squally1313

Trout has 6,174 career PAs. Has three swinging strikes in 24 of them. Only modification is that they should move this to the all star break every four years, even if you have to slightly shorten the season. Do it now while the momentum is there and everyone wants to be involved in this.

So horsefeathering cool. Anyways, can't wait for....Jameson Taillon!

This whole approach is so self-fulfilling. Don't slightly overpay for good players unless you are rich and also in contention already. Probably won't be in contention because you don't have any of those good players. The idea that teams at or below the spending habits of the Cubs (15th, 10th, 6th, 2nd, 4th the last 5 years in opening day salary based on some sketchy website) shouldn't pay market value for the dude who hit 50 home runs last year is absurd. You're basically just hoping for some perfect storm of prospects arriving collectively at the same time and then hopefully having the right players available to supplement. I don’t mean to be a broken record but Schwarber is the very best example of the biggest problem not even being stinginess, but rather, inconsistency in hitting instruction and player development that left you unable to value him properly or feel comfortable committing to him after 2020. There was room for an extension at well under $20MM per year for him; they just didn’t ever get to the point where they (let alone he) could justify signing one. Outside of him turning into a GB hitter for 60 games in 2020 and getting overly punished BABIP-wise for it (.219), his career trajectory isn't all that strange. Not giving him $8m or whatever it was is pretty unforgiveable, especially when they turned around and signed Schwarber-lite for 75% of it later that offseason.

Everything is relative. The Cubs don't have a lot of stars, or any for that matter now that Willson is gone. This year they have a lot of complementary players and a lot of hope for some breakout performances. I think they will be close to .500, maybe better if they get some breakouts and everyone stays relatively healthy. This whole approach is so self-fulfilling. Don't slightly overpay for good players unless you are rich and also in contention already. Probably won't be in contention because you don't have any of those good players. The idea that teams at or below the spending habits of the Cubs (15th, 10th, 6th, 2nd, 4th the last 5 years in opening day salary based on some sketchy website) shouldn't pay market value for the dude who hit 50 home runs last year is absurd. You're basically just hoping for some perfect storm of prospects arriving collectively at the same time and then hopefully having the right players available to supplement.

$20m is absolutely what you should be paying a guy who is going to give you 2.5ish wins on the year (what he gave last year and is projected to give you this year). Aren't we basically in a $10m/win environment?

Is this really the baseline now? We have all of two hitters projected to give us more than 3 WAR and one of them we had to pay $160m for. Go pay for dudes that can hit, bonus points if they're exceedingly easy to cheer for. Basically just be the 2022 Phillies (one hitter over 3 WAR, incidentally). Baseline of what? I'm just saying he's not worth sweating, even in hindsight. And, incidentally, the only reason Harper wasn't over 3 WAR last year was because he only played 99 games. And I'm saying it would have been much more enjoyable to have him on our team than to not have him on our team, even if he's never going to be some sort of cost efficiency star. Given that we're paying basically no one, we ended up with the most boring shortstop available, and next years FA class is Shohei and the Infinite Sadness, give me dudes who hit dongs. (I'm aware that this is a semi dumb take, but man I'm already tired of the Mancini/Hosmer/Rioses of the world. The whole 'why pay $15m for 2.5 WAR when you can pay $5m for 1.5 WAR. Who cares)

I was specifically thinking of Bryant, Rizzo, Baez & Contreras. But essentially swapping Schwarber for Joc was indeed dumb. Meh. Schwarber was a career 113 OPS+ guy with no defensive value when the Cubs let him go. What the hell were they going to get for him? He has hit better the past two seasons, but still has yet to exceed 3 WAR in his career. Not sweating him or that decision whatsoever. The hindsight angst some people have over it is overblown. Hell, Joc was a better hitter last year. Is this really the baseline now? We have all of two hitters projected to give us more than 3 WAR and one of them we had to pay $160m for. Go pay for dudes that can hit, bonus points if they're exceedingly easy to cheer for. Basically just be the 2022 Phillies (one hitter over 3 WAR, incidentally).

If I were in charge of the world and had no timing constraints to schedule games, I could maybe get creative and 1. Make the 8 third place teams play a knockout round to get down to 4 teams 2. Add those 4 teams into the group of 12 second place teams, and make them go through 2 knockout rounds to get down to 4 teams 3. Add those 4 teams to the group of 12 group winners and go pure knockout from there. But that's another week or so of time that you just aren't going to be able to fit in to the schedule. Honestly, I like the idea of just having a blind draw among the 12 third place teams. Let them know it's out of their control if they can't finish top 2.

2026 World Cup going back to 12 four team groups, will need to iron out the details on the final 8 teams (out of the 12 3rd place teams) to make the bracket. A shockingly good decision from FIFA, but one that will come with it's own issues (now going to be a total of 104 games vs 64 in 2022, which means they are taking 9 days out of the warm-up/practice time period).

The live experience is my biggest concern. TV broadcasts are going to be fine, and likely more palatable for most people. But when I have to travel over an hour both ways to get to a game, then find parking, walk/shuttle to the ballpark, etc, I don't want my actual game experience to be over in 2 hours. On the other hand, if games are wrapping up by 9:00, maybe that's more opportunities to take my school-aged kids to weeknight games... so consider me still undecided. We will just have to wait and see how it plays out when we get to playing regular season games. While I have definite gripes with the area around Wrigley (which now looks way more similar to Ballpark Village in St Louis, the area around Padres park, etc), I'm totally fine with cutting an hour out of sitting in the bleachers and giving myself more time before/after games to grab a drink, catch some other games on TV, go play catch with my kids, etc. It puts it right around the same timing for an NBA/NHL game, and for weekday games it's nice having a better sense of when you're going to get out there.

He's the luckiest guy to ever manage in baseball. Last year he didn't want Willson because...checks notes...he might play too hard for his next contract. If I wanted to criticize Dusty, there's a lot of other places I'd start besides the year he won the World Series.

Bellinger! Please god be a thing.

I mean, it's kinda hard to take this argument seriously when you're looking at some of the proposed packages for the Bears pick. It's fine that you personally believe that, but it's pretty obvious that actual NFL teams place an enormous amount of importance on picking a QB at the top of the first round. That's true but doesn't go against what I said plus NFL teams are bad at it. All losing those firsts for an actual QB means to me is the Jets can block out the noise and avoid taking the next Sanchez, Darnold, Wilson, Trubisky, etc etc because conventional wisdom says they should/have to take a QB high And also avoid taking the next Allen, Burrow, Lawrence, Mahomes, Herbert, Matt Ryan, Tua, Stafford, etc!

Even this isn’t so scary. Nearly half the playoff QBs were taken outside the first and half the SB starters. I don’t believe guys like Wilson, Cousins, Prescott, Jimmy G, and Hurts - all prolific college QBs - are NFL starters by coincidence, the league really is just kinda dumb and racist about QBs. The position’s largely demystified, I even take prospects like Jarrett Stidham, Kyle Lauletta, and Bailey Zappe seriously. The Jets have got in on that action already too: Mike White was probably the most productive QB in the org since (another non-~first) Fitzpatrick in 2015 Heck, I want Lamar Jackson *and* one of Aidan O’Connell, Tanner McKee, Max Duggan, or Clayton Tune this year I mean, it's kinda hard to take this argument seriously when you're looking at some of the proposed packages for the Bears pick. It's fine that you personally believe that, but it's pretty obvious that actual NFL teams place an enormous amount of importance on picking a QB at the top of the first round.

This is absolute nonsense thinking from a fan perspective. The fan has nothing but upside in this scenario. If he doesn’t live up to the contract the owner eats it and you start looking for a qb again, something you’ve already been desperately doing for decades. 90% agreed, besides that the part of 'if he doesn't live up to the contract...and you start looking for a qb again', that search gets a lot harder when you don't have those (assumedly good) first round picks to pick a new qb.

Given the amount they trusted him in CF last year and his 40 man spot, I would think that Velazquez has to be under consideration. Similarly, Mastrobuoni doesn't require a 40 man move. This might be more of a conceptual question, but do we look at decisions like 'playing Velazquez in center' last year a little different going into this year given the pretty clear lack of importance place on actually winning games last year? I treat the second half of last year (and really probably the whole year) as more of an audition for the younger guys than some sort of tacit approval of skill sets.

Also, worst overall record can't drop below #3 in the lottery Unfortunately it's a two deep draft, at least in terms of franchise altering picks. But does also give them a slightly better shot at the second pick too.

Putting my reputation at risk here to say that Poles and Eberflus were on Pardon My Take yesterday....Spotify has time stamps, it's about a 45 minute interview. A little light on actual substance but some good stuff in there.

The team seems kinda built to just put as many balls in play as possible (and give up the same) and try to win the BABIP war through speed and defense. I’m far from convinced it’s a path to success, but it should make for a really fun brand of baseball to watch.

The Seabrook one is the only contract that truly bit them, and it was completely unnecessary and bad the day they signed it. But there were dozens of avoidable mistakes along the way that doomed them. Also true Bryan Bickell also says hi, though his was just mostly bad (not Seabrook bad) until his diagnosis. Probably a similar situation with Toews and whatevers been going on there the last couple years.

Man, we're going to be so good in 2028. Sometimes you just have to commit to not being a good hockey team for 11 or so years in order to get yourself in the right spot. I mean, look at Edmonton, they had high draft picks for a few years in a row and just look at all the success they've had.

Illinois seems extraordinarily poorly coached

They did lower ticket prices, but they are still top 5. Honestly, I think they are trying to pay down a lot of debt they incurred when they remodeled Wrigley. At the same time, they have massive tax breaks due to its "historic" status. But I think they've invested heavily in outside ventures that are tangentially related to the Cubs and using the Cubs to leverage those things. We don't know due to the less than transparent way MLB works. Not accusing you of being pro-Ricketts or anything but like...this is the stuff that bothers me. You want to know an easy way to pay down debts? Just tap into that $26b your family got from the sale of TD Ameritrade. It's these dumb accounting games all these billionaires play to justify a growing profit margin or whatever other dumb terms they use that most of the public will eat up. If you spend money on the team in line with all the other major markets and suddenly you aren't making as much money as you'd like, go sell the horsefeathering team and cash in on the $1b+ increase in value since you bought them.

I'm kind of leaning toward me (or someone else who volunteers but that seems unlikely) to just start every game thread in the morning. I don't want to work up a bunch of strife over this. Again, we're in this for the long haul. Things can and will change but I'm kinda leaning toward me just doing this every day. I'm in for this. Sure there are plenty of us willing to spot start. Think it's ultimately much better to have the thread already in place and then let people take it in whatever direction they want (the right direction being TV show gif themed, obviously). I remember getting, really, the bleakest form on anxiety as I tried to decide if I should start the thread...if someone else was also doing it at the same time, if anyone cared, what I was going to say etc. Will be better to just have it up and open.

Honestly, as much as I’d love to go back to the eras of a long list of thread starters and people ‘vying’ for the best record…probably best to figure out some sort of system to make it as automatic as possible. Was always the clearest sign that the board was going through a dead spell when you’d look for a thread in the fourth inning and not even see one there. I assume we can automate something that comes out at like, 7 AM or whatever of every game day?