Transmogrified Tiger

I'm definitely a name on the front guy instead of the back, so I'd eventually be fine with it, but Chapman would be conflicting. On one hand, baseball has done a really poor job of welcoming women as fans, and Chapman skating on a domestic violence charge is another reminder to all of them that they matter a little bit less. At the same time, Chapman was put through the legal system(unlike, say, Castro) and served a suspension, so there has to be a point of equilibrium. You can't blackball every player you don't like as a person or Mojo's MLB would only have 15 active players. Plus from the Cubs perspective, odds are this is only a short-lived phenomenon. As far as the costs go, I'm probably going to be bummed at what the Cubs would give up. Not necessarily because it's bad value, because Chapman is truly an inning incinerator you can use about 30 times plus as many playoff games as you want. But because it's for short term assets, and short term reliever assets, and that's counter to how I would like the team to be run, and counter to how Theo/Jed have built this team to be what it is.

Baez is the best tagger in baseball and it's not close

Oh, it was the collared throwbacks. 100% justified

Lackey is gonna force some difficult decisions come October. On one hand, he might not be the best choice for the postseason roster. On the other hand, without a purpose he might single handedly decimate the city's squirrel population with disastrous ecological effects. Tough call.

lol, if you insist

tweet this so i can retweet it without being a thief. All yours, my friend.

It's good to be reminded every now and then that Sale is Jon Lester's talent and John Lackey's personality stuffed into the body of slender man.

[tweet] [/tweet] I assume this means Richard getting DFA'd.

I am ignoring any contrary evidence to prop up the fantasy that Archer is the target we're after. - He's past the injury nexus and has proven to be durable, but he still has 3-5 years of team control - His performance this year should suppress his value a bit(or cause the Rays to doubt enough to pull the trigger on dealing him) but it's still plenty logical to see him as a TOR guy moving forward - Soler being a main piece makes sense given their OF situation and also explains the Reddick/Bruce rental rumors - The Dodgers' interest could be manufactured(they'll trade prospects when they're cold and dead from TJS thank you very much) to try and drive up the price - Tampa wouldn't shy away from taking better prospects at lower levels, so Torres could be another main piece

This thread is such a fitting tribute to Vogelbach being traded.

Against a RHP, Montero is a better hitter than Baez.

He was traveling to Milwaukee? He's there now so that's the likely reason.

I am very ready to be a Mekkes fanboy. Agreed, let's get him to full-season ball ASAP.

Jennings makes sense if Almora is going to Tampa or in some other deal*, otherwise I'm not overly interested. *I would not be surprised if this was the logic behind any interest in Reddick, having a contingency if you trade Soler for a SP or Miller.

I don't even necessarily think 'yes I would trade this player for Miller today', but I don't think any of those guys is an unreasonable ask for the Yankees to make. Asking for Schwarber is a nonserious starting point, asking for any of those other guys listed is a point from where reasonable minds can disagree.

I think the question is 'for what' instead of 'when'. I'd trade Schwarber today in a deal for any number of players, it just so happens about 0.0% of them are relievers. That's the particularly maddening part about the backlash to Cubs fans hating the rumors, it's much more about 'don't give up big assets for relievers' than 'we can't ever trade Schwarber'. Change the name and I'm far more agreeable, Soler, Almora, Torres, Happ, Jimenez, maybe Baez? Not taking any of them off the table for a player of Miller's caliber. The moonshot masher who's a pretty safe bet to put up 15 WAR in the rest of his team control? No.

Though it was real messed up when TT ran out and punched Clark right in front of him. oh sure they can show that but they don't show me screaming 'WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?' in his face, this is character assassination

Cameron has the annoying tendency to overreact in the opposite direction when he gets a bunch of homers berating him about a certain opinion, Law is also prone to this. Schwarber is not going to be an elite player unless he becomes a better OF defender(not probable but possible given his lack of time there) or sticks as at least a part time catcher(unlikely given his knee injury and current abilities). Schwarber's contact rate/K rate is something to keep an eye on, as is his BABIP from shifts. None of the criticisms of Schwarber are inherently wrong. Where he goes off the rails is in his comparisons to other players, and in translating that to Schwarber's value. Number one, look at that table of low contact guys and think about how many are actually comparable to Schwarber, especially when you consider their minor league history since Schwarber only has 300 MLB PA. Junior Lake? Avisail Garcia? Oswaldo Arcia? Get out of here. I'm not going to take the time to filter that table on those who had a MiLB wOBA over .400(Schwarber's is about .450) and also a K rate under 20%, I bet it's a whole lot closer to Kris Bryant and the rest of the guys with 120+ wRC+'s. Secondly, the whole exercise implies that Schwarber's offense has to stay at 2015 levels for him to be good enough to shrug off a deal for Miller. Schwarber is not going to be a regular 4+ win MLBer unless there's an unexpected change, but he can regress a fair bit and still be a 3 win hitter under team control for 5 years. That's still worth more than Andrew Miller! And it's not terribly close. Add in any optimism you might have on his ability to maintain 2015 production, be able to catch some, or improve as an OF defender, and the math tilts even further that direction. tl;dr Cubs fans at large overrate Schwarber, which annoyed Cameron so much that he tried to find a way to use Schwarber's true limitations to justify a Schwarber/Miller deal. He failed.

Josh Reddick 2014 - 117 wRC+ 2015 - 117 wRC+ 2016 - 123 wRC+ CarGo 2014 - 83 wRC+ 2015 - 114 wRC+ 2016 - 124 wRC+ ???? both have had injury issues over the years, both are kinda iffy/not great in the outfield Accounting for ballpark is important, but I will absolutely take CarGo being a fair bit better than Reddick with the bat over the next few years. Cargo is also not a rental. That said, I don't really want to trade for a position player at all, so CarGo is more of a placeholder in the absence of a more appropriate target that would actually be available.

With the pen recently reinforced by Montgomery and Edwards' arrival, and with the rotation not lacking for back end options with Warren showing well along with Matusz, I only want to make another deal for someone who is really good and has few question marks. Or in other words, don't play around with marginal upgrades like Reddick, Hill, Shoemaker, Abad, etc. If you make a deal, go big with a CarGo, Archer, Gray, Miller, etc.

what if Quintana was the mystery Pomeranz target

What makes you say that? I don't doubt that he'll be given a chance to stretch out down the line(even if it's a token gesture a la Cahill), but all the quotes I saw didn't make any allusion to him starting. If anything he pointed to Andrew Miller himself as the hopeful outcome for Montgomery.

I just finished Sharma's article on the trade that had some pretty extensive Theo quotes, and there wasn't a mention of him being a starter, not even in future seasons. I think it's safe to say that he's viewed almost exclusively as a reliever for this season.

[tweet] [/tweet]

Nightengale says Jordan Pries is the AAA pitcher: http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.cgi?id=pries-000jor Unremarkable statistically, late round college draftee, maybe he'll tick up out of the pen.