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squally1313

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Everything posted by squally1313

  1. squally1313
    a. I dont know! b. Pitching better, if not 'well' in low leverage spots is a good sign?
  2. squally1313
    'Was this a bad pickup' and 'should we cut/banish him forever' are two different conversations. He's here, and we can either hide him (which we've been doing pretty successfully) or lose him. In my mind, the other options aren't better.
  3. squally1313
    Well you're in luck, because we're playing at a 96 win pace with the rest of schedule being significantly easier than what we've been through so far. So it follows that at least a large portion of the team is acting that way. In the last 2 weeks, nine relievers have pitched more innings than Ryan Pressly. There's an argument he's at the bottom of the pecking order right now (or, at most, he's the 6th guy out of the pen tonight). Yes, it would be wonderful to have 8 shut down relievers that all throw 98. But over here in reality, the bottom of the pen is ideally filled with guys who you hope could turn into reliable contributors at some point later on in the season. So the question becomes, who is more likely to do that, the guy who's been a sub-4.00 ERA guy for essentially ever, or....Gavin Hallowell?
  4. squally1313
    Since March until tonight, 10 innings, zero earned runs, one unearned run, 6 hits (1 in his prior 6 innings), 3 walks, 0.00 ERA, 3.16 FIP, 4.30 xFIP. And, in my opinion, clearly not considered the closer or even a top option. Like, sure, we can dump him, be on the hook for his salary, and continue forward with two spots being filled by the Roberts/Hollowell/Flexen/whatever group of nothing instead of just one spot. Or we can phantom IL him, give him a few minor league innings, let him pitch in non-competitive spots for a while (like he has been) and see if there's anything left.
  5. squally1313
    This is an objectively funny final score.
  6. squally1313
    I mean, he's pitched twice in the last two weeks and was the 6th guy out of the pen today. There are signs he's out of the circle of trust.
  7. squally1313
    Should have scored in the 10th.
  8. squally1313
    The PCA AB was against a very tough LHP and we should temper our expectations in that situation regardless a microcosm of the voiced concerns about PCA being in the 'I'm god and can hit everything' part of the cycle, which usually is the first stage of the slump
  9. squally1313
    This is always dangerous but if you're PCA you kinda have to assume the game plan here is to not throw any pitches in the strike zone.
  10. squally1313
    Fine, mostly the same thing.
  11. squally1313
    I can't remember if Nico can bunt, and I generally hate it, but....maybe.
  12. squally1313
    I'm guessing the players are probably fine with it too, so doubt you ever see it going away at this point. Just wish they would have gone full Fake Baseball and started the innings with the bases loaded. Full variability, more fun, less likely to end the inning in a tie, etc. You don't even have to consider all the runs the actual score, just make it Losing Team X, Winning Team X+1.
  13. squally1313
    to be clear, it is a good thing that it's not in place in the postseason.
  14. squally1313
    I just wanted to get to Happ. Turner gets minimal credit for hitting a ground ball in the right direction.
  15. squally1313
    lol I mean, fine
  16. squally1313
    Don’t love this Turner PH spot.
  17. squally1313
    Verlander first pitched in Wrigley in 2006, if you want to feel really old.
  18. squally1313
    Dansby Swanson, league average hitter
  19. squally1313
    .351 wOBA, 126 wRC after that home run. Dude is a metronome.
  20. squally1313
  21. squally1313
    Teams with a less than 10% chance of making the playoffs and their good, potentially attainable starting pitchers: White Sox - No one Angels - No one Nats - Mackenzie Gore (two more years of arbitration, would cost a lot, would be another lefty, is very good at pitching), Trevor Williams (historically more of an innings eater, but 3.35/3.26/3.91 in 102 innings in 2024 and 2025, $7m this year and next) Marlins - Sandy Alcantara (has been BAD this year, and not in an unlucky way, but an elite pitcher the three eyars before this, $11m this year and next year with a club option for 2027) Pirates - Andrew Heaney (saw him last week, another lefty, wouldn't classify him as anything better than a #3 but cheap and not signed past this year), Mitch Keller (generally good in a Jameson Taillon type way, but trending in the wrong direction and owed $15m a year for the next three years) Rockies - Getting bored of this but...Marquez hasn't been good since 2021, so unless he's been mailing it in for the last 240 IPs and it's still in there, pass. Freeland is probably actually bad and not just Coors Field bad, but his type plays up in front of our defense I guess?
  22. squally1313
    I don't want to nitpick because I think we're all coming to the same conclusion (which is: go get a good starter, immediately), but the version of Shota we've seen most of the year was not likely to continue giving us the results we'd gotten out of him so far. Ks were down, walks were up, fly balls were up...all pretty significantly in the wrong direction metrically from his 2024 season where he generated 0.5 wins per month. He had 174 Ks and 28 walks last year, this year he had 34 Ks and 14 walks. Is it better than Chris Flexen? Almost assuredly. Is it a noticeable difference over a duration of 8-10 starts? No. It's baseball, and baseball is dumb in ways like 'the Cubs were undefeated in games started by Gage Workman'.
  23. squally1313
    I mean, maybe? The original comment was 1-2 months, for one. Replacement level players aren't free, as we should know given the amount of heartburn everyone gets for the inevitable negative WAR guys we toss out every year. Like, the replacement level winning percentage, per FG, is .294, which translates to a little under 48 wins. So you're basically paying to try and generate an excess 40 wins. The team control and mandated deflated salaries for younger players should, in a well run organization, give you a chunk of wins for minimal financial commitment (Busch, PCA, Brown, Amaya being extreme examples, but also guys like Steele, Hoerner, etc are playing for far less than they'd get on the open market). To use outdated numbers, you had PCA, Busch, Shaw, Amaya, and Assad preseason projected for around 10 wins while making a combined $3m. So all of a sudden you're looking for 30 wins with $230m (or so) to play with. It's...not unreasonable. Also in this particular context, Shota is the 'ace' mostly by default. Steele put up the same fWAR production as him last year in 40 fewer innings. I've been calling for more pitching because these guys break all the time, but the team's success isn't as reliant on Shota being an elite pitcher as other teams are reliant on their aces.
  24. squally1313
    Because the implied math there is that an ace is three wins better than a replacement pitcher over the course of a year, and those are very valuable wins.
  25. squally1313
    Cubs up to a 75.8% chance to make the playoffs, 71.2% chance to win the division, projected to finish 9 games ahead of the rest of the division with everyone else playing below .500 ball the rest of the year. Everyone has understandably built in weariness of the Brewers doing Brewers things, but the Cubs offense is much better than advertised and the rest of the division might just be Objectively Bad.
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