Zagunis hit one and upped his OPS to .490. Yikes. Caratini is off to a pretty steady start though. Improve a little over the season, end up with an .800ish OPS, I'll take that for backup catcher-in-waiting.
Great stuff. One suggestion, the comparisons to Bryant were really good, but it feels like a table might have illustrated them much better than reading about them in paragraph form. Having tried to create tables in the editor I can sympathize with not wanting to go through that hassle though.
THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT If he doesn't pick it up by June I'm making a word filter to turn every mention of his full name into Aldi-brand Placido Polanco
Probably Stroman I lean this way too. Even if you had to use Baez to get him, the remaining infield defense combined with his 60% GB rate is tantalizing.
and it's a real hoot we're not even slightly perturbed we frivolously gave away a top-5 prospect I am contractually obligated to point out that back in full season ball and outside Arizona/ST, Gleyber Torres looks incredibly ordinary again.
Here's your last 10 posts, excluding the two in response to David: search.php?author_id=15869&sr=posts - Zobrist's contact rate is down 10% - Contreras is a defensive replacement if he doesn't figure out his plate discipline - the offense looks terrible right now - Bryant got 5 pitches he should have destroyed - Happ is going to pass the whole Cubs team in HR - Contreras can't hit changeups - "Awesome" after Strop pitched poorly - "Let's get that BB/9 in order Pedro" - "Schwarber is going Gallo on us" (referring to K's) - commiserating about the strike zone and glad Jake got out of it 9 out of 10 posts complaining about individual players or the offense as a whole. Now do the same thing for David to see how often he actually complains about Baez: search.php?author_id=576&sr=posts Criticism or disagreeing as fine. Criticism of this Cubs team as the overwhelming majority of what you say is obnoxious.
Setting aside actual likelihood of trade and asking prices, who would you give up more to get, Quintana or Stroman? Both have 4 years of team control. Peripherally they're very similar with the exception of Stroman getting more ground balls. Stroman has better stuff and is younger but he's been less healthy, even if the injury wasn't in the arm. Quintana has better results but will be declining by his last team controlled year. Tough call.
I would be interested in reading an explanation of why pitching a late inning up 2 runs is more than twice as valuable/leveraged as pitching that same inning down 1 run.
I think I'd rather have a set outfield with Almora and Heyward and then mix and match Zobrist and Javy. In a six-game week Zobrist gets four starts and Javy two, with Javy still getting in late in a lot of games and also getting starts when Addy and Bryant get a day off. Exactly how I'd like to see it play out I feel like I say this every time the conversation comes up, but Zobrist is the best hitter on the team that doesn't get MVP votes. Him regularly playing only 2 of 3 games is bad.