Jump to content
North Side Baseball

squally1313

Old-Timey Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    10,357

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    23

 Content Type 

Profiles

Joomla Posts 1

Chicago Cubs Videos

Chicago Cubs Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

2026 Chicago Cubs Top Prospects Ranking

News

2023 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

Guides & Resources

2024 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

The Chicago Cubs Players Project

2025 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker

Blogs

Events

Forums

Store

Gallery

Everything posted by squally1313

  1. squally1313
    I go back and forth in terms of what I actually believe and eventually just appeal to authority. How many thousands of hours were spent by smart people getting paid to do this to create the best possible all encompassing stat. Also worth pointing out (maybe) that the Cubs are 17th in defensive value added since last year and 11th in offensive value added (a little driven by good baserunning). Nico and Dansby are elite. The rest are a smattering from above average (Happ) to bad (Morel).
  2. squally1313
    Are you saying that a run created is more valuable than a run prevented?
  3. squally1313
    Why
  4. squally1313
    I don't know. In the same way you aren't going to fool other teams by pointing to Taillon's ERA (and covering up his FIP/xFIP), other teams are absolutely aware that Morel is underperforming his xwOBA by 51 points, that he's cut his K rate from 31% last year to 23.5% this year, his walk rate went from 8.5% to 10.9%, etc. Another year of control is gone and third base is probably written off, but there's a quality bat there that hasn't failed yet at second base.
  5. squally1313
    But how do you judge good players? By height?
  6. squally1313
    So are you making the argument that there's no point in building an elite team, just need to get into the playoffs and then it becomes more or less a crapshoot?
  7. squally1313
    Can you expand on this please
  8. squally1313
    I generally try to avoid just throwing out random trades, but feel like the only defensive position left for Morel to maybe fake it at is second base. The Red Sox have gotten pretty comfortably the worst production at second base in baseball this year. They moved David Hamilton over to second about a month ago and he's put up a 105 wRC this year which is admirable, so it's righting the ship a little bit, but he can't hit lefties at all and also doesn't really have much of a pedigree. How close does Morel come to getting us Teel? I'd be willing to give up more if needed. They've got Connor Wong and his 125 wRC through 2028 to fill the catching spot. In the short run we get by with Mastro and Wisdom, in the middle run we look at Murray, Shaw, Triantos. By opening day 2025 we'll have more data on the kids and another offseason to go after Chapman or trade for a long term solution. You move Seiya into a more full time DH role, give PCA daily starts, have RF for Cody (or Canario, or Caissie, or Alcantara). Aware this is more of a Sell discussion given Teel is probably at least a year away. But don't think removing Morel from the equation changes anything for the teams success the rest of the year.
  9. squally1313
    That team plus Hendricks at $16m, Bote at $5.5m, Neris at $9m, Smyly at $8.5m, Gomes at $6m, Barnhart at $2.5m, Mancini at $7m (total of $55.5m for a combined -1 WAR for the Cubs this year) all coming off the books.
  10. squally1313
    Yeah but Taillon isn't like, a shortstop. You need at least 5 of them, realistically 7-8. All of the pro-trade arguments essentially come down to clearing his salary because it's looking slightly underwater as a contract and just hoping it gets used in a different manner. We already have Hendricks (16m), Neris (hopefully) (9m), Bote (5.5m), Smyly (8.5m) coming off the books as essentially pure salary relief (by that I mean you don't have to replace their production/position), there's plenty of money and/or prospects there already to get us a front line starter without creating a hole there for the next 6 months and just assuming we'll fill it.
  11. squally1313
    Bregman scares me. There's the short porch in left in Houston, the pretty clear decline in surface level stats, the fact that he's just another 30 year old first division/non all star starter on what will inevitably be another $20m deal. Really, I just want Shaw or Caissie to blow up somehow, despite having no expectations that the Cubs can produce that kind of bat.
  12. squally1313
    Fair. I think, to your point, it looks exceedingly difficult to take this core and turn it into a 95 win team without blowing it up, which is probably what OP was (poorly/badly) trying to say when he talked about 'valuable sense' of the term playoff contender. But if you were to just make our catcher and third base production 20th in baseball vs where it is now (30th and 28th), that's 3 more wins just so far this year. Can you build a monster team if you have Happ/Bellinger/Seiya/Dansby/Nico/Busch fairly locked into your lineup? Probably not. Can you build an 87 win team? Yeah, and you aren't that far off.
  13. squally1313
    I mean, filthy pitching staff plus best pen in several years plus the current offense, ranked 18th in baseball, is....a pretty good team on its own? Find a way to fit a premium bat around Busch/Happ/Dansby/Nico/Seiya, with PCA, Caissie, Shaw, Triantos, Alcantara, Ballesteros, etc all as either options or trade bait.
  14. squally1313
    I'm sure there will be a name or two that gets thrown out there, but that's conveniently skipping the following steps: PTR just putting the money right back in the team and not just telling Jed good luck with the farm dudes (Brandon Birdsell, opening day 5th starter!) The Cubs actually having to make the best contract offer during free agency You already have him, he's signed, he's going to probably give you as many starts as you want out of him.
  15. squally1313
    I'm not going to pretend to be the prospect guy around here, but nothing about a 25 year old (26 in August) with a 5.4 BB/9 rate in AAA screams 'let's trade the guy who has given us 250 innings of a 4.20 ERA and is outperforming last year'. We free up $18m a year to do....what? Giolito got 2/$30 after a 1 WAR season, Eduardo Rodriguez got 4/$80 after a 3 win season, neither of them have thrown a pitch this year.
  16. squally1313
    I feel like some people just want the Cubs to Declare They Are Sellers but haven't actually thought through how seemingly useless the whole exercise would be. All our good players are signed, reasonably so, for the next two years. All our bad players can't get you anything of value. Like, sure, do the Michael Scott 'I Declare Bankruptcy' thing if you want. But the normal sell off trades are good offensive players/starters on expiring deals or shutdown relievers. We have none of those. Relatedly, trading Taillon for a 40 FV guy when we've already used 9 different starters this year and Horton will definitely be on an innings limit next year seems a little rash.
  17. squally1313
    lol nevermind ok see you guys later
  18. squally1313
    Purely pitching wise….hes been…mostly fine right? Two line drives and a HBP in 10 batters. Fine is probably too generous, and obviously he screwed himself on that throw into center but the actual pitching is ok enough.
  19. squally1313
    Can we just forfeit? (We’re probably going to win)
  20. squally1313
    My god
  21. squally1313
    Fun.
  22. squally1313
    This is annoying
  23. squally1313
    Close enough
  24. squally1313
    Lance Lynn sucks, I hope he gets one strikeout so he can do that dumb wave off thing and then seiya hits the next one into Big Mac land.
  25. squally1313
    Can someone get the thread up so I can talk about how much Lance Lynn and his fake tough guy shtick sucks
×
×
  • Create New...