Outshined_One

There also have been substantial advances on the hitting side of baseball science that have significantly cut down on the movement/velocity tradeoff. If you remember your Steve Stone days with guys like Zambrano, he would harp on Z needing to work low-90s to get the most out of his two seam fastball, but the problems are (a) velocity is much easier to repeat than extreme movement; and (b) data and technological advances have made it much easier for hitters to recognize those pitches and pound them in the zone. It's possible we see MLB rule changes to help tilt the advantage back to pitchers, but the best way to counter good hitting is velocity for the time being.

I'll put it this way with respect to the Cubs' pitching on the farm, this time last year you'd be justified giving it a D-, and holding back on giving it an F only because Jaxon Wiggins existed. This year, it's more like a C-. It's still bad, but it's improving, and it's likely to continue improving next season when we actually see guys like Townsend in-game.

Comparing the Cardinals to the Brewers as 2000s-era WWE villains, though, you were more likely to watch when The Rock was top heel compared to when Randy Orton was top heel. It's like, sure, Orton was and is a perfectly capable villain, but it's just not the same.

A thousand times this. Kyle Schwarber deserves sainthood for jamming a stake through their hearts in 2015.

I was at Game 3 of the 2017 NLDS and it was the most intense game of baseball I've ever experienced in person. Lots of fun in retrospect, but I also aged 10 years by the time Wade Davis finished the 9th.

If you dig into their batted ball data the last three seasons, there are some weird horsefeathers things happening. A team shouldn't be able to sustain these sorts of BABIP numbers year after year while not hitting HRs and having one of the top offenses in the NL. We're in Cardinals Pixie Dust Territory, and whether that means they cracked the code or are stealing signs or started sacrificing small children to a demon god, who the hell knows?

@Jason Ross threw cold water on this idea a few pages ago. The under the hood stuff doesn't match up with what the Cubs like. He comes across like a more aggressive Murakami, and that guy likely would have set the K record if he'd played a full season. /I still like him, though...

His dad was an arm wrestler. AN ARM WRESTLER!!

I expect the Sox will be back in the next postseason. There's enough young pitching to keep them competitive into August/September, and I genuinely think Roch Cholowsky is the real deal.

That's where I come down with Happ. Extend the QO, try to negotiate a home town discount on a 2-3 year deal, and if he decides to walk, so be it.

I get really irked when outlets try to frame them like small time mom and pop businesses being forced out by Goliath, when really they own properties and businesses worth millions of dollars, run a business model based on freeloading, and (speaking from personal experience) are genuinely unpleasant people. Don't get me wrong, horsefeathers the Ricketts family in all sorts of ways, but this is one of those fights where I'd rather everyone lost.

Link Why ESPN is still giving these people any oxygen is beyond me.

Ditka deserves an untold amount of horsefeathers for anything politically-related he's ever said/done, but he also deserves credit for the '85 Bears.

Alright, alright, let's gently put the thread back on track here. Where was I? Oh right, trade Shaw to Sacramento. They have some fun guys who are probably desperate to get out.

You know he'd turn into Scott horsefeathers Rolen the moment he was traded to STL. In other words:

I also feel like a good chunk of the board is still stuck in the 90s when it comes to salary figures. $20m no longer buys you the best player in baseball. It gets you an above average hitter, which is pretty much what Happ is.

On the one hand, I get it from a hitting standpoint, but on the other hand, this OF market is brutal for the Cubs, Sato seems likely to end up with a short term Murakami-like deal (2/$34m), and Sato offers positional versatility as a 3B/OF. It's admittedly a bit of a desperation play on my part, because some of my feelings on Sato admittedly come from a place of dread of the alternative if Happ and/or Seiya leave. I've made my POV on their internal options known in this thread, and I do not get any positive feelings when I look at the other OF options likely to be available, either because I don't think they're realistic (Arozarena), they're a massive risk (Duran), and/or they'd require trade resources better used to acquire pitching (Kwan). Blah.

I feel like KA would work best as a secondary option rather than a primary. I'd be glad having him for specific matchups, giving guys off days, and his ability to man all three OF spots, but I feel like things *should* have clicked for him by now. I know, I know, he'll be 24 next season and prospect fatigue is very real with him, but I am way more optimistic about Kane Kepley being a starting OF in 2028 than I am with KA. As much as people might not like it, Happ ticks most every box this FO values: intangibles, versatility as a switch hitter, reasonably productive, likely to give a hometown discount, etc.

I'm seriously beginning to talk myself into the Cubs being active players with Japanese postings this offseason, and my thought process for this oddly stems from the 2016 team. Entering 2016, the Cubs signed John Lackey and Jason Heyward, both of whom were key members of the 2016 team for obvious reasons, but, that resulted in the Cubs forfeiting their 1st and 2nd round picks with the Cubs' 2016 draft making a firm argument for the worst draft the Cubs have ever had. Seriously, go look it up. I know @Jason Ross will probably correct me on this, but I don't think the Cubs have forfeited a first round pick since then, and I believe every draft since 2016 has featured at least one Cubs second round pick. While the Cubs had other issues after the 2016 draft, it's clear that they recognized how much damage that draft did to the farm since they have not been particularly gung-ho on signing big ticket free agents since then. 2016 wasn't a world-beater draft, but it still saw guys like Alonso and Bichette popped in the 2nd round. The more I read about them, the more guys like Sato, Taira, and Itoh make sense for this team, both in terms of fits and because there is zero draft penalty associated with picking them up. Granted, the Cubs won't be the only team vying for their services, but if, say, the Cubs retain Seiya and Happ turns down the QO and leaves, going from Happ to Sato shouldn't be nearly as rough as, say, the dropoff from Happ to Conforto.

Or this dude:

When it comes to prospecteering, ERA is actually a really bad metric to use for evaluating pitching prospects. ERA does not take into account four things which are significantly magnified at the minor league level: defense, stadium size, field quality, and development. A teenage OF who takes a bad route to a playable ball that drops for a hit or slips past him for extra bases isn't going to show up as an error. A 320 foot routine flyout to LF wouldn't even reach the warning track at Wrigley, but would clear the fence at Dozer Park in Peoria. A number of minor league stadiums are also notorious for divots, flooding, and other issues which, again, won't show up in the box score, but will affect balls in play. As for development, pitchers will always be working under specific instructions for mechanical purposes; things like: "You can only throw fastballs and changeups in this outing," or "Instead of gripping your two seam fastball one way, use this grip instead." A guy tinkering with his mechanics or a new pitch might get shelled for a number of outings before things start to click. In the majors, this would be a disaster, but in the minors, those results don't matter. It's not to say the Cubs are in good shape with their farm system's pitching going forward (they aren't), but there are better ways of determining the quality of pitching prospects they have than just using ERA,

I missed something, is Dansby Swanson somehow holding this team back from being a contender, or are people just going crazy because of the way the season ended?

I'll go ahead and say it, even though it's admittedly wishcasting: Paul Skenes. He's now arb-eligible, and he had enough of a dip in 2026 that the Pirates might be willing to trade him off for a king's ransom if there are any concerns about his medicals going into 2027. I have zero inside information and the Pirates might think their window is just opening, which would throw this out the window, but they need bats and have enough pitching in their system that the right trade could shift their window from 2 years starting in 2027 to 5-7 years starting in 2028.

The Cubs pretty much *have* to sign at least one of Happ and Seiya, right? I feel like Happ would at least take a discount on a 2-3 year deal, but Seiya feels like he'll get 5 years elsewhere. However, they're pretty catastrophically screwed if they have to fill both OF spots. I don't get the sense the Cubs will give Arozarena what he'd get elsewhere (which is justified), and their internal options range from not ready to guys better used on the infield to Kevin Alcantara.

You can talk yourself into him being a legitimate TOR guy in 2027 if he could just stay healthy, but recent injury struggles seem to suggest otherwise. Depending on your perspective, he could be another Matthew Boyd...or another Edward Cabrera. On a one to two year prove it deal as the third or fourth best pitcher acquired this offseason? Sure, why not?