Transmogrified Tiger

Hungary clinging to a knockout round spot through the final match of 4 different groups and then losing it because Georgia beat Portugal would be enough to drive an entire country insane.

If it was reasonable to expect Neris to be a mid-3s ERA, why is it an unforced error to not give it Robertson, who by both current performance and ZiPS is a mid-3s ERA?

Welcome! On Canario, I think many wouldn't be upset if he were recalled, but there's a couple things that work against him. One is that while his top line performance has been good, his peripherals(in particular his K rate) paint a more worrisome picture about that performance translating to MLB in larger samples. The other factor is his fit on the roster. There isn't a clear path to Canario being the best matchup option for regular playing time given the makeup of the 3 starting OFs, and Tauchman, while left handed, is a pretty split neutral option who narrows opportunities further. And in a more bench-specific role he's duplicative with Wisdom, who also has some ability to play the infield.

Bellinger's -1 in CF this year is based on 40 games when he has 400 games prior to this year where he never finished below average, so I don't have any concerns there. Also the magnitude of PCA's contribution is probably a bit exaggerated, because while he certainly is top of scale the current extrapolation is that he's like a +30 CF, which strains the limits of what's physically possible for an OF to provide value-wise.

I think the thing that will help the team the most in the short and long term is getting PCA to Iowa, the offense can't withstand having multiple guys with wRC+ in the 50s, and there are internal alternatives to PCA unlike with the catching situation. Plus I've long maintained that preference for his own development. Who comes up for him is less interesting to me, because the beneficiary of playing time in the meantime is probably Wisdom/Bote at DH(or 3B w/ Morel DHing). But whoever it is would be short term until Tauchman is hopefully back. Canario or Davis doesn't really matter to me, I'd vote Canario but it's less an endorsement of him and more of a 'you gotta get PCA off the roster' situation and he's the least bad pick.

To play devil's avocado on the value front, I think you could also make the argument that 1) Ballesteros hasn't proven he can't be a functional 1B, though I'd expect it to almost be the inverse of Busch where he'd add the most value as a receiver and have limited range 2) In the current game there's a surprising amount of value in having a plus bat that could catch even 20 games a year given shorter benches and the demands on the position. 3) His bat is doing something so impressive at such a young age that the possibility remains of him being an elite bat, even by 1B/DH standards, is still there

Good for Kyle, I was fairly convinced he was only on the roster to make it to 10 years of service but he's definitely proven that won't be the case when he hits that mark in the upcoming days.

I understand the logic, but I think there's a real risk of making perfect the enemy of good. I agree that Suzuki is not a starting RF defensively, and if I'm thinking about his primary position going forward I think DH is the spot since LF isn't going to mask his deficiencies at all. Where I'd differ is that 1) Suzuki is not *unplayable* in RF and so can be plenty useful defensively to a big league outfield in smaller doses, preserving flexibility that prevents significant logjams 2) if I feel the need to trade from a relative surplus of 'positionless' bats, I'm going to trade Morel over Suzuki. Morel will have more trade value, I'd rather have Suzuki's bat in a lineup over Morel's, and Seiya is not overpaid for his value so the freed up money doesn't go as far as a better return(or simply better fit) on Morel would be.

Seems like just an extra day of rest for Shota

Yes, Slovenia and the Netherlands are through, Slovakia/Group E 3rd and Hungary are currently in place to advance, and Croatia is eliminated. The path for Hungary is Turkiye winning, drawing, or losing by 3+, along with Portugal not losing. There's probably other permutations with wild scorelines from Group E that get them through too but not worth gaming out.

exactly, you nailed it

Do you think they will finish the year with 2 players reaching 3 fWAR?

Also take a second to game out even in our apparent wildest dreams where the Cubs get a couple of that surplus for Steele, they are probably not better in the short or medium term.

Yeah, and I think there's the attitude that the expectation is to advance, and beyond that it's good to get these reps against Uruguay, Colombia/Brazil, etc ahead of 2026 so given the form and the fact they played somewhat competitive friendlies against both this summer, it's not a huge distinction.

A couple thoughts here that don't necessarily connect together. * This year's team so far has underperformed expectations as a collection of individuals, basically the truly unexpected positives so far have been Busch, Shota, Brown(when healthy), and I guess Tauchman. Some of that is a coaching or scouting/roster building responsibility, but also most of the noteworthy underachievement has come from those with established track records(Swanson, Hendricks, Neris, Morel) while the aforementioned successes have been those with the widest band of outcomes. It was (and to a large extent is) logical to expect better as a collection of parts. * There is no roster building plan that can seamlessly cover half of your preferred bullpen being hurt, including most of the back end of the pen. It especially can't when one of the back end guys was terrible(likely the precursor to injury) and the one healthy late inning option has underperformed about a decade of steady production. And it especially can't when the rotation also has below average injury luck thus far in the year. Jed should do something external here the moment it's possible, because while Merryweather is getting closer, Almonte just had a setback, it's radio silence on Alzolay, and while we can pine for Roberts/Bigge/etc, there is no likely internal savior(or at least not enough of them). * It boggles my mind how so may people appear to hold the simultaneous thought in their heads that they are furious how long it has been since the Cubs made the playoffs, or call this a X year rebuild, and yet with the team 3 games out of a playoff spot in June(with plenty of reason that small changes/health can improve their fortunes) we immediately jump to 'must sell' mode, tear it down, etc. Bellinger has very little trade value, and the main value of trading him would be to free up money(maybe not as much as you think) to use in free agency on players with similar or worse expectations/upside. If the Cubs pen were 15% healthier, and there was a rumor that Justin Steele's clone was available in trade, we would clamor over the thought of adding him as a long term piece that would also boost their playoff chances. It is lunacy to think a team in the current situation should entertain that thought.

Costa Rica drew with Brazil, which means that Colombia no longer need to beat Brazil to win their group. The US's group is paired with this one for the knockout round, and normally if we entered the Uruguay game tied on points with Uruguay, the main competitive angle would be to win the group and avoid Brazil in the quarters. Now it's unclear(and won't be clear til after the game since we play before Brazil's group) what Uruguay game outcome = Brazil.

I'd honestly think about Wesneski here, the ballpark gives him margin for error on his only problem at the moment, plus it's a 2 run lead.

Well that is gonna make the USA/Uruguay game theory complicated, unless Costa Rica can bunker their way to a draw against Colombia too.

Hungary I think is through now simply with an England win, which probably does not make Scotland feel very warm and fuzzy after the PK they didn't get yesterday.

The Cubs are 9th highest in Z-Swing, 17th highest in O-Swing, while being 12th in Swing % overall. I don't see an easy way to break that down by count, but considering they're 19th in Ks and 9th in BBs I don't see any reason to think they're a big outlier. I think the degree to which that gets noticed is due to 1) taken strike threes are way more memorable and 2) there's a league wide shift due to how much harder pitch recognition is with tunneling and how good pitchers are at inducing chase.

I'm going to be attending the Uruguay match so I really hope that too. If it helps, Panama doesn't face the full USMNT all that often since Gold Cups are often rotated squads, and the last time it happened the US smashed them 5-1 at the end of WCQ.

he'll be out on review but Busch needs to throw that overhand

we just had to make an injury update thread didn't we

Statcast has him between 90-92. However, we've seen enough jumps in velocity from other promoted pitchers that I'm skeptical of the calibration with Iowa/AAA. Also, Statcast is listing all of these as cutters, so there may be some intentional tradeoffs of the last tick or two for greater movement.

feels like Iglesias kinda played himself on that, flatter angle he may have been able to get there on the big hop instead of having to read the skipped hop mid-dive