squally1313

A little cherry picking to do this after the best sustained offensive stretch in a long time, but using full year numbers going into next year is starting to paint a pretty appealing picture on the offensive side of things. The middle of the lineup needs help, but the bottom of the order is far from the black hole it was for most of the year. Projected lineup based just on the current roster: Current fWAR/Projected full year fWAR/wRC/wOBA/xwOBA Nico 2.9/3.4/96/.303/.312 Dansby 3.5/4.1/97/.306/.331 Happ 3.6/4.1/128/.351/.354 Seiya (DH) 2.8/3.2/133/.359/.340 Busch 2.1/2.3/116/.333/.320 Paredes 2.9/3.4/117/.328/.306 Cody (RF) 1.6/2.0/107/.321/.295 Amaya 0.5/0.7/82/.283/.299 PCA 2.2/2.5/91/.296/.286 A little lucky overall on the wOBA v xwOBA side of things, but overall I think you pencil 5 guys in for more than 3 fWAR not even including PCA, Busch, or Bellinger (ranked, by me, in order of how likely I think they are to get there). There were only 75 of those players last year so the good side of the math is in terms of quantity we're clearly above average there. Actual elite quality is obviously going the other way. 44 guys last year over 4 fWAR and I wouldn't bet on any specific player above getting there, to say nothing over 5+ fWAR. That's bad. We've tried to throw mass competency at the wall for the last two years and we end up in the low to mid 80s. Not enough. Thankfully we have a couple things working in our direction there: We have money. Hendricks, Smyly, and the departed players at the bottom of the roster are soaking up $57m in salary this year and outside of maybe like, Mark Leiter, we have to worry about replacing none of them. If Bellinger opts out, even better (my opinion). 10 guys for 9 spots is fine, and there are elite options for that 10th guy. Go pry Tucker away from Houston (and then sign him), prove everyone here wrong and get Soto, trade for Vlad and send Busch to the Ben Zobrist school of defending. If you don't go that route, find a third ace.

3.6 fWAR for Happ. 27th in offensive fWAR, Swanson 30th. PCA 73rd in baseball since his first call up (4/24), 65th in baseball since his second call up (5/30). Bored at work/off day, longer/overly optimistic 2025 post coming.

The issue with that thought line is that he's basically back at his 2022 innings total, and to the extent you can rely on any starter for a full season's worth of production, you'd risk running into the same problem next year. Obviously that all pales in comparison to him not exploding his elbow, but if they think he can get a couple more starts in I say you trust the medical team and let him.

I think you just pencil him into the bullpen next year. There's not enough innings to build off of. 63 last year, going to end up around the same next year. Hasn't thrown over 100 since 2019. You can point to his pedigree obviously in terms of his potential, but I think he's shown enough that an offseason of work should hopefully get him into the inner circle of 4-5 guys. Probably always going to be homer happy, but if you can lean on him more in bigger parks/colder weather and rely on PCA to go get everything, he's going to throw strikes and get enough Ks to most likely be effective.

No complaints on the app besides how it lays bare the transaction of putting $120 into PTR’s pockets. Will say that on my normal Samsung tv I just use the built in app interface and they don’t have the app in their system, so I have to stream it from the phone app, which is a little annoying. But no real issues beyond that.

Apologies for the edit here: wasn’t trying to take a shot at you, more just laughing about all the anger here about pulling him and robbing him of this opportunity that he didn’t even realize he was a part of

lol he didn’t even know. Nor did Pearson coming in or even Amaya.

13 earned runs in 6.1 innings in his two starts after that, and then wasn’t anything great in the one playoff start he had right after that (6.1, 3 ER, 7 runs, 9 base runners)

I mean, let’s just pretend that’s true. It’s not, but let’s pretend it is. If that’s the case, why waste whatever bullets he has there? Most people around here are climbing over each other to call this a completely lost and worthless season, as if there’s no enjoyment to be had in anything short of an extended playoff run. If that’s the case, then shut him down, right? Certainly don’t go for a career high in pitches for this terrible team. Or are we suddenly doing a 180 on this because shota could (maybe!) join such hallowed grounds that Alec mills was the last guy to do it all of three years ago?

‘Oh wow, the cubs won 12-0, Dansby and PCA were a triple short of the cycle, shota looked dominant and to top it all off they actually no hit the pirates!’ ’man that sounds awesome, I assume the game thread is actually enjoying it and pretty happy?’

Nice of the cubs to pile a bunch of these lopsided wins in before the end of a (likely) lost season so us hopelessly optimistic have some better statistics to point to this offseason…

lol that is certainly some sort of logic

I mean, combined no hitters are still fun, whatever guys, there’s been hundreds of them

I always kinda wondered if there was any appetite from either the coaches or the pitcher himself to just send him out there with strict instructions to throw 82 mph warm up style pitches from the stretch the middle and see if you can BABIP-luck your way into it.

I’ll be that guy. Swanson a triple short of the cycle pca a triple short of the cycle shota is pitching well

Nevermind, maybe he’s just a weird dude.

Time to see why Neely was warming up in the bottom of the second

2023 Dansby Swanson put up a 105 wRC the entire year and was the 20th most valuable offensive player in baseball. Putting up a 110 wRC with the rest of his skill set is a tad bit more valuable than a 'slight' rebound.

We have seen and hit pretty much every reliever in their bullpen in the last week. Keep them here and it’s fine.

Man just realizing just how easy the schedule gets after Yankees/dodgers. Rockies, Oakland, nats, philly, reds. Philly is the only team that is any good and if they haven’t wrapped up the division by then that means we aren’t catching the braves anyways.

That’s nice and all, but unfortunately I made up my mind on him after his first 8 games as a cub. So that’s just a fluke of some sort.

Can someone catch me up on why Shota, with 5 days off, isn't the obvious starter, especially given the forecast for tomorrow?

Yeah as I thought through it, either get an elite bat or throw the money at pitching and let Caissie/Alcantara compete for the the 6th spot in that 6 for 5 spot platoon.

A top prospect with a bad debut and a blocked path to the majors? That's Jackson Holliday/Coby Mayo music!