Transmogrified Tiger

So Wittenmyer fairly confidently claimed last night that Smyly's option is for 10 million, and it's a club option and not mutual. Brett for one seems to be taking that at face value with the caveat that the team itself used the word mutual in announcing it: https://www.bleachernation.com/cubs/2022/09/10/drew-smylys-incredible-outing-and-the-status-of-his-2023-contract-option/ It's good to have options, but I have a hard time seeing a scenario where keeping Smyly is a good idea. He'd be extremely underwhelming as the sole SP addition, and $10M is way steep for some sort of depth "you can never have too much pitching" type of add. Yeah I'm a little conflicted. One one hand, 10M is real money, Smyly doesn't miss enough bats to have big upside in the rotation or relief, and with the team's development apparatus you would think you can get the next Smyly for significantly less. On the other hand, trying someone else isn't a risk free venture(sometimes they're Norris or Newcomb), I'd have decent confidence Smyly can soak up middle relief innings if not needed in the rotation, getting Smyly done right away keeps your attention focused on the biggest moves for the offseason, and compared to some other situations Smyly represents a pretty clear bridge to homegrown arms in '24 and beyond. It also depends on how willing the team is to deal from prospect depth. If they are, then those targets are more likely to be lower cost and Smyly makes increasing sense. If not then you probably need to use your available resources more efficiently.

So Wittenmyer fairly confidently claimed last night that Smyly's option is for 10 million, and it's a club option and not mutual. Brett for one seems to be taking that at face value with the caveat that the team itself used the word mutual in announcing it: https://www.bleachernation.com/cubs/2022/09/10/drew-smylys-incredible-outing-and-the-status-of-his-2023-contract-option/

Ben Brown ran out of steam a bit in the 5th but that's still 3 good starts in a row. Seems like he's settling in at AA. Myrtle Beach doing Tom Tribute Night, with 2 HR for Hearn and 3 hits for Ramirez.

Caleb Kilian stop walking people your command is supposed to be your carrying tool challenge

Madrigal with a groin injury again is bad news

To play devil's avocado, I think the shift restriction does a lot to reward skill. Any MLB team should be able to read a spray chart and put a shift on, so while there's understanding it's basically table stakes at this point. But with the restriction, the hitters are rewarded for hitting the ball hard, pitchers are rewarded for not giving up hard contact, and fielders are rewarded for having the range/arm to make lower probability plays.

Judge is doing this while playing an averageish CF in about 60% of his games too, which is absurd considering he had only played a handful of pro games there before this season. On the roster spot thing, I've seen it pointed out that the benefit is a bit muted because in order for Ohtani to do what he does, the Angels go to a 6 man rotation, and Ohtani is only DHing when he's hitting. Before looking into it my thought was "come on, it has to be Ohtani", but I think I'd probably go with Judge right now if it were up to me.

Would depend on the specifics of how the rule was written. I would guess that in writing the rules you don't use "feet in the dirt" in defining this and rather something like "not in the outfield" or "past the boundary of the infield" or some such legalese that would not include cheating up for bunts or runner on 3rd situations.

Both were approved today along with larger bases. Larger bases were unanimous, the players voted against the pitch clock and shift restrictions. I am...not convinced by their reasoning.

Tomorrow the pitch clock and shift restrictions are getting voted on, which is likely a formality. The Athletic has a lot of details on how the rules work: https://theathletic.com/3578254/2022/09/08/mlb-2023-rule-changes-pitch-clock/?source=twitterhq There's lots of details about the specifics of the pitch clock, but the gist is 15 seconds with bases empty and 20 with runners on. The shift restrictions are more mild than some versions I've seen, 2 players must be on each side of second base and must have both feet in the dirt. The one interesting thing I hadn't seen before is that teams have to specify who those players are, so teams can't swap their SS and 2B to get more range against LHH.

Thiago and Matip getting healthy will go a long way. They aren't quite single points of failure(Konate is very good if he can get healthy, and there's other midfielders who can get back from injury or into form), but they're representative of what should be a turnaround in results. At this point I'm not worried about them missing the UCL knockout rounds or even qualifying for Champions League next year. But in terms of an EPL title race, I think between the flaws and lack of depth they've shown, I'm not at all hopeful they'll be seriously in the hunt.

What's funny to me is this is true and yet I also think Euro soccer teams are in general wayyy too quick to fire managers. I think part of it is this built up cultural expectation and part of it is semi-rational because of the financial implications of relegation or missing European qualification, but the American equivalent would be like 3 NFL coaches losing their jobs after Week 7 every year. Everyone has worst case scenario brain all the time.

Aquino has a career OPS+ of 82, and a big chunk of that is the 182 OPS+ he has against the Cubs(which is 13% of his career PA), not including the HR he just hit. They're basically keeping him in the league.

Whoscored seems to think that the main constant so far this year is 2 up top, but it seems pretty amorphous since the closest thing they have to a striker is Welbeck and they list guys with similar builds as Pulisic(Mac Allister, Groß, etc) at various positions in the formation.

wtf is going on with them? They've been so bad except the one match that I'm like disappointed that my lowly Everton could only produce a scoreless draw against them. Van Dijk is old enough to be mortal and his top 2 CB partners are both hurt, and they're playing Milner way too much(8 GA in 290 minutes on the field, 3 GA in 300 minutes off the field) because half their midfield is hurt too.

Being over the tax would be temporary as Heyward, Contreras, Happ, Gomes, probably Stroman, and possibly Hendricks come off the books after '23. So they'd be able to immediately reset (if that's still a thing). Also, Contreras almost certainly won't accept the QO, so we'd likely "only" be 20-30 million over. :) I'm not sure Rodon is the best FA SP, but he's certainly top 3-5. I'd vote DeGrom as best even if you only get 50% playing time from him. Scratch Rodon and substitute Verlander or the best SP you can sign. I think if you're going to commit to using the assets to trade for Ohtani that you commit to trying to win it all in year 1. I get the sentiment, but it doesn't strike me as particularly good roster planning to bank on being able to replace your starting C, LF, and 1-2 SP for nothing in order to reset. You'll also have increases from Hoerner/Wisdom/Madrigal/Reyes hitting arb, replacing inevitable injury/underperformance, etc. That's functionally sacrificing 2024 because there's no way everything breaks that perfectly. And that's before getting into the lack of realism of the other 29 teams letting you make off with those 3 players at those rates, which strikes me as similarly impossible.

That team would be extremely fun, but it also would go about 40-50 million over the luxury tax, and the rest of baseball probably won't let you trade for the best player in baseball, sign the best FA SP, and sign one of the 3 best position player FAs even if ownership allowed it and Jed wanted to do it.

Chelsea have a lot of things to worry about right now but tossing in Tuchel creating goalkeeper uncertainty by trying Kepa for the 21st time is really something.

which are well fun? Bayern . . . I'm struggling after that. Madrid? Not really - they can just afford their mistakes. Liverpool? City is like Madrid. Arsenal right now maybe - spurs had a good summer. I mean, if you eliminate the term super club, I think you can find quite a few well run clubs . . . City, Liverpool, Bayern, it seems like Real Madrid and Barca take turns every few years. Arsenal is on the right track I'd say, and Spurs is probably more in that Atletico/Dortmund tier where they can't quite financially hang with the biggest but they still use money to stay near the top of their league. This is not very scientific, and more a way to laugh at the likes of Chelsea, Man U, and Barca than anything.

I think this is probably a good reason not to invest in multiple SP, especially given the high minors depth and the more significant developmental success they've had on the mound. I can't go as far to say it makes more sense to go wide instead of deep on hitters though. For one it's easier to luck into 10-15 performance at a position than it is Top 5, and those raw rankings aren't representative of guys like Morel(contributing to multiple positions), Reyes(recently added), Davis(prospect), Mervis(prospect), or even Madrigal if you want to believe his start of 2022 was the outlier. That doesn't mean you don't add other position players, you need to do something with catcher and I'd vote for a LH CF that's an above average defender on top of the star level bat. But I wouldn't steer away from a Correa or a Turner just because it means I can't sign Josh Bell and Brandon Nimmo instead.

Iowa has started 4 drives in opponent's territory and another 2 past their own 40, and their offense has 3 points. They're at home against an (admittedly good) FCS school.

Estrada stayed up with expanded rosters, but yeah if there's someone you want to get a look at this year, Newcomb's not making any use of the roster spot.

Outstanding. (please be good and not have lost velo)

I did some quick searching on the format, is it still Top 4 conference champs get byes, top 6 conference champs get bids, and no other conference limits? I wonder if they're reconsidering the bye thing since the latest realignment/consolidation. EDIT: Looks like Auerbach's saying the Top 6 champs getting bids stays, but no other specifics confirmed in her quick story.

I've been trying to temper my expectations for Mervis for months now and we've reached the point where it's just going to be mean if he doesn't become a useful big leaguer.