squally1313

Ignoring whatever else you were trying to say there in that wonderful response, going back to the beginning of last year Dansby has been the 8th best shortstop in baseball and Javy has been the 52nd. I understand that for 90% of the people here, the most fun sample size to use is 'beginning with when they started to struggle and ignoring any success before then' (and then like, you just move on when that stops working, people have been real quiet about Happ and his 115 wRC this month lately!), but it's ok to occasionally acknowledge stretches of success.

Well this year Swanson has been worth 0.4 fWAR and Baez has been worth -0.5 fWAR. Unfortunately that makes it pretty tough to run a 'Dansby Swanson is X times better than Javy' calc. 55 points in OBP, 55 points in slugging, actual defensive productivity. xwOBA is 57 points higher. But if you'd like to use all of 36 ABs as the best measuring point for the remaining 6 years of the contract, I guess...good point? So anyways, like I said, no, there is no comparison.

Since Swanson signed his contract he has been 13x more valuable than Baez, so, no.

Playing devil's advocate here, Busch seems to very much be a bat first guy, Suzuki was never supposed to provide much value defensively, to the extent you believe they were choosing between Chapman and Bellinger at the end of the offseason, they went with the guy with the higher offensive ceiling and are more or less letting Morel sink or swim at third (to varying results). I don't think it's fair to say they chose Gomes over Contreras as much as they just chose not to spend $90m on a catcher in his 30s. There's actually something aesthetically appealing, to me, about a version of baseball where you are solid defensively, you steer away from the three true outcome guys, you make good baserunning decisions, and you're solid up and down the line up with good/not elite hitters that can work counts and put the ball in play. Which is the kind of baseball that drove so much of their hot half a season last year and was working for them in April of this year. But, yeah, it's seemingly all fallen apart the last few weeks, to the extent where I'm wondering if the kind of baseball team I theoretically enjoy does not line up with the type of team that actually consistently wins games. Tinker at the edges with Madrigal/Bote/Vasquez/whatever all you want, it doesn't mean anything with Seiya, Swanson, Morel, Busch and the catchers all playing like they are currently.

Yeah no sorry, I’m just being weird and thinking about how like, during every poor Steele start last fall there was an opponent lineup that had a mini hot streak, who in theory should have been just as worn out. Like, I highly doubt there’s an increase in league wide ERA in September. Is it an actual thing or is it something that’s just easy to point to

I was very much in this camp down the stretch last year, but now kinda wondering if ‘fading down the stretch’ is somewhat of a convenient excuse for poor performance or regression to the mean or whatever. Totally appreciate the gradual ramp up of pitcher innings, but curious if there’s actual documented proof of like, a September swoon phenomenon

We don’t have to guess. Go see what Vasquez had been doing in AAA. Then, for fun, compare it to what madrigal did in AAA last year.

As a Chapman guy I was keeping my eye on his numbers…he had 650 OPS through April, couldn’t even imagine the reaction there, but has been .880 in May. That said, morel has made significant strides and all the advanced metrics say he should be hitting a lot better than he is.

You guys he just doesn’t like the information that the stat is telling you. People were doing this with wRC yesterday. Let the people fit their narratives.

To be clear, if we're just basing this off of accumulated 2024 fWAR prorated out, that means the guy who goes to the bench is Morel (-0.1 fWAR). Tauchman has been our best player, Bellinger, Happ, Seiya are all positive contributors, Busch is our second best player. We all good with that? Struggling offense, Morel out, PCA in? Or do we want to mvoe the sample size again to fit arguments better.

Thought I saw 2.84 on the live page for FG but that’s been a little buggy for me. Also obviously was mostly joking and a little making a point about volatility and sample sizes.

Mason ‘we should trade multiple top 100 guys for him’ Miller: 2.84 ERA Hector ‘Cut his ass yesterday, he is the worst pitcher I’ve ever seen’ Neris: 2.50 ERA

Really couldn't have handpicked better weather for this series. First night was a little sticky/warm but got those awesome clouds and the really cool sky, the last two days have been absolutely perfect. Probably missing out on some of the boisterousness of the weekend crowds, but other than that, been ideal.

Nick Madrigal since May 1: .227/.292/.250, 62 wRC Luis Vazquez since May 1: .143/.273/.232, 39 wRC - goes without saying, but this is at a lower level of competition Madrigal put up an 83 wRC last year. ZIPs ROS has Vasquez at an 84, and who knows how often they rerun those numbers on minor league players but hitting at AAA league average probably can't help much. Madrigal is a bad hitter with one functional offensive skill set. Some guy running a hot month in AAA (Vasquez in April: .341/.418/.506, 142 wRC) does not automatically become a vastly better hitter just because he's new and different. You know who had a hot month in AAA? Nick Madrigal, when he had 70 PAs there last year and went .424/.514/.678, 203 wRC, more walks than Ks.

A game they probably deserved to win top to bottom turns into a win by some pretty fluky batted ball luck in extras. Assad was probably a little weary of attacking the strike zone given the wind, but managed to continue his high wire act with guys on base. Taxing night across both bullpens, Cubs had to use 5 guys, though Miller was the only one over 20 pitches. Wes has pitched two of the last three days so assume he is down. Cuas and Hendricks, I guess, haven't pitched since Friday, Hodge has yet to make an appearance. Steele doesn't get a soft landing as he tries to right the ship, hopefully doesn't let it bother him too much if/when some otherwise harmless fly ball ends up in the basket early on. For the Braves, assume Minter, Chavez, and Hernandez are down, along with maybe Bummer after 20 pitches last night. Which makes them a little light from the left side but unfortunately Fried is a pretty effective LHP and the Cubs will need to show some improvement there. Dansby/Nico should help there, it'll be a good sign of where the team thinks they are health wise if they both start tonight vs letting Vazquez slide in. Tomorrow is likely going to be Brown against a bad AAA pitcher and whatever is left of their pen, so let's try to get into it early and often. Can pay dividends even if we lose the HR/FB battle tonight. Go Cubs.

Through May 21 of last year: 14th in WAR and 24th in WPA. Which is really just to say like....no one really has any idea how to make this consistently work. I could point to like 6 different factors as reasons why they were bad and now why they are good (for now). Happy they generally avoided making snap judgements, churning through roster/40 man spots, etc. The margins are so small when you narrow it down to those types of sample sizes.

PCA bomb to center

xBA advantage of 90 points tonight, deserved the win even if it came that way

lol kinda?

Hoerner and Seiya have had some bizarre, Monstars type moments at the plate tonight

The cubs have 2 hits, 3 walks, and a HBP in 2 innings

Batting order doesn't matter, but, um, what is that

Is this anything?

Missed the Slaughter news and totally forgot about Davis. Other than that, I did great! But yeah, I just don't see tinkering on the edges of the roster to be a solution to the problems we've had in May (which, 8-10 is not a 'sky is falling' problem). Tauchman has the most PAs this month. Even with his incredible April, I can't imagine that was ever the plan here, and he's only put up a 78 wRC. Happ has been brutal given his normal level of production. The catchers have been brutal in like, a historical sense (64 PAs, 6 singles, 2 HRs, 2 walks). Seiya hasn't come around. I think it's too early to be making drastic decisions (the best 4 outfielders we have are the 4 outfielders on the roster, in my opinion, and a bad few weeks from one guy or a hot few weeks from another doesn't change that), burning options or 40 man spots or whatever to reallocate a fringe amount of PAs, often at the expense of consistent MILB PAs, doesn't seem like it's going to meaningful solve anything.

Depends on where the runners are, and yes, I know the Cubs anecdotally and also in reality love getting thrown out at home on going on contact plays, but in that even more hyper specific case a 6 hopper to SS is better than a rope right at a corner infielder. I will now, for an abundance of reasons, take myself off the Nick Madrigal hill. It's certainly not an optimal situation, but...I don't know, what else do we got? The best hitter in AAA is Mervis. Do you throw Caissie into the outfield blender and take away a bunch of PAs from him? Jake Slaughter can't really be a thing, can he? That's the list of AAA guys with wRCs over 100 (Vazquez barely qualifies but trending hard in the wrong direction). Realize the easy answer here is just PCA. But think they're kicking the can down the road a few weeks on him and whether he can just glove his way to a 3 WAR production while very much an unfinished offensive player.