this seems like a fine place and time to pop TT's old list back out. Javy or Lindor, choose! You don't have to fill this thread up but you know, just keep your choice in the back of your head as Javy out WARs Lindor from here on out.

Love it. Javy has started to fall in love with the rollover grounder to second with a runner on third and less than two outs. I horsefeathering approve.

Schwarbs for leadoff. And for pushing some other chump out of town long term. Great work on the heat maps, btw Duke. I’m hoping this Chili Davis effect ends up being real. There have been times in the past when the whole team was going oppo and it seemed to result in less strikeouts and better results in general. But then they have success and get pull happy again and the thing falls apart a bit. Then they remember the oppo thing and come back around. If Chili can get Javy and Schwarber to permanently incorporate this approach then he’s really done something.

Hmm maybe I don't go say nice things about Javy on the message board...

He is destroying RHP this season. He has fully arrived.I'm ready to lock him into one of those top 2 spots in the order. The way Schwarber is hitting I'd like him up there too. I'd think that this version of Schwarber could be a pretty good lead off hitter but if Javy keeps taking a decent number of walks and mashing I could actually see him leading off a bit in his career. I'm pretty big Javy fan boy but even I wouldn't have ever thought he'd be good for that role. He's good on the bases though and he can mash at anywhere near this rate you want him getting a lot of ABs.

Are we still keeping track of that fact that that HR came off a right hander? Or has it become consensus that Javy isn't a platoon player?

He wasn't running that fast there but that play and the one last night looked to me like they'd have been pretty tough plays off the bat. I guess the catch probability robot has a better idea than I do but with the trajectory of that ball I expected it to fall when it was hit. Annnnd that's the way you answer KB's beaning. Nice swing Javy

79% catch probability my ass

Not to mention the RBI groundout to get that 5th run. That was on a 2 strike protection swing. He brought it up in the postgame so hopefully he’s proud of that one and keeps it in mind as we move forward.

For anyone who missed, what happened was all this nonsense here + one bases loaded 2 out full count low line drive double to clear the bases and tie up a 10-7 game. KB’s opposite field hit to start that rally was a big one but today was about Javy getting one of those big RBI hits we need to him producing if he’s going’s to hit in the middle of the lineup.

That was a big hit after a great AB. I didn’t understand the complete lack of breaking pitches but Javy made a pitcher pay in just about the bigger possible spot. If he gets out there you’ve got to start from nothing in the ninth down 3. Instead he clears the bases with a hard hit line drive on a decent 3-2 pitch. Big PA. I hope he doesn’t hit any lower than this all year.

I'm bewildered but I think I can help. We'll need the highlights from today's game, this video of Javy feeding chickens, and some memories of the 2016 postseason. Together, we can beat this thing.

Heyward Lester Almora

what i get from the video is he turned his HRs into flyouts to CF Nope

Right, I'm pleased. When I commended Pace there it wasn't me coming to collect a "told you so" badge on the job he's done. I'm just very happy with the team he's put together and I'm happy the Bears have him over a lot of other GMs. right...i'm not saying they're gonna go out and pull an eagles or even rams, but i'm saying i'm pretty sure this is going to be a good team going forward, possibly as soon as the 2018 season. 9+ wins wouldn't shock me at all, but the toughness is the division of the main reason i'm not willing to go too hard on 2018 optimism. True, it's easier for me to say I think the offense is going to be good than to say they are actually going to win the games. It's a tough division and tough conference right now. They've got a good defense though, so if from there it seems like the biggest thing will be Trubisky's ability to win games. He wasn't as good at it this year as I thought he'd be but I'm gonna be optimistic on that ability this year. The team will put themselves in position to win and I'll say he's going to be better at finishing than Cousins and Stafford.

Seal Boy has forced his way into the lineup with a La Stellar 1.333 OPS in his 6 PAs. Javy is in there, so the lineup looks good to me.

i'm looking at the coaching staff, the roster, and how things are set moving forward and i am very optimistic. that's enough for me to be pleased right now. Right, I'm pleased. When I commended Pace there it wasn't me coming to collect a "told you so" badge on the job he's done. I'm just very happy with the team he's put together and I'm happy the Bears have him over a lot of other GMs.