Transmogrified Tiger

The Rizzo comparison is not that Mervis is destined for Anthony Rizzo's career in full, it's that Rizzo(like many others) faceplanted in his first attempt at MLB and the Cubs were the beneficiaries of not writing him off. More to this point, look no further than the offensive leaderboards for 1B this year and you'll see that putting things together in the mid-20s is not exactly unprecedented in the current era. Luke Raley, Ryan Noda, Lamonte Wade, Yandy Diaz, Christian Walker. Look back another year and you've got some of those names plus Ty France and Vinnie Pasquantino too. Teams hoard prospects now so the way to disproportionate impact is guessing/developing right on the ones that need that one tweak or opportunity they didn't get before. You extend that to your current roster by being careful not to write off players for having a poor initial impression.

"He's got the arm for it" Walker's body type really exaggerates the lack of instincts/footwork too, since he only played OF as a pro starting about a year ago. I assume they'll basically keep him at DH and maybe see if he can fake it in the OF in targeted cases until Goldschmidt is gone, at which point his real future home opens up. Of course, you can probably say that about Gorman too(and defense is a big reason the Cardinals are so bad this year), so they may have some decisions to make if both hit well enough.

Jared Young is currently playing 1B regularly, giving Mervis another shot doesn't require unblocking him on the roster. The only people that conceivably would be true for are Morel(defense only), Wesneski(injuries and 6 man rotation could do that too) and Amaya.

Two things jump to mind for me. One is the clutchiness bit that you allude to, and the way I would think to incorporate that as a catch all would be WPA. However Hoerner isn't a standout in WPA, though he's about 60th percentile for qualified players which is better than his league average wRC+. The other thing is baserunning, that's not a part of wOBA(and by extension, wRC+) or OPS+, and he's 19 of 21 in SB and 7th among qualifiers in BsR.

Let's try to figure out why that happened then. Happ was DH'd that day, which I think we can safely assume was a nod to get him some rest. He had played 19 straight games in LF which also meant he had played in 19 of 20 days. Nico was on the IL so Madrigal was at 2B. Hosmer hadn't been DFA'd yet so he, Mancini, and Mervis were all on the roster. That means that holding other starters in place, you have this group for 1B, 3B, and LF: Barnhart, Mervis, Mancini, Hosmer, Wisdom, Morel, Mastrobuoni Other important context is that a very good LH SP(Framber Valdez) was on the mound for the Astros, which essentially makes the 3 choices choose themselves(Wisdom, Morel, Mancini). Valdez doesn't have extreme splits so could they have snuck another LH in there? Maybe, but imagine what fans would've said about the lineup that included Mastrobuoni against Valdez at the expense of Wisdom or Morel(who ended up combining to go 2/9 with a BB, 2B, and HR, for 3 RBI). Mancini isn't an option at 3B or LF, so then the realistic choice we're left with then is which one Morel and Wisdom goes to. At a baseline, you'd prefer Wisdom at 3B, it's the more important position and he's better at it. Plus Wisdom had been playing 3B essentially every day for weeks and is the incumbent, so shuttling him to LF for a single game is at best a little odd, at worst damaging to Wisdom's productivity if he prefers consistency in his role. Additionally, Morel hadn't played 3B since he was recalled and hadn't played 3B in over 3 weeks total, while playing OF most every day in Iowa. So yes, he doesn't have copious experience in LF and Houston is a tricky option. The alternative Ross had was 1) continuing to play Happ and risk wearing him down 2) punt on a lineup spot by playing Mastrobuoni over Wisdom or Morel or 3) weaken 3B defense to put Wisdom(who doesn't play much LF either) in that spot. Maybe the best call was choosing one of those! But the 'I can't believe he made this legit WTF decision' framing doesn't seem to hold up. I'm sure there's other choices that have less backing, and I have my complaints with Ross too. But this is what I mean when I say that people don't interrogate why a given choice *was* made. It's easy to say(doubly so with hindsight) that it was simple and an unforced error to do X, but to understand what the actual motivation was requires embracing that lots of these calls are very much shades of gray that don't have objective right and wrong answers.

They'll be operating as if the team intends to be good in 2024, so while expiring contracts may not be very useful to that end, there's also complicating factors for almost all of them. Also so few teams are likely to be sellers that I don't think you lose much by waiting a while, no one is doing anything of consequence for another couple weeks anyway with the draft and deadline prep. Fulmer: Gone, hopefully they can follow the pattern from trading Martin and get a 2024 contributor(and, you know, keep them until 2024) Stroman - Pick a lane, trading him makes the 2024 job harder but so does losing him for nothing. Really need the right team so a trade return could have immediate impact(Minnesota?) Bellinger: Keep, unless the market is much more tilted towards sellers it's better to keep the comp pick and the option open to extend him. Hendricks/Smyly: Pursue trading one of them if you can get a good deal, I'd probably settle for what I could get in the case of Hendricks but if his value doesn't get close to Smyly's then it's not a super consequential decision anyway. Those are the headlines, but they've been a bit creative at deadlines before and I wonder if depending on the deal if they might consider trading one of these guys: Alzolay: We've seen what a problem a bad pen can be, but at the same time last year's first half studs(Effross, Thompson) are now both basically dead so no reliever is forever. Alzolay is sneaky old(28) and sneakily arb eligible, so if a team buys him as a relief ace I wouldn't be stunned if they tried to arbitrage him. Morel: This basically boils down to the question of if Morel being a zero with everything besides the bat is something you expect to continue. If it isn't then start gritting through his defense while he works it out, otherwise he's attractive if they're making a big decisive move Madrigal: Speaking of sneaky, he's playing at a league average level and has shown he's fine defensively in multiple positions. He doesn't fit a roster that plays Hoerner everyday and needs power from 3B though, so if some team has a similar caliber player that's a better fit then let's do it Merryweather/Leiter: Leiter would basically be the Effross deal, betting against a lower stuff profile to get an immediate roster upgrade. Merryweather would be a bet that a guy who will be 32 next year and has no proven MLB consistency isn't going to be fireman caliber again.

Your baseline expectation appears to be 'a manager that never does anything I find inexplicably bad', which will be a standard that no manager ever meets unless they have a team that is historically talented and injury-free. Managers have more info than us and we often don't consider all the angles that they need to when scrutinizing their decisions, and managers are frequently(especially with flawed teams like the 2023 Cubs) put in position to make dozens of coin flip decisions regularly that some people interpret as obviously good v. inexcusably bad. This doesn't mean that managers are immune from criticism on appeals to authority grounds, but at the same time the overwhelming majority of manager criticism isn't nearly as curious as they ought to be about why decisions they disagree with are actually made. Show me a manager that you think is better than Ross and it's extremely likely it's a manager with a much better team and a manager that you are not watching make decisions day in and day out.

I'll reiterate my take from a few weeks back that Actually David Ross is Good, and that most of the things people get upset at him for are either incorrect, ignoring one of a few factors that come with managing a team over 162 games, or looking for an outlet when a player simply doesn't succeed.

More high end quality is always preferred, but by fWAR the Cubs have the 15th, 39th, and 68th best position players, as well as the 7th, 10th, and 45th SP. If they have a problem with the core it's that there is too much overlap in how those players(plus Bellinger) derive their value, combined with complete zeroes at 1B/DH. If they had Josh Naylor and Marcell Ozuna at 1B/DH those two would be bang average from a value standpoint but the whole position player group would be very good because they'd provide an offensive floor to balance the defense-heavy value from the middle infielders. Instead the 1B & DH positions have combined to be less productive offensively than Madrigal, and Seiya has had a disappointing season to boot.

This is even funnier in context where he had just gotten done being as diplomatic as possible in saying that the home plate umpire needs to be better.

lol I have never seen a deserved strut off the field from an OF before

is that a bat boy coaching first base

The itemized explanation for the call at home was a terrifying half second

yeah he's out, good block by Amaya

They sure aren't lingering on that for it being the difference in win/loss, but JD seems confident

Morel doing everything poorly on the baseball field except hit is one of the more baffling things to happen this year

was that just a cut to Palencia throwing a warm up pitch to the screen

The one on Morel he just has to be looking out, but the one on Alzolay sure felt like him being punished for Adames arguing with the ump for 15 seconds

lol Contreras ran over top of the ball when it was a foot and a half in the grass

That doesn't include Hendricks, who does have that option. If you ask me it's basically the same thing since there's next to no chance the option is picked up, but either way Hendricks isn't part of the 2024 payroll calcs.

That 180 is probably including Stroman, using some back of the envelope arb estimates I have them around 160 without him.

Missed an Immaculate Grid because my Twins closer maxed out at 36 saves, ugh

In an effort to avoid a 3000 word screed ramble post, here's some questions and my assumed answer that I think clarifies what the approach will be and what decisions are the tipping points. I also think it's instructive to again ask what it means to 'sell'. 1. Does Jed have enough job security to trade from the multi-year core he has created(Swanson, Hoerner, Seiya, Happ, "Taillon") and make 2024 worse than 2023 and increase their timeline to a playoff berth? I'd say no. 2. Since even the most optimistic of us did not think a playoff berth was probable, it's most useful to think in terms of 2024 expectations. How has the outlook for 2024 changed compared to the start of the season? I'd say it's muddled, there have been clear improvements vs. middle of the road expectations(Steele, Swanson, Morel, Alzolay), clear disappointments(Taillon, Seiya, Mancini, Mervis, Stroman shooting the moon and guaranteeing opt-out), and some shades of gray(Amaya, Madrigal, Wesneski). I would summarize this that if they thought the current roster could continue progressing to be a clear playoff team in 2024 that is still on the table, but not as clear cut as it could have been. 3. What players have trade value and can't reasonably expect to contribute to a 2024 contender? Fulmer, maybe Hendricks? Mayyyyybe Mancini if he picks up the pace for a few weeks? 4. What players are borderline to contribute to a 2024 contender that have trade value and might be traded? Stroman is the headliner, and by extension Bellinger would too even if I don't think he's going anywhere. Smyly and Madrigal make sense depending on other roster decisions and what they could bring in return. Hendricks could also fit here too(I think by production it's possible he's on a 2024 contender but roster considerations make it very unlikely)

A first baseman that's better than a league average hitter and doesn't play defense like they put the glove on the wrong hand. Doesn't feel like a ton to ask for.

It only just now occurred to me how infuriating it must be to be an opposing fan and watch Madrigal get an XBH against you, some real 'only my teams' stuff