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squally1313

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Everything posted by squally1313

  1. squally1313
    April 25: Cubs at Colorado. The Cubs were up 7-1 after 6 innings, 8-1 after 7 innings, and 8-1 going into the bottom of the 8th. Prior not only pitched the 6th and 7th, he sent him out in the 8th, after having thrown 110 pitches, for one batter (which he walked). 116 pitches. May 12: Cubs at Milwaukee. The Cubs were up 9-4 after 4 and 10-4 after 5. Prior, having not pitched particularly well, threw 6 innings. 124 pitches. August 26: Cubs at St. Lous. Cubs were up 7-0 after 5, Prior gave up one run in 6th. He pitched 8 innings. 116 pitches. September 1: Cubs v St Louis. Cubs scored 6 runs in the 5th and 1 in the 6th, won the game 7-0. Prior pitched 8 innings. 131 pitches. This is solely focused on the 'win at all costs' idiocy, and doesn't even include things like his September pitch counts being 131, 129, 109, 124, 131, 133.
  2. squally1313
    Zambrano under Dusty Baker, four years, ages 22-25: 129 games started, 861 innings, 17.4 fWAR. Zambrano after Dusty Baker, six years, ages 26-31: 156 games started, 982 innings, 12.6 fWAR. Out of major league baseball at 31. He was 42nd in total innings for the 'half a decade' after Baker. But I guess because it took Dusty four years to do it as opposed to just a year, it's fine.
  3. squally1313
    I get it. A. We were all 12 years younger and probably more starry eyed B. Prior had a higher K/9 rate (10.4 v 9.2), and league wide the 2003 rate (6.4) was more than a strikeout less than the 2015 rate (7.7), so the frequency would have stood out even more. C. As you mentioned, Arrieta always had the feel of like, man, he's on a historic hot streak but the wheels have to come off at some point here right. Prior was the present and the future.
  4. squally1313
    I suppose we could start a thread about Josh Donaldson, Dylan Cease, Dontrelle Willis, Gleyber Torres, etc. But that's me playing devils advocate and I largely agree with you. Go trade Shaw for Skubal.
  5. squally1313
    Zips coming out for the Cubs tomorrow. To the surprise of probably very few, they love the offense, hate the pitching. Projects every single position (besides the DH spot) to be more valuable than any of our starting pitchers. But does have 6 starters putting up between 2.4 and 1.5 fWAR, which is encouraging enough I guess.
  6. squally1313
    Just to go back over the details here, he was shot on September 10th. We had a game that day and I'm like 99% sure he was a late scratch and only pinch hit. Busch was incidentally also not starting that day, but we were going against Sale so going to assume that was a baseball decision. The Cubs had an off day the next day to go from Atlanta back to Chicago. The (biggest air quotes possible) "memorial" wasn't until 9/21, 11 days after he was shot. As we all saw, it was very much a political rally. The Cubs, as mentioned earlier, had a day off after the shooting, and were also off the day after the memorial. The game that Shaw missed, we lost 1-0. I don't know man, these are the furthest things from normal people, but I find it really hard to believe that the only option for genuine friends and family to do funeral type things was a parade of Republican politicians speaking at a stadium 11 days after he died.
  7. squally1313
    He came up as a second baseman, so between that and Nico being able to cover shortstop, we're pretty much covered in terms of an injury to Bregman/Swanson/Nico. Counsell also spoke a couple times about trying him out in the outfield, which has precedence (Ian Happ, Javy Baez, Tatis, Oneil Cruz). Easier said than done, but you can see the path to a Zobrist like skill set defensively.
  8. squally1313
    I too am also incapable of seeing anything beyond what is six inches in front of my face
  9. squally1313
  10. squally1313
    Michael Busch went nuclear at the very end of the year, but all the games count, and he ended up 11th in wOBA and 10th in xwOBA. xwOBA wise, Happ was 30th, Suzuki was 34th, Swanson was 43rd. If Bregman would have qualified, he'd be in the low 60s. I remember having the same complaint about the lineup a couple years ago, but my high level opinion is that back then we had a bunch of 105 wRC guys, and now we have a bunch of 115-120 wRC guys, and that makes a huge difference. Savant thinks Swanson got really unlucky last year (12th worst luck in baseball). Happ also supposedly should have gotten much better results. The pitching I'm less enthused by. But the defense is very good, and if the bad luck we saw offensively last year is more of a structural Wrigley Field thing, then the pitching will play up too. I don't really love anyone in our rotation right now for a Game 1 (or a do or die game), but there's plenty of time to solve that problem.
  11. squally1313
    The Dodgers projections, as noted elsewhere, looked relatively mortal when they came out earlier this week. I think it's more that the cash keeps flying out the door, so whenever Freeman/Betts/Smith starts to lose a step they'll just blow everyone away for the next guy. As for Ohtani, not an expert here, are there arm injuries that would keep him out of the DH spot? It kinda blew my mind at the time, but he spent a whole year recovering from UCL surgery and DHed the whole time.
  12. squally1313
    Jon Berti, Willi Castro, and Justin Turner were all better hitters in 2024 than Matt Shaw was in 2025, so not sure why he's this automatic fix to this (completely overblown) bench problem. And even if he is, and even if we're somehow cursed to never find productive backups again, if the alternative is getting an immediate front line starter or a top pitching prospect, I'm still thinking really hard about the latter option.
  13. squally1313
    Yeah but Kyle Tucker is a white dude from Texas who had a total of zero cool moments outside of being incredible at hitting baseballs. I get going after Japan, but....Texas? They have an incredible local television deal and a 60,000 seat stadium that is a tourist destination on top of putting out an elite product. And they have an investment vehicle that (educated guessing here) has them pretty easily outpacing the present value calcs that the MLB makes them do on all these deferrals. Or they're secretly funding the downfall of this country and never actually intend to pay the $1.2 billion of deferred money, or whatever it is. Either way, they're playing a different game than everyone else.
  14. squally1313
    Going to come in at $57m AAV, easily the record. Sitting at $395m for luxury tax threshold purposes, which I think, rough math, is like a $170m tax, so even with all the deferrals you're still clearing $500m in checks written this year pretty easily. The math was easy with Ohtani. I can't see people flocking to buy the jersey of the least charismatic dude in baseball quite the same way. But, they're way smarter than I am.
  15. squally1313
    I put together the hypothetical because we were discussing trading Shaw. Probably should have took his name out but it didn't impact the math either way at league minimum.
  16. squally1313
    To expand on the above, put together a quick schedule based on the FG roster resource page. Probably forgetting something, but I have us with a little under $90m to fill 5 main spots (2B, LF, RF, SP, SP). Spread it out, you're not going to get anything elite. But if any combination of Wiggins, Triantos, Alcantara, Rojas, Ramirez, etc can provide even adequate coverage, it really doesn't look that dire. Work below, let me know if there's any blatant mistakes.
  17. squally1313
    The cubs are going to have a lot of money next year with 6 lineup spots and 3 rotation spots filled by players already on the major league roster and only two of those guys are going to be making more than an arbitration deal. It’s two outfielders, a second baseman, and theoretically backend rotation pieces behind Horton Steele and Cabrera. And then the annual bullpen rebuild. They can’t all be marquee signings, but we don’t necessarily need to squirrel away league minimum guys for a rainy day.
  18. squally1313
    The fact that I would be happy to see Shaw out of Chicago for personal/moral reasons isn't irrelevant, but can be set to the side, largely, for conversations around trading him. There's the pro arguments around Shaw that he was an above average hitter in the second half of the year, improved defensively (even if some of the metrics don't like him), has positional flexibility, and has either 5 or 6 years of team control. There's the negative arguments that are largely summed up in Thusly Boned's Savant snip. But ultimately if there is/are a team/teams that value him in the first bucket, he's a very valuable asset. We are absolutely in a Win Now Year, and that very valuable asset doesn't have a starting spot. Yes, I know, there's room. But if you can turn Shaw into a main piece for say, a front line pitcher, or a RF that is clearly a better hitter than Ballesteros, and then backfill the role of 'utility infielder' with....Ramon Urias/Adam Frazier/etc etc...are we a better team in 2026? And is that improvement worth the likely long term damage to the organization? I think you could theoretically get a lot for him. And I tend to lean towards maximizing 2026 and figuring it out after that. Not that he can't help this team, but it's worth exploring.
  19. squally1313
    Better than our new centerpiece, almost as good as our overpaid shortstop
  20. squally1313
    But also, Shaw for Skubal isn't that far off, value wise. This doesn't make sense now, but if the wheels fall off in Detroit, where they are paying soon to be 30 years old Gleyber Torres $22m on a one year QO.... (and then, obviously, in that scenario, the Cubs would need a versatile backup that could play all over the field. I wonder if the Tigers have anyone they're dying to get rid of that could fit that bill (and who's 2027 salary, the last year of his deal, we could easily absorb once all our other deals expire)) Kidding. Mostly.
  21. squally1313
    I love this so much
  22. squally1313
    It's not just the other fan bases. Search Nico's name in the articles written about him on this site.
  23. squally1313
    As a counterpoint, he just sent (Canadian) Owen Caissie to the wasteland that is the Miami Marlins.
  24. squally1313
    This isn't really about Horton anymore, and fully aware that I started by referencing his K rate. but generally unless I really feel like doing a deep dive (and I usually don't) my thought process is that the WAR projections encompass all of those individual data points, good and bad, and spits out a high level summary. And I'm hesitant to cherry pick the underlying data because it sometimes comes off as having an agenda. Logan Webb has run elite GB rates his entire career, Horton was just barely above league average (and worse in his 47 AAA innings). So he's a good example if you're looking at one stat (K/9) but the comparison kinda falls apaprt when Webb's worst GB rate is better than what Horton has done at any level ever in his professional career.
  25. squally1313
    Certainly encouraging, especially if you ignore the .192 BABIP over that stretch. I watched his starts, and I'll get ahead of the advanced analysis that might be coming that's saying he's good/elite at producing bad contact (barrel rate is very good), by agreeing that his fastball is pretty special at getting the batted ball results he wants. Just pumping the brakes a little bit because if you're (not specifically you, the general you) going to lean into the projections, you should take the good ones with the bad.
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