squally1313

John, none of this matters. Look at our half-assed attempts at gam(e) threads. Just start drinking between innings.

i'd like to see a list like this that goes by games played instead Yeah, because I still prefer this start to a major league career: http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=10155&position=OF. Saying it as "first two years" eliminates everyone who got a mid- to late-year callup to begin their careers. Still damned impressive, though. This is rough, but Bryant has played 287 games. Trout had 40 in 2011 and 139 in 2012, at 11 WAR total (I don't know how he ended up with 0.7 WAR going .220/.281/.390 in 40 games, but I digress), which means you can take 108 of his 157 2013 games, or 69% (nice) of his 10.5 WAR, so 7.2 WAR. Just realized they weren't using FG above, and I was, and I'm not doing that again, so for this comparison, through 287 games: Bryant: 14.5 Trout: 18.2

Lester for Game 1 starter, right?

This needs to be posted daily until we spray champagne all over their stupid field. http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/wild-card-molina-still-eyes-a-run-at-nl-central/article_69672170-1f8d-541b-bf9a-22b8171be9d2.html

I don't think he will be. They will keep 11 and they will be Arrieta, Lester, Hendricks, Lackey, Chapman(L), Rondon ®, Strop®, Grimm ®, Edwards ®, Wood (L), Montgomery (L) Joe will keep Wood and Montgomery because his 3 primary setup men are all righties and other than Chapman who is locked into closer regardless he doesn't have any lefties Probably depends on who the other team is right? I think Cahill is probably 'better' than at least one of Wood and Montgomery. Looking through the Cardinals, no one really stands out as being terrible against lefties, at least this year. I think Joe really likes Cahill's ability to get a groundball, especially with the infield alignments we've been putting out there.

I like to just buy hard into gambler's fallacy on night's like tonight. Makes it more likely we're going to dong our way through October. Well guys like Fowler and Zobrist are due to play better. Contreras too most likely. Russell and even Bryant are in minislumps. I'd rather these guys be slumping now and putting it together in a month. Addy has been our second best hitter besides Rizzo in the last week (unless you want to count Miggy's 10 PAs). But yeah, Dex, Zobrist, Contreras, and Javy will all be playing better, and Bryant to a lesser extent. Heyward is back to a .231/.259/.231, but I'm not even sure what to hope the improvement is from there. Montgomery was encouraging. Wouldn't mind him getting a look for the rotation next year.

I like to just buy hard into gambler's fallacy on night's like tonight. Makes it more likely we're going to dong our way through October.

I know they've only scored one run, but am I the only one who thinks the Brewers line-up, or at least their numbers, doesn't look half bad as currently constructed. I know they've gotten some praise from the FG people for being willing to try a bunch of players like Villar or Broxton that no one else thought much of. Their slash lines might all be small sample size mirages, but it doesn't look as bad as I thought it would.

That's fine, for whatever reason I go the opposite way, especially in us embracing the villain role now that we're so damn good. Lackey has definitely not been happy about getting taken out and I remember him staring down an outfielder a time or two, but I guess I just notice Hammel doing it a lot more. And Lackey, for all his personal faults, has been a really good pitcher both this year and most of his career. Not that someone can 'earn' this behavior, but he has way more so than Hammel. Lackey yelling at other players when they get hits off him, throwing at other players for no reason, barking at umps, or calling out the defense like he did this year irks me a million times more than Hammel getting a little pissy at Joe (and I think often times it's at himself) for 10 mins a few times a year when he gets pulled early. And yes, Lackey by just about every measure has been and still is better than Hammel. Yeah, I just really don't like when he makes comments after the game, which he has more than once. And he has to be aware of how he always tires out, so the early hooks are clearly for a reason. This isn't rational, but I think I was pissed when we signed Lackey for all reasons you mentioned, but then I kinda just accepted it (somewhat similar to Chapman). This Hammel behavior seems to have developed in Chicago (which is probably not true and just a matter of me never watching him pitch before we got him). And again, from a meatball-y viewpoint, Lackey has sorta 'earned it' more.

That's not the point he was making, or at least that's not the point I was making. He can be the standard 1-2 WAR fifth starter or whatever, but if that's your role you don't get to stare down Joe every time he comes to pull your ass in the 5th inning and then complain about it to the media after the game. Fair enough, that stuff doesn't really bother me other than it's Hammel being stupid and competitive. Whenever he does it there doesn't seem to be any residual affects in terms of having infighting with Joe/players in the clubhouse. Lackey's actions towards umps, other players/teams is a lot more frustrating and annoying to me than Hammel wanting to stay in games longer sometimes. Which Lackey also pulls and also isn't good enough to pull. That's fine, for whatever reason I go the opposite way, especially in us embracing the villain role now that we're so damn good. Lackey has definitely not been happy about getting taken out and I remember him staring down an outfielder a time or two, but I guess I just notice Hammel doing it a lot more. And Lackey, for all his personal faults, has been a really good pitcher both this year and most of his career. Not that someone can 'earn' this behavior, but he has way more so than Hammel.

As the post above mentioned, Lackey is much more talented than Hammel at the art of pitching. Okay, well it's your own fault if your expectations of Hammel are for him to be 3+ WAR pitcher That's not the point he was making, or at least that's not the point I was making. He can be the standard 1-2 WAR fifth starter or whatever, but if that's your role you don't get to stare down Joe every time he comes to pull your ass in the 5th inning and then complain about it to the media after the game.

I'm totally on board with the Hammel hate because he shares a lot of Lackey's red ass qualities without Lackey's talent. If you're getting lit up every other start and you've been bad in the second half your entire career, you don't get to bitch when you get pulled a couple innings early the occasional start where you're pitching well. Sorry, this is a juggernaut, the standard of success is simply higher than everywhere else.

I've always kinda wanted to see some GM be ballsy enough to do that, though I think I'd hate it if Theo was the first person to try it. Given the lack of impending free agents for us, the only one I could think of would be like trading Dexter for prospects. I remember drunkenly making that argument about the Nationals before last year, when FG had them projected to win the division by like 13 games. Which obviously means it was a dumb argument, but still. Without looking it up, we must have been like 97% to make the playoffs at the end of July this year.

1996: 92-70 1997: 96-66 1998: 114-48 (just....jesus christ) 1999: 98-64 2000: 87-74

oh I should hope we have more seasons like this, I mean, the team and management is set up to have many more seasons like this Don't think like a Cubs fan. Think like a fan of a team run by Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer Oh I get that we have many Octobers in the near future. This is far from a fluke. But we're winning at a 105 win pace right now (and 'playing' above that). This is incredibly rare, even for a best team in baseball.

God it's starting to happen. I tracked the game through the end of the no-hitter, totally forgot about it, and then just clicked back to the box score and felt...nothing? Just a feeling of 'that's what was supposed to happen'. I mean, we're 40 games over. This will, in all likelihood, never happen again in my lifetime. I need to make it a point to enjoy this last month. October will suck/be incredible soon enough.

I know it makes very little difference in the grand scheme of things, but I'd love to know the thought process on Zobrist in left, Bryant at third, Baez at second vs Bryant in left, Baez at third, Zobrist at second.

So was Hawk saying that if Bryant is an MVP candidate that Frazier should be too based on how close they are in home runs and RBI? Was that his point? Also said Frazier was much better defensively, which goes against pretty much every measure of defense out there. Maybe he meant he played more innings there and was therefore more committed to the position?

I think the main story here is that Kris is just lucky Todd Frazier isn't in the National League to give him some competition. http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2016/09/02/hawk-harrelson-comparing-kris-bryant-todd-frazier-is-peak-hawk-harrelson/

Apologies for the earlier spamming...computer issues. At this point I'd bet on the Marlins and the mets to make the two wild card spots just because they're the only two teams who don't have to play us the rest of the year. 3 more with San Fran, 6 (lol) more with the cardinals, 4 more against Pittsburgh. Also, sorry Houston, but you probably won't be invited either.

This trade FINALLY makes sense. Thanks Theo!

This trade FINALLY makes sense. Thanks Theo!

Ah, classic Heyward.

I finally figured out why this trade was made. Theo, you sly bastard.

Yeah that's probably it.