Transmogrified Tiger

Let's please not turn this into a case study in how many runs can score with a BABIP of .000

Cody you've gotta be on 3rd man, Friedl had a beat on that immediately

Since the start of 2022, the Reds have hit the most batters in baseball, and the difference between them and 2nd is about the difference between 7th and 9th.

Both World Series teams last year had similar or worse stretches, after the all-star break.

Nico's hand is bad enough that he can't grip a bat well enough to play but he's gonna run and potentially slide into home with that hand unprotected?

Alexis Diaz could be the Reds closer for the next 10 years and I would still see his last name on a scorebug or boxscore and think it was Jumbo Diaz.

Don't mistake decision making for execution, Bellinger had terrible trouble picking up the breaking ball, was sitting fastball(especially with bases loaded and following the walk), and got a good pitch to hit.

whatever happened to Toy

full available schedule the other 2, one of which was a 60 game season. And again, 100 games is not an okay level either, *just missing* 100 games played means you missed about 25% more of the season than you would want in a regular. For his career he's averaging 100 games per 162, that's not enough to make qualifier leaderboards. Not a small thing if you're talking about making a significant trade for a player.

cackling at JD hanging Boog out to dry "I don't like the stripe across the hat, it looks weird" (pause) "K"

Okay, so Robert has never missed time aside from 2 of his 3 full length seasons, while he was very healthy for the short pandemic season and last year. And he's already missed over 50 games this year. This is not a made up thing! However convenient you might find it, a guy you're looking at paying a steep price for consistently failing to play 100 games, never mind 130-140, is a significant factor.

Minor Leagues don't play 162 games. Robert has played 58% of games in the 3+ full seasons since the pandemic-shortened season, a 94 game pace. There's a difference between 'oh this guy gets a little knock every year and gets rested like most modern players', and spending most of his career missing ~3 months worth of games per season.

Why do you think he put Wisdom 1st?

I split this off because I think it's a worthy topic that isn't specific to the White Sox sell off. My quick .02: I agree that you probably need to make a more decisive move than they have fairly soon, both because of what Bertz mentions about the diminishing returns of hoarding upper level prospects, and because their point in the competitive cycle it will make sense to be a bit more bold. The deadline and this deadline in particular is going to be a suboptimal time to make such a move. There's already news stories about how few sellers there might be, and in general the deadline has trended away from splashier moves In particular, the sellers this year don't have a particularly good match for what the Cubs might want to add. This is not to say there's no one worth trading for, but if you made a list of the profiles the Cubs would be most interested in trading for, the top couple on the list probably don't have a good match to players likely to be traded in July. Having said that, there are a few interesting names if you start dangling multiple Top 100 names that most orgs will hesitate to give up or even have. For SP, Crochet and Luzardo probably highlight the list. At 3B, if the Rays are open to it and a playoff longshot you could maybe tempt them out of Paredes(especially with their 2 best prospects being 3B at AAA). Robert was mentioned in the other thread and could be worth it even if the fit is suboptimal.

BBTV implies that proposal is a slight overpay, though they have Kopech has negative value and I would assume any trade for Robert will be at least a little irrational from a value perspective. Still not so far off though, players like PCA simply don't get traded anymore unless they're also getting pre-arb quality in return(e.g. Varsho for Moreno). More likely, I think you'd see like Alcantara and one of Ballesteros/Caissie as the primary pieces?

Having done copious research read at least 2 ranking lists of scouting reports, I think of the consensus names that may be available, I'm most interested in the FSU guys. Further down the board, I'm kinda intrigued by Janek? Surefire catcher defensively and big small school numbers are intriguing, especially when he held his own in the Cape and his offensive explosion came after that. I also wonder about this FO taking their chance with Brecht, he's functionally the Wiggins pick on steroids.

only slight though

40% K rate, but yeah, it's dire. 14 wRC+

Corey Julks is a video game NPC, let's get him out please

Iowa's PBP guy mentioned that Madrigal's came after he got hit with a 97 mph fastball, though he didn't say where. Palencia came in with 2 men on and went BB, K, BB, SF, BB, so that's not promising.

I haven't really looked, though I have two hesitations about this. One is that I don't have the same degree of confidence in the quality of the data we're seeing in the minors. We're 4-5xing the locations and putting them in places with less on hand resources and familiarity. Not even a statcast thing but the whole Iowa velocity ordeal last month is representative. I don't think they're junk, but I also think we should be careful to attribute bedrock certainty especially if the data is outside previous norms. The other is more important, in that while I understand the impulse and think you could build an interesting scale based on these, I don't think it's doing the same thing the scouting scale intends. Ultimately all of the statcast data is outcomes. More granular outcomes than counting RBI or looking at BABIP or errors, but still they are results that translate imperfectly when we have to understand expectations 2, 3, 4 levels above. Can I use Max EV to see if someone's FV on the power scale is too high? Probably, there are some guardrails that are likely useful checks. But the point of the scouting scale is to use information that is outside of outcomes/results to contextualize and evaluate how well certain things will translate when facing MLB pitchers/hitters, or at physical maturity, or when certain mechanics get another 12-36 months of pro instruction. Think of how often there are pitchers that see leaps in either raw stuff or performance when they learn new pitches, sequencing, or find a mechanical tweak that cuts down walks by making their delivery more repeatable. As metrics get better we need to lean on that part of the evaluation less, and that's a good thing. But I don't think that need for subjective evaluation vanishes entirely, or at least certainly not based on anything we have access to as the viewing public.

Hit tool isn't *really* about K rate, Caissie is a great example because he strikes out a lot but also barrels a ton of contact. He hit .290 at a higher level, so despite only having a 40 ceiling on the hit tool he's clearly further along. As for Alcantara, his batting average was not far from Ballesteros' at High A, and they only list his ceiling as a 35 so they clearly think whatever is left is more structural compared to about the level of competition, and that he's further along athletically/physically.

It sounds like your issue is more with the idea of present and future value. A guy who hits .300 at High A in most cases isn't particularly close to being a 45+ hit tool at the MLB level if you jumped over the upper minors. If they update it midseason it'll almost certainly be 30-35, maybe even 40 if they feel his step forward this year raised the FV to 55. It's just accounting for the default that prospects fail, and the massive degree in difficulty between the low minors and MLB.

They don't update those grades on a rolling basis, it's not including anything from this year. I'm sure it will be higher upon the next update now that he's demonstrated that potential ceiling at AA.

If the end result of trading for Alonso is 'when everyone is healthy and no one is being rested, either Busch or PCA are out of the lineup', I have a hard time seeing that as being a mutually exclusive situation. Part of that thinking is that you do exclude Morel from the calculus, but even as one of his longest running defensive skeptics, I think that ship has sailed for this year. The internal options have not been nearly good enough to push him to DH outside of specific matchups, and in a world where that would also push another plus hitter to the bench I think they'd be even more willing to stick it out with him. Also, Alonso has a career 133 wRC+ and Citi Field is tied with Petco for 29th in hitter friendliness, part of the motivation for pulling the trigger is you're buying at least slightly low on what you'd expect for him rest of season.