TheDude

Ok, those swings look solid and on point. Needed to see that.

Mother of god puss puss!

I called Baez early for the first two series, but for the WS it feels Arrieta needs to remind everyone he's the reigning Cy Young and pull down the MVP.

It's the next day and it's still real!

I'm going with Baez either pulling off a Jeter-esque defensive save that wows or one of his Phelps slides in a Dave Roberts turning point moment.

Baez is going to finish the year as a 2 WAR 23 year old on part time duty whose ceiling is potentially much higher. Maybe he is only a 2 WAR player even at full time duty. His plate game is his only problem area, otherwise he brings very solid all-around game. Is it really a stretch for a team to give that guy a shot at a starting job? Certainly most organizations would as nobody but the Cubs has this insane depth to work with. I'm assuming Fowler gets priced out of range and the Cubs allocate available FA dollars to the closer/bullpen. Which means the choices for Fowler replacement (with position shifting) comes down to Soler, Baez, Almora internally or a cheaper FA than Fowler. To me Baez is the best choice of those options. But again, I wouldn't be disappointed with Soler or even Almora or a rotation of the three. I would be disappointed with a FA other than Fowler, as the in-house options deserve a shot.

I think Soler and Fowler are the odd men out, with Baez pushing Bryant to LF. The OF defense of Bryant-Heyward-Schwarber is more or less average maybe slightly above average, but the infield defense of Baez-Russell-Zobrist-Rizzo is elite. Given that the Cubs pitching staff is ground-ball heavy (and Soler could be moved for a young controlled ground ball starter to further build that profile), you want to emphasize that IF defense and can live with Schwarber in RF. It's absurd how amazing the possibilities are here, there is not a wrong answer.

Can't help but feel bad for Castro. Endured all those shitty years and gets traded on the cusp of a dominant run. At least it wasn't to a non-contender.

Trading Castro to sign anyone other than Heyward is dumb at this point. To sign Zobrist is a complete head-scratcher.

Angels are showcasing some serious highlight reel defense up the middle with Simmons, Featherston and Trout. Too bad Featherston and Simmons can't hit the baseball.

I do not want to face Kershaw and Greinke with these expanded playoff strike zones.

You can link your mlb.tv subscription to your cable login to be able to stream the TBS feed through mlb.tv. Although oddly, it worked on my ipad but not on my apple tv or playstation. Those were still blacked out even with the linking.

For me the biggest surprise is the number of hits versus misses on the 5 big name prospects. The mantra was repeated so many times in prospect discussions: if we're lucky half of the prospects will pan out just as MLB regulars. Rarer still would be one or more of those half hitting the prospect ceiling as all-star or better players. Time and again fans have been cautioned not to plug in all these rookies and expect success. Yet that is exactly what happened. Soler is still an open question, but his second half plate discipline turn-around gives promise. He deserves extra leeway as well knowing he was one of most abused victims of bad umpiring in the first half. Fowler was similarly victimized and the effect on him was just as dramatic. Giving up on Soler is a mistake at this point. Baez is still an open question but looks damn good right now and trending toward to success. Bryant, Schwarber and Russell all look like successes. I think most would agree that hitting on 3/5 on the big names at or above ceiling rookie production is a huge surprise. And having those other 2/5 still as potential MLB regulars is icing.

Is today's uni sold anywhere?

Enough of the dumping Castro nonsense.