Transmogrified Tiger

This is why punishing them in the 4th is so important. One more hit and it's 8-2, Merryweather is not in the game and you aren't getting Leiter/Fulmer hot too

good opportunity to end the game here, would be real nice to execute and make the last 5 innings low leverage

I'll maintain that Barnhart was and is fine as a backup catcher. The line for an "average" offensive output for a backup catcher this year is about a 64 wRC+, which is a threshold that Barnhart is like 2-3 hits on his season line from reaching(and what his line has been since May). I also think that while you don't want to fritter away money on marginal players, you can't necessarily pool all that money towards a different upgrade. Yes, they'd be better off today if they had Senga instead of Mancini/Smyly, but that's also a 5 year commitment that signed much earlier in the offseason, and we have reason to think that Mancini/Barnhart in particular was a Plan B reaction to not getting their primary target(probably Vazquez). In the case of SP depth they also had Wesneski looking like a mid-rotation stalwart post-trade as insurance. My criticism of how that roster developed is two-fold. You can't have 3 catchers on a modern roster if you aren't using them, and we've spent months in a weird liminal space where Amaya increasingly gains trust as a catcher but doesn't get much opportunity as a PH/DH/1B despite yawning chasms in those spots. And for as much as I can understand how they got to the 1B triad of Mancini/Hosmer/Mervis, you can't go 0 for 3 in getting even MLB average production. Morel saved them a bit because that would be pretty dark otherwise.

I'm not itching to keep Wisdom around, but in this specific 26 man roster he can serve a narrow purpose of platoon/PH RH power. Other options are mostly left handed hitters, unless you want to add Bote or Perlaza to the 40 man, but I personally don't think much of their short term value in that narrow role compared to Wisdom.

It's basically the exact opposite of reality. This year Happ's OPS in Low/Med/High leverage situations is .712/.812/.869, and for his career it's .811/.770/.801

TIL

Jed not messing around with sunk costs this year

No strong convictions, but I'd guess they're just continuing to cycle through arms they have some reason to think could come good with some change(health, pitch mix, opportunity). Doesn't really cost anything given the open 40 man spots and even in the best case scenario they're not locked on to stay on the 40 man through the winter, so might as well not let that in-season 40 man spot go to waste.

Box score says it's last year's 18th rounder Garrett Brown, which is probably for the best because whoever it was went: pop up, BB, 1B, pickoff throwing error, ROE, 1B, WP, SF, WP, BB, WP, BB

I've started mentally calling him Jeffy Rojas to the tune of Dani Rojas' 3rd person song

This doesn't make any sense man. Swanson got the least of the FA SS because he got promoted super fast and had more non-elite seasons to criticize? Swanson wasn't younger in his debut compared to the other SS(the opposite, mostly) and definitionally they have roundly the same amount of service time.

Imagine telling us on May 1st that in a high leverage situation during the stretch run that we'd be happy to see Madrigal PH for Wisdom against a LHP

oh is the outside corner for breaking balls back open now

Strop as a Cub: 2.90 ERA, 3.28 FIP Fulmer as a reliever when he signed with the Cubs: 2.98 ERA, 3.43 FIP Also Fulmer was used to late innings, having 17 saves of his own.

Given the infield adventures the Royals have had I don't hate the aggressiveness of forcing the issue, I just have to think his brain flipped into less than 2 out mode once Morel was caught because I can't think of why he'd think going to 3rd was a good idea.

wouldn't have really mattered but why is Nico going to third there

Candelario really top-spinned the bejeezus out of that one

Something to keep an eye on for sure, though there may be mitigating factors, e.g. he's caught a disproportionate amount of Hendricks starts

In the context of 'do the Cubs have a curse with their ROY winners', it doesn't seem to make much difference if Bryant has injury issues 6 years later playing for another team. He was enormously successful as a Cub even after his ROY year, and won an MVP when they won the world series. Sure he's been a bust as a Rockie due to injuries, but calling that another instance of the 'Cubs ROY curse' that laid dormant for a half decade and manifested after he left the Cubs makes the whole idea silly.

That adds up to an 81.8% SB%. League average is... 79.7%, so they've allowed 2 more steals than you'd expect given the attempts. EDIT: Average is 107 attempts as well and the Cubs have 102, so they aren't getting beaten up on volume either

I thought Morel hit that to the moon off the bat

some classic Royals baseball there

If the Cubs want to win more and lose less in 2023, they should probably not play PCA instead of Seiya. PCA is a really good prospect, I think he's gonna be a good player for a number of years. He is not going to be a good major league player tomorrow, and it does a disservice to go through this cycle where we repeatedly don't recognize the difficulty and more importantly the *time* it takes to make the leap from AAA to MLB. The Cubs could call up a left handed bat with OF experience that's hitting .296/.450/.480 with a near 1:1 BB/K ratio, that's stealing bases at a clip of 28 SB per 500 PA at a 100% success rate. They aren't doing that because that's Miles Mastrobuoni, and while AAA performance isn't gospel(see: Tauchman), we should pay closer attention to how close it is between the players we hope are future stars(PCA, Mervis) and the players we also see as MLB flotsam(Mastrobuoni, Madrigal)

I believe some hitters wear that to reduce sting on the hands and improve grip

oof