Transmogrified Tiger

I was having a similar thought, Made is the type of prospect that the most productive farm systems have this deep. Him having multiple 2-3 win seasons(and high up the defensive spectrum) would be completely unsurprising, as would him hitting for a few months and being a surprisingly influential piece in a big trade.

He also didn't face Woodruff, wasn't going to face Greene, and managed to avoid the best of the Brewers pen.

This is violence.

Imagine pitching the actions of Chelsea as a fictional TV show, you'd get laughed out of the room for lack of realism

Yeah that's fair, *as inbalanced* would have been more accurate.

Schedule isn't unbalanced anymore, that's the only other trip to Cincy.

I'm not gonna tell you the Hosmer signing is a masterstroke, but the investment here is equivalent to an NRI. His name and that he started 4 of 5(partially because of an injury) games to start is probably giving greater weight to his importance than is really there. Could they have spent more and gotten Wil Myers or Carlos Santana? Maybe, but it seems clear the team is right at where they wanted to spend heading into the year(no coincidence the Hoerner extension starts next year so they don't go into the LT) so having your 1B depth be cheap and easy to part with if he fails/Mervis succeeds is just as much feature as bug.

Normally yes, opt-outs don't preclude you from offering a QO. But Stroman already received a QO, so he can't get tagged with it again.

They signed one of them too, Mancini. And once Seiya is back you'll probably see more of Wisdom/Rios at first, to say nothing of Mervis(or even Morel) pushing Hosmer off the roster entirely if the former keeps raking and the latter doesn't hit. Hosmer playing 1B all year was never plan A, but he was always going to get the most potential time at the start of the season, even before Suzuki's injury. If he doesn't catch fire(and for all the hand wringing already we're talking about 4 games) he's not gonna be long for the roster unless there's other complications that go beyond his roster spot.

Hosmer is a hedge. He was a hedge that other 1B/DH types might be too rich for them to add and they didn't want to do nothing in that space(they thankfully added Mancini). He's a hedge that Mervis, an undrafted* 24 year old who was a complete non-entity a year ago, may not be ready for 500+ MLB PA this year. And he's a hedge that the Cubs might have a way to help Hosmer himself, whether via mechanical changes or just riding a wave of rule changes he stands to benefit from to some degree.

In my experience Arizona Phil is prone to these types of proclamations that are overly weighted to what he's seen live in Mesa. Sometimes they pay off (he was the first person anywhere to think Josh Donaldson had elite MLB power) but I tend to not put a lot of stock into them.

Wisdom will struggle against elite velocity, and Madrigal has a more neutral profile against velo

It looks like a couple teams jumped them because they got comp picks(Seattle for Julio winning ROY, Milwaukee & Tampa getting competitive balance picks), and a couple others jumped them because they drop from 49(for signing Swanson) to 68(for losing Willson).

TIL Aroldis Chapman signed with the Royals, I discovered this as I watched him accidentally truck an umpire on a slow roller to 1B

Is this reliever Blackout Gatling from Little Big League

I know Mancini crushed it and the pitcher took a stab, but given the bobble Happ probably should've scored Oh well, doesn't matter. See what happens when we don't stack 3 straight platoon lefties in a row?

Friedl with the 'ow my pride' miss followed shortly by 'ow the wall'

JD forever "I don't know if I agree with that" "I don't know if I agree with it either, I just said it"

oh he was running

I'd pay real money to know what was going through Myers' head there

Everton's remaining schedule isn't too bad, but between the Big 6 matches(@ Man U, v. Newcastle, v. Man City), and a couple tougher road games(Palace, Brighton), my guess is they're in control of their fate but could throw it away in that finale v. Bournemouth.

I really want Amaya to rake this year and then I want to ship him out for like Yoan Moncada

Probably nothing, but McGeary being listed as a catcher catches my eye.

I think it's a fair point that the time to find the winners comes at a cost, but it's also hard to disentangle from the rotation. When starters struggle to go 5 innings, the burden on the pen compounds. This was especially bad last year with the rotation injuries, which not only meant we were on rotation option 9 so the pen was throwing a ton of innings(meaning more innings for even the known losers), but it removed some of the success stories(mainly Thompson but Leiter Jr. also) from the pen which made things even thinner. I also think that some of this is self-imposed in a way that won't necessarily persist. In 2021 none of the biggest winners from bullpen roulette were around in 2022(Kimbrel, Chafin, Tepera). The closest was Effross, who was great in 2022 before he too was traded, and joined some of the 2022 winners in that regard(Robertson, Givens). But the sea change that's started is that starting with Effross(a nothing sidearming prospect they sold high on before his arm exploded) there's now arms with extended team control being built up. Thompson, Alzolay, maybe Assad, maybe Hughes, you add that base plus whatever is still coming from Iowa(including a bunch of velocity) to their clear ability to pick their top FA setup/closer candidates successfully(Kimbrel/Tepera, Robertson/Givens, Fulmer/Boxberger thus far) and I think the optimism is warranted.