squally1313

Correct, but that puts us in a 7 way tie for 8th in blown saves this year as a team. Which is mostly just a way of saying it happens more often than you probably think, especially as starters get pulled earlier and earlier.

No idea if it's still there but there was a house on the east side of Sheffield somewhere around Sheffield's bar that was freestanding, set back in the lot, and always had people out in the front yard playing whiffleball whenever I would walk up from the Belmont stop on the way to games. You'd go deaf from the train in your backyard, but that was my dream rental situation for like 6 years in my 20s.

Yes and no on Wisdom. I don't think anyone was expecting top tier performance, but along those same lines no one was really expecting a playoff appearance. The way to move to that conversation is for players to exceed expectations/projections. We've obviously seen some of that this year, and some of it seems more sustainable. Wisdom's doesn't look particularly sustainable, in that a .398 iso would be the 7th best this century (and he's certainly not Barry Bonds or 2001 Sammy Sosa, or even 2023 Max Muncy). But the K rate has gone from historically bad to just very bad while the walk rate has stayed consistent, and ZIPs has him at a 3 win player for the year. With his power, I don't think we should really expect more dongs as the weather improves (unlike Dansby or Seiya) because Wisdom's are typically no doubters regardless. But splitting that difference on his 2022 and 2021 isos and defensive numbers the rest of the year puts him pretty comfortably at 2.5-3 wins.

I was looking for holes in Morel's game. Admittedly, the K rate is bad. And probably won't ever be good. But I was hoping he'd be able to add some speed to the team (not that we're lacking, but speed is great), and was a little disappointed in him only having 8 steals. Figured 88 PAs, hitting over .300, has lots of chances. And then realized he has (going into today) 23 hits but only 8 singles, which is pretty nuts. That BABIP of .400 sounds a lot better if he's making loud contact that often.

I'd have to imagine in that scenario that LAA would have to blow all the other offers out of the water to have a chance at getting him back. They'd need to somehow pick up a ton of almost-MLB ready talent to be able to sell him on a winning team during Trout's early 30s, which I can't see a team giving up in a 'go all in for Ohtani' deal. Otherwise, outside of just family life/comfort, Ohtani is making $70m this year including endorsements. If he wants to win, LAA has built up a big hill to overcome.

I mean, they're 12-12 and just got back the guy who has put up 13.6 fWAR in 277 career games. April 24th is far from 'the end of the day'. There's a 38 point gap between their offensive BABIP and their defensive BABIP. Let's get a little bit deeper in the year before we like, start blaming the baseball manager of all things.

Is there some clear alternative that you're pining for that doesn't carry a mathematically similar risk in a 9 inning sample of blowing up? Like, you're telling me that the guy who had a 3.17/3.51/4.15 ERA/FIP/xFIP over 133 innings the last two years shouldn't have been 'expected to be a major part of a competitive bullpen'. A 3.17 team bullpen ERA would have been second in baseball last year. It's late April, no one has learned anything of importance yet from 9 innings.

Wait, are you thinking that every time we run through the list that we do another sign up from scratch? I was kinda under the impression that it would just loop back around to the top. Would vote for that as an alternative. Having said that, still admit it's tough to keep track and given people probably don't want like, text messages as reminders, might need to come up with a better system of reminders. Off the top of my head, maybe whoever starts the thread tags the next two people just to bring it back somewhat top of mind? Feel like sometimes I'll just visit during the game and then not be back until the next game starts, which would be bad if it were my turn. Alternatively, if the Cubs could just rip off a long winning streak again, that would make things easier. So if someone could arrange that, that would be great.

Jesus, the amount of nostalgia this triggered is honestly concerning. Dude is 35 years old, has been playing professional baseball since Bush was in office, and has 57 career innings in the show. What a life.

Not sure what it says in the forecast, but a nice little hailstorm turned snowstorm rolled through the near western suburbs about 45 minutes, so conditions should be pretty dicey. Don't think it'll get delayed or anything, just might get a little weird.

Yeah Brock is trying to get rid of megathreads, starting one with that subject would quickly become the most posted in topic on the site.

Man, him and the Cardinals would be a perfect fit huh? Here's hoping.

Yeah, wet tonight, then getting real cold for the weekend, which is unfortunate because those are some intriguing pitching matchups.

I'd also assume, but don't know for sure, that the big majority of tourism comes in during the winter months. Don't think there are nearly as many people getting out to Vegas during the June-August stretch. The other side of that, of course, is that, given the alternative, the goal doesn't have to be filling a 40k stadium 81 times a year. 25k a game puts them in a significantly better position. Anecdotally, going to a bachelor party out there next month and it was exceedingly difficult to get tickets to the Savannah Bananas game out there (capacity 10k). So there's an appetite for some sort of baseball at least.

The new rules added a lot of enjoyment, but this team was built to produce baseball that's really enjoyable to watch (at least for me), even if I'm still not sold on it being the best strategy to win games. 22nd in offensive K%, after being 10th, 1st, 4th, 11th the last four years. Couple that with being 19th in walk rate (which certainly isn't optimal) and 12th in total HRs (13 of the non-Wisdom variety in 17 games) and you're getting a lot of balls in play. Can we continue BABIPing at a .341 pace? Probably not, but we also don't need to continue playing at a 105 win pace either. Pitching has been as advertised too, even if I was skeptical. Starters are pretty average on walk and K rate, but very much outperforming their peripherals because our BABIP against is second best in the league. Reasons for that are pretty obvious if you look across the field. And then the bullpen has been incredible. First in K rate, 14th in walk rate, 10th in HR/9. They've actually been unlucky, 16th in ERA, 3rd in FIP, 2nd in xFIP. Eventually we're probably going to have to dong more, and I don't think Wisdom is turning into a 50 HR guy at age 31. But if we can keep hitting the ball hard (1st in LD%, though the rest of the batted ball metrics are, um, significantly worse) and winning the BABIP battle comfortably until it warms up at Wrigley for the Swansons/Happs/Suzukis of the world....we should be fine hanging around.

If you thought this was a 78 win team in a season where teams play 162 games, how many wins do you think that same team would win in a 146 game season? (as an aside: dumb pedantic Kyle arguments tinged with a cautious amount of Cubs optimism?? NSBB is back bitches)

I didn't mean so much 'super offensive walk out music' as I meant 'being a huge horsefeathers'

Speaking of great music choices by the white sox, how about Clevinger coming out to Golddigger after everything that went on this offseason. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before we end up with something happening on our team (looking at you Stroman, and maybe Hayden), but nice to not have had something like this for a little while.

The As pitcher is Mason Miller. Flashy prospect making his debut after like 30 total innings in the minors. Went out in AAA last week and dominated...hit triple digits, 11 Ks in 5 innings, think it was hitless with maybe one walk. I would say he's going to be pretty nervous, but assume his last start had about 3x the amount of people in attendance that this one will.

Was a frustrating beginning to the game, but the silver lining of not coming through earlier was that they basically had to use the bullpen as if it were a winnable game. Between the 5 pitchers last night, and the 9 innings combined over the last two games (plus I assume they've been overworked all year given their record), they should be pretty thin going into the game today where their starter shouldn't be expected to go deep if we stay patient on him. He might make some of our dudes look stupid (and some of our dudes might make themselves look stupid due to their names being Eric Hosmer, Tucker Barnhart, etc) but get out of here with the sweep and Wrigley should be loud this weekend.

Yeah, I think a poor start would have put Stroman, Belli, Happ, Gomes, etc on the block and take away any urgency to aggressively promote the talent in the minors. Now they can't really get away with that route, as much as ownership might like to. I still don't see a lot of top end talent and it's really hard to thread the needle of being a Good Team by throwing a barrage of 2-3 win players at the wall. But maybe you convince a couple teams to take a volume approach to our crowded farm system and trade us some immediate talent. Cardinals slow start, Woodruff already on the shelf for months...there's a path there.

Thanks for this. Quick clarification question, can you define what they mean by 'Behind 1B'? That's where the majority of his chances are coming from, and I'm wondering if it's referring to (now presumably illegal) shifts against LHH where he would line up in shallow right.

Probably figured it out from the above, but the Ducks can't fall out of the top 3.

Yeah, and, to explicitly lay it out, the DH greatly decreases the number of in game substitutions a good team should be making to their lineup. Neither Gomes nor Barnhart are good enough to be a DH. Put them in whatever sort of platoon works best to keep them both fresh and tell them both to expect to catch the full game every night. The option to put Morel on the basepaths, his ability to cover multiple positions in case of an injury, etc far outweigh the chance that your catcher comes up in a big spot and you don't PH because you're scared of an injury to your backup catcher in whatever is left of the game.

Therein lies the problem with the Hosmers and Mancinis and Rioses of the world. You bring them in on cheap, but real MLB contracts, they give you close to what you expected from them based on past performance/dollars paid, ie generally average MLB production, and suddenly you're in a spot where Wisdom, Morel, Mervis, all kinda deserve ABs but there's only really a technical opening at one spot because first and DH and being adequately filled. That being said, you can't really make any argument that this team is better with Torrens in the last bench spot instead of Morel, given the latter's flexibility and speed.