squally1313
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Everything posted by squally1313
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You flip a coin 30 times, and it comes up heads 20 times and tails 10 times. For the next flip, someone offers you -150 for heads. Do you take it? Again, false equivalency. Coins and cards are not people with variable emotions and the like, especially on a day to day and week to week basis. If you're talking about a full season of blindly putting the guy in the leadoff spot, sure, I'll concede that point. Maybe I’m way too Baseball Managering this, but I’d much rather have Maddon (and Theo) looking at these decisions in a weighted coin flip type of way than ‘emotion and the like’. We have probably five better hitters against righties than him in the lineup today, and they’re all going to get less at bats than he is.
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UZR is the outlier, DRS & statcast rate him as great this year which matches the eye test UZR is too black box for me to opine real well why he's just +1 in their system but the others paint the picture he's been decent on balls in his zone and has made quite a bit more plays in the gaps than the average CF, so i'm not sure that his top-end speed holds him back or is lacking; if anything he's not super quick or bursty i feel confident stating he's a very good fielder though Yeah, I probably settle on above average. It's a combination of his skill set (namely route running and recognizing the path of the ball off the bat) and the Cubs ability to get the most out of their defense (see Dexter Fowler's defensive number here vs everywhere else). I just think there's a little bit of a Jim Edmonds effect going on. Happ was a bad example, but I see some of those running/sliding catches and while they get the job done, you look at the top 4 defensive CFers on Fangraphs (Cain, Leonys Martin, Delino DeShields, Billy Hamilton) and probably conclude those catches would look a little easier for them.
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Because no one in their right minds would take anything less than even odds, because they know that the past results aren't likely to continue in the same manner. Almora is leading the majors in BABIP against all pitchers, and against RHPs. He's not fast, and he doesn't have a batted ball profile that would lend himself to having a high BABIP, much less the highest in baseball. He's 138th in hard hit % against RHP, 65th in line drive %. Everything about that screams that so far this year, his groundballs (39th in groundball %) have managed to find holes. Unless you think Almora, contrary to almost every other hitter in history, has learned how to place his groundballs (and just learned that skill this year), this is a long way of saying he, with a high degree of certainty, will not continue to have the results he's had so far. We have really good hitters who hit RHPs (especially shitty RHPs) really well. They should be getting more PAs than Almora.
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You know when I play blackjack and double down and win I just keep doubling down every hand after until I bust Oooh, false equivalencies. I like those! You flip a coin 30 times, and it comes up heads 20 times and tails 10 times. For the next flip, someone offers you -150 for heads. Do you take it?
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http://gifimage.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/confusion-gif-19.gif https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=cf&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2018&month=0&season1=2018&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=20,d It all comes down to his routes/recognition vs his very real lack of speed. His arm is fine, nothing special. He makes a lot of catches that show up on the highlight reel, but it's very possible that someone like Heyward (or even Happ) makes those catches look a little bit easier.
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But you're beholden to your past performance against righties? Yes? He's gone from being borderline unplayable against RHPs (711 OPS in 2017) to being someone you can feel comfortable starting out there, which is good. He's still a negative baserunner, and his defensive value is up for debate, but with Zobrist having to play more infield with KB out, there's plenty of ABs for Almora amongst the four outfielders. But we have better hitters, including LHBs, against a pitcher who is significantly worse against LHBs. It's one of those things that almost definitely won't have an impact on the result today, but causes concern as to the thought process going forward.
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Still no KB activation, so that might be a Thing to worry about. However,
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But that's now how regression works. Every piece of evidence shows he's going to start performing worse against RHPs. You don't get to carry over your past unsustainable BABIP. Zobrist has a 302/412/463 slash against RHPs with a 323 BABIP Schwarbar is 249/371/553 with a 260 BABIP Tyler Mahle has a wOBA allowed of 407 to LHB, 266 to RHB. I get that lineup order ultimately doesn't matter, but there's really no way to justify this.
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Why? Until his BABIP regresses to the mean, keep him out there. ...what?
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Stop having Almora lead off against righties.
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unless hickey can add 6-7 mph to that fastball, this is gonna be a thing 2016 fastball: 87.8 MPH 2018 fastball: 86.8 MPH
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Almora Heyward Zobrist Rizz Baez Schwarber Contreras Russell Hendricls This lineup is going to be outrageous once we get a healthy KB back.
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That was an incredible second half, and Brazil/Belgium is going to be so much fun.
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1. Javy 2. ...... 3. ...... 4. Schwarber 5. Bryant (ginger ale instead of beer, of course) Happ? Are you horsefeathering kidding me? It would suck to wake up (if you are lucky enough to do so) after being out with him, only to discover you're missing a kidney. Eh, you got to sit behind Happ out in the bleachers. Completely changed my perspective of him. He was interacting with the fans the whole game, encouraging people to chant his name louder, had a good back and forth going with this one particularly drunk dude the whole time...I think low key he's one of the coolest guys on the team.
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Power Ranking top 5 Cubs you'd want to have a beer/split a pizza with: 1. Lester 2. Schwarber 3. Javy 4. Happ 5. Heyward
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Maples up duensing to Eddie butler land
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I don't mean this as any sort of judgment on his character, but Baez, especially hot streak Baez, seems the type to be back on the field like...tomorrow.
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Obviously getting off track here in this thread. It's good to see the steps Almora has made this year, and it's really fun to watch him in the outfield, even if it's in a Jim Edmonds type of way. Whatever worth you put in it, he's got the intangibles and leadership qualities that can help a team like this. And he doesn't hit arbitration until 2020. These are all really good things. But. Against LHP: 8.2 BB%, 6.8 K%, 303/356/455, .311 BABIP, .348 wOBA Against RHP: 5.0 BB%, 20.1 K%, 323/360/443, .395 BABIP, .346 wOBA Hits about the same number of groundballs from each side, and hits more line drives (21.7% to 16.4%) from the right side at the expense of fly balls. But his infield fly ball rate is much higher (20.5% to 4.8%) from the right side, so that should negate any expected BABIP benefit from the increased line drives.
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Now do BABIPs
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Yep, platoon heyward/almora in CF and if you get desperate and need to trade for pitching, just throw Happ in a deal. With some simplifying assumptions (Schwarber 'full time' in left, Zobrist gone): Almora/Happ Heyward Machado A pitcher you can get for Russell vs Almora/Heyward Harper Russell A pitcher you can get for Happ
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Setting aside Harper's struggles this year, since I generally believe they're fluky and won't continue... With the reemergence of Russell and Heyward, and Baez looking like he has enough 'hot' in his hot/cold streaks to be very valuable, at what point does Harper start to look like a square peg in a round hole given the needs of this team, especially compared to Machado? Said another way, what gives you more value long term...signing Harper and having to essentially dump Heyward or make him a very expensive backup (even with his resurgence, he's still projected to finish at around 2.2 fWAR, which isn't exactly great value), or signing Machado and using Baez or Russell to shore up what could be very real issues in the rotation? Worth pointing out that Machado's monthly OPS has gone from 1.124 to .883 to .747. I get that the basic argument here is "Baez and Russell are good, Bryce Harper is good, we should have all of them on our team." But we might have to create a pitching market going forward, and if we can have a successful outfield from optimizing Schwarber/Almora/Happ/Heyward, being able to float Baez or Russell to get a quality starter has appeal.
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Depending on how much you buy into FIP/the metrics...who's going to be the best, if not him?
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Last I remember, there's still some sort of limit on how many night games the team is allowed to have, coming from the surrounding neighborhood. Assuming that's still in place, my theory is that they're shoving as many of the day games into next week as they can with the holiday. No game on Monday, assume a lot of people are taking the 3rd off, Fourth of July, no game Thursday, and then back to the weekend again. No idea on the timing for tomorrow.
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14 games left before the ASB, 11 against teams under .500 (and the Giants suck too). Then 8 of our first 12 games after against the Cardinals. Get hot now, and the second half will be a lot of fun.
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2-6, but yes. Time to come home and make up for lost time.