Transmogrified Tiger

His IsoP is definitely way up since he made that adjustment(.261 in September, his best since last August and 3rd best month ever), but his batted balls don't show much more being hit pull side. Maybe the stuff he's pulling is more successful though, I don't have the granularity to see that.

Agreed that the default lack of transparency is annoying, but it's very easy to make two clicks and have the prices show the all in cost. It's not hard, but it's a frustrating way to shop if you're price conscious(which I imagine a lot of secondary market buyers are). Especially when I can just as easily go to SeatGeek and see the all-in pricing from multiple outlets and have similar or even better selection.

Stubhub pretty much lost my business once they stopped showing all-inclusive prices in searching for tickets. Not sure what growth hacking dummy thought that was a good idea, but "let's make ourselves just like Ticketmaster when we have no moat to prevent competitors from doing the right thing and benefitting" is not a formula for success.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/hannibalburess/status/788220208796225536[/tweet]

It's more that the Dodgers are terrified to let him pitch because they've been treating him as bubble boy the pitcher. He threw 6 strong innings against the Cubs on August 27th, and he's thrown 16 innings since. presumably for an occasion just like this? Well they let both Kershaw and Hill start on 3 days rest instead of letting him even start a game in the LDS. I imagine it's more of a 'he's at 125 innings and he's never thrown 90 before' thing rather than a 'let's save all the bullets to use at once'.

It's more that the Dodgers are terrified to let him pitch because they've been treating him as bubble boy the pitcher. He threw 6 strong innings against the Cubs on August 27th, and he's thrown 16 innings since.

Why wouldn't they just use Stripling in relief of Hill and then start Urias in Game 4 and only expect a couple innings out of him? That way you have the hope of getting more SP innings in Game 4, and Stripling gets the benefit of a lineup oriented for a LHP. In the Cubs' case the latter doesn't make much difference(especially with Montero starting), but still.

Even before I saw Zobrist's reaction I thought Grandal sounded just a wee bit crazy. There's a nebulous advantage to stealing signs anyway(some hitters don't want them, could guess wrong in the process of stealing them, etc), and Grandal is going on about rotating through 5 different sets of signs like they're nuclear launch codes.

If it's Ross then I'd be more willing to let Heyward go out there, but we've already seen this exact sequence play out once(Arrieta on the road in a pitcher's park against a good LHSP) and it was Montero and Soler. So unless Miggy's back flares up or has been bad enough all along to prevent him from catching(doubtful), I think it'll be the same pair.

Soler is bad defensively and probably worse than a healthy Schwarber, but the last page or so definitely proves it can be overstated. Especially in this case where he can easily be pulled after his 2nd/3rd at bat to minimize time in the field. But you're still having to deal with bad defense for half the game in that scenario. Given the size of the park, it's effect on power numbers in general and the massive difference in defense between Soler and Heyward I just can't see how it makes any sense to start Soler. If you're that concerned about Heyward v LHP, that you want to start a RHH, you're almost better off starting Almora. Almora would be preferable to Heyward and his .586 OPS against LHP this year, because since you're already starting Montero against a LHP for defense and you can't punt the entire bottom 3rd of the order for defensive purposes. I'd still rather Soler hit because I don't trust Almora at the plate at all, and knowing what you want to do with Soler going in means you can maximize the upside while minimzing the downside. The last game was a perfect example, he got 4 plate appearances and had one fly ball hit his way. Against leftypalooza you can probably similarly hide him in LF with similar outcomes. I'm not 100% sure if I'd put him as high in the lineup because that puts you in a tricky late innings spot where Rizzo could be pitched around to get to Heyward/Almora, but we're splitting hairs at that point.

I audibly gasped when it came off the bat, then the camera angle was still nearly in the infield and I realized he backspinned the bejeezus out of it.

I was hoping to avoid the pedantry of 'we don't know how good Schwarber will be after tearing his ACL, he might be worse than before', but I appear to have sidestepped one pothole for another.

I think that's overstating Solers defensive deficiency. He's better than Schwarber was defensively and has a solid throwing arm. He's no Heyward but nobody is. Nah. Soler is really really bad defensively. There's no overstating it. Soler is bad defensively and probably worse than a healthy Schwarber, but the last page or so definitely proves it can be overstated. Especially in this case where he can easily be pulled after his 2nd/3rd at bat to minimize time in the field.

Soler had an .864 OPS in the 2nd half, and in that time a 1.099 OPS against LHP. I know he didn't have a knock out September(partially because he faced exclusively RHP), and I'm not trying to appeal to a big background of production for him, but I'm still a little puzzled that his bat is being considered a non-factor. I expect a copy of the lineup they sent out for Bumgarner, at least in terms of the 9 players in it. Speaking of LHP, the Cubs were the best team in baseball against LHP, so even though Hill has had peripheral success, given his recent stumbles and the fact that his repertoire doesn't include heavy use of a slider like Kershaw/Bumgarner, I'm pretty confident that they'll get to him for a few runs at least.

WELL DID YOU WIN OR NOT?

The Cubs have been power-heavy in the postseason thus far, but they also hit 3 homers in 2 games in SF. All but Ross's HR in Game 4 have been no doubters. Half the Dodgers runs this series have come on home runs, and they both are HR's that would not have gone out of any other ballpark but Wrigley. See http://www.hittrackeronline.com/ for the numbers on that front.

I don't think that'll happen with Zobrist also in the OF, but it's worth a thought. I actually like the matchup of Soler against Hill, Jorge struggles the most with recognizing pitches that play off a fastball, his worst pitch values are sliders and changeups. Hill throws 90% fastballs and curves.

Yes, and if the wind was swapped yesterday and today, then the Cubs win like 6-3 yesterday and 5-2 today. If you want to play up 'all good things that happen are flukes' have at it, but it's not reality. Literally every anxiety you can have about the upcoming games applies more to the Dodgers than the Cubs.

Jesus if we're going to go full on Pete Rose here and just buy into super small sample sizes, going into tonight the Cubs had a .686 OPS and the Dodgers had a .698. But yeah, just write this team off based on the best pitcher in the last twenty years shutting us down. the offense has been propped up by some incredible clutch late-inning horsefeathers. Has anyone felt positive about Arrieta the last few months? Lackey? The way the offense has performed this offseason filled you with confidence even before Kershaw took the mound? Now we're going on the road. Talk horsefeathers about Hill if you want, but go look at his bb ref page for the last two seasons and tell me you feel confident about game 3. Hitting home runs in the 8th and 9th counts just as much as hitting them in the 2nd and 3rd. Arrieta had a good start in SF, has done well against this Dodger team, and to reiterate, the Dodgers have not hit for crap thus far in the series.

A quick reminder: In LA's 7 playoff games, Kershaw is the only starter to complete 5 innings. Hill has given up 5 runs in 7 IP over his 2 starts, Maeda 7 runs in 7 IP, and Urias is so distrusted that he's only been allowed to throw 2 innings(30 pitches, 16 strikes).

The previous four games were 5-5-6-8, runs wise. Not abysmal. But definitely not where it should be. Russell has to be moved out of the five spot. Having two hitters who are slumping badly back to back in the middle of your lineup can't continue. What was the team OPS in those four games I'm not going to do the gory math, but from eyeballing baseball reference I'll say it's about .750 to .650 for their opponents.

Good point; it's been a whole 24 hours since they scored 8. I don't think we can count on 9th inning grand slams going forward. This offense has been bad the entire postseason I'm kinda confused why runs in certain innings don't count. In the playoffs they've won and lost a 1-0 game, and scored at least 5 runs in the other 4. Meanwhile the Dodgers have 4 runs and 3 extra base hits through 2 games.

Jansen got 2 strikes out of the zone and no balls called in the zone Kershaw got 2 strikes out of the zone and 2 balls called in the zone Hendricks got 1 strike out of the zone and 3 balls called in the zone Chapman got 0 strikes out of the zone and 1 balls called in the zone So -6 on strikes for the Cubs today. I have no idea what the normal deviance is. Because I was curious, the Cubs were +2 on strikes yesterday, +0 before Rondon entered in the bottom of the 9th.

Jansen got 2 strikes out of the zone and no balls called in the zone Kershaw got 2 strikes out of the zone and 2 balls called in the zone Hendricks got 1 strike out of the zone and 3 balls called in the zone Chapman got 0 strikes out of the zone and 1 balls called in the zone So -6 on strikes for the Cubs today. I have no idea what the normal deviance is.

if Fowler gets on I'm going to be stupidly confident that they walk it off