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squally1313

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Everything posted by squally1313

  1. squally1313
    Tough day for all the David Peralta fans of the world
  2. squally1313
    Lol 3/80. Unreal deal. Would have preferred Chapman a little but belli is pretty clearly a Fowler 2.0 situation. Maybe we can go a couple days without the endless complaining?
  3. squally1313
    Guessing you probably already considered this, but bleachers are GA and a lot of fun for bigger groups.
  4. squally1313
    Fairly sure the entire game is on Youtube and there are versions as chopped up as you want to be (5 minute version, 10 minute version, 30 minute version). It remains mind blowing to me that the entire World Series drought built up to a WS game 7 as incredible as that one. The watch along was on at the bar last night, so many good moments.
  5. squally1313
    This is the key point in all of this for me. I'm sure they have preferences, and have assigned some sort of ideal contract parameters for each of them. But if and until the market for one of them collapses, conventional wisdom says they're only getting one of them, and if we're truly splitting hairs in terms of value added to the team, might as well 'settle' for the one with the easiest contract to swallow.
  6. squally1313
    There is absolutely no guarantee he makes it nearly this far in the process
  7. squally1313
    Fair, but I think, to Bertz' point, technology and off season training regimens have come a long way very quickly. Hell, Boras could just rent a baseball field and a catcher for those four guys and they'd be able to get everything they would otherwise be getting in Arizona or Florida.
  8. squally1313
    I don't know if you could argue that hitting is harder than being an NFL quarterback, given how hard it seems to be for like, 20 of the 32 NFL teams to find one they like. But this was already a rough analogy so I'll stop that one here. Instead I'll mention that we have a very amazing example of a guy not seeing MLB pitching in months and walking into the biggest stage in baseball and performing wonderfully. I miss him so. Would be interested in that research. Don't know if there's a large enough sample size but happy to be proven wrong here.
  9. squally1313
    Rough analogy here, but we live in an era where Joe Flacco wasn't on a roster from January through November 20th and it took him like 11 days to get into starting NFL QB shape. These guys all work out year round, the fact that they're missing team sanctioned fly ball practice means nothing to them. They'll all be ready to go in 5 weeks regardless of when in the next 3-4 weeks they decide to sign.
  10. squally1313
    Pete Crow-ArmstrongCade HortonMatt ShawKevin AlcantaraJordan WicksMichael BuschOwen CaissieBen BrownMoises BallesterosJames TriantosAlexander CanarioMatt MervisHaydn McGearyJefferson RojasBrennen DavisCristian HernandezJaxon WigginsJosh RiveraDerniche ValdezBrandon Birdsell
  11. squally1313
    I want less ABs from him because he got 429 of them (PAs) last year and gave us 1.4 fWAR, which if you project out to 700 PAs gives you 2.3 fWAR, which would put us right at league average for third base and less than what we did last year, and I think we can do better than that internally and especially externally, and I think he's a really bad fit for us in a role where he gets 90% of the starts at DH.
  12. squally1313
    The quote was "his numbers are not that far from A. Garcia from last year." Emphasis added by me. To his point, it shows the path that Morel can take (and is arguably already of). To my point, it's that there needs to be a not insignificant amount of improvement to turn Morel into a quality contributor.
  13. squally1313
    But the fact that he's the second best hitter on the team (based on last years results) but 6th best in terms of overall value (based on last years results) is kinda the whole argument right? The team's offense is better if Belt's bat replaces Madrigal and Wisdom's bat (though, only against RHPs), but how much of that is lost by replacing Madrigal/Wisdom's glove with Morel's glove? And why is it a Chapman or Belt decision? Belt is going to be much cheaper, a short term deal, and easier to fit into the budget in a world where we 'choose' between Bellinger and Chapman. Get them both. Either way, Morel gets 250 PAs at DH against LH, gets 15-20 starts at second to pace Hoerner/Dansby a little, a handful of starts at third, we're talking about like a 100 PA difference here and he gets to feast on lefties while being sheltered defensively.
  14. squally1313
    Slight disagree on the Adolis Garcia comp, those walk and K rates are not the same, but probably not the point here. I'm not saying it's impossible that he gets better on one or both sides of the ball, but I don't think we're necessarily in a position where we need to rely on improvement from a guy with 850 MLB PAs. Yes he's 24 and hit the ball much harder in 2023 than he did in 2022, but his offensive profile still makes him a clear regression candidate, and so you're trying to avoid that as well as needing defensive improvement. What we did at third base worked last year. It's projected to work again this year. It's ugly, but it's cheap. Setting aside the Chapman/Bellinger/pitcher/PTR is cheap discussion, sign Belt to kill righties, let Morel kill lefties and get another 150 PAs in spot starts, injury situations, etc. Externally, between Cody and Chapman, Chapman is projected to be better, and also be cheaper. I trust PCA to produce more value than Morel, if not immediately, very soon in the future.
  15. squally1313
    Yeah I've come off as probably overly negative to the 24 year old guy with years of team control and a season and a half of 120 wRC ABs. But, to I guess continue that trend, it seems like the path to Christopher Morel, Key Contributor, relies on improvement and I still think the most likely outcome is offensive regression. People keep talking about just getting to mediocre defensively (extrapolating those defensive numbers at third for him make him at least twice as bad as those other (bad) third basemen listed), but gloss over the fact that it's really, really rare (read: difficult) to be an effective hitter with a single digit walk rate and a K rate over 30%. If he can work his way out of at least one of those buckets, great. But it's asking a lot given his history, Injuries happen, and we could do a lot worse than giving him 300 PAs mostly at DH and letting him fill in if needed. Nico or Dansby going down for an extended time as an example. But trying to force him into 3B, where we already have an (admittedly very weird and not aesthetically pleasing) platoon that was effective last year and projected effective this year, not to mention a guy sitting out in free agency that can hit and would make our infield defense historically good, all in the name of like....signing JD Martinez? seems like a lot of work.
  16. squally1313
    Those aren't unique to Chicago/Wrigley though, right?
  17. squally1313
    I just hope that the hardworking Rickett's family, a group of people that, to call them 'born on third' is an insult to everyone else we use that term for, don't give into all this mean fan pressure and pay players more than 'they deserve'. I mean, truly, how much is too much. Writing checks for whole tens of millions of dollars when your family is worth around $4b? Can you imagine if their precious profits started to take a hit, and they'd be forced to consider the unthinkable: selling the team and realizing a profit somewhere in the vicinity of $3 billion? We should just be thankful there's a team to watch.
  18. squally1313
    Also this guy, like an hour ago: "The owners will profit whether they win or lose."
  19. squally1313
    lol this is so horsefeathers pathetic
  20. squally1313
    Hawks and Bedard are really trying to bring the famous Angels tweet into the hockey world. Maybe Celebrini can be the Ohtani to Bedard's Trout next year.
  21. squally1313
    Maybe. You seem to be definitively saying that we're done with this offseason. Those four guys are going to be playing somewhere this year. Most people here think that the Cubs are very clearly near or at the top of the list of teams that make sense for one of them to play for. They haven't signed anywhere yet.
  22. squally1313
    My desire for Chapman has been more based on this hole in the budget than a particular desire for a guy like him. Think him and Bellinger are both above average but very much capped at 'below elite', especially offensively, and we already have 4 of those guys in the lineup locked up. That being said, if you want to map out a path for 'not elite offense but elite overall non-pitching performance', you probably can't do much better than three all world defensive infielders, an 80 grade centerfielder, and (for whatever this is worth), a multiple gold glove winning left fielder.
  23. squally1313
    The correct answer is Matt Chapman starting 140 games, with Wisdom upgraded to a more legitimate veteran bat and Madrigal and Mastro competing for the backup infield spot or maybe there's room for both of them, who knows. That being said, the Cubs got the 11st most fWAR at third last year (2.7), and that's with Jeimer coming in and doing basically nothing there. Is it repeatable? A little tougher to thread that needle than, say, just signing the dude who has produced at a 3.5+ fWAR rate his entire career. But, as Bertz said, there are piecemeal options to hold the fort down for 3-6 months, just don't want to be doing that all over the place.
  24. squally1313
    I mean, what else would you say in this situation? "Still plenty of time, we're 100% going to be adding at least one big name, mark that down as a guarantee, Scott Boras, do you hear me, I'm now legally bound to sign one of your players"? Who cares, it's a press conference.
  25. squally1313
    I'm not basing anything off 19 PAs and however you want to extrapolate that sample size to fielding and running. He was obviously pressing. If you believe in the ability that is reflected in his minor league numbers, you could make the argument that assuring him the center field job is his for the entire season would alleviate a lot of those issues. I'm fine with the arguments about contact rate or whatever. He absolutely doesn't need more time in the minors to work on fielding or baserunning.
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