Transmogrified Tiger
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Everything posted by Transmogrified Tiger
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The opposite, actually, he's been steadily improving and has been producing at a decent rate for a good bit
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pretty excited to see how the Brewers manage to get the lead back, my money is on a chopper hits a low flying bird to deflect down the line for a leadoff triple -
They are Bottom 10 in MLB in wRC+ at 3 positions, Top 10 in MLB at 3 positions, and therefore Middle 10 in MLB at 3 positions.
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Michael you have to know better, hitting the ball hard does not get rewarded today, only bloops on getaway day
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Tauchman also struck out while Happ hit it 100 mph with an xBA near .600
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I think it's a fair criticism and potential downside of Jed's roster building approach, but I also don't want to overstate the fungibility of those stars. Swanson was 25th in ZiPS preseason hitter WAR, and 16 of the guys ahead of them are pre-FA or otherwise with the team that developed them. And below Swanson in that list are a number of hitters that previously have been thought of as 'stars' in that vein when they hit they were available and the shine is off or we're far enough down the long term deal that it's an afterthought while their salary is not.
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The point is those are very different pathways. Developing pitching from within is obviously important, that's what the Brewers did with Hader and Williams, and also had positive knock on effects by being able to maximize lesser pitchers in lower leverage. Of recent Cubs vintage, Alzolay is the biggest Cubs success in that regard, and only for part of a season. Until very recently that was the toll being paid for not developing pitchers, why McLeod didn't survive the front office shake up, etc. Their improvements in that regard are starting to bear fruit, having already gotten 30+ excellent pen innings from Brown and Wesneski. Unlocking something new in a mid-20s RP on his 2nd, 3rd, 4th organization is a different roster building pathway, that's what Hudson and Megill are, and what I'm talking about as a thing that happens in both directions to lots of teams. There's little indication the Cubs are net negative in that pathway, especially when talking about forward-facing given how recently they've turned Leiter Jr and Merryweather into relief aces, have had tentative success with Almonte and Miller, etc.
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Come on, being able to find unexpected performances on the fringes of the roster is not the primary reason those teams are at the top of reliever WAR. It's especially galling to use this argument in comparison to the Brewers, Hader and Williams were 60% of their reliever WAR since 2018 despite throwing 13% of the innings.
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Cade Horton leaves AAA game early - panic?
Transmogrified Tiger replied to Rex Buckingham's topic in Cubs Minor League Talk
The lat is the arm/shoulder moreso than being isolated like lower back or a hamstring strain, and the recovery plan for an established player like Taillon is very different from how the Cubs treat pitching prospects. In particular those with past arm issues like Horton. -
The only thing that makes sense to me is extra caution with Swanson and Hoerner being truly recovered, and basically being done with Mastrobuoni as an infielder/SS. It does make for a shorter bench, though in a world with the DH that's a more tactical question and the benefit is a bit more marginal.
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The Majors and high minors are full of mid to late 20 somethings that sometimes break through due to opportunity or coaching/development tweaks, in the current pitching environment that's kinda how it goes for everyone. You obviously would want to avoid being always on the losing side of those, but there's no indication that's been the Cubs' problem. We can lament that Estrada went to SD and learned a splitter, or that Hudson and Megill look great 2 organizations and years later, but counting them as preventable failures is a bit short sighted given the circumstances(options, 40 man spots, years of experience) that drive many of these decisions. Three different organizations had Leiter Jr. before he perfected his split, Merryweather couldn't miss enough bats as a Blue Jay to avoid a roster crunch, and Miller couldn't survive a crowded Mariners bullpen before jumping to the Cubs and immediately pitching even better than his mild MLB success.
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Tauchman's career wRC+ in over 1200 MLB PAs is 102, and it's 114 in 600 PA with the Cubs. We shouldn't pencil him in as a 110+ wRC+ for the next half decade, but at 33, given his track record and the way he gets to that production, there's little reason to expect he's going to crater offensively or drastically underperform his rest of season expectation(which is around his Cubs career line). Extending that logic to Happ, a 29 y/o career 114 wRC+ hitter, is again about expressing annoyance with someone who didn't hit for a few weeks moreso than an actual reason to think PCA would be better.
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Being annoyed at the players who haven't played well the last couple weeks doesn't mean that we should expect PCA to outperform any of them going forward.
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ZiPS ROS has PCA as the 4th best OF on the roster, barely edging out Tauchman who projects decidedly better with the bat. PCA's defense and baserunning definitely help him belong on an MLB roster even if he's not raking, but with 4 good/productive OFs, the marginal benefit isn't worth it when PCA has more developing he can do at Iowa.
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Out of curiosity, do we know what the spread between Gomes and Amaya was in 2023?
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We should try that anyway
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Sure, that's a good shout. I originally had something about Busch tanking *really* hard but removed it because at this point he's shown enough that he's going to get a pretty long leash, especially in comparison to the offensive expectations we'd have for PCA.
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One of these things should probably happen before PCA comes back up again, in rough order of likelihood One of the OFs goes on the IL PCA sustains his post-demotion hot streak to the point where he'll get more development from scattered MLB at bats than AAA ones. This isn't something that would happen in June. Tauchman starts tanking with the bat, given the equity he's built up this should be more than 'oh he's been bad for 10 days' type of thing that typically gets people worked up
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My learning from the Swanson contract so far would be: 1. Elite defense that isn't built on elite tools/physicality is going to be more prone to slumps with age. I suspect that's what we're seeing with Swanson now and he'll look very similar to last summer before long. Especially given the injury this year. That injury and the issues with last September tie into the other learning.. 2. Don't place extra value on iron men in making big acquisitions. One of the things that added value for Swanson in my view was his ability to play every day, especially at a position where the backup is likely very deficient on one side of the ball. I think the modern game is basically choking that out of players, and it's definitely doing that for guys whose ages begin with 3. Neither of those concerns/learnings rises to regretting the contract though. If the defense truly doesn't turn and/or he doesn't have a hot streak to buoy his season line we can revisit by season's end, but I'm not gonna let a couple weeks at the end of 2023 and 40 games in 2024 when he's battled injury be the assumed norm going forward.
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Everyone can have their aesthetic preferences, but the Cubs were 6th in MLB in runs last year. The extent in which all the games felt like 'keep it close and out-bullpen the opponent' is more a function of them being a .500ish team last year than a stylistic choice. I don't have a clear explanation for the team as a whole putting up a 59 wRC+ the last 2 weeks(I suspect it's definitely not *one thing*), but I'm skeptical that 'entire offense hits like backup catchers for several weeks' is preventable on stylistic grounds.
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why does someone named Joey Ortiz look like an extra from the sopranos
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Gasser has thrown 3 pitches for strikes but third time through the order against good hitters I'm not sure the stuff is good enough to withstand hitters cutting down the guessing game. Going to a lefty for Morel/Wisdom/Swanson/Happ seems like a very curious choice though.
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Because Steele is a LHP that gets lots of ground balls, which means more ground balls to the left side from RHH, which means 3B defense takes on greater importance.
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I wonder if, pre-Fanatics hysteria, Reds fans bemoaned the penny pinching cheapness of not giving major leaguers 'real' letters when they sized them down from the visible from space versions they had in this game
