squally1313

I was thinking the same. Anyone who's good defensively at SS should be even better at 2B, even more so if his only real defensive weakness is the arm. Russell should be at 2B if they're going to make us watch him at all. Purely baseball discussion: I'm not going to get too worried about it. We know Russell is a very good shortstop, we know Javy is a very good second baseman (and probably shortstop too). I get the concerns about the relative arm strength, but Russell has always gotten the job done, and, while it comes up less, it's been annoying watching Murphy/Zobrist/Descalso noodle arm the back half of a double play ball whenever that comes up. And does anyone really think this current version of Javier Baez (or any version, really) is going to let where he plays have any impact on his performance at the plate? Bigger picture discussion: Hopefully Russell gets his first payday in a sack of nickels, drops it on his foot and loses 4 toes and we never see him again.

Given that our only other option at catcher right now is a cut rate backwoods version of Ian Happ, I'm fine pushing Willson a little, especially during this hot streak he's on. But let's please remember to learn our lesson from last year and give him some time off around the ASB/down the stretch. Hopefully it's Caratini when he comes back, but if it's not, can't hesitate on picking someone up.

Some positive trends on the pitching side. 10th in K/9 6th worst BABIP allowed 1st in GB% (which, yes, I know leads to a higher BABIP. But I like our infield defense, and we're unfortunately a couple weeks away from getting Russell back) Worst HR/FB% 6th in xFIP

Also I'm no math expert, but I have a hard time believing that changing one double into a pop out would lower an OPS from a weeks worth of PAs 262 points.

I'll take Kris Bryant over Jason Heyward in any reasonable offensive output statistic for the next week, next month, next whatever, and so would all of you.

Why is a bat flip considered disrespectful? The dong is what's important? After giving up a dong does a pitcher feel any better if the guy politely rounds the bases? I think we're on the same page, as I don't find them disrespectful. I was responding to Old Style talking about how hitters need to be ok with pitchers showing emotion too, which I don't consider much of a problem.

One of our guys (I think it actually was Javy) got pissed at Amir Garret last season, if I remember correctly. Obviously biased, but just rewatched that clip on youtube...Garrett gave out a big yell/flex after getting Javy to swing through a curveball, and Baez looked like he just responded by looking back at him while taking off the elbow pad, shin guard, etc. Then Garret kept staring on his walk to the dugout and looks like he was the one who started talking first (all you can see is him, but when they flash back to Javy he's doing the talking motion with his hand, like that's what the problem was). It essentially looked like Baez was like 'if you're going to talk, say it to my face'. Here's the link to the Baez interview afterwards, in which he remains the best: [bbvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZcxQkZostM[/bbvideo]

Do we have a lot of evidence of batters not being ok with pitchers showing emotion, especially in a hypocritical sense? I totally get where jersey's coming from in terms of not wanting to be embarrassed, but I think at this level it only adds to the intrigue/drama of the game. These guys are the best in the world. Let them pimp it, and if they get it back later on, all the better.

File this (actually really good) article under our file for Cervelli Hate https://blogs.fangraphs.com/who-framed-victor-caratini/

But...no one actually thinks that?

Are the celebrations not part of the sport?

Guys, Matthew Boyd is the best pitcher in baseball. If you're convinced that a player who has been the best pitcher in baseball is actually not the best pitcher in baseball, I don't know what to tell you.

He doesn’t make a cool diving catch once every 2 weeks that is largely needed because he’s so slow, though I realize this is the crap on Almora thread, but metrics say you're completely wrong about this. He had the 2nd biggest gap between expected catch % and actual catch % last time I looked and the only guy ahead of him was Kiermayer. Out of curiosity, because I can't find the exact metric you're referring to, are you talking about the 108 innings he's played this year or the 918 innings he played last year?

I'm confused...it's 55 points lower than his career average? While hitting essentially the same amount of hard hit balls? I mean...if you want to buy that he's a 10 HR/year guy now, then sure, let's get concerned. But I'm pretty far from there.

So basically we're at 'I don't like the stats' and then 'well I assume there was someone better that we should have traded for'. Which also conveniently ignores the point of...who are you trading to get these upgrades after you expertly identified that weak players that still held enough value to get good pitching?

Oh he's been bad tweeting for years now. Surprised you haven't seen them pop up around these parts before.

Schwarber could have still been valuable to the Braves and also it's obvious since day one that Schwarber is a DH. Those two opinions, back to back, definitely don't contradict at all.

You're going to need to get a lot more specific in terms of timing if you're going to keep tooting your own horn on this. When exactly did you want these trades to be made? If you trade Schwarber and Russell, you're giving Zobrist a full time job at either second base or left field. A full time set job for a guy in his late 30s who draws a lot of value from his positional versatility. This also means that it becomes much harder to hide Heyward the last couple years as he struggled to be a replacement level player. You can't sit Heyward for Zobrist against lefties if you need Zobrist to play second or left. Of those remaining players you named, who of Happ, LaStella, and Bote did you want to give full time ABs to going into 2017? Ian Happ had just got done throwing up a .318 OBP in AA. David Bote had a good year in high A, and got a cup of coffee in AAA as a reward. He spent all of 2017 in AA. Tommy LaStella? Lol ok. I know this is where you point random free agent X that turned out to be a great deal as a way to retroactively solve all our problems. But let's not pretend like this grand solution was sitting there, obvious to you but not Theo, at the time. How about 2017 when Schwarber has a hero and Russell was still considered a top draft pick. Hell, Schwarber still could have been valuable (Braves, Indians, etc.) this past offseason until Theo announced he was unavailable. As I said before, it was obvious from day one that Schwarber was born to be a DH and Russell was going to be replaced by Baez. The players that I named were internal possibilities, but there were plenty of external trade possibilities or FAs in the last two years that could have filled those two spots. I used 2017 as my example to clearly show none of the internal options were ready that year besides Seal Boy. Or did you mean you wanted to trade Schwarber after 2017, which was a clear step back from 2015 and what he showed in the 2016 World Series? That's clearly not the selling high everyone was talking about. And please define 'day one'. Was it when Baez was so bad after he got called up that he basically spent the whole next year in the minors? Was it when Schwarber was drafted as a catcher? Was it when he came in 6th in FG defense in 2017 out of 24 left fielders, or when he came in 3rd in 2018 out of 31? Again, you can fall back on 'well we could have just traded for someone, obviously' (trade who?) or 'yeah, in hindsight Player X would have been a lot better'. But stop pretending this was some huge mistake made.

I know you're already at the point of (somewhat bizarrely) shrugging this off, so I'm not sure why I'm even making this point again, but we've made the playoffs the last 4 years, have won the most games in baseball over that time, and are all of 3 games back with the best run differential in the division on all of April 18th.

You're going to need to get a lot more specific in terms of timing if you're going to keep tooting your own horn on this. When exactly did you want these trades to be made? If you trade Schwarber and Russell, you're giving Zobrist a full time job at either second base or left field. A full time set job for a guy in his late 30s who draws a lot of value from his positional versatility. This also means that it becomes much harder to hide Heyward the last couple years as he struggled to be a replacement level player. You can't sit Heyward for Zobrist against lefties if you need Zobrist to play second or left. Of those remaining players you named, who of Happ, LaStella, and Bote did you want to give full time ABs to going into 2017? Ian Happ had just got done throwing up a .318 OBP in AA. David Bote had a good year in high A, and got a cup of coffee in AAA as a reward. He spent all of 2017 in AA. Tommy LaStella? Lol ok. I know this is where you point random free agent X that turned out to be a great deal as a way to retroactively solve all our problems. But let's not pretend like this grand solution was sitting there, obvious to you but not Theo, at the time.

Kris Bryant. And then I would take the money we saved on Kris Bryant, and use it to sign Baez to an extension.

Yeah got it...just from reading your post I thought you were talking about KB. Zobrist will be fine assuming he stays healthy. KB will be fine for other reasons. My happiness at Contreras' start is far outweighing my KB concerns.

But talking about the Cubs as WTP kings is pretty much an April tradition, isn't it? Outside of Friday afternoon (where we hit 4 dongs, most of which being majestic), the weather has been bad, as it always is, and when it warms up that long fly outs turn into dongs.

This is a bad take.