squally1313

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.

You can trade major league talent (who have major league roles) if you have minor league talent there to step in and take over. When you trade the minor league talent, if you trade the major league talent you're left having to sign the Daniel Descalsos of the world. I'm not going to try and go back and recreate platoon lineups over the last couple years, but going into 2018 with just Javy and Zobrist as middle infielders, and needing Zobrist to play right field a bunch, would have meant way more Tommy LaStella than anyone would have been comfortable with. And that's trading Russell, who already had noted character concerns and was coming off a definite step back in 2017, so who knows what that even would have gotten you. Yeah, maybe you trade Baez after his breakout 2016 playoffs, but if we're going to revisionist history all of this, I don't think that's a decision that would have worked out. I don't think the 'plan' was necessarily to get 10-12 hitters, pick the 5 that were going to work out, and flip the rest for pitching. Thinking back on those drafts, it was hitter first, and then just a ton of pitching projects where you just assumed odds were that a few of them would pan out by the time Lester/Lackey/Hendricks/Arrieta were old/expensive. So far, we've seen zero pitchers, and that's what I think the real failure is. Ian Happ is the only player from the 2015 draft to see the majors. 2014 is Schwarber, Zagunis, and 11 whole innings from James Norwood. 2013 is KB, Rob Z, and Zack Godley (traded for Montero). 2012 was Almora then 7 straight pitchers, the 'best' of whom is Paul Blackburn. There's been nothing pretty much this whole decade, and so the excess offensive prospects we developed (that could take over for the guys who made the majors and then hit a wall) all had to go to fill in those gaps.

Ok fine, we won 95 games with a Kris Bryant that gave us 2.3 fWAR for the year. Right now ZIPs has him giving us 4.3 total for this year. That would be a pretty significant disappointment given our expectations after 2016 (and even after 2017). And still a clear improvement over what he gave us last year, when, again, we won 95 games. ZIPs is being REAL generous right now. And go with the whole "they won 95 games" mantra all you want. That was then. Fair, and that's a real uphill battle from 7-9...88-58 if my math is right, though that winning percentage over a full 162 only gets you 98 wins, so all hope is not lost. I'm just saying a 4.3 win KB can be both a disappointment and not the end of the world for the Cubs. And that I'd take the over on 4.3 in a heartbeat.

But...they did? They turned Eloy into a starter who was top 10-top 20 in fWAR oover the previous few years with a bunch of control. They turned Vogelbach into a swing guy with a ton of team control. They turned Gleyber into the best closer for 2016, then they turned Soler into an elite closer for 2017. They clearly prioritized trading people who were still in the minors vs players that had shown some level of major league success, but we've been in 'win now' mode for 4+ seasons now...it's not exactly surprising they chose to deal from the minors than take away from talent that was (at the time) producing in the major leagues for a contending team. I never slammed them for not being willing to trade prospects like Eloy, Vogelbach and Gleyber; Soler is the only guy along the lines of what I'm talking about. And trading guys like him doesn't take them out of win now-mode; I would have preferred for 1-2 more moves to happen along those lines to bolster the pitching more. I would have much rather gone after another Quintana-type of target than having to sign someone like Darvish. But the idea of trading them when their value was high implies that at the time they played important roles in present and future of the team. Schwarber was supposed to be a big piece coming off 2015 (and 2016), and he became an even bigger piece as Eloy and Soler were traded away. The outfield in general became much less settled when Heyward turned to garbage the day after signing his deal. Someone like Baez or Russell is expendable when you have a top middle infield prospect in Gleyber knocking at the door, but once he gets traded you're left with two guys who hadn't shown an ability to hit above .240 and a late 30s Ben Zobrist (who, because of Heyward, was needed in the outfield quite a bit). I know the board has pretty much always hated Almora and it's easy to think he had trade value given that he 'looks like a ballplayer' and 'plays the game the right way', but I'm willing to bet he has never been at the point where he would bring back anything of value.

I don't know enough about this statistics to really speak to them, and they all come with SSS issues obviously...LD% is up (would be a career high), but hard hit percentage is down a good amount. BABIP is in line with last year. I think he'll be fine....he doesn't have to hit any XBH if he can keep the OBP. But I think it's fair to expect less power just from general aging.

We won 95 games with a garbage KB last year. Who gave them about a .930 OPS in April and May and a .280 .384 .482 .867 line in the first half. Ok fine, we won 95 games with a Kris Bryant that gave us 2.3 fWAR for the year. Right now ZIPs has him giving us 4.3 total for this year. That would be a pretty significant disappointment given our expectations after 2016 (and even after 2017). And still a clear improvement over what he gave us last year, when, again, we won 95 games.

I'm not saying they're supposed to magically know which guys aren't going to pan out; I'm saying the assumption should be that some of those guys weren't going pan out because that's baseball, and the prudent thing to do is to take the inherent gamble on who they think that guy or guys might be and try to bolster another part of the team. To not utilize ANY of them as a trade asset is what bugs me. Maybe the right time never was there, but it just seems kinda glaring to glom onto essentially everyone of note you've promoted when the FO is supposed to be so good at being able to continue to spot and develop talent. But...they did? They turned Eloy into a starter who was top 10-top 20 in fWAR oover the previous few years with a bunch of control. They turned Vogelbach into a swing guy with a ton of team control. They turned Gleyber into the best closer for 2016, then they turned Soler into an elite closer for 2017. They clearly prioritized trading people who were still in the minors vs players that had shown some level of major league success, but we've been in 'win now' mode for 4+ seasons now...it's not exactly surprising they chose to deal from the minors than take away from talent that was (at the time) producing in the major leagues for a contending team.

Assuming the roof stays open, the way Hamels has been pitching (not a lot of walks, but with some HR problems) should play well tonight. It took me four clicks on guys with the last name 'Alcantara' to find the right one, and he also doesn't give up home runs. Our lineup is roughly 15x better than theirs, so hopefully this isn't an issue. And not to get meatbally, but I believe this is the first chance they have to close out a sweep, which is something Theo touched on a few times at the end of last year. Degree of difficulty isn't high here...getting to 8-9 before a six game homestand is pretty good considering where we were at 10 days ago.

We won 95 games with a garbage KB last year.

Or for not trading him when his value was high? That, and it applies potentially to multiple guys on the team. I get the video game appeal of fielding a team of almost nothing but homegrown stud bats, but that's not something likely to pan out, and it's not like the pitching issues were ever going to be something to take them by surprise with the way the team was constructed and how their drafting went. It's just long bugged me how seemingly every single significant minor leaguer they developed or drafted who got called up seemingly became untouchable once they arrived. I know a lot of it is hindsight, but it can't help but annoy me that between Baez, Russell, Contreras, Happ, Almora and Schwarber, NONE of those guys were traded when they would have brought back or helped bring back a really good return in an area of weakness from an area of strength. But that's only half the equation. Did you want to trade them for players at a similar cost and similar points in their careers? Because then you're just moving the issue around, and in your vision from positions that are usually much easier to predict (hitters) to ones much harder to predict (pitchers). Or did you want to trade for older, more proven but more expensive players? It's interesting you started that list with Baez. When did you want to trade him, and what do you think we could have gotten that would have turned into more than what we've gotten from Baez over the last year? I'm not at all opposed to criticizing Theo/Jed...the failure to develop a single pitcher, what looks to be multiple misses in free agency, and that's before getting into things like Chapman, Murphy, Russell. But it's easy to look back at Happ/Almora/Schwarber/Russell now and be like 'well inevitably they were going to turn into garbage, and only we were supposed to know that and flip them at exactly the right time' when 'the right time' was when everyone was thinking 'these guys are a big part of our future'.

For drafting him? Or for not trading him when his value was high? Or for not trading him not that his value is lowered? Or some other reason? For not trading him when people thought he was the second coming of Babe Ruth. I suggested trading both Russell and Schwarber when they had trade value. Good for you? Do you suggest trading Baez now? Or Contreras if he puts together a good three months? Probably should have traded KB coming off his ROY season given his play last year and this year.

People writing off KB after all of 70 PAs this year is honestly one of the weirdest things I've seen on this board recently.

Eh, I get what you're saying, but in a couple weeks, if the only thing holding us back from really putting it together is Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo, I think we'll be in pretty good shape, considering the other very real concerns I've had in the last couple weeks.