Transmogrified Tiger

The Cardinals are the closest thing to the MLB version of being stuck in NBA playoff hell. Not good enough to seriously contend and no terrific path to get there, but not bad enough to justify blowing things up.

The White Sox traded a reliever(Jennings) for a prospect and replaced him on the 25 man roster with a guy with the last name of Bummer, which is a super on the nose metaphor for the White Sox season.

Yeah, the Gold Cup is traditionally a B squad of players who play in North America. Plus Bradley, Dempsey, Altidore, and Howard didn't play in the group stage.

Schwarber is one of Cameron's blind spots, everything he ever says about him is going to be through the most pessimistic lens possible even if it actually makes him look ridiculous. Oh no, Schwarber has an above average arm and is basically average with the glove, how terrible.

The score was 18-6 (yes, eighteen) when that happened too.

I don't see a compelling reason why Avila wouldn't be starting unless he picked up a knock. He didn't play Sunday, caught 12 innings Monday and pinch hit yesterday, so it's not about managing his innings behind the plate. Maybe he is about to go somewhere. FWIW, the Tigers SBN blog mocked an Avila for DJ Wilson trade when they were doing hypotheticals for all their trade candidates. EDIT: That news coming on the heels of some specific Cubs rumors with other backup catchers is interesting.

I think of Lugo's potential more like Strop than Montgomery, but I guess if they think there's something to unlock you don't know what it might be on the positive end.

Especially for someone who came up through Colorado's minor league system(California League, Texas League and at the time Colorado Springs), it's entirely possible that someone could be shielded by an innate inability to hit/lay off breaking stuff too. Put another way, Arenado's minor league line is .300/.345/.473 (in almost exclusively hitters leagues) and his MLB line is .289/.335/.530, it's far more likely he's getting a significant benefit from Coors than he's somehow finding a happy medium with the hangover effect.

I saw a headline about interest in A.J. Ellis as well. Rivera seems like the right target, no question on if he'd be available, cost would be minimal, solid defender and framer, not a complete black hole with the bat. Ellis is all of those things but the framing too. As far as bullpen tagalongs go, I could most easily see Ramos + Ellis given they've been linked to Ramos. I'm not sure LHP needs to be a priority if they're giving up on Montgomery as a SP.

Since his 3rd start of the season, Hendricks has a 3.24 ERA and 3.68 FIP. I also still haven't seen anything showing that it's safe to compare velocities across seasons because of the Statcast measurement switchover. I'm going to need both his velocity to stay where it is and for him to start getting pounded for me to not think of him as the same guy.

http://i.imgur.com/bJmO5iW.gif

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I would've bet a not-small sum of money that Javy himself had done the 5 K game before.

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love u carl

Sometimes you have to gamble on getting an extra inning, this is the 5th of 20 consecutive games and the pen through 4.2 innings yesterday. Lackey wasn't exhausted and 7-8-9 were due up. What's Monty for out there then if he can't come in yesterday or today and soak up a few innings? That was also an option. My point is not that it was clear cut to leave Lackey in, but that it wasn't clear cut to pull him. This is also a game where Joe probably expects to score 2+ more runs(what with Rodon only going 4 and a terrible pen behind him), which increases the margin for error.

Sometimes you have to gamble on getting an extra inning, this is the 5th of 20 consecutive games and the pen through 4.2 innings yesterday. Lackey wasn't exhausted and 7-8-9 were due up.

I guess he wasn't going to re-sign so they cashed in and will try and get a stopgap with some of the money? Definitely not a great look, and doubtful he can be easily replaced, especially in their system(hack and run)

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Well, you just can't pass up an oppprtunity to put Pierce Johnson in a Top 30. Or Chesny Young in a Top 20.

There's some moving pieces involved. - If nothing else materially changed, adding Verlander would take them out of the running for pretty much any 25+ free agent for the next 2 offseasons. So no Otani if he waits a year or Harper/Machado. - If Otani doesn't wait a year, then the money doesn't matter at all in his case. - Heyward opting out would basically bring that back to where we are now. You can decide for yourself if his rejuvenated self would opt out a of 5/106 at 29 with an additional 2019 opt out. - There are not very many pitchers worthy of 25M+ in these offseasons. Otani if he waits a year is one. Other potential options are Darvish at 31 (2017), Kershaw at 31 if he opts out of 2/70 (2018), Price at 33 if he opts out of 4/127 (2018), and Keuchel at 31 (2018). With the exception of Otani and Kershaw, neither of whom are at all guaranteed to be available just for money, you can make the argument that Verlander on 2.5/70 is a better option than whatever FA contract Darvish, Price, or Keuchel might sign. Also Verlander helps you today, which is a nontrivial benefit, and in the case of Price/Keuchel/Kershaw, he also helps you next year instead of keeping your powder dry for 18 months and who knows what other circumstances. EDIT: It's also possible that after 2018 they might go into the luxury tax for a year to get someone they really like(I would think Harper is the name for this). After 2019 you'd be losing Verlander and Zobrist for 40 million(and maybe Heyward for 22 million) so you could get away with only one year above.

MLB.com/Callis updated their lists, the new Cubs Top 30: http://m.mlb.com/prospects/2017?list=chc The top 10 is: Candelario De La Cruz Albertos Alzolay Lange Little Caratini Hatch Zagunis Paredes Rucker does not make the Top 30.

Hatch has also been way more hittable than Rucker, which is the biggest reason I put Rucker in front of him.

Just to nitpick, Hatch is only 5 months younger than Rucker(April v. September birthdays in the same year), and while Hatch has shown great HR prevention(2 in 85 IP), so has Rucker(3 in 60 IP). Re: Lange, my comment on mileage is mostly related to this: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-workloads-of-2017s-top-draft-prospects/

Offense got enough hits but not enough XBH to score with pitcher's conditions. Yesterday they didn't get enough hits but smacked enough XBH to score anyway. It happens.