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squally1313

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Everything posted by squally1313

  1. squally1313
    But there's nothing to suggest Caratini is a good defensive catcher, right? He was a negative value defensively until 2019, and even then it's not overly impressive. I get that he's already on the roster, but any sort of platoon with Caratini getting 80+ starts isn't one centered around defense. Depending on which framing metric you want to trust, Caratini was between 5 and 15 runs better than Contreras as a framer last year. Statcorner: Caratini +9, Contreras +4 Fangraphs: Caratini +2, Contreras -9 Baseball Prospectus: Caratini +5, Contreras -10 EDIT: The BP number includes throwing and blocking, on framing alone it's Caratini +3, Contreras -9 I wasn't saying they were equal, I know Contreras is bad, but I don't think that gap really comes that close to making up the offensive gap. I definitely see the argument, I'm just betting on Contreras as an upper .800s OPS guy, and someone who can be taught to cut down on the throwing errors, taught to be more focused behind the plate, etc.
  2. squally1313
    That is not the whole idea, or really anywhere close to the whole idea. I mean that's a significant part of it. Obviously you need something significant in return for Contreras to make the whole idea worthwhile, but the fulcrum is that it's easier to replace Contreras's production with players who cost less to acquire than Contreras's return would. And the reason that's possible comes down to defense and potentially knock-on effects of better defense/defense-related aspects. But there's nothing to suggest Caratini is a good defensive catcher, right? He was a negative value defensively until 2019, and even then it's not overly impressive. I get that he's already on the roster, but any sort of platoon with Caratini getting 80+ starts isn't one centered around defense.
  3. squally1313
    The whole idea behind trading Contreras is built on the team being able to improve their defense and pitching around a better defensive catcher, usually a really cheap group of FAs. In the case of Chirinos he's going to cost more than $6.75 million he made last year already more than 2020 Contreras, isn't a slam dunk better framer or defender than Contreras, isn't as good a hitter, and is way older. Just seems like a sloppy way to replace Contreras That is not the whole idea, or really anywhere close to the whole idea.
  4. squally1313
    I don't know why. I'm really not sure there's any production drop off from Contreras to Caratini/Chirinos. OTOH trading Contreras to sign Chirinos is pretty pointless. Chirinos probably isn't a worthwhile upgrade on defense and his 2020 salary will probably be higher than Contreras' I mean, if you ignore what you would be receiving in return for Contreras, sure. Regardless of that, I'm still betting on Contreras vs a combination along those lines. Neither of those two really strike me as a dynamic starter, and I'm not aware of some big platoon splits that would lead into getting the best out of both of them.
  5. squally1313
    This pretty much eliminates any desire I have to trade Contreras.
  6. squally1313
    I was thinking it was weird he went with Detlef Schrempf, and not the more obvious Chicago reference in Toni Kukoc. So I went to his wikipedia, and he grew up in Seattle, so that makes sense. His baseball section is amazing though. The guy had a 13 year career, 1997-2009, pitched almost 1500 innings, had a 4.7 fWAR season, and his "Baseball Career" section starts with the following line: "In September of 2006, Rusch was diagnosed with a life-threatening blood clot in his lung and missed the rest of the 2006 season." From there it just covers his basically failed comeback attempts, and ends with him being DFAed in 2009.
  7. squally1313
    I get the Astros reference, but if they go back to a "regular" ball, there might be a bunch of hitters falling off a cliff next year. That is a much different thing.
  8. squally1313
    Yeah it concerns me that they seem to get outshot every game, and in many cases by a lot. But if the excelling goaltending is sustainable then they might be a playoff team. Saw an article today talking about this. Their PDO is the second highest in hockey...PDO is basically just shooting percentage plus save percentage, with the theory that it should normalize at about 1.000. Basically a BABIP concept. So obviously with that you'd expect the luck to turn around and them go back to being bad. The theory of the article was that this team was built to beat/outperform PDO. Elite goaltending duo, a handful of guys who generally shoot above the league average that account for most of their SOGs. Probably more hopeful than anything else, but an interesting concept.
  9. squally1313
    Well for 2018, if trading TLS doesn't qualify then signing Descalso definitely doesn't qualify, at least in hindsight. Could probably just leave last offseason off the list, at least until Kimbrel. I think you'll see transactions continue to get pushed back. Even something like the potential Morrow signing, it was hinted that there have been good discussions but they want to wait until after 12/1 because of 40 man roster considerations.
  10. squally1313
    This seems unnecessarily cruel to do this now with the game definitely over.
  11. squally1313
    This could be awesome.
  12. squally1313
    I'm late to this discussion on the Astros and how they got their pitching, but it seems a little disingenuous to point to Torres, Eloy, Cease, etc as big successes of our farm system, while not mentioning that the Astros went out and got Cole, Verlander, and Greinke using, you guessed it, prospects from their organization.
  13. squally1313
    Of the Top 10 picks in Happ's draft, 6 of them either haven't made MLB or have provided negative bWAR in a brief amount of time. 5 for Schwarber's Top 10. That's the baseline, not whether the player was an especially good major leaguer. That's a little bit of an oversimplification, looking at Happ's draft. Yes, for where the Cubs were at the time it made sense to prioritize a more polished bat. But in those 6 you have Brendan Rogers and Kyle Tucker, both of which are much more valuable than Ian Happ.
  14. squally1313
    The bigger feather in the cap for Schwarber and Happ is that both were considered substantial reaches on draft day, and McLeod's job is as much to get guys who don't need as much work as it is to improve the players they're able to get. It's a little hard to track down 2015 draft predictions/pre-draft rankings, but FG had Happ going 11th instead of to us at 9. Another one had him at 17th. We may be getting into two separate discussions here. I assume based on this that McLeod was in charge of the draft as well as development, and so he gets credit for making those picks instead of, to use those previews, Daz Cameron or Jon Harris. But that still doesn't change the facts on his development skills, and if he gets credit for picking the right hitters those times, he gets marked down for all the pitchers he ended up on that didn't pan out.
  15. squally1313
    Sofa is going to do this better than me, but. The net contributions have been great, and have been incredibly top heavy. We drafted hitters with top 10 overall picks 5 years in a row, and all of them have contributed to our success, to obviously varying degrees. You can debate how much credit Jason McLeod should get for developing Kris Bryant, college player of the year, or the one year Kyle Schwarber spent in the minors before he made it to the pros (or the year and a half for Ian Happ). I would argue not a lot, but that's easy to say because they turned into actual players. Javy? Sure, it's clear a ton of work took place to get him where he is now, but it's also worth pointing out that he showed up to the majors an an incredibly raw player, and didn't really make a leap until he had about 300 games in the majors. Dylan Cease was the second piece in the Quintana deal, and was the 63rd ranked prospect in baseball when we traded him. Calling that a 'hit' is generous. As TT mentioned earlier, in hindsight it probably wasn't the best strategy to just pile up arms and play the odds you develop a few. But the fact remains that that was the direction we went in, and McLeod didn't deliver. A 63rd prospect and MAYBE a 7th inning guy in 4 years of drafting is not good.
  16. squally1313
    Could arguably throw Chapman into that last group too. Character issues aside, he played a big part of getting us the title. But maybe you don't have to pay a ransom for the top reliever on the market in order to contend at that level.
  17. squally1313
    Given that their draft strategy seemed to be that you should draft the best hitter first, and then just stockpile arms and hope you get a few good ones...is that a criticism of Theo in terms of their approach, given what you're saying about reliable starters being top picks?
  18. squally1313
    I think it has something to do with the fact that the Bears teams that have achieved moderate success in the last 10-15 years have basically been modeled after the 85 Bears...top ranked defense, middling at best offense, and so the 85 team stays in the conversation. It's probably hurting the franchise more than it helps at this point, people continuing to believe that in modern football all you need is a good front 7.
  19. squally1313
    That game was fun. I didn't make it past the first period but they packed a game's worth of action into 20 minutes. Sending down Boqvist until they can trade Gustafson makes sense since Colliton is trying to save his job and isn't going to care about developing players. It's a lose lose situation. Playing Seabrook over Boqvist makes the team worse, which doesn't help him trying to save his job. Benching Seabrook and risking losing the locker room also doesn't help him save his job. Then again, this whole thing could have been avoided if we didn't trade for Olli Maatta, who is bad and has a bad contract.
  20. squally1313
    This whole rant is pretty unhinged, but the bolded might be my favorite. He's put up 13.8 WAR in the last three years, which is not a difficult thing to fact check. That's also missing 50ish games in 2018, and sure, I'll even ignore the damage the injuries did while he was playing. Seriously man, all these weird capitalizations is very Trump-y. Everything alright?
  21. squally1313
    It's a minor league deal where it's implied that Morrow wants to pay the Cubs back for all the time and money they've invested in him. If that's the case, there is literally no downside to this, nor does it get in the way of any other move. Not suggesting otherwise, just making a joke. My bad...had seen some much more serious versions of those words in much worse parts of the internet.
  22. squally1313
    You definitely don't want to know how many of those 41 home runs he hit at home vs how many he hit on the road, and if you find that out, you really won't want to know whether he played more games at home or on the road.
  23. squally1313
    with ballsy moves like these, the Cubs are poised to reclaim their spot atop the NL Central. It's a minor league deal where it's implied that Morrow wants to pay the Cubs back for all the time and money they've invested in him. If that's the case, there is literally no downside to this, nor does it get in the way of any other move.
  24. squally1313
    Astros at home, 2017: .279/.340/.472 .812 OPS, 121 wRC Astros on road, 2017: .284/.351/.483, .834 OPS, 121 wRC
  25. squally1313
    This isn’t directed to you specifically, but something I’ve been wondering about is if an electronic strike zone is maybe only two years away, are we all worrying too much about Wilson’s framing ability? Even if it were only two years away (which is wildly optimistic), we have Contreras under team control for three more years, and then you'd be looking at a 31 year old catcher entering free agency. Even if Contreras ends up riding out these three years with the Cubs, I'd have serious questions about bringing him back at age 31, regardless of what's going on with the zone. So basically, you'd be looking at maybe possibly one year of cheap Contreras and an electric zone. Not really worth factoring in the discussion.
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