squally1313

Must Win

Don't know if this is on my end, but I've noticed the last couple days that the Iowa game is showing up as a different font on my end. I have it on dark mode and it's basically showing up in black font (and so I can only read it by highlighting it). Not at all a big deal, just thought you were forgetting to include that game lately and figured it out just now.

I know

The Cubs in the last week, including last night, have a team OPS that is higher than what the Brewers have put up all year.

Generally agree with everything except the last piece. We're a game back of the -37 Marlins for the third wild card spot and neither of the top two slots are locked up either, so it's not like we're having to beat Miami, Cincinnati, Arizona, I guess still San Diego for one spot. Does it take a 100+ win pace to make up two games on Marlins with 43 games left to play?

So the idea is to basically attach Ian Happ to Suzuki to and get nothing back, giving yourself two spots to fill, one of which has been manned by a pretty consistent 120 wRC guy who holds his own defensively. Because Matt Shaw is hitting well in high A. I’m sure PTR loves that plan! He can just set a reminder to trade Shaw in 2027 for the next prospect to take over for him.

You’re just kinda carving up sample sizes to fit a narrative that doesn’t really exist. Unless I majorly screwed up this Fangraphs query on my phone (possible!) they’re hitting significantly better in august than they are in July (124 v 111). I assume when you mean ‘July’ you just mean ‘the winning streak’ which…yes, that’s probably not going to be the norm.

Hoping that someone will beat me to posting ‘Must Win’ in tomorrows thread whenever it goes up

But this is just baseball. You list five guys that are struggling, one of them hit a home run tonight. You don’t mention Hoerner, 9 for his last 23 going into tonight, or Seiya’s hot streak after he sat for a week. Bellinger is 14/31 going into tonight. You add all those together, your list and mine, and you get a team that’s scored 26 runs in its last 7 games, which is hardly some crisis. It’s a 3-4 record with 6 of those games on the road. I’m not telling you it’s all going to be ok, every model has us as basically a coin flip right now. But it’s basically one game where both teams hit poorly, save for a couple home runs, and they found some holes. Let’s not make this a bigger deal.

It’s annoying that the Sox still have two solid relievers after their fire sale. At least they both went multiple innings tonight and are hopefully out for tomorrow. nice horsefeathers call on 0-1 for morel.

Happ since the beginning of last year is the 13th best outfielder in baseball per fWAR. But yeah, good backup.

I’m sorry what

Yeah Zobrist is a pretty unfair comparison for anyone. Morel has a 125 wRC. Zobrist bested that three times, in a four year stretch where he put up a 152, 100, 130, and a 137 (2009-2012). In those 4 years he was the second best offensive player in baseball, which was also aided by pretty fantastic defensive numbers. The Zobrist we got familiar with (124, 83, 123, 83 again in his last (lost) year, although obviously much more OBP heavy vs Morels SLG) is probably closer to what you would hope for from Morel. I don't think there's enough out there to close the book on him defensively....he seems like a great athlete who has made a significant leap offensively in the last couple years, it's hard for me to imagine he's totally unplayable out there on a permanent basis. Speed is 79th percentile, arm strength is 99th. Certainly a flawed player, but I don't think you write him off as positionless at this point. 5 more years of control and his ability to hit the ball incredibly hard frequently is too valuable.

Cubs go 3-3 on the road trip while being outscored by 11 runs. Finally some good timing luck.

I think this is a good point in that the verdict on the MLB team is still out, but it's hard not to look at the rest of the system as anything but a pretty clear success thus far. Prospects fail, but we sure do have a lot of them, and it's been a lot of fun watching them get closer to Chicago.

The obvious debate to this question is should we just call up PCA to pinch run in a situation like this. (chanting) Merge the threads! Merge the threads!

Are we sure that Nick "I love nothing more than chopping the ball into the ground six inches in front of home plate as hard as I can" Madrigal hitting a groundball automatically results in a double play? First and third with one out with Morel up is not much different than 2nd/3rd, only in this scenario you're not eliminating the 30%ish chance he doesn't make an out.

Popping in late and uninformed on the current discussion to say that the batting order matters, even if just a little bit, and currently our best hitters are hitting fourth and sixth. Up higher please.

I think he was ready at the beginning of the year, I think he is still ready. Absolutely it was a bad 100 PAs. I don't think it's enough to say he's not an MLB caliber hitter.

The other side of that drop in FB% being an increase in LD% has decrease the severity of this issue, right? It's not like his GB% skyrocketed (38.7% last year, 39.2% this year).

Our rotation next year is Justin Steele, and then Taillon and Smyly. Which, based on 2023, means at any given point we'll have 2 pitchable starters. Hayden Wesneski? Caleb Kilian? Go get Ohtani (or Nola, or Gray, or Montgomery, or Stroman, etc). That's the top priority.

It is a lot easier to find a good hitter at the deadline capable of playing first base for two months than it is to sign a good hitter in the offseason. Do you have a preferred target to bring in and play first base next year?

There's always going to be good hitters capable of playing first base available at the deadline. We got two months of the best bet available for two prospects in the teens of our system. I'm not going dismiss that as 'no one else wanted a 121 wRC bat who could play first, third, and DH'. That's just what the market was.

I'm certainly not arguing that they should just put a black hole at first but....they kinda just did that with a team projected to win 81 games and they're 59-55 and favored to make the playoffs right now? 'Gifted' is a pretty dismissive term...seems like that's just what the market was. If the alternative is to go up against teams who value Bellinger as an above average centerfielder and make their offers accordingly, beat those offers, and then stick him at first for 5 years, yeah I'll take my chances with Mervis for a couple months. There isn't some guaranteed first baseman out there who is going to solve this problem (you mentioned that yourself when you talk about how it's not easy to find/replace 1B production).

Two points, one on either side (I think): - Anti-Mervis (pro-Kyle I guess?): I think people here are falling into what I'm sure is some sort of official Bias where they look at a somewhat serious flaw of a player, recognize the couple players that succeeded somewhat in spite on that flaw, and use that as some clear argument that there's serious hope. Matt Mervis is old but so was Max Muncy. Cade Horton and Ben Brown only have two pitches but so does Spencer Strider. Meanwhile the list of prospects with these flaws is significantly longer and littered with washouts, we just can't cite them as easily because, as I said, they washed out. Trying to rely on players who have to follow the paths of exceptions is probably not the best idea. - Pro-Mervis: I care about Mervis being 25 in the sense that he's certainly not some future cornerstone of this club who is going to give us 6 years of production at the peak of his athleticism. I like Mervis in the short term because since the beginning of last year, he has shown a quick ability to adjust to the next level of competition and because, frankly, the first base alternatives are pretty dire unless we want to outbid everyone for Cody or Jeimer and then immediately move them down the defensive spectrum. Spending top dollar on that plan going into 2024 seems very dumb when they could just give Mervis the job and if he bombs after three months we A. probably have dudes on the roster who could shift down anyways, and B. apparently just have to throw two non-top ten prospects away to get a guy with a 121 wRC to come take over.