squally1313
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Everything posted by squally1313
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lol
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You can with two outs (when it doesn’t hit the guy, apparently) is I think where you’re still a little off. Less than two outs they don’t let you with a guy on first to prevent the defense going for a double play.
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I don’t think that’s right but I obviously didn’t know the rule when the PCA AB happened. think TT might finally be right about something for once…
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TIL I learned that that’s a dead ball for some reason
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I wonder if berti is dealing with something
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation
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If the Cubs thought Ballesteros was a true .350+ OBP guy in the majors today, they'd probably have figured out a way to get him into the lineup before now. So let's say he's a .330 OBP guy. Over a weeks worth of PAs (the expected remaining length of Happ's IL stint), the difference between that and Turner's .270 adds up. Post that, you go back to 5-10 PAs a week, and, even assuming no dead cat bounce from Turner (.205 BABIP, underperforming his xwOBA by 60 points), the difference between a .270 OBP guy and a .330 OBP guy just isn't that substantial and if offset by taking 30 PAs a week away from a developing prospect.
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Caissie is striking out 35% of the time while hitting .220 and Alcantara has been a below average AAA hitter this year (along with his own +30% K rate). It's fine, they're both 22 and we can afford to give them the time to figure it out. But Ballesteros is definitely the right choice at the moment. I think one way or another one of them gets a starting shot next year. If we're going to commit to PCA and Tucker, there's going to be a bit of a luxury tax crunch in 2026 (in addition to PTR doing PTR things), and Suzuki and Happ are both going to be attractive trade options with 1 year and $20ish m left on their deals. If this all falls apart and we end up in some sort of weird rebuilding phase, then Happ and Suzuki are both better off traded for prospects.
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Bellozo has combined a 18% GB rate and a 3.2% HR/FB rate into a reasonable 3.50 ERA this year but he has 14 Ks and 10 BBs in 18 innings and no one who has pitched more than 50 innings in the last 15 years has had such a low HR/FB rate and so he is bad and we should take walks and hit dongs and not have to rely on whether we're getting good Brown.
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Moisés Ballesteros is Being Called Up; Ian Happ to IL
squally1313 replied to CaliforniaRaisin's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
If it was a reasonable suggestion, they would have tried it by now. We've had negative production from third base since we traded for him and he's played 1/3rd of an inning there. We spent $6m on a hitter who can only play first base, sent our opening day third baseman back to Iowa, and opted for Nicky Lopez rather than moving Busch to third and trying any combination of Turner, Moises, Long. And that's before considering that Moises Ballesteros, all 5'8" of him, has played first base one single time this year. He got called up to AAA last year on 6/15, played first base once in each of the first two series, and then just...didn't, the rest of the year, not once. Probably no reason! -
Moisés Ballesteros is Being Called Up; Ian Happ to IL
squally1313 replied to CaliforniaRaisin's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
The Marlins and White Sox don't have a single LHP in their current rotations may be a small part of it. Also think it may be a situation where Turner certainly hasn't earned a daily starting spot, but they also think that for a role that requires maybe 5 PAs a week, the difference between Justin Turner, formerly-very-good-hitter-but-now-maybe-washed-hitter, and one of Ballesteros/Long/Caissie/Alcantara isn't significant enough to take those guys out of their development plans, of which getting four PAs daily is a key part of it. And that's before whatever soft skills Turner may or may not be providing in the clubhouse. -
I appreciate the point that the globetrotters is essentially a choreographed dance/play involving basketball vs the bananas seemingly switching back and forth between choreographed dance and essentially normal baseball, which is all they’re really limited to doing given the inherent complexities of pitching and hitting. And I get the timing of the article given that this was focused on the premiere of the games being covered on ESPN, and not on the years prior of them doing this across the country, and this was more of a ‘should people watch this on TV’ than ‘is this Good, generally’. But also agree with the above that if people enjoy seeing it in person, good for them.
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Moisés Ballesteros is Being Called Up; Ian Happ to IL
squally1313 replied to CaliforniaRaisin's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
But what if you move Busch to second and Hoerner to short and Dansby to third and Happ also to the infield to help with them all playing out of position and let PCA cover left and center at the same time what could possibly go wrong -
Moises coming up tomorrow. Happ with an IL stint.
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Does he come with a guarantee that he's going to keep his .197 BABIP?
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Marlins are pretty comfortably the worst pitching team in baseball so far this year, so hopefully between that and some warm Wrigley evenings we get guys like Tucker and Hoerner back to where they should be. Conversely, they've got a couple bats that are seemingly kinda legit (Dane Myers .377 wOBA/.396 xwOBA, Kyle Stowers .373 wOBA/.385 xwOBA) and you know Mervis is going to go like 3/14 with 8 Ks and 2 home runs. So if Colin Rea can go back to forgetting he's Colin Rea and we can get Good Ben Brown, that would be nice.
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Fangraphs, not BR, but Gomez was 7th in baseball in defensive value, 3rd among non-catchers (Machado and Andrelton Simmons), so probably similar value between that and PCA as the best defensive outfielder.
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Yeah. I think everyone targeted this Mets series as the end of the gauntlet, and I don't think anyone would have wanted or predicted much better than 23-18 through that stretch. And we did that with pretty much nothing from Steele and not a whole lot from Shota besides some clutch pitching moments. It's really unfortunate we can't be at full strength for this next stretch because, yeah these teams suck, but historically so does Colin Rea, and Horton could be fun but you look through the top pitching prospects and how they're doing in the majors and its dire (Roki 4.72 ERA/6.17 FIP, Jobe 4.88 ERA/5.65 FIP, Dollander 7.71 ERA/6.54 FIP, Chase Petty has gotten rocked). Rea sucks, Horton/Boyd/Brown are different levels of restricted in terms of a full season worth of innings, and our only current length in the bullpen is Chris Flexen, who is probably the worst pitcher on the team. The offense very well might be enough, but they're going to have to beat up on bad pitching pretty consistently to pad their record the way that they should.
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Well there's some combination of the financial price tag and the prospect price tag, depending on the target being discussed. I think there's been some hesitancy in dipping into the AAA guys because the major league guys, over the course of the last couple seasons, simply haven't gotten it done yet, and I could understand the nervousness is trading the next wave to supplement this wave if this wave just isn't going to get there. In my head there's this long drawn out analysis centered around like, they need to decide if they want Tucker at $400m-$500m and a team set up to win this year and next or if they want Caissie and Alcantara and the financial freedom to build a different core. But ultimately I would simply like them to go 14-7 over these next 21 games against Col/Mia/Wash/CWS/Cincy, be sitting at 37-25 on June 5th with Shota being close to coming back, and force their hand into just going for it this year. They you pay the ransom for Mackenzie Gore, you do everything you can to lock in Tucker, you find a bullpen guy or two (or have Horton/Brown turn into that guy), and all the chips are on the table.
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Kinda jumping around on sides here, but the positive regression you'd expect is, in my opinion, going to be pretty offset by the fact that Steele and Shota aren't here. Horton is exciting but the track record of other top pitching prospects their first time up is not encouraging, Colin Rea is Colin Rea, we're one injury to the most injury prone dude in baseball away from Jameson Taillon being our ace for the near term future. Basically, in my mind: the offense is very good, PCA, Busch, and Nico are slightly outperforming their xwOBA but PCA and Busch even with a little regression are still elite players. Tucker, Dansby, Happ, Suzuki are all underperforming and have already been fine to great. Catchers are fine. The bullpen is bad, but all the talk around here that the Cubs are in this unique situation where we need to be nervous about close and late situations but everyone else is just nails is very over the top. The rotation is kinda shaping up to be a disaster, some part of that bad injury luck, some part of it self inflicted, a lot of which can be solved in an expensive way, and with knock on effects that would ease the bullpen problems. Go pay for a starter or two, as soon as possible.
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We don't have to admit that because it isn't true. The White Sox bullpen has been metrically worse, as has the Rockies, the Nationals bullpen has been worse by both basic and advanced stats, the Reds bullpen is 18th in fWAR compared to the Cubs being 21st. These are very bad teams in pretty much every facet of baseball. They will still win somewhere around 3 out of every 10 games, because that's how this works, but the Cubs are regressing from a very high watermark.
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BIG win
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Good for him. Let’s go win a baseball game.
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This is baptism by fire. And he’s going to shut down the white Sox next weekend.
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110 wRC
