squally1313

Yeah I agree with all of this. I was probably a touch too low on their offensive talent above. Suzuki, Happ, Bregman are probably half a step below where we’d thought they’d be, but we’ve basically eliminated weak spots and PCA became a unicorn. The output will come and go, but it’s a very good group of players.

I mean, that all reads to me like a team that has collectively gotten better offensive results than they likely should have over that stretch. Do I think Suzuki is due for some regression too? Yeah. I know you’ve emphasized pulled fly ball rates and I’m admittedly not totally up to speed there, but that wOBA/xwOBA gap just seems far too large to me 10th or 11th in terms of offensive production with comfortably the best defense in baseball is, high level, how I’d describe this group of position players. Which, to be clear, makes them really good! We got some luck when we needed some luck, when our pitching was terrible, and hopefully we either stay running hot or our acquisitions and improving health on the pitching side counteract our offensive results falling back into line.

Caveat: I love Happ and I hope you’re right. But. On August 10th last year Ian had a .316 wOBA and a .342 xwOBA. There were measurable reasons to expect an uptick in performance. Right now he’s at .327 wOBA and .311 xwOBA. Mostly because his K rate is ten percentage points higher. There’s no real sign of an impending breakout, it’s just ‘well he’s done it before’.

a couple things can be true at once: 1. to date, this is (probably) ian happ's worst offensive season of his career. 2018 was similarly bad and led to him spending the first half of 2019 in AAA, but for all practical purposes this is a clear step back from what we're used to seeing. the K rate is seriously troubling, and after finally getting it under 30% in july (28%), it's 37.5% in august. the output itself is fine enough, but xwOBA thinks it should be worse and basically has him as a below average hitter YTD, which makes it really tough to be a productive player in a corner outfield spot, even though, to his credit, he's playing it better than probably anyone else out there. while, yes, he's streaky, and one could be coming, in the past the hot and cold streaks were underpinned with relatively steady metrics and were more driven by BABIP and HR/FB luck. the under the hood numbers are unquestionably worse than they have been in a long time. 2. while him going from a 120 wRC hitter to a 120 wRC hitter against RHPs is an obvious step back, the team addressed where he was hurting the club the most. you can argue on whether taylor is a lefty killer or just a league average bat there, but either way it's a sizable step up from what we were getting from happ, i'm sure the plan was probably shaw 6 weeks ago when this started becoming obvious, but they had to pivot, and they did. ian happ against RHP is a good baseball player, probably the 3rd or 4th best hitter against them on the team. he's being used correctly.

To put some actual numbers on it: 2.43 ERA, 4.82 xERA, 4.65 FIP, 5.66 K/9, 2.75 BB/9, 89.9% LOB. He's basically been super-Assad since coming back, which isn't great. I started to make the comparison to 2025 Shota but Boyd isn't as HR heavy so there's probably less chance of it all melting down. I'm certainly not the pitch analyzer guy, but velocity seems fine, arm angle seems fine. He's throwing like 2x the amount of curveballs than he was earlier in the year. Maybe a crude metric but FG splits up pitches by Heart, Shadow Zone, Chase Pitches, and Waste Pitches. Before his IL stint, he was 21%/47%/26%/6%. Since he's been back he's 27%/40%/21%/10%. So he's not losing the zone, but he's having trouble finding the edges as much as he used to. I didn't see the Holmes start. Going to assume Gausman will spend a little more time in front of this defense and realize he can just spam splitters, and Holmes has always thrown a heavy ball too. We're almost certainly not going to get some 10 K start come October (or maybe again the rest of the year barring Brown exceeding rehab expectations), but the team was built to swallow up groundballs, so it'd be a lot more cause for panic somewhere else.

Wouldn’t have guessed the 8 run lead duty would fall to what is probably our best reliever.

They’re definitely on the fortunate side of luck today but it’s also fun to think about how much better someone like PCA is out in center and how many of those balls he gets to that isbel didn’t.

BABIP merchants

The Ks are a concern, and the pretty much complete collapse against LHP is troubling and they did the right thing in getting someone else to soak up those at bats. he has a 126 wRC v RHP and plays maybe the best LF defense in baseball. Here are the cubs numbers against RHP for guys with at least 50 PAs. What’s the alternative plan here

Bump

Can I also be the guy starting a new thread about benching a guy after winning our fifth game in a row, three of which were over the dodgers. I definitely enjoy baseball

WWWWW

Not to belittle the subject of the negro league museum but was the bottom of the ninth the best time to drop in that segment

I was hoping our rehabbing bullpen guys would just replace the bad pitchers we have, but unless we start having blowouts of some fashion, they’re going to have to replace our good pitchers too

Have I somehow missed this concept of interviewing the starting pitchers while the game is still going on? Because I don’t like it

You can tell the season is starting to have that special feeling when you start seeing imb pop up on the baseball side of the board.

Tigers*

A little related to the Seiya discussion, a lot related to being really bored on a Friday afternoon. Playing around with the FG roster pages, I have our luxury tax number at roughly $188m for next year. Obviously this is all hypothetical with the labor discussions, but that gives us $55m or so to play with assuming we want to reset the clock on the luxury tax. Ofeensively we have 6 sure starters (SS, 3B, 2B, 1B, CF, C), and then Shaw and Ramirez. We have 7 nominal starters, but that's inclusive of Horton and includes names we probably shouldn't rely on. The bullpen, as mentioned earlier, is in much better shape than it normally is. Webb/Palencia/Zefferjahn, then team control on Maton/Harvey/Miller and that's before Rolison, Roberts, etc. I think the simplest path is to trade one of Shaw/Ramirez for a controllable mid level starter (would probably be one closer to free agency, but the further away and therefore cheaper, the better) and make the other one your pseudo-starting corner outfielder. Spend on a corner outfielder, like Seiya. Find someone Conforto-esque. Then use whatever you have left on another starter. Would love to have an opening day rotation of Brown/Steele/Cabrera/traded for starter/signed starter, with Rea/Assad/Garrett floating around and Horton rehabbing. The offense will have taken a step back, both from departures and age related regression, but hopefully the SP and RP situations make the leap to average/above average to cancel it out.

I think I know the answer to this question, but happy to be proven wrong. Are there many examples of players not under the early career team control signing extensions before their current contract is up?

I'm looking at FG, but yeah, he's had a really good year. The expected metrics say the offense is a little luck driven, but he's also, somehow, generated the most defensive value of any right fielder. Ballesteros is no longer squatting in the 'DH of the future' job, so between that and Seiya actually being a fine (or better) defender, there's certainly a better argument for trying to bring him back.

(Brewers favored in 8 of their next 12, so basically we'll be 1.5 back in a couple weeks)

eh. they're not throwing down to second when PCA takes off to second on the next pitch. either way, it worked.

the guy who just stole third (for his 29th steal) and then came home because of the throw also has the 6th highest slugging in baseball. and the 8th highest OBP. and he's also the best defensive player in baseball.

lollllllllllllllllllllllll he's incredible