squally1313

Yeah good call. Haven't see the exact tweet but rough comparison on my end has about even OBP (.315ish) and Swanson putting up like 40-50 points of slugging so far over Heywards first two years (total). At a more important defensive position, and then 2016 and 2017 league wide had .739 and .750 OPS while 2023 and 2024 have .734 and .701 (jesus something is broken). This is Dansby's worst year in a while. He has 0.9 fWAR which is better than Heyward's full season Cubs debut and 0.1 off his next season. Swanson has 5.6 fWAR with the Cubs, Heyward gave us 7.1 total in 7 years. These are not the same thing.

Yeah but what if I weirdly chop up his game logs and create a split that shows him in the least flattering light possible

Why would we be comparing their first 200 ABs now that we have almost 900 PAs for Swanson? Through Heywards first two years he had a 79 wRC and had provided 7.9 of FG defensive value. Dansby in his Cubs career has a 98 wRC and has provided 24.4 of FG defensive value.

Yeah no we get it

Do you guys like baseball

Sure, that’s fair. I meant not terrible in the way you’d say like, Chris morel hasn’t been terrible, though the actual results have been. The runs definitely happened, can’t do anything about those, the advanced stats suggest it won’t happen at that rate going forward.

that's honestly the javy game 1 HR minus like 4 feet

hahahahahahahahahahahhahaa my horsefeathers god

would have maybe gone Bote there?

lol of course

First pitch off the plate, called a strike, Amaya chases the slider that starts in the same spot. Lol might have just gotten it back though.

He just wants someone new to yell at.

I was kinda thinking the same thing. But really, the bullpen stats say that, recently, they are an average group with unluckiness bringing them to mediocrity, and the offensive stats say they've been the back half of average, and they are 10th in starter fWAR in the last 14 days, and in that stretch they've gone 5-7. Which....makes sense? It's not "Good" by any measure, but it's a team projected to win 83-86 games, going 5-7 is going to happen quite a bit I would assume.

And in that 7 week sample (since 4/26, 7 Fridays ago), the Cubs bullpen is: 17th in fWAR 3rd in K rate 23rd in BB rate 26th in ERA 19th in FIP 13th in xFIP Great? No. Terrible? No. Seemingly very unlucky? Yes. Likely to be improved by two guys who walk a bunch of dudes? Probably not.

Last 30 days: 21st in wRC Last 14 days: 14th in wRC But yes, trending.

There's something really funny about watching Kyle "the worst pitcher in baseball history" Hendricks just mow down the Cardinals and then complaining about our offense. Offense is broken everywhere guys, league wide OBP is .311, we're bad at it but this is going to happen.

Because, as much as people like to think this is some historically bad situation we're in right now, it isn't, and making bad decisions can absolutely lead to things getting worse. We're 3 games under .500, there's a long way from the bottom.

But yeah, if PCA is going to run a wRC in the 30s over the last month, he doesn't need to be penciled in every day. (Personally, neither should Tauchman, but, alas). Hopefully there's a spot for him to bunt a guy from second and then rob one out of the basket in a couple hours.

Do you? Little and Hayden are the only two with options available. Wesneski has a 2.70 ERA, a FIP in the 3s, can go multiple innings, etc. He's clearly better than those options. Little is overall bad, but is death on lefties...which may not be a relevant skill set with Leiter and Smyly around, so sure, I guess? Edwards and Roberts haven't shown an ability to throw strikes to AAA hitters, can't imagine they would solve that in the majors. You can cut Hendricks, but if they were going to do that they would have by now, they certainly aren't going to do it for a short reliever that would be like 6th on the depth chart. He's here till he gets his 10 years barring a trade or some weird, everyone is healthy development You can cut Smyly, but you'll have a hard time convincing me either of those dudes would be better than him as a reliever.

Am I missing someone here? Hodge, Thompson, Palencia, and Cuas are already on the 40. Which of these dudes screams 'I will fix the bullpens tendency to walk 2 guys and/or give up a bomb'? Ethan Roberts and his 6 walks in his first 9 innings of MILB work in the last 2 years? Brad Wieck? You're going to have to, most likely, raid the bullpen of one of the 6 terrible major league teams if you want to try and fix this outside of normal regression to the mean. And, again, definitely see the argument there. But the venn diagram of contending teams and teams who could use a high leverage reliever is just a circle, and the number of high leverage relievers traded so far this year is essentially zero, unless you want to expand that definition, in which case it probably includes Tyson Miller.

You can't qualify an absolute 'need' with 'if they continue to blow away games'. That's not something we can or should assume will continue happening. We shouldn't assume they're going to go back to their 17-9 or whatever start either, safest bet is somewhere in the middle (or cumulative performance), which has put them in the giant mess of teams within 1 game of a playoff spot. None of those other teams have made any substantial moves either. I can totally buy an argument for jumping the market, but big picture this is just how these things usually work. As for the kids, as curious as I am about them, where do they go? Davis and Canario are already on the 40 man, so I assume you're talking Caissie? BJ Murray and his .646 OPS don't inspire a lot of confidence, I don't know if Matt Shaw's 114 wRC at AA warrants jumping to Wrigley. So you have three outfielders/first basemen trying to get consistent ABs among Busch (136 wRC last 30), Suzuki (130 wRC last 30), Happ (118 wRC last 30), Bellinger (107 wRC last 30), PCA (gross offensively but still a positive producer and also very much a 'kid'), Tauchman (bad in his last 30 but very obviously in the circle of trust)....take DH PAs from Morel? Wisdom's 2 starts a week? Hoerner has been bad, the catchers have been historically bad, the bullpen has been awful. There aren't any clear fixes for those in Iowa.

There are some insane arguments being made there in search of a pre-determined conclusion. The Phillies were elite, but then they couldn't hit. The Dodgers are elite, but then they got (uniquely, I guess) depleted. Arizona only made it because the Cubs collapsed (which is...an argument against the Cubs trying to make the playoffs?). Pointing to 6 games, where they went 3-3 total, but ignoring that and just looking at the vibes of it all to write off a season. Like....just don't watch, man. Sure, they might keep sucking. I don't know why we're so excited to make that more likely to happen. The Cubs got the best hitter traded last year for DJ Herz (2 starts for Washington, 6.50 ERA, has a walk rate above 5 at every single level dating back to high A in 2022) and Kevin Made (like 300 PAs in high A hitting .200 with zero home runs). God forbid we give up guys like that again in search of playing meaningful baseball the rest of the year.

Cut the guy with the .534 OBP in his last 73 AAA PAs??? (Kidding, but also man are AAA numbers seemingly useless)