Transmogrified Tiger

Rosenthal picks rosters by the rules but ignoring likely voting: https://theathletic.com/421830/2018/07/05/rosenthal-playing-by-the-rules-here-are-my-sometimes-cringeworthy-picks-for-the-all-stars-teams/ He also has a handful of 'unfortunate omissions' for each position. He put Baez, Schwarber, and Lester in, with Contreras, Bryant, and Almora as unfortunate omissions.

Norwood eh? Guess we'll see if the better hit prevention this year is real or not.

They do have Turner and Seager still, but more importantly, Friedman would rather throw his first born into a volcano than give a 9 figure contract. yeah good point the dodgers are pretty frugal In 4 years there Friedman has given out all of 2 contracts over 50 million or 15 million AAV, 5/80 for Jansen and 4/64 for Turner (which was below market value). I'm not crossing them off, but we've joked many times about his love of efficiency uber alles, so I'm not going to consider them the favorite for anyone who is gonna require 20 million+ AAV

Nico HRner

They do have Turner and Seager still, but more importantly, Friedman would rather throw his first born into a volcano than give a 9 figure contract.

copy/pasted from a week ago since it's still true

I don't quite understand how England's second goal isn't offside. Young is clearly off, the ball is played towards him, and while he doesn't try to play it the defense has to account for him since the ball ends up like 3 yards behind him.

“essentially blocked/ignored” is such a meaningless phrase, just trying to smear fowler. if fowler actually blocked matheny’s number in his phone, that would be hilarious and also an actual story. but “essentially blocked/ignored” means what, that he almost but didn’t stop reading the texts? what the hell does that even mean? Miklasz spent his show yesterday reaming Matheny over this and other things, so I don't think that's intended to be unflattering to Fowler. I think the way to interpret it is they don't have the exact specificity of how Fowler is ignoring daily lineup/motivational texts from Matheny, but it's clear they've been tuned out by him.

I hadn't watched as much Lukaku before this tournament and didn't realize how fast he was. He's such a handful.

I'm with you on the broader point(those hypothetical deals are very Cubs friendly), but this is a pet peeve of mine. Happ has shown himself to be a 3 win player with 5 years of team control. That is really freaking valuable. There exist players with more potential and less current production, and depending on the acquiring team those might be preferred(I'd argue the Mets would prefer the production), but the idea that Happ as a headliner is a non-starter is silly.

To underscore this, Almora this year against qualified RHP who throw 65+% fastballs (Mahle is at 68%, 4th among qualified RHP): 7 for 20 with a HR, .350/.350/.500, 0 K

I'd rather have a guy like Zobrist at the top, but I can see the logic for Almora. Certainly helps with his comfort/confidence, and Mahle is a RHP that Almora is particularly well suited for, with his super heavy fastball reliance and lack of groundballs.

Probably about time to get Lacy to Myrtle Beach.

Given what we know about when the wins have happened, the best 162 game span is going to be some time in 2015 through a similar spot in 2016. The 2015 Cubs took off in July and the 2016 Cubs slumped in late June/early July, so that narrows it down further. The 2016 slide started after 67 games, so if we back up 95 games into 2015 we get a 60-35 stretch to end 2015, and 47-20 to start 2016, or a 107 win pace. If you want to cherry pick a bit more, the 2016 Cubs were 39-15 to start the year, and the 2015 Cubs ended winning 45 of their last 63. That gives a consecutive span of 84-33 over 117 games, which is a 116 win pace per 162 games. Numbers look right but I figured a 104 win team would have a better rolling 162 than 107 wins. Only 3 better than they actually had. Any chance there was a stretch after the Cubs slide but back when they got hot again that rolled better than 107? Didnt we have another smoking stretch late july to aug of 2016. That would still roll back through the super hot 2015 end anx start of 2016 too? Let's see! Using that 45-18 stretch to close 2015, you can tack on the 59-40 start to 2016 but only get to 104 wins. The 2016 Cubs at one point were 82-45, which combined with the 2015 Cubs finishing 24-11 only gets up to 106. It's just a really tough combo to find a streak in. The 2016 Cubs started so white hot, and 1/3 of their losses came in a one month span right in the middle of the season, and the 2017 Cubs didn't start out super hot, that it's difficult to find something much better than these 106 and 107 game stretches. Quite possible I'm missing something though. Wait here's one more, the 2015 Cubs closed the year 21-7, and the 2016 Cubs started 87-47, which gets us to 108 as a rolling 162 game stretch. Not what you're hoping for, but the best yet I've found.

Given what we know about when the wins have happened, the best 162 game span is going to be some time in 2015 through a similar spot in 2016. The 2015 Cubs took off in July and the 2016 Cubs slumped in late June/early July, so that narrows it down further. The 2016 slide started after 67 games, so if we back up 95 games into 2015 we get a 60-35 stretch to end 2015, and 47-20 to start 2016, or a 107 win pace. If you want to cherry pick a bit more, the 2016 Cubs were 39-15 to start the year, and the 2015 Cubs ended winning 45 of their last 63. That gives a consecutive span of 84-33 over 117 games, which is a 116 win pace per 162 games.

The Nats were down 9-0 heading to the bottom of the 4th, it is now 10-9 Nats after 6.

I assume it's because Thor is 4 years younger and has an extra year of team control. My exhaustive 5 minutes of paging through Fangraphs makes me want to go big with a reliever acquisition or not bother for anything that's not a guy picked up for basically nothing. Treinen/Lucroy would be an intriguing combo, taking Lucroy's money is a non-zero benefit for Oakland, but Treinen has been incredible, has great stuff, and 2.5 years of team control so I could see the price tag being high enough to require someone from the MLB roster. Otherwise I don't have strong enough feelings about anyone in the minor league system to feel bad about that deal.

Happ definitely invited him over for a “drink” tonight to discuss strike zones Amontillado, to be exact

pew pew pew

way to fix the divot, Albert

Goodrum needs to watch himself barricading second like that, someone’s gonna get hurt

that may be his most impressive slide yet

justice for the extremely obvious balk by liriano

in fairness to Littell, I think he saw Molitor pointing to the outfield for a 5th infielder and thought it was a call to the pen

Baez in the home run derby seems like asking for 3 swings and misses and like 5 laser beams that nearly go through the outfield wall instead of over it. Schwarber in the home run derby on the other hand...