Transmogrified Tiger

his watch confuses and frightens me

Vin Scully is so bad that the announcer in Little Big League is a Scully parody that is actually not as bad as Scully himself. I'm sure he was probably great at some point, but he's lost so much off his fastball that he's the Jered Weaver of announcers.

Lester pitches Sunday? Looking forward to hearing about what his 7th grade math teacher's name and life story is.

think he'll suffer from the "they're too talented" angle i have heard chatter on roberts because of what the dodgers have dealt with Not your opinion, but this line of thinking cracks me up. "Dodgers bravely weather a storm of injuries after creating rotation stuffed full of injury-prone or currently injured pitchers, plus a lineup full of post-prime players. WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING?"

Baez is going to finish the year as a 2 WAR 23 year old on part time duty whose ceiling is potentially much higher. Maybe he is only a 2 WAR player even at full time duty. His plate game is his only problem area, otherwise he brings very solid all-around game. Is it really a stretch for a team to give that guy a shot at a starting job? Certainly most organizations would as nobody but the Cubs has this insane depth to work with. I'm assuming Fowler gets priced out of range and the Cubs allocate available FA dollars to the closer/bullpen. Which means the choices for Fowler replacement (with position shifting) comes down to Soler, Baez, Almora internally or a cheaper FA than Fowler. To me Baez is the best choice of those options. But again, I wouldn't be disappointed with Soler or even Almora or a rotation of the three. I would be disappointed with a FA other than Fowler, as the in-house options deserve a shot. Against RHP, Baez has a .286 OBP, 1.3% BB% and 26.9% K%. Across the board his numbers have been worse in the 2nd half. He's still hitting for power against RHP and overall his numbers are not unplayable for a player with his defense and offensive potential, but Baez's current role is exactly the role he's earned. He can earn more of a role with the playing time he's been given and will continue to receive, but he's not a guy that you need to do something like move Bryant to the outfield for. Not right now. I do expect Fowler gets priced out of the Cubs range, and I'd expect they try to find a Fowler by proxy(LH, good approach at the plate, CF-capable) at a lower cost, to serve as a hedge if any of Heyward, Almora, or Soler(if he's still around) aren't worthy of at least platoon at bats. Pompey's name has been mentioned, Gregor Blanco is an FA option that might make sense, that type of guy.

This seems the very likely reason to me. His FB command early in counts failing him to set up chase pitches so batters are just pretty much auto taking his slider/cutter. Is there any way to get the data on the locations of his slider/cutter last year vs this year in terms of % it's in the zone vs not or how much it's missing the zone year vs year in terms of distance off the plate? Zone rate by pitch Pitch 2015 2016 Fastball 53% 56% Sinker 55% 50% Slider 48% 45% Curve 33% 30% Change 24% 20% Hard to take too much from this since we can't be sure where the cutters are hiding in those first 3 classifications.

The Cardinals have 1000+ PA already from Moss, Diaz, and Gyorko, players who didn't really feature into last year's team, plus a full year of Piscotty. It's not much surprise that they bear little resemblance to last year's offense. The Cards have a lineup without an obvious deficiency, and many of those okay hitters are guys who are selling out for power(Gyorko, Holliday, Grichuk, Adams). Their problem is what we thought in the preseason, that they're a team devoid of star-power. Right now they're on track to have at most one player hit 4 fWAR(Carpenter). By contrast, the Cubs will likely have between 5 and 7 players at that mark. Without that upside they're basically a team of solid role players and middle of the rotation starters, and that's how you get to be a team making a beeline for 86 wins.

I haven't investigated this, but I think it's the other way around. He's having a hard time controlling and commanding his fastballs(4 seam, 2 seam, and cutter), and they move so much that if he's not sharp they leave the zone. Since the pitch isn't any easier to hit, hitters just sit central and wait for 2 strikes or a pitch that drifts into the middle of the zone. Since the slider(and the cutters with enough bite to be classified a slider) is almost exclusively a chase pitch, this approach damages it most of all.

No one has. Canseco did 3 of them in 4 years, but he didn't go to college so he couldn't get the Golden Spikes. It's also worth noting the Golden Spikes started in '78 and BA's Minor League Player of the Year started in '81, which means a couple potential winners of all 4 got excluded by not having the awards to win, Fred Lynn and Andre Dawson to name two. EDIT: Some links for those curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Spikes_Award http://www.espn.com/espn/wire/_/section/mlb/id/3712056 http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/2015-minor-league-player-year-blake-snell/#ReyHXRzRio0g5M4o.97

All of them save for Baez and Russell will hit FA around age 30, there's going to be very few that we *want* to keep beyond their team control if that decision ends up being made at the time of FA. With that in mind, I'll say Russell, Bryant, maybe Rizzo, and maybe Contreras.

The last two weeks, Grimm has pitched as much as Chapman.

Are you going to be the one to tell him that, because I'm not

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And that despite Montero being the wreck that he is? Damn. Again, these may not be accurate, given that Fox doesn't include Contreras in their team totals and I have no idea how frequently this is updated, but this is what they have by catcher: Ross 5 Contreras 3 Montero 2 No other team is listed with more than 5.

I'm not 100% sure of the veracity of these numbers since Fox Sports is the only source and they don't seem to be super consistent, but I'm pretty sure that the Cubs lead the league in catcher pickoffs, with at least 10. That might be twice as many as the next best team.

I'm not intimately familiar with bWAR, but I would guess not far off. Russell is at 4.0 bWAR, Seager at 5.4.

Think he's caught up to Underwood yet? Underwood has basically been dead to me for 2 years, so yes.

Clifton might make a fine reliever yet.

It was never in question. This is a huge understatement; your position here is MASSIVELY aided by hindsight. But OK. I mean, you can search the archives to find me talking down Bryant worriers at pretty much every turn. Schwarber? Yes it's a valid concern. Soler? Yep. Baez? Without question. Not with Bryant.

It was an abysmal contact rate. He figured it out, but let's not pretend it was never in question. It was never in question.

Bryant hit .327 in the minors, he was always going to be the exception to the rule that was too talented to put in a 'but what about his contact rate?' box.

Wednesday wild card game means that if a team has an ace they'll be starting that game unless that guy HAS to go on the last day of the season. Which in turn means the wild card winner gets their #2 and #3 going against Arrieta and Lester.

Go. Away. get you a man who can do both

Joke works better with guys not owed $!65 million or whatever they'd have to show up for Even if Heyward made the minimum, the odds of him retiring were a lot lower than 3%. Hence the very funny joke that we've made funnier with an explanation.

about 3% chance of Heyward retiring on the spot if that had been caught