Jump to content
North Side Baseball

squally1313

Old-Timey Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    10,383

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    23

 Content Type 

Profiles

Joomla Posts 1

Chicago Cubs Videos

Chicago Cubs Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

2026 Chicago Cubs Top Prospects Ranking

News

2023 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

Guides & Resources

2024 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

The Chicago Cubs Players Project

2025 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker

Blogs

Events

Forums

Store

Gallery

Everything posted by squally1313

  1. squally1313
    40.7 in total WAR, with some surprising numbers in there both ways. 38.1 for the Brewers, 35.9 for the Cardinals.
  2. squally1313
    Yep, for all the obvious frustrations, the roster still has five or six of my favorite baseball players of all time, and if anything, I'm especially aware now that that can change very quickly.
  3. squally1313
    Field Hockey...so that's why 312sports never took off.
  4. squally1313
    Sounds good to me, but I'm not sure who we are trading for Betts, Lindor, and Arenado. Almora & Happ, duh. You know what, no one else has the balls to say it, so I'll be the one to step up: in this scenario, I would also make Bote AND Hoerner available.
  5. squally1313
    Kris Bryant is a better baseball player than Nolan Arenado, and making a straight up trade makes the Cubs a worse baseball team. Having said that, this trade is significantly better than any other rumored Bryant deal, and if we have to go down that road, might as well end up with this solution.
  6. squally1313
  7. squally1313
    Probably Bote, maybe Descalso or Bryant. You're probably shuffling someone in from Iowa if Baez is out more than 48 hours even with Hoerner. Eh, give me Hoerner, Descalso, Souza, Caratini, Scooter, and another guy who can handle corner outfield and ideally hit lefties. Hoerner is the de facto back up for Bryant, Baez, Bote, even Happ (Heyward to center, KB to right, Bote to third) and Schwarber (KB to left, Bote to third). Scooter gets a chance to beat out Bote for a starting job, Descalso gets a chance to be a pinch hitter or he gets dumped, Souza/Heyward stay in a strict platoon.
  8. squally1313
    Why do people keep pretending there is strategy involved here? It's not rocket science by any means, but there is absolutely strategy when you are working with a 4-5 man bench, one of which typically being the backup catcher (and, as the Cubs love to do, another 1 or 2 nursing some sort of injury). I don't know a better way to search for these stats, but the NL had 4297 pinch hitting appearances, while the AL had 1366. That's 91 per AL team, so barely more than 1 every 2 games, vs 276 for NL teams.
  9. squally1313
    Isn't Happ the RH CF option? Heyward is the CF back up, Souza/Bote/Hoerner is more than enough flexibility to cover days off for any of the outfield and 3B/SS/2B. The one thing I hadn't really thought about in the Horner MLBvAAA decision is that I don't know who is the backup SS in the event he starts the year in AAA.
  10. squally1313
    Out of curiosity, would you be in favor of adding a DH for the catcher spot as well? Not to be flippant, but if catchers ever get to the point where their triple slash numbers all start with a .1, sure. Just wondering what the line is. What about just a second DH for every team's weakest offensive player? Outside of football, pretty much every sport involves making decisions where you have to sacrifice offense for defense in putting the best team out there. I like the strategy that comes with the pitcher spot. Being able to move it around in the line up, working with a limited amount of bench/bullpen options and figuring out the best way to maximize your limited chances at the plate. I don't think it puts the NL at an inherent disadvantage. There's an almost...free throw like quality to pitching to a pitcher. Just do your job and take the easy out. I'm aware none of these are great arguments, but given that there's like 3 effective full time DHs in baseball right now, I'd rather keep it as is with the strategy that comes with it. Games aren't going to suddenly become dong fests because all the NLs 1st guy off the bench gets 4 PAs a game now.
  11. squally1313
    Pitchers don't suck at hitting because they don't work on it enough, they suck at it because hitting his hard and pitching gets better and better. Scrappy McJunkball could scratch out a hit or two against the scrubs that pitched in yesteryear, not because he put in the time and effort. Right, and pitchers are the only guys on the field who are there almost entirely for their extremely valuable contribution to run prevention. Just about everyone else advanced in the game because of what they can do for run scoring primarily. The dudes who have both the natural talent to hit MLB pitching well and pitch well to MLB hitters are beyond absurdly rare. Out of curiosity, would you be in favor of adding a DH for the catcher spot as well?
  12. squally1313
    At this point any live body who makes it more likely that Almora doesn't make the roster is someone I want. I am no longer being rational about this.
  13. squally1313
    It would make the end of the roster decisions a lot less important for me. Which, honestly, is probably a good thing at this point. Still like the starting pitcher/hybrid idea.
  14. squally1313
    RIP Kobe. Holy horsefeathers.
  15. squally1313
    It's not a traditional way to do it, but the hope is that you get top 5 production from 3B, SS, 1B, and catcher to make up for middle of the pack/slightly above average production in the rest of the line up (and these small additions hopefully minimize the chance of negative production). Combine that with your 3 #2 starters, and then whatever Lester and ??? can give you...
  16. squally1313
    If Hoerner makes the team, especially with that bench, I can see him making the starting line up a good amount just in a psuedo-Zobrist role. If you keep Heyward/Souza in a straight platoon, I think Hoerner becomes the main 'backup' for Schwarber (Bryant to left), Happ (Heyward to center, Bryant to right), Bryant (Bote to third), Baez, and Bote. Even just giving those 5 guys 10-15 games off for the year gets you 50-75 starts. Although this implies a world where Almora doesn't exist, so it might be a little hopeful.
  17. squally1313
    Bringing in a platoon partner for Heyward is a good idea. Bringing in someone that also has a chance to be a valuable full time player is a better idea. Good work. However, the defense is going to look pretty questionable when you're running out Schwarber/Happ/Souza, and my concern is that the remedy to that 'problem' is essentially putting Almora/Happ into the same platoon, and then you've basically just moved the problem you were trying to solve.
  18. squally1313
    [tweet] [/tweet] With Willy/Rizz/Bote/KB/Javy/Schwarber/Happ/Heyward as your 8 starters, your bench looks like Caratini Hoerner Souza Descalso ...probably Almora, or else Garcia.
  19. squally1313
    Lester probably thinks that with Rossy running the show, he can get to 200 innings next year and guarantee the option.
  20. squally1313
    Yeah I unfortunately don't see too many places where the Cubs would blow that out of the water. The outfield in total lines up pretty closely, just give Schwarber the 2.4, Heyward the 1.3, and Happ (with Almora dragging him down) the 0.9. 13.8 from the infield should be mostly covered by Baez/Bryant/Rizzo, but hard to get too far above that with second base being some Bote/Hoerner combo. Steamer has Contreras at 1.3, so catcher lines up pretty close. No one on our team will approach Flaherty, and we only have four starters right now, even though all of them are better than their second best pitcher. I'll still take the Cubs as the favorite, but it's pretty close to a toss up where the rosters are now.
  21. squally1313
    But Wil Myers is terrible.
  22. squally1313
    It's obviously a much different game overall than when Blake came into the league, but Zion's ability to shoot is a big advantage that took Blake years to add to his game (he had 7 total three pointers in his rookie, 82 game season). Granted, everyone is shooting threes now, but Zion is a little different in that regard and gives him a wrinkle beyond "shorter Blake"
  23. squally1313
    https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28537918/mlb-plans-robot-umps-call-balls-strikes-spring-training-games Robot umps for spring training games
  24. squally1313
    I think that's a false choice. It's not Almora vs the only centerfield option out there (if that's even true). It's also Almora vs a back up 3B/2B, or a corner outfield guy who maybe hits lefties really well. There are at least two, probably three guys on the roster who can spell Happ in center. I'll expand my point then. If we've only got a couple million to spend, I'd prioritize the bullpen instead of the bench at this point. Obviously, if we've got more to spend, then let's go nuts. Yeah, I can buy that argument, although at what point do you hit a point of diminishing returns by adding the 13th slightly above average pitcher to the bullpen rotation. There's more than just free agent options though...there's going to be roster crunches, players left without options, etc that you can go and scoop up for nothing (or maybe even Almora!) over the next month or so.
  25. squally1313
    I think that's a false choice. It's not Almora vs the only centerfield option out there (if that's even true). It's also Almora vs a back up 3B/2B, or a corner outfield guy who maybe hits lefties really well. There are at least two, probably three guys on the roster who can spell Happ in center.
×
×
  • Create New...