squally1313

Sounds like Kershaw was at least on board with the decision, if not made the decision himself.

So basically the same as Chicago, outside of a couple nicer afternoons. We have a family lake house just north of Elkhart and generally the weather there is a little better than here. I keep checking the forecast there as the weather stays depressing here, hoping for any warm up so we can bring the family out for a few days, but still nothing. Anyways, Baez is the best and I miss him a lot. Edwardsburg? More Union, like 15 minute drive off exit 96.

Their opening weekend was well attended, and then it turned into an abandoned building yesterday I don't know for sure what the weather is in Detroit, but on the west side of the state it's been in one of those stupid gray areas where it's not quite freezing but it's too cold to do anything outside for extended periods. So basically the same as Chicago, outside of a couple nicer afternoons. We have a family lake house just north of Elkhart and generally the weather there is a little better than here. I keep checking the forecast there as the weather stays depressing here, hoping for any warm up so we can bring the family out for a few days, but still nothing. Anyways, Baez is the best and I miss him a lot.

If you tune in 2 out of every 5 games, it might not be a bad use of your time!

He had like a .900+ OPS against RHP last year so he's as good a bet as any in that situation until he proves otherwise .721 OPS for his career which roughly half of his career PAs came last year. Like I said, ok fine start him, but not sure why he has to hit leadoff. Give Suzuki a week or two to settle in and move up the line up and things will start looking more normal bad and not weird bad.

Are there rules on how you have to use it? Like, can Contreras wear it out there but not use it if a runner doesn't get to second base? I think that's the only real competitive advantage at this point, but not sure if they'll let you wear it out there and not use it.

Roberts reportedly sat 93 last year. If he's sitting 95 now that levels up his ceiling considerably. In terms of stuff you're looking at a profile like Ryan Pressly, a legitimate 1st division closer. Hopefully he gets us a solid prospect in July!

3.68 ERA through 8/11 with a 4.57 FIP and a 4.37 xFIP. Lowest K rate since his rookie year, highest home run rate (pretty significantly), slowest fastball, etc. Yes, he's generally outperformed his FIP, by 0.37 for his career. You can't expect someone to outperform it by almost a full run like he was doing. It could happen, but you can't expect it. Giving him a 4.20 ERA (4.57-0.37), which coincidentally is exactly what ZIPs DC (not sure what DC is) has him at, for 175 innings gives you a 2.1 WAR. That's the most generous projection of the six Fangraphs has listed. And that math I did is ignoring the last two months, where we all agree he was awful.

Me and you are usually on the same page, but this is just bad analysis. Hendricks wasn’t some sort of sort of 3.00 robot before last year, he had good stretches and bad stretches that totaled up to a good overall pitcher. In 2021 he had bad stetches at the end of the year, and april which you keep ignoring, and he had a 3ish month stretch where he pitched to generally his career average. That is a clear movement in his variability. I’m sure he’ll have a stretch of 3.00 ERA performance this year too. And if he does that for 3 months and sucks the other 3, he’ll be considered a bad pitcher. I’d say he was pretty darn close to a 3.000 Robot before last year. Sure there’s always in season variance and good/bad stretches (every pitcher has that), but he was damn consistent. From 2016-2020 his ERA was between 2.1-3.7 every year, only 1 season with a FIP/xFIP over 4 in that stretch (4.20 xFIP in 2019), 4 years over 3, 2 over 4 WAR, 2017 he was at 2.5 but missed time with an injury and 2020 was pitching like a 3-4+ WAR guy over a full year. I get what you’re saying but again, just trying to illustrate not all of last season was bad for him. But yeah with variance, his profile, general pitcher attrition, aging, etc maybe he just is like a 1-2 WAR pitcher now. That’s not what I’m saying, in response to your first paragraph. He would have good months and bad months and he would end up at yearly numbers that were pretty consistent. The terms ‘good’ and ‘bad’ there are relative terms for everyone, but by definition the ‘good’ was better than his season numbers and his ‘bad’ was worse. Now we’re saying his ‘good’ inner season stretches are just…his old season averages. And his bad stretches are also worse. The window moved. It’s like how Soriano would hit 250 for 80% of the year and then turn into a god the other 20% to finish at like 270. And then the god stretches turned into 270 and the bad stretches became 220. I predict Kyle will be good, league average wise, for a good stretch of the year. We haven’t seen elite in a while. And we’ve seen a lot of bad. Also, I know this reads terribly, sorry. Difference between ignoring work on my computer and ignoring the kids on my phone.

They played baseball in April too. Like, if you want me to set aside the numbers and try and buy into some whole 'once the team fell apart he stopped trying, but he's the most clutch pitcher in Cubs history and should go down as the best pitcher of the good Cubs era and therefore I have faith if we're good he'll be nails again'....I'd love it. But if this is levelheaded analysis, looking at his body of work and the projections done by people a lot smarter than us, expecting 3 wins is just not accurate. The point was it seems like a lot of people seem to think what Hendricks was over those final ~50 innings is what he was all year and completely sucked, which just isn't true and what he now is for sure moving forward. He was his normal, good, Kyle Hendricks for a large chunk of the season and he was his good normal self in the most recent 3 seasons. Maybe he does just suck now and those final 50 innings is what he is, but with the sell off last year maybe he just wasn't as engaged the final 2 months, maybe he was dealing with an injury, maybe fatigue set in after the shortened season, those things could be causes too and he's not permanently bad now. I can't say I've looked at a ton of projections other than Zips and they have him close to 3 and Hendricks has always been a guy who outperforms projections. I just don't think we can be any more certain he definitely is bad now and barely a 1 WAR pitcher just as much as I can't be certain he's a 3+WAR pitcher anymore. I think there's data, evidence and reason to think either outcome is as likely as the other, I prefer to try and find positives and be optimistic about him. He also should have a much better defense behind him this year. Me and you are usually on the same page, but this is just bad analysis. Hendricks wasn’t some sort of sort of 3.00 robot before last year, he had good stretches and bad stretches that totaled up to a good overall pitcher. In 2021 he had bad stetches at the end of the year, and april which you keep ignoring, and he had a 3ish month stretch where he pitched to generally his career average. That is a clear movement in his variability. I’m sure he’ll have a stretch of 3.00 ERA performance this year too. And if he does that for 3 months and sucks the other 3, he’ll be considered a bad pitcher.

Schwindel had an xwOBA of .329 last year, 31st out of 56 first basemen with at least 200 PAs. And like you said, offense is his calling card. Simmons has not been a 'WAR machine' defensively the last two years, but hey, maybe at 32 he'll get some of that quickness and arm strength back. He's totally healthy in spring training right? Wisdom, 40.8% strikeout rate. And yes, the last couple of years by the time September rolls along our bullpen seems fine, but that's after it had sucked most of the year and then for whatever reason by next spring we end up back in the same spot. Simmons finished 3rd in baseball in dWAR last year (per BR, haven't checked FG). About as much of a WAR machine as you can be defensively. He sucked in 2020 but a lot of people had off seasons. Good point on Schwindel, never really looked into his numbers to see how sustainable his performance was. I assume flukey but I think he's started the spring continuing to hit well so I felt like there was upside. 39th among dudes with 450+ PAs on Fangraphs. At some point I feel like I was confident the general difference between BR and FG methodology was that BR was more 'what actually happened' and FG was more predictive towards future performance, but I'm rusty and can't really define the difference with confidence at this point.

I mean, come on. Over 50% of his starts and innings he was a sub 3 ERA pitcher, he wasn’t bad the whole year was my point and maybe he’s more that May-July pitcher than the final ~50 IP from August-September that were a disaster. They played baseball in April too. Like, if you want me to set aside the numbers and try and buy into some whole 'once the team fell apart he stopped trying, but he's the most clutch pitcher in Cubs history and should go down as the best pitcher of the good Cubs era and therefore I have faith if we're good he'll be nails again'....I'd love it. But if this is levelheaded analysis, looking at his body of work and the projections done by people a lot smarter than us, expecting 3 wins is just not accurate.

He wasn’t good last year overall but his May-July was plenty good though (17GS, 106IP, 2.89 ERA, 3.89 FIP) his final ~50 innings from August-September were a disaster though and obviously most recent. Also the 2020 season he was really good and a top 20 pitcher in MLB pitching at over a 4 WAR rate (1.9 in ~80IP), 2019 he had over 4 WAR, 2018 over 3. Maybe those final ~50 innings mean more and it’s indicative of him starting to suck but there’s a lot of other data points recently that show he’s still plenty good. I mean, come on. He wasn’t good last year overall

That catching tanking seems really light. Contreras/Gomes combined for almost 4 WAR last year which would be too 3-5 at the position. Zips projects them for 3.6 WAR, it’s a top 4-7 catching set up in MLB, imo and should be good for 3.5-4.5 WAR or so on a reasonable projection with a little more ceiling potential. Seems like a lot of room for them to be wrong. Schwindel will probably turn into a pumpkin but he has a high ceiling based on what he showed last year (though his defense will weigh him down from a WAR perspective). Hard to say what to expect from Nico and Madrigal considering how oft injured they are, and stupid no-vaxer should be a WAR machine defensively depending on how much he plays. None of these projections like Wisdom's profile (and neither do i lol) but he has some upside. The OF actually projects fairly well. And finally I'm assuming that the bullpen is ZIPS least accurate position group to project. The Cubs have built adequate to good bullpens from table scraps for years now. The only thing I trust more than the Cubs ability to build a solid pen is the Ricketts ability to do the wrong thing. Schwindel had an xwOBA of .329 last year, 31st out of 56 first basemen with at least 200 PAs. And like you said, offense is his calling card. Simmons has not been a 'WAR machine' defensively the last two years, but hey, maybe at 32 he'll get some of that quickness and arm strength back. He's totally healthy in spring training right? Wisdom, 40.8% strikeout rate. And yes, the last couple of years by the time September rolls along our bullpen seems fine, but that's after it had sucked most of the year and then for whatever reason by next spring we end up back in the same spot.

Suzuki, Contreras/Catcher, Hendricks, Stroman were the 4 I'm most confident in. After that I have measured optimism in Happ, Frazier, Miley, Wisdom, Hoerner, and Madrigal, in no particular order. I agree that star-power is the biggest weakness here, it's why I really wanted them to get Seager or Correa. Having said that, even at the 4.5 level you still see a fair amount of pop up performances. In the last 2 full seasons guys like Tyler O'Neill, Cedric Mullins, Brandon Lowe, Max Kepler, Jeff McNeil, and Ketel Marte have made that jump without being blue chip prospects, to say nothing of more famous player development examples like Muncy and Turner in LA. Not likely and still a big challenge to be a consistent playoff contender though. I also agree that it's more likely than not that this year's win total lags the end of season quality of the roster, but on a team that was unlikely to challenge for a title I think that's a feature more than a bug in how it portends a bigger leap the next year. The main thing would be if it's a 76 win team that ends like an 82 win team or a 66 win team that ends like a 72 win team, I believe it's much more likely to be the former than the latter. Lastly, I know it's a throwaway line but I'd push back on the idea that because there isn't a 5 win stud that the team would be boring even if effective. Some of the most fan favorites are players who aren't necessarily at the tippy top of performance charts(don't have to look any further than Willson for a great example), and in a lot of these cases we're talking about prime aged guys and/or players who would be repeating good performance so you would have less worry about it being unsustainable for 2023. Could they have done more to make 2022 exciting, both in their competitive odds and in the names on the roster? Absolutely. But if Frazier becomes Ginger Schwarber for a few years by ripping 30 bombs from DH I don't think people are going to yawn their way through it because he's not hitting 50. I'm terrible at splicing up the quotes, but will try to keep this somewhat in order. 1. There's very little support for Hendricks being a 3 WAR guy at this point. His 2021 was just very bad in pretty much every way. Happ I can see, has the pedigree and obviously the ability to be the best player in baseball for a week at a time. Miley hasn't pierced that boundary in 10 years and is already hurt. The rest are mysteries, optimistically. 2. Pointing to 8 guys, league wide, over the last two years is not exactly optimistic (and Ketel Marte was technically 2019). Trying to point to player development given our history is even more grim. 3. In both of the 'how we end the season' you're generally at a point in August where you're selling off the top performers anyways, right? It's hard for me to imagine, even with the six month 'figuring out the roster' process, selling off some of your best players 4 months in and still ending up 6 wins 'better' than your actual record. 4. It was a hypothetical that can't happen realistically, because you are inevitably going to throw hundreds of ABs/innings at bad players, especially with this roster. And without a stud (or, god forbid, studs plural) to offset that, you aren't going to be able to ride your lovable bunch of 1.5-3 WAR guys to anything more than a win total topping out at 85. In the NL Central in 2022, that might play! But I'm not going to get excited about it because with the resources we have, it could have been approached so much better.

That catching tanking seems really light. Contreras/Gomes combined for almost 4 WAR last year which would be too 3-5 at the position. Zips projects them for 3.6 WAR, it’s a top 4-7 catching set up in MLB, imo and should be good for 3.5-4.5 WAR or so on a reasonable projection with a little more ceiling potential. Well yeah, if Contreras and Gomes get a combined 868 PAs next year at catcher, they could maybe sneak into the top 3-5 at the position.

Combining this and your earlier post, where are the 4-5 spots that you're expecting 3+ wins? Are you relying on Wisdom and Schwindel? On the perpetually (and currently) injured Madrigal? I assume Stroman, I don't think you can expect that out of Hendricks based on pretty much all the projections out there. Catcher...maybe. Suzuki...sure, why not. That's 2.5 and then two 30 year olds in their first full year and whatever Madrigal is.

I don’t think it’s “really, really bad.” Hendricks and Stroman should combine for 6+ WAR, he’s hurt but once Miley is healthy he’s probably good for 1-2 WAR, Mills/Smyly probably add another 1-2 WAR, then if we can get anything out of one of the young guys (Keegan, Kilian, Steele, etc) it’s a decent enough rotation. Not super high end/ceiling but there’s enough there for it to be middle of the pack like ~10 WAR 15thish in the league. Nothing to be excited about and they should’ve done more but I can see the rotation being decent enough and I have faith the bullpen will be plenty good. Setting aside the 6+ WAR prediction for Stroman/Hendricks (which I'm skeptical amount), the issue with the Miley/Smyly/Mills predictions is that the only way they put up that kind of production is just through volume. Their whole skill set is just 'mediocre when healthy'. There's almost no chance that one of them pops into some sort of top 30 starter in the league. And yes, I know Miley had his best year in 9 years last year and ended up at #30 for fWAR, but he's already hurt. To TTs point, sure, a couple of Hendricks/name your offensive dude might pop up to 3 WARish, and by June you might figure out which guys are 1.5 win guys and which guys are terrible, but I don't see any 4.5+ guys. If you could run the numbers and strip out the worthless players and throw a roster of 80% 1.5 guys and 20% 3-3.5 guys, great, that would be boringly effective in a crappy division. But you can't, and we'll basically just be doing the bullpen experiment everyone loves where by the end of the season we have terrible overall numbers but we've 'finally found a good mix'....but with the whole roster.

FG position power rankings: Catcher: 13th (and the player most likely to be traded!) First base: 24th Second base: 17th Shortstop: 24th Third Base: 26th Left Field: 15th Center Field: 21st Right Field: 6th DH: 24th This is the good part of the team! It's Seiya and....??? Bullpen: 23rd Starters should come out tomorrow. Just wall to wall depressing, with all of one exception.

I feel like when people talk optimistically about the team, relatively, it's about how the offense is built to be that high floor/low ceiling mix that is theoretically attractive coming less than a year after tearing down the old guard. But the starting rotation is really, really bad, and I don't know what the optimistic view point is there. Yeah we have a lot of bullpen arms and maybe eventually after we weed out all the bad ones we might end up with a decent mix, but they are going to be worked to the bone on non-Stroman days. And even then, the path to 'contention' is mostly paved with 'look how bad the rest of the division is! plus maybe Burnes gets hurt like most pitchers do!' It's just not at all exciting. Thank god for Wrigley.

This doesn't really belong here, but just occurred to me...is Hendricks going to go down, performance wise, as a Jon Lester-lite? Obviously their personalities couldn't be much different, but could definitely see the tail of his career look a lot like Lester's.

IIRC Ohtani was an absolute train wreck his first spring training, so if I understand the timing correctly Suzuki will be the 2025 NL MVP. With a 3.18 ERA?? Sign me up!

Unfortunately, yes. Whatever small value I place on clubhouse dude, mentor to the guys trying to break out, etc, it's pretty much all erased by his pretty clear views on the vaccine, and there are very clearly real world and team implications to those. Sorry Jason, you used to be pretty cool and you used to be good at baseball before you got here. Bye. Edit: But also, PTR seems like the type to hate a completely sunk cost, and also all the grumbling about how low the payroll is will get a lot louder if we cut our highest paid player, so there are those dumb reasons for keeping him around.

The development of Davis is more important than pretty much everything else I'm going to mention here on a macro level, but this is still a team with probably a not very significant chance of contending this year, with a lot of pieces on the roster who may or may not have value going forward, and they need PAs to determine those paths. To the extent that there is anything to learn at AAA, Davis can still learn it, with a baseline of it being a confidence boost. You bring him up on opening day, you suddenly have 2 outfield spots pretty much written in ink before even getting to Ian Happ and then getting to the random assortment of junk that may have value/excess middle infielders/etc. Send him to AAA, give us something to get excited about when we're 21-32 in two months.

vs Cubs, career: .295/.396/.609 1.004 OPS vs Reds, career: .343/.423/.626 1.049 OPS vs Brewers: .325/.420/.604 1.024 OPS vs Pitt .358/.444/.664 1.108 OPS He was just terrifying, to everyone, all the time, back then. Wasn't just an us thing. But also, yes, given our pitching staff, probably.