squally1313

It's just hard to imagine coming back with only 21 outs left.

Yelich out for the year.

Bold move posting that version and not waiting for the inevitable corrected version when KB and/or Contreras gets scratched.

I mean, he's had the 7th best wOBA in baseball since he was acquired (and was 8th for the month of August). He has a 3.8% BB rate since joining the Cubs. Obviously more than anyone was expecting, but he's barely been the best hitter on the Cubs since we picked him up.

Albert Almora, but a shortstop.

Yep. Let them prove they aren’t good enough defensively. (We’re definitely getting an Almora start this weekend)

Pessimistically, they sent Taylor Davis down like 3 hours ago and they could have just ILed him for like...staring into the sun or something. So I'm still at the point where I'd be surprised if we see Kimbrel again the rest of the year.

Kimbrel to the IL with an elbow. So it was fun being happy for like 6 minutes there. Go Bears.

You know who's an interesting guy to look into coming into the offseason is Starling Marte. Has two more options at $24m total for the Pirates, who may think they're just a little far away from contending to pay that money. He'd look pretty nice in center next year.

I was actually referring to his season lines - Ks are down for the second year in a row, power is up significantly over last year with a .280 IslSLG Also, OF COURSE it's more of a nice hot streak. He's put up a 1.070 OPS since August 1. But it counts towards his season. And to Tom's point, his K rate in the first half was 28.3%. Second half is 18%. So we're looking at about 2 months of real development in that area, which is really encouraging.

Well boys, that's about as good as it gets. I mean, Schwarber should be higher, and it'd be nice if Heyward returned to least mediocrity. But from experience...this is basically all we can hope for.

This is underselling his approach. He's cut his Ks again, walks a ton, and is hitting with more power...Without looking at anything else those are breakout ingredients If this last month+ is a real breakout, then absolutely. More likely though is it's just a nice hot streak. He's cut his K rate to 25% this year, which is great, but if homeruns continue to be as cheap in 2020 as they have been in 2019, at 25% his offensive ceiling is still limited to like a 120 wrc+. That's certainly nothing to complain about, but from a left fielder with his defense that's merely a solid regular. Maybe I'm not thinking about this right, but I don't see how the juiced ball really impacts his value relative to other players. Everyone is playing with it. He was 37th in baseball in home runs last year, this year he's getting more ABs and he's 20th. Everyone else is hitting more home runs, but so is he, so I don't get how his value drops. To use non-specific numbers, hitting 125% of the league average is equally valuable is the league average is 15 or 20.

My point is that while he's great at what he does (mash HRs against RH pitching), he has many flaws - lefties, defense, etc. So now we're dropping the whole pinch hitting thing into an all encompassing "etc" huh? Telling. Castellanos hits lefties better than Schwarber hits righties. Castellanos hits righties better than Schwarber hits lefties. Schwarber has been much better defensively than Castellanos. How you want to weigh all those is up to you. Also worth noting that Schwarber for the next 2 years will cost about as much as Castellnos for about 4 months.

Why can’t he pinch hit? His track record as a PH is atrocious. Is that a thing that is somehow predictive going forward compared to his total numbers?

I appreciate Sofa's level of fandom where he knows enough about the Cubs to conclude that they all suck, but just assumes there are infinite create a players in the MLB universe of every conceivable skill set ready (and available) to come in and fix all our problems.

If you want to do that deal, do you want to go him and Schwarber in the corners for the foreseeable future? And if not, do you think Castellanos at something like 4/72 plus whatever you get for Schwarber is more valuable than Schwarber for the next two years at like...$12m total? I probably go option 1 and hope Heyward holds up in center (along with hoping Almora can recover to a serviceable backup or picking up a glove first guy). I’d prefer keeping both and think we’d get by fine with the defense, we’d need Almora to somehow figure out a way to be a good player or find a defense first CF’er for late in games. Idk what’s more valuable though if it’s a choice between Schwarbs for less or Nick for more +Schwarbs trade because it seems hard to judge how Schwarber would be valued in a trade. You’d think he could bring back a cheap, good reliever and maybe an A ball lotto ticket or a cheap/controlled SP that’s a middle-back of rotation type. It also wouldn’t surprise me if Castellanos only ends up getting 2 or 3 years. Murphy and Lemahieu both just got 2/24, Khris Davis signed for 2/33 in season, Lowrie got 2/20, Marwin 2/21. He seems like he’d be valued closer to guys like that than a JD Martinez type deal in the new normal we’ve seen in offseasons. Maybe he only ends up costing 2-3 years at $35-50 mil. Yeah I would love to keep both, just not sure if the FO is comfortable with that given their past emphasis on defense. Maybe they saw something in Nick they thought they could fix (a la Fowler). We've somehow been the best defensive team, per FG, in baseball since the trade, however the outfield is only ranked 16th (2nd place at first and second (somehow), 3rd at short). Trading Schwarber also requires filling that spot in the field, and if they go that route it would imply that wouldn't settle for poor defense, so it's not something that can be fixed by moving Contreras out there. The projections have them being about the same player offensively going forward. I can see the appeal in both directions...I think it depends on what else is out there and what holes need to be filled (starter, probably a second baseman, bullpen as always), which is a much bigger conversation.

I think because of his age he gets at least 4 years, somewhere between 4-5 years guaranteed and $16-18 in AAV makes sense to me and I absolutely do that for him. Have to remember there’s a lot of guys with his profile available this offseason too which should keep him a little cheaper. JD can opt out then there’s bat first/DH/Corner OF/1B guys like Abreu, Thames, Asdrubal, Alex Gordon, Ozuna, Avi Garcia, Markakis, Howie Kendrick, Nelson Cruz and EE who all either are outright FA or can be FA with options. It’s a crowded market for that type of player. If you want to do that deal, do you want to go him and Schwarber in the corners for the foreseeable future? And if not, do you think Castellanos at something like 4/72 plus whatever you get for Schwarber is more valuable than Schwarber for the next two years at like...$12m total? I probably go option 1 and hope Heyward holds up in center (along with hoping Almora can recover to a serviceable backup or picking up a glove first guy).

http://www.reddit.com/r/nflstreams I didn't try this one last year, but looks pretty good, especially going forward with the Red Zone on commercials thing.

I think I was able to figure it out on FG...no idea how to embed, but here's what I think his splits are for just the Cubs for innings 1-3, 4-6, 7-9 1-3: .447/.481/1.085 (that's slugging, not total). 9 HRs in 52 PAs 4-6: .283/.283/.543. 3 HRs in 46 PAs 7-9: .303/.361/.424. 0 HRs in 36 PAs So essentially, you're pretty much right on. Runs are runs, so I'll obviously take the production. From however they calculate leverage, he only has 7 high leverage PAs with the Cubs so far (batting behind the pitcher and Heyward...who knew?!?!), and has gone 2/7 with two singles. .983 OPS in medium leverage, 1.200 OPS in low leverage, which also makes sense. Here's the link if you want to play around with it more...really cool system to mess around with. https://www.fangraphs.com/splitstool.aspx?playerid=11737&position=3B/OF&splitArr=&strgroup=season&statgroup=2&startDate=2019-08-01&endDate=2019-09-04&filter=&statType=player&autoPt=true&players=&sort=NaN,1

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The Cubs intentionally lost for half a decade so they could shed bad contracts, pick in the top 3 in the draft and stock up on international signings and money. It got them a WS, so they did it right. Good for them. Saying the Cardinals 2 month reorganization last year is anything close to that is just stupid. Stupid would be not recognizing that they were conceding the season and claiming that trading away a 5 WAR pre-arb player for nothing is "reorganizing." I'd argue the reasons for trading away Tommy Pham were a little different/worse than trying to parse between 'reorganizing' and 'rebuilding'.

Kyle Schwarber. World Series. Not saying he’ll do great, but he can handle it. By all means, let him show what he can do, especially with KB and Baez banged up. But I don't see why he can't show us from like..the 7th or 8th spot.

Zo had to be the link between Rizzo and Javy, so we could have 2 straight weeks of players being active yet unavailable on the roster. And the streak continues.

Is Ben Zobrist the best choice for lead off hitter? No. Is Ben Zobrist a better choice than Jason Heyward? Well, probably, but not for sure. Is it weird that Zobrist was with the team all weekend, yet Maddon refused to play him, but now he throws him out at the top of the order? Yes, very. Are we hopefully done with Jason Heyward, terrible leadoff hitter? I horsefeathering hope so.

I don’t really think we know either of those things. Edit: I mean, Jason Heyward is an average center fielder