champaignchris

I would like to say that I will get no pleasure in the Cubs ending the Brewers’ season over the next ten days. I would like to say that I’m a bigger man than that. But I can’t. I’m a small, small, petty man. And I’m going to get great enjoyment out of this.

Per bWAR, it’s 6, 8, 19, 25, 30, 31. Same order. Cishek at 74th is the next on BR.

So, are Russell Martin and Brian McCann Hall of Famers? McCann, in particular, is a significantly better bat whose defense has not been as highly regarded absent those framing stats.

I know it’s going to happen. I’m resigned to it. But does average bat, great glove get you in the Hall now for catchers? What’s the difference between Molina and Jason Kendall, AJ Pierzynski, Benito Santiago and a half a dozen other similar catchers who aren’t in the Hall and have no chance to? Are we lowering the bar to 30 career WAR and being a good teammate on a WS winning team? Even if we assume that Molina is one of the best half-dozen defensive catchers of all time (a point I’m not conceding), he doesn’t hit nearly as well as Bench, Pudge, or Carter did. Molina is much closer offensively to the non-HoF defensive greats like Sundberg and Boone, the difference being that Molina had a slightly longer stretch of offensive adequacy. I’d argue that Molina is not the best catcher of his generation. That’s Joe Mauer even when excluding the numbers he racked up when he was primarily a 1b. Or Buster Posey if you want to expand the definition of generation a bit. Molina is basically on the same level as Russell Martin, trading offense for defense. I’d argue that Molina is not even the best catcher in Cardinals history. That’s Ted Simmons, who belongs in the Hall way before Molina does. That said, I know Molina is going to the Hall because a bunch of sportswriters say so, without much beyond anecdotal support for their reasoning. I’ve got six or seven years to get over it. I’ll be fine.

They listened to Kato!!!

Like the one Heyward makes three times per game? Yeah. Heyward is Carlos Boozer-esque.

OPS rising in each of the last two months = “going in the wrong direction?”

David Wright was paid $115MM to play 211 MLB games from 2014 to 2018 and would still have another $27MM left over this season and next if he hadn’t finally given up the ghost and retired. Prince Fielder had $96MM left on his contract when he broke his neck. If he hadn't been forced to retire, that one would have gone down a lot like Howard’s did.

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At the risk of engaging, even if you ignore all the off-field stuff and the not knowing the signs despite being in the organization for five years stuff, Kemp is a better fit for this roster right now than Russell is. I’m somewhat curious to see if they bring him back after rosters expand, but unless there’s an injury or Zobrist doesn’t come back for some reason, I don’t really see the point.

By his own admission, Eck was a straight up drunk during most of his tenure with the Cubs. After the 86 season, he went to rehab and told Green he was now sober, but Green had already decided to dump him. The rest is, as they say, history. And those 80s Cubs had a real reputation for partying. I remember the ladies wearing their “I’d trade my hubby for a Cubbie” t-shirts. I think both some of the ladies and some of the players took those shirts literally. It sort of makes you wonder about the “food poisoning” epidemic that hit the team in 85. What was really going on?

That the Brewers are where they are with a pitching staff held together with chicken wire and masking tape makes me angrier that it should.

I definitely wasn't following the team back then (on account of being born two months before the trade), but based on the two links below, he was getting either internal or media criticism about being too heavy and it having an adverse impact on his knees. There's a quote in there about just requesting to be traded, not necessarily to Boston. http://archive.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2004/06/19/close_up_with_the_ultimate_closer/ https://web.archive.org/web/20070105194455/http://www.baseballlibrary.com/ballplayers/player.php?name=Lee_Smith_1957 I was only thirteen at the time, but my recollection was that it was a, “If you don’t like me, trade me,” more than any particular desire to be away from the Cubs. That was a spectacularly bad trade by the way. Neither pitcher acquired by the Cubs was still on the team by the end of 1989. The Cubs got Luis Salazar for Schiraldi. So I supposed that’s something. The Cubs had already traded away future HoF closer Dennis Eckersley away for nothing. They signed Goose Gossage to close in 1988. He was over the hill and awful. They traded away Jamie Moyer AND Rafael Palmeiro for Mitch Williams in 1989. He was pretty good in 1989 and then completely lost his horsefeathers in 1990 and was traded for table scraps. They signed Dave Smith to close in 1991. He was awful, posted a 6.00 ERA and lost his job before the year was half over. They went closer by committee in 1992, with predictable results. Finally, they signed Randy Myers to close in 1993 and he was ok for a few years. In those five seasons between the trade and signing Myers, fat Lee Smith with the bad knees pitched 385 innings with a 2.76 ERA and got 175 saves.

Batting your literally worst two regulars in OBP at the top of the lineup is exceedingly strange. I just don't get it. The Cubs are 2nd in the NL in OBP. It's not like Maddon doesn't have other options to bat there.

I would assume he’s going to start most games until Contreras gets back. It’ll be more interesting what happens when Contreras gets off the IL. As for this trade... I would have wanted something sexier than 60 or 70 games of a defense-first backup catcher for Montgomery. I’m really curious to see how Monty performs when given a consistent starting role.

I so want Kimbrel to come out pitching angry. I want him like, “I am the greatest horsefeathering closer of this generation and all you [expletive] who didn’t sign me are going to perish in a rain of hellfire and curveballs!”

They’re second in the Majors with a .266 BABiP against. That’s an awful lot of balls in play finding their way ways into gloves.

VC had a .620 career OPS entering this season and the Cubs have 4 more years of team control. I think they can wait a bit to see how real this offensive surge is before discussing an extension.

After starting slow, he has his OPS over .800. His K% is about 26%, which is about 10% lower than it was at the majors last year. So maybe sort of encouraging. I’d rather Happ than Descalso on the roster at this point, but that’s not saying much.

31 year old Goldschmidt(5/130 extension starting next year) is also on pace for a career-worst season, about 3 fWAR and a sub .350 wOBA. They could very easily go the way of the Giants.

Wacha is only 27 and has fallen apart. Mikolas might be a one-year wonder. They've gotten absolutely nothing in trade for various young cost-controlled position players that were once thought to be a part of their core - Grichuk, Pham, Piscotty, Diaz. And so had to trade Alcantara and Weaver for Ozuna and Goldschmidt.

It’s about time that pitching staff imploded.

Well so much for that. Wacha up to 5.80. I don’t think he ever recovered from that 2015 playoff series. A big difference in his career stats before and after that series.

He fell off a "non-horse" at his ranch? So he fell off a cow? Or possibly a llama?

Speaking as a former divorce attorney, divorce can be utterly devastating for some people, akin to having your spouse or kids die in terms of the traumatic impact. If it’s sudden, unexpected or one-sided it absolutely upends one’s life. People get PTSD from going through rough divorces. And the antagonistic nature of it, especially the child custody aspect, absolutely brings out the worst in people. I don’t know anyone who took a month off of work for their divorce, but I certainly know people that should have taken month off or more. But they weren’t multi-millionaire baseball players. So they didn’t have the opportunity.