squally1313

Does McCutcheon have anything left in terms of being a short side platoon outfield bat? Would be awesome to bring him in if he would take that kind of role. The splits the last couple years aren't super encouraging but career 145 wRC vs LHP.

He's a poor man's Tony Gwynn in the sense that like, Scott Kingery is a poor man's Chase Utley. Gwynn had a 4.2% career K rate and 320 career steals. But yes, they're both thick, so sure.

You're probably right, but on the Vogelbach development path you'd be skipping the part where he mastered AAA. Vogelback putting up a 148 wRC and a .417 OBP is a step above Mo's 121/.385.

I'm not totally sold on the age thing just because I don't really know what the next step of Mo's offensive profile looks like. Nobody really bats .300 anymore (and he's not going to steal a bunch of infield hits). Going .270/.330/.440 is definitely more valuable than than .220/.340/.410 or whatever. But ultimately, if you rule out playing defense and hitting for power, there's not a lot of paths to real success.

The pitcher is one of two players that are, far and away, the key components of every single play that takes place while he is on the mound. The third baseman can't make the ball come to him and can't take more than 11% of the PAs in a game. And then, defensively, you're taking about differences between making (to use a bad metric) 98 plays out of 100 vs 96 plays out of hundred. It's been referenced above, but don't think of it as games, think of it as plate appearances.

This guy has a career 108 wRC with 1.9 fWAR total. Probably not fair to pick one (bad) comp, but....pretty similar profiles.

do you think that's really how it works

minus the switch hitting, minus the walk rate over 13% for the first dozen years of his career, minus the 8 years he hit more than 20 home runs. For the first ten years of Santana's career, he averaged 23 home runs with a .367 OBP, had at least 600 PAs every year after his rookie year, and eclipsed 3 fWAR twice, and never as a catcher. It's just...really, really hard to provide outsize value without elite power or any defensive contributions.

I think I'm more in the position of it just being an incredibly difficult position in general. Yes, there's a bunch of soft skills to pick up off the field. But like, you want to teach Matt Shaw right field at Wrigley, go have a jugs machine send him 1000 fly balls with different spins, launch angles, etc. That's going to be more meaningful than the 2-3 balls he might get a game. Whereas with catcher, I don't know how you replicate the dozens of daily opportunities to frame full effort pitching, and I don't know much you want to be taking your mostly full time DH onto the practice field and spiking 88 mph curveballs at him.

Can you do both though? If Ballesteros starts with the team in a DH role, and he hits to an above average wRC, he's never going to get the catching reps he needs. If he doesn't hit, well...that's a whole new and different problem. I don't have a good answer in terms of an actual player, but in the world where we're past the first luxury tax, feel like there's maybe a way to replicate DH production against RHPs for a handful of million dollars, which seems like treading water at the major league level but really the money is to take a shot at unlocking a very valuable catcher going forward.

Feel like you start to lose a little of the plot when you start talking about fWAR production from the DH spot with the built in defensive penalty, but still think it shows just what's required to stand out from primarily playing in that slot. In total, you had four players generate more than 3 fWAR from the DH spot, all of which had an wRC over 150. After that, Judge (in 56 games, lol), Trout, and Yelich put up between 2 and 3. Trout with a 134 wRC in 463 PAs, Yelich with a 122 in 560 PAs (and positive baserunning). Going off your general stat ranges, the comp that stands out is Yandy Diaz: 496 PAs, .283/.347/.451, 121 wRC, 19 HRs, 1.7 fWAR. Marcell Ozuna (114 wRC, 584 PAs, 1.2 fWAR) and Suzuki (109 wRC, 444 PAs, 0.9 fWAR) were much more walk heavy than BABIP heavy. Rooker and Polanco have too much power. I'm fine with them passing on Suarez, even at the one year contract he signed. I'd love if there was an option in the 1/$8m range that could hit RHPs well just to give Ballesteros 100 games behind the plate in Iowa. I just don't see a path to an elite bat in what he's done so far, so it's a pretty low ceiling if he doesn't have a position. Nathaniel Lowe kinda collapsed last year in a full time role (wRC by year: 143, 118, 123, 91), but most of that collapse was because he had to face LHPs (41 wRC against LHP vs 111 against RHPs). Winker has a career 128 wRC against RHP but might be cooked (94 wRC last year). Probably not a good option out there.

He signed a one year deal.

My concern is the opposite when it comes to Gallen. If you sign him to a 3/60 deal with opt outs and then salary dump Taillon, the upside scenario is he pitches well enough to earn himself a bigger contract next year and you've gotten what is likely a superior pitcher in 2026 for an extra $4m in salary (less whatever we pick up in a Taillon salary dump). The downside of Gallen is he keeps trending in the wrong direction or blows his elbow out and you're stuck paying $20m a year for 2027 and 2028 when we need to start worry about extensions guys currently under control.

The concern I have about being opportunistic and being the last team standing is that it could potentially hurt the Taillon trade market, and going into the year with Taillon as your 6th starter and past the second luxury tax tier seems like a less than ideal situation. But you also can't jump the gun on Taillon and risk being stuck with the Wicks/Brown/Assad carousel in the 5/6 slot.

Shaw and Alcantara (and Nico being able to play a quality SS) takes away your defensive needs. The starting lineup being full of good players (mostly) takes away your platoon needs. You're likely going to have two spots in the lineup, at least, occupied by guys (PCA, Busch, maybe Ballesteros) who range from Not Good to Very Bad against LHP. It's a luxury to have and I look forward to people souring on him after he gets 40 PAs in the first month and doesn't put up Aaron Judge numbers (see Garrett Cooper and his 118wRC in 41 PAs in 2024).

Zips projects out somewhere close to a full seasons worth of PAs in the initial run, and then eventually it gets run through a depth chart/playing time model to spit out like, projected standings and what not. More important to look at the projected rate stats, and then you can math your way to whatever number of PAs you want to get to projected output.

People: upset because masked, government sponsored groups who are going around and taking people off the street shot a person who was protesting these events and blamed it on the fact that the person was carrying a legally permitted handgun idiots: look at this extreme liberal vitriol

The Republican government has murdered two people in the last month for peacefully protesting and then shamelessly lied about the facts and circumstances of what happened and not a single person has faced any repercussions for their involvement in these events. but I’m sorry you feel uncomfortable on a message board

Very annoying full screen pop up that seemingly can’t be Xed out popping up every few pages

She drove 350 miles to drop her kid off at kindergarten? Like what the horsefeathers kinda news feed are you looking at here

What does a hypothetical person waving around a gun have to do with six guys beating the horsefeathers out of one person and then shooting him? Or are you saying he was waving it around while on all fours being punched in the face and tackled by six cops

ZIPs gave him a pretty rose projection and I default to ZIps, which was encouraging since the rest of them weren't good. Of course there's potential for improvement, but that doesn't come naturally with age, it comes with at bats. It's like expecting Ballesteros to develop into a good catcher while being our mostly full time DH. Taking at bats away from better players to optimize Matt Shaw's growth in an absolute win now year is doing the team a disservice. Beyond that, you're just keeping a very valuable asset on the bench in case of an extended injury. Worth noting that I'm all for Matt Shaw (re)learning how to play outfield, but, similar to Cam Smith, the standard expectations for offense are higher. A 100 wRC at 3B or 2B, where the league averages are 93 and 92 respectively, is very valuable. 100 wRC in left (100 wRC league average) or RF (102) is less appealing.

Matt Shaw had a 93 wRC last year and very middling defensive metrics. Adam Frazier* had an 89 wRC last year and middling defensive metrics. Would you rather have a utility infielder with a bunch of team control and a 93 wRC or a utility infielder with an 89 wRC and a top 50 starting pitching prospect with a bunch of team control. * there's like 8 other names out there with an overall similar profile, so don't get fixated here.

What year do you think it is where the Cubs still play this massive amount of day games. The least amount of games either Swanson or Hoerner has played in the last three years is 147. (waits for the goalposts to move to 'well maybe they should get more time off then')