Jason Ross

Well, yeah, we can make arguments about why games are important. Each game between today and the playoffs there's some argument we can make as to why it'd be much better than to lose it. But I reserve "must" wins as games in which you cannot lose in any shape or form. I don't believe in "must" win games in August, personally...it devalues the actual must win games.

Whoops, should have been in here. Cade Horton, promoted to AA.

I would not call tonight "must" win, still early for "must" wins, IMO. It's important to win, but this is a 4 game set. They can lose again tonight, win the next two, and come out even on the series. There's still enough games in the season and 4 more with the Reds after this, that they can still catch ground. 6 games left with Milwaukee too.

I'd guess it's not a major IFA amount. Other thing; clearing Sampson actually gets some money off the books on the tax front. The Cubs are seemingly very concerned about going over (it's silly, but they are), so perhaps this move is in conjunction with the next one to make sure they stick under the luxury tax.

Maybe, but the market is essentially bereft of hitters. At this point, if you want instant offense, best of luck. Add in a year of control and I just think the Mets can probably cash in higher than Wicks and Caissie. You need one team to beat that offer, and despite being big fans of both...I think a team beats that offer.

I would guess another team would beat that. I say this as probably among the bigger guys on Wicks and as self-proclaimed leader of the Owen Caissie fan club. I think Caissie's trade value will be harmed by the possibility of him ending at 1b/DH (I think he's capable of RF for a bit, but that's a real fear). 1b/DH just don't get the love. Wicks, while I think he's got low end #3 upside (I think he plays better than the stuff sometimes sounds on the paper. Not a 1:1 comparison or anything, but he's got some of that Jon Lester in him. Lester's scouting report wouldn't make him feel like someone who pitched as well as he did, and Wicks has some of that feel for me) I just don't/can't see him being the piece for Alonso as the best option. At that trade, I feel like another team would come in. Maybe the Mets just love those guys and that happens, but I think the Mets would need more upside.

I think it's two fold; I do think there's some interesting prospects around, guys with upside. You can find people as low as the 15-20 range on BA's top-20 that I think are interesting in ways. Trey Sweeney at #16, is having a nice season in AA (119 wRC+, K% under 20%). Is he a SS? Maybe not. Is he a star? Probably not. Is there a path to being a starting 3b, perhaps? Yeah, I think. There are a few names I see there that could be interesting. I can't say I'm overly familiar with their system, so I'm just numbers scouting, but they have interesting names there. Secondly, I think the Yankees have a reputation for solid development as of late, as an organization in that teams trust they're doing a solid job developmentally. They've had some successful prospects come through their ranks in recent years (not all of them hit) and players generally seem to be making strides level over level. I think that helps fuel perception as well. There are teams who do a good job with their talent and then there are teams who don't (ex. it's pretty widely believed the Nationals, for example, have no idea how to properly develop the overly toolsy players they so covet, for example. Detroit, as well, seems to have a pretty high rate of prospect fail). It's better to buy prospects who are developing correctly, instead of having to go back through and fix nonsense.

Solid inning from Daniel. Really nasty stuff.

Good comeback so far. Let's complete this thing.

I bet there's a fix/change they want him to work on.

So looking deeper on Cuas...he actually has really impressive vertical movement on his slider but his slider placement is horrible. He's leaving it all over the plate. If you can get him to get that slider more on the black and use your vertical movement to generate the chase rate up, I think you'll have something.

The Royals horsefeathers up pitchers left and right. Their pitching infrastructure is jacked. Cuas is a sidearm guy. He's got great whiff rates, terrible chase rates (this doesn't make much sense). I think there's a tweak here or there you can use to exploit these things. There could be a good RP arm here.

A bit of an ouch on the Kevin Made front on first feelign, though he's slowed down considerably this year. Cubs have Rojas chasing him. Herz...belongs in the BP. It feels worse on the name-brand feeling of it.

Unused and if Candelario is going to come play 3b...I don't see what he does to get playing time. I don't know why Mancini keeps getting PT, either, if we're being honest, so I'd be fine to make him go away as well, but I think it'd be more likely Wisdom.

Yeah, Christian Franklin is a nothing burger from me. Kohl still has arguably the best changeup in the system and a fastball that hits 97/98. Zero consistency and at this point I'm not sure he'll ever find it. Could be a leverage reliever, he has the stuff. With that said, he's the kind of prospect you trade.

Yeah, I had suggested him as a maybe up top, too. Nationals love tools. I'll be disappointed to see Franklin go because he's been a favorite of mine stuff wise, and I still think there's real deal upside, but he's a risky-ass prospect and in baseball sense, it's not a major loss more than likely.

Loxas is unreliable on his best days, IMO.

I'd guess Wisdom.

So, definitively Perlaza is one.

I'll call it; Perlaza and someone like Killian or Franklin. The Nationals love tools. They can't develop them for horsefeathers, however.

I'm not against the idea of Candelario. I don't think he's a stud, and worry there's a bit of inflation (batted ball data is less good than his raw results so far in places). I'm skeptical of his ability to play 3b (he's usually a negative fielder there). With that said, he probably won't be super expensive, and he'd provide an upgrade.

Brewers pick up Canha.

Fangraph's article was written sometime in late May. We can see this as we read the data on PCA and his walk rate (which has greatly increased over the time of mid-late-May to July). While I appreciate what Fangraphs pospects used to be, and I still find fangraphs to be a leading source of MLB data, their MiLB section has been lacking so to say. It's clearly parceled out to fill content (they post teams top-prospects infrequently instead of all together, for example) and do not recycle and update prospects until they re-examine another team. They also run on some pretty outdated information; we can see this the last few trade deadlines as Eric Logenhagen was working with pretty old data for Wesneski and Killian on pitch data and velocity. That doesn't absolve either prospect of defaults, only that Logenhagen was clearly behind. I actually don't blame Logenhagen; he's one man and there are 30 teams with 150 prospects each; FG has also seemingly scaled back prospect coverage. I would not mark Cade Horton as a 45 FV+ today. Personally, I think he's a pretty high end prosect...probably deserving of sitting comfortably in the top-50 in baseball as of today. He's leading the Midwest league in swings and misses regardless of being promoted there in May (and the Cubs famously limit innings and pitches). He's working with a 2.53 xFIP in A+ as of today, an impressively high 45% GB%, and a really impressive K% over 12 and a walk rate around the low 2's. There's clearly polish to occur; he still has a habit of getting lazy with the baseball and just throwing it by guys in bad spots (his "bad" games generally happen when people hit those fastballs) and the changeup is a work in progress. He's not MLB ready today. With that said, he's progressing down a road in which next season at this time, he very well may be among the best RHP SP prospects in baseball...he's honestly not far away today IMO.

The burden of proof is on the accuser, not the other way around. If you'd like to make a point, than it's upon you to provide evidence, not demand people find the obscure evidence. Secondly, your goal posts have changed, your initial point was not that WAR devaluates relievers but that it devalues high-leverage relievers. I really do want these articles. If they're as easily found as you claim they are, simply posting a link to them would be quite easy. What I can say is I did what you suggested and googled, exactly "War Undervalues Relievers". The top result was from fangraphs, so I guess we're using fWAR (awesome, that's my favorite!). The article states this: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/war-and-relievers/ The article can be found at the link. It does not seem to support your premise, however. As stated, each batter is more critical, but this is actually accounted for in fWAR. This means that fWAR does not misinterpret high leverage relievers. Now, there is this article: http://camdendepot.blogspot.com/2017/04/why-war-based-systems-underestimate.html But the issue is this; it's written after the Fangraphs article and quotes a 2010 article. We can see that in this quote, here So while I think the article is getting at what you want, it is using pretty outdated information. Fangraphs itself, in 2018, claims that leverage is handled in fWAR, while this article, using data 8 years previous claims it's not. Should there be an article I should be looking at more in depth? I'd be glad to read it.

Well, you may believe that a simple statement is proof, but sadly, I would have to disagree with you. If you can provide data to prove your statement of "WAR devalues leverage", I'd be more than glad to dig into it and read it. However, until you can show that kind of proof, I'll simply have to respectfully disagree with you as I have yet to see anything to provide evidence to the statement. Your simple quote of "leverage exists" is sadly not enough for me,