squally1313

Eh....I think my short, big picture answer is that you need 27 outs and probably shouldn't upset the apple cart too much trying to get them. I don't think I agree with the premise/motivation of your idea though, and relatedly thought about chiming in last night to say that Counsell's management of the starters is probably one of the few things I would give him credit for (opted not to because I'm contrarian enough as it is). I think what's implied in your idea is that the later innings are more important than the earlier innings (and that we have a couple 'strike throwing young guys with gas' capable of going multiple innings). If you go with the idea that the 9th inning is the most important*, I don't want a tiring starter on his third turn through the order on the mound. Plus, what happens if the opener or the starter goes sideways? You've kinda committed to using them both (or going full bullpen game and the ramifications there). The three batter rule has obviously made it harder to pick and choose matchups but your idea takes away a lot of the value of a guy like Leiter. And, ultimately, if we had a couple 'strike throwing guys with gas'....we probably wouldn't be in such search of solutions. * The counter to this, that all 27 outs are equally-ish important, is that you want your best pitcher, ideally fully rested, going up against their best hitters, and the best way to guarantee that is to have him throwing his first pitches in the first against the top of their lineup.

He’s an opener. Hasn’t pitched more than 2 innings all year and has already thrown this series. edit: and I believe got taken deep by Happ, if I have my games right

I wonder if Craig assumes it’ll be a lefty because otherwise why is Busch still hitting in the bottom third of our lineup

To be fair, I did forget about that one home run derby, which was pretty cool.

How long are you defining ‘track record’

Well I think the other main point is that you’re looking backwards (what were the results of the at bats that have already happened), whereas TT, myself, and others are trying to make best guesses on what will happen on a go forward basis, and the ultimate box score results of the plate appearances aren’t the best predictor of future performance.

No one is saying this is some elite offense just rolling snake eyes for 7 weeks in a row. Speaking for myself here, this offense is mediocre/average, somewhere in the ballpark of 15-20 overall, and has been getting results for six weeks now that suggest that they are like the second worst offensive team in baseball. I’m certainly not expecting them to turn around and carry the team in the second half. But when you seemingly lose every game by 1, going from 28th to 20th matters.

2-0 cubs after 5 for anyone curious

He said with ‘more occasional slug’. Which is another way of saying, ‘I’m trying to disparage him, so he hits home runs but they don’t count for purposes of this argument’

citation needed

Because he's really bad at getting on base right now, and we shouldn't give those kinds of players more plate appearances than anyone else in the lineup.

You said the Cubs made a mistake by trading for the cheaper, team controlled guy who is hitting and fielding better than the guy you wanted, and then doubled down on it when pressed. I certainly don't know much but know that you were wrong there. Won't comment on the rest of your personality, seems pretty unnecessary and irrelevant to the conversation.

Don't know, what happened the last time the Cubs traded for a first baseman coming off a terrible debut season who never hit for more than 32 home runs in a year but walked a bunch and played good first base defense while making essentially zero dollars

So the Cubs made a mistake in the offseason but the Dodgers are incapable of making mistakes in player evaluation? The Dodgers have Ohtani and Freeman signed for 4 years and picked up a 2nd round pitcher who got a huge bonus and a toolsy outfielder with a 900 OPS in single A right now. In return they gave up, again, a guy playing much better than the 'superstar bat' you keep talking about.

I'm seeing 15.8% as a reliever last year, but sure, let's just call it 23% in his 63 innings as a reliever in 2023 and 2024. 31 guys have run a HR/FB rate in 60 or more innings in a year since 2000. No one has done it in over 115 innings. Which still suggests to me that it's unsustainably high.

Blind player time! Player A: .255/.350/.450 .349 wOBA, .336 xwOBA, 128 wRC, -1.1 defense, 1.5 fWAR Player B: .239/.317/.464, .338 wOBA, .337 xwOBA, -7.7 defense, 1.0 fWAR Alonso makes $20.5m this year and is a free agent. Busch makes $741k and has 5 more seasons of control.

Small dollar amounts here, but Shota gets a $4m raise (plus maybe a little more depending on CY votes), Dansby gets a $2m raise (I know what part of this post will get clipped), though that is offset by Seiya going down $2m.

Very much agreed that if he continues to give up HRs on 23.1% of his fly balls, something no qualified pitcher has come close to doing going back to 2000, we should stop relying on him for anything.

He traded for a top 100 prospect who is leading our team in offensive fWAR and is fourth at his position literally this past offseason.

yeah we should definitely trade the starting pitcher with a 1.89 ERA who we have under contract for 4 more years after this in the name of getting a 'nice haul'. Then if we get really lucky and somehow someone from that turns into a legit ace pitcher but the team plays crappy baseball for 7 weeks, we can trade that guy away for another 'nice haul'. would be a fun cycle!

Well one half of the fairy dust is in San Diego getting paid $90m, and the other half has been hurt all year but I’m sure will be back to shut us down at some point in the second half.

I mean, Kyle Hendricks is your 5th starter right now. Do you want him to become your 4th? I had kinda hoped that, beyond normal leveling out of variance, the real pen upgrade would be a healthy/fully stretched out rotation. We saw the difference between April (terrible pen) to May (8th in fWAR) that just pitching a normal amount of innings makes a huge difference. And then I figured that Steele/Shota/Jameson/Wicks/Assad would let you push Brown to the pen, you'd have Horton not that far away, Almonte/Merryweather/Adbert have to come back at some point. But clearly just not going to happen for us.

It....might be Drew Smyly (ducks)

Get royally horsefeathered ump