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squally1313

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Everything posted by squally1313

  1. squally1313
    That makes sense. They can likely get more for Lehner because he's youngerbut they'd be taking their chances on Crawford's health or that Lankinen is ready to step into an NHL role. Though Crawford might look more attractive to a playoff team as mostly a rental. A team like that would likely want to give up more draft picks than NHL players so that would be a good way to hedge their bets. But if they traded Crawford now they better extend Lehner the same day since he's likely the best available FA goalie. Yeah I don't know enough about evaluating the two of them, and can make arguments for both in the short term. Agreed that Lehner is the only one you'd really want to extend, though I'm not sure what he'd get on the market after having the year he had last year and having to settle for a one year deal again. Could also just keep Crawford around on a 1-2 year deal. Would probably depend on the offers for both of them too. But if you can pick up a top 4ish defenseman, well then....you'd only be like 3 D-men short of actually being a good team. But hockey playoffs are crazy, and we've wasted enough of Toews and Kane's years.
  2. squally1313
    As long as you're still reliant on Kane, Toews, and Keith as top line players, I think you need to take every chance at a playoff bid you can get. I can see a thought process for settling on one of them and seeing what you can get for the other, even if it's little more than a coin flip, because you'd only need one of them for whatever playoff run you make.
  3. squally1313
    Yeah most of my arguments for a Javy extension, you could probably do the same thing for a Rizzo extension, so I always thought it was weird that a Javy extension was assumed and a Rizzo extension had no chance/was really dumb.
  4. squally1313
    Throwing a Ronny Cedeno comp on Hoerner seems a little cruel.
  5. squally1313
    You only need a Q replacement if you require competent pitching. If you're basically taking a mini dive this season by unnecessarily cutting costs, some garbage guys filling in at that spot is just going to help your draft spot. Fair. Depressing, but fair. Now that the dust mostly has settled, I wonder if Ricketts is a little disappointed that Milwaukee got worse and St Louis didn't really do anything. The Reds made a bunch of moves, but had a ton of ground to make up. It's one thing to have a roster that needs things to break right and choose not to compete, it's another thing to go into the year with the best team on paper (at least, as currently constructed).
  6. squally1313
    Aren't we kinda running out of time to find a Q replacement? Especially after we basically decided to pass on filling Hamels' spot in the first place? Or are we just going to hope Hendricks and Yu throw up career seasons while Lester, Chatwood, and Mills do...whatever it is they do.
  7. squally1313
    That would definitely push Hoerner to AAA to start the year, which is fine. Would push Bote into essentially a roving back up as the short side of that platoon, with KB backing up Schwarber directly and Happ indirectly? Still don't really have a backup shortstop, but Javy doesn't really need days off. Would definitely fit their strategy of targeting guys who were once good, and more recently terrible.
  8. squally1313
    We'll have to wait and see what the actual numbers look like, but if I were to ballpark it I'd guess the current Cubs come out about 4 wins ahead on the position players, 1-2 ahead on SP, and probably 2 down on RP. I didn't get the specifics, but on aggregate it's about right, the Cubs projections are just under 5 wins better. [tweet] [/tweet] Yeah good call. Outfield: Cubs 5.7, Cards 4.6 Infield: Cubs 17.6, Cards 15.9 Starters: Cubs 13.1, Cards 11.6 Relievers: Cubs 3.3, Cards 3.8
  9. squally1313
    40.7 in total WAR, with some surprising numbers in there both ways. 38.1 for the Brewers, 35.9 for the Cardinals.
  10. 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.
  11. squally1313
    Field Hockey...so that's why 312sports never took off.
  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. squally1313
  15. 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.
  16. 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.
  17. 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.
  18. 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.
  19. 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?
  20. 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.
  21. 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.
  22. squally1313
    RIP Kobe. Holy horsefeathers.
  23. 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...
  24. 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.
  25. 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.
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