We Got The Whole 9

Ok that's good to know

Spoken like a dude not concerned for his job

Yeah that's amazing in itself; now he's trying to turn into a 2:1 guy which is simply unreal. Tonight he struck out for the just the 2nd time in his last 12 games.

I'm going to my first Rays game (vs Jays) on the 22nd. Those mf are gonna win 100+ games and not even 10k come out to support. Was hoping I'd be able to scoot right up to field level but I bet they'll crack down in a similar fashion.

Juan Soto - ahem, the 22 year old Juan Soto - has a 26.8% BB and 12.9% K rate so far in the 2nd half. horsefeathering ridiculous. And a 300 ISO to boot.

Mostly noise? Most of the old guard underperformed, so I don't think it's a measurement thing. I'd guess it's like 90% SSS and 10% player type. On player type, there's two things Statcast's X stats don't handle (or at least well): horizontal direction and player speed. A slow guy who only pulls the ball like Schwarber will underperform his X stats while a fast guy who sprays the ball like Hoerner will over perform. So for Hoerner and Madrigal it might be real, but everyone else like Schwindel it's likely just a fluke. That's not necessarily true. KB, Javy, Willy, Happ pretty consistently over performed by 20-30 pts. Rizzo was on line and Schwarber was the only one underperforming most years.

Triantos struck out for the first time in 5 games, but also tripled. I'd like to see video of that to see him in full stride.

There were some warning signs with Lahair even during that stretch that don't exist with Schwindel. - He was striking out a lot. His 28.1% rate isn't that notable these days, but back then would have been top 10 among qualified hitters - He had a .460 BABIP. Four. Six. Zero. Insane, I know we all knew he was lucky even at the time but hot damn I didn't realize how much he was until looking just now. Guys are always going to get good batted ball luck during hot streaks, but wowza - He had a 37% HR/FB rate. That's also stupid high. This was pre juiced ball so no one in MLB had a higher than 30% rate for the season back then. Even post juiced ball there's usually only 2-3 guys a year over 30% and usually no one over 35% The funny thing is that while he did crash afterwards, and crash hard, his underlying skills didn't change that much. His hard hit rate stayed steady, his GB/FB numbers stayed steady, his plate discipline stayed steady, etc. He just started running a normal BABIP and a slightly low HR/FB rate. Schwindel has certainly been lucky. Not as preposterously so like Lahair, but quite a bit. However, if you strip out luck and look at his Statcast xwOBA, he's been good at .344 (it's on the OBP scale so .320-.330 is average). Here's a list of guys within 5 points of his xwOBA: Bo Bichette Anthony Rizzo Kris Bryant Starling Marte Brandon Belt Jake Cronenworth So like I wrote a few days back, I think what he's currently doing is pretty sustainable. It probably should result in more of a 115 wRC+ than a 173, but there's legitimately good things happening under the hood. The question is whether he can sustain what he's currently doing. We've seen Patrick Wisdom go through two slumps and then adjust and come out the other end fine. Schwindel hasn't had his slump yet. And with where we are in the season, there's maybe enough runway for one slump and for him to start pulling out of it. But we're not going to *know* if he can do the adjust/re-adjust cycle necessary to be an MLB regular until next year. That sucks, because you can't trust him but at the same time 1B would be a crappy place to allocate resources to this offseason. Do you have a theory on why so many Cubs hitters tend to over perform their xwoba?

I know we only won 8 games but that was the least excited I have ever been for a playoff game last year. Give me Fields and the experience all day.

This was only the 4th time ever. Back in 2011 the Yankees did it themselves. Only team to do that.

When was the last time we hit 2 GS in a game?

Will Crowe, lol

You didn't think that HR went 400 yards?

Will Crowe should run to the KBO like that other Will the Pirate did

He probably has more INT than 1st downs in the playoffs

MLB app caption says "Have a Bias" ripped a solo HR to RF

I'm hoping Dalton looks kind of good but we lose all of his starts, prompting the switch, and we dump him onto a win-now team when their QB goes down. One can dream, right?

He should be released

Thank you. That was electric however fast it actually was.

Video of Herz hitting 99?

58% of Triantos' Ks came in 3 games. Dude is really exciting. Love that swing.

I continue to be totality blown away by Marte. This mf has 20 steals, 0 CS, in 30 games with Oakland. A freaking perfect 100+ pace. He's 42/45 on the year. Top notch sprint speed but your do not get there without unparalleled instinct and know-how. At his age it's one of the most incredible accomplishments this season in baseball.

Watching highlights on the MLB app with captions on is quite a bit of comedy. They have a data bank of names that sometimes hilariously override what the announcers actually say. So the announcer says "breaking ball" and then caption says "Zack Greinke ball". Then for "grand slam" it said "Greg Amsinger" and so on. Every highlight is littered with them.

Hopefully waiting to pounce on a veteran cut or something. Really not liking the moves lately.

We've entered the Millsap sweepstakes. Pretty much exactly what we need at this point.