squally1313

I pitched against this dork in high school and he beat me 6-0. Payback please, Jake.

Kinda straddling the middle here, but I think the 2015 version of Bryant was an excellent player, just not quite in the ways people expected him to be. While he was 8th in the league in offensive WAR, he was 'only' 19th in wOBA for the year, with the remaining value coming from him being the fourth best baserunner in the league and the 38th best defensive player, neither of which were really expected, and as such expected to regress a little bit going forward. With him being 3rd in the league in K% (a mixed bag of 2016 success in Chris Davis, Michael Taylor, Ian Desmond, and Joc Pederson joining him in the top 5), it wasn't unwarranted to worry about his minor flaws going forward. ZIPs had him projected as a 5.3 win player, due to similar offensive production and decreased baserunning/defensive contributions. Still an excellent player, but somewhere in the Matt Carpenter range as opposed to future MVP. To Tim's point, yes there are players that show improvement, but there have been a few articles that have come out recently showing the amount of improvement once players reach the big leagues has gone down dramatically, due to improved minor league preparation, service time considerations, etc. Here's the first link that shows aging curves for wOBA, albeit coming up on three years old. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/hitters-no-longer-peak-only-decline/ A more recent article, linked below, breaks it down into different types of players, of which I'd say Bryant falls comfortable into the 'young old guy' category. That category shows improvement in the 22 to 25 age range, which makes sense for the 2015 to 2016 Bryant progression, but actually shows them aging worse than other types of players. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/are-player-types-aging-differently-now/ All in all, I never really doubted that he'd be a 4-5 win guy for the first ten years or so of his career. But there was at least some risk of the swing and miss issue never going away, and if the defense and baserunning value disappeared quickly (which for a 6'5" third baseman, isn't an outrageous predictionn), then his ceiling would have gone down significantly. Obviously in hindsight, he fixed his biggest issue, and is now 7th in wOBA while providing a lot of value everywhere else. Dropping your K rate by 8% is really tough, especially when it's now a lower rate than anything he put up since low A. But he did it, he's turned into the dong monster we always dreamed he could be, and he'll be the MVP of the World Series favorites in about 5 weeks.

I know judging a curveball based on watching like 6 pitches and seeing terrible hitters flail at it is not smart. I don't care. Grimm looks nasty.

I'd like to think I could do better, but if I was 24 or 25 and played professional baseball in San Diego I'd probably look like this idiot too.

At this point, what's your prediction for his slash line next year? Are his ROS numbers (.257/.335/.390) about the median? For what it's worth, that plus his baserunning and defense gives him 0.6 WAR the rest of the year, or about 2.6 WAR over a full season.

Oh my god does he really have 25 home run power

I love rizzo and I love the 'thanks for the RBI' hug he just got from Georgie.

So is most of the $7.55m not guaranteed then? Part of the reason the Hawks are so tight against the cap is because Panarin hit incentive markers that I don't think anyone expected him to hit (top 10 in scoring, etc). I wouldn't expect those types of things to be included in the reported contract offered. That's what makes me wonder if this is a different type of contract. Most of it is not guaranteed. Really its a non-story that the Hawks offered the max contract mostly because every team vying for Vesey offered the same max deal. Makes sense, and that's good news. I had always thought most of his value was tied to his low cap hit unless he blows up like Panarin did (which would be just fine with me). I've read elsewhere that the chance to line up next to 19 would be one of the main selling points, so I'll assume that he'd at least start up there. I don't really think Panik is a top 6 guy, but putting Hossa with Kruger on the third line is intriguing given how good it looked down the stretch last year. After that, it's anyone's best guess, and probably going to be based on fitting under the cap as much as anything else.

Thanks guys....I knew it didn't incorporate pitch framing (which explains why Montero is so low), but completely forgot about his LF time (which also probably adds to why Gattis is so low).

I obviously have no idea how these contracts work, but I figured it'd be similar to Panarin's deal. I didn't think we had room to add something this big? Not sure how the max ELC looked last year but this year the max you can offer in base salary is 925k per, the other 2.875m coming in bonus/incentive money. Panarin signed for 2/6.775m that was roughly an average base of 700k with 2.7m each year in bonus/incentives. So is most of the $7.55m not guaranteed then? Part of the reason the Hawks are so tight against the cap is because Panarin hit incentive markers that I don't think anyone expected him to hit (top 10 in scoring, etc). I wouldn't expect those types of things to be included in the reported contract offered. That's what makes me wonder if this is a different type of contract.

Well, that was pretty much everything I wanted to say in the Contreras piece I was planning. What's the disconnect on those numbers from his -0.1 defensive rating that's going into his WAR calculation? For catchers with at least 190 PAs (to get his 196), only Flowers, Gattis, and Montero are worse (32 total).

Ugh! Dragging this out I obviously have no idea how these contracts work, but I figured it'd be similar to Panarin's deal. I didn't think we had room to add something this big?

[tweet]https://twitter.com/themattgrilli/status/766434033798492160[/tweet] Lackey (hopefully fake) DL trip?

http://www.mycubstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/chicago-cubs-ted-lilly-carlos-marmol-11.jpg

Best record in the league by 6 games. In terms of pythag expected record vs actual record, unluckiest team in the league. Incredible.

Bryant could have donged there, but he preferred to add a run to what was a 6-8 ballgame. Priorities.

The game threads the rest of the season are going to look like the ones from September 2011-2013, except the results on the field will be the exact opposite.

Super rough/simplistic, but I'm bored at work. A lot of this becomes difficult to put into practice if they don't want to trot out an outfielder with Schwarber and Soler in the corners at the same time, but here we go...(I'm only doing 600 PAs for each position to not factor in scrub time/injuries/etc, as I'm only listing like 10 guys) C: Contreras 450, Montero 150 1B: Rizzo 600 2B: Zobrist 450, Baez 150 3B: Bryant 400, Baez 200 SS: Russell 550, Baez 50 LF: Schwarber 450, Bryant 50, Soler 100 CF: Heyward 350, Almora 250 RF: Heyward 200, Bryant 150, Soler 250 Zobrist: 450 Baez: 400 Bryant: 600 Russell: 550 Schwarber: 450 Soler: 350 Heyward: 550 Almora: 250

Get zobrist another ring, and then sell high on his 'clubhouse presence'. I know that makes little sense baseball wise, but I don't want to see any of these young dongers in another uniform for the next ten years. Or, really, how long do you think it would take javy to pick up center field? A few hours?

4 home runs in 31 or so plate appearances would be a pretty good pace.

eh very few high leverage pitches. Lester has been involved in plenty of extended postseason runs, he knows his body well I agree that it was about as easy of a 117 pitch outing you could ask for, but I don't think we should be relying on Lester to pace himself. Edwards and (most likely) Patton were rested, and a couple others probably could have gotten us out of trouble. Or not, it doesn't really matter at this point outside of morale.

Don't like this. This is why Patton is here.

I'm sure it's just because I'm looking for signs of life, but he seems to have terrible luck on hard hit balls. Like in any 5 at bats he'll strike out once, hit two soft groundouts, get an infield single, and hit a rocket right at someone.

I suppose that would depend on how fast it's read. There's no words during that time. Reading through the lyrics doesn't seem to be anything too offensive. Think that one went (Heming)way over your head.

Hahahahahahaha. Yay?