Counsell seems to be giving Keegan an opportunity to quickly re-enter the circle of trust. Him and Pearson having a hig September would be really big heading into the winter.
Really good matchup for Wisdom. Not a bad one for Paredes either.
Generally looking forward to the meltdown if Herz pitches well. It's all "trade prosepcts!" until one does well and then people lose their minds.
So apparently the Pirates are not quite using a 6 man rotation, they're using a six day rotation. So with the off day yesterday Mitch Keller is pitching Sunday, and during the Cubs series starting Monday it likely goes Jones-Skenes-German.
Like Keller's obviously much less scary than Jones and especially Skenes, but he's a good pitcher while Domingo German is very much not.
It's a bit weird for the Cubs to have not announced probables yet. They usually do it the night before even on off days. I wonder if there's a rotation shuffle coming in conjunction with roster expansion.
I'd lean against this. It's not an awful idea, I won't write a screed if they make it, but it's probably a bad idea.
Rogers isn't really an $11M caliber arm anymore. Like these are the guys who got 8 figure AAVs last year
Hader
Kimbrel
Stephenson
Robertson
Chapman
Plus Hicks and Reynaldo Lopez who signed as SPs with a relief fallback
If Bellinger opts in, money's going to be a little tight this winter with ~$50M available to spend. I don't think Rogers is talented enough to pay a premium for jumping the market.
There is some value in getting Rogers a month with Hottovy, as well as going into the winter with RP being a less dire need. But overall this would feel like the $9M no longer earmarked for Neris is burning a hole in Jed's pocket. If he's itching to spend it I'd personally rather extend Lopez.
By the end of the night we're going to be at over 150 PAs of Jonathan long OPSing over 1.000 and having more walks than strikeouts. I'm a bit worried about the power if he has to stick at 1B but man I want more details on this guy because these numbers are insane.
I wouldn't bet my 401k on it, but the team being so blase about the LT makes me think they have no intention of signing a QO free agent this winter. So Alonso probably doesn't need to take up too much of you worry.
The Athletic literally yesterday pushed back on this. The Logan O'hoppe news was from a separate Sharma article two weeks two weeks ago that more or less said the Cubs are happy with Amaya's hot streak but catcher is still a top priority this winter.
That is probably too rich for Rogers. Not by a ton, it wouldn't be silly, but there are some yellow flags in his profile and 1/$11M can probably go a little further over the winter.I think if we were closer to the playoffs this year or it was earlier in the season I'd be a little more hell yeah about it.
But if we want to jump the FA market on a reliever I am going to keep banging this drum that I think we should try and lock down Lopez. With reliever volatility there's definitely something to be said for "we already know this guy and Tommy Hottovy really vibe."
Yeah with his defense and baseunning the offensive bar is similar to where it is for a good defensive catcher.
- 2 WAR for a truly average player over 600 PAs
- 2.5 runs (.25 WAR) for being a CF
- Coming into today he's at 5.4 runs of baserunning value in just under 300 PAs, so call him a +10 baserunner
- He's been a +10 defender by DRS (guys watching video) and +9 by Statcast. So he's been playing like a +20 defender. My personal opinion is that except in the most extreme of examples (e.g. Andrelton Simmons or Andruw Jones) anything beyond +15 isn't all that repeatable. So let's call him a +15 guy but note if someone's going to pass that hallowed threshold he'd be among the most likely
So that puts him at like 4.7-4.8 WAR as a league average hitter. Let's knock it down to 4.5 to settle at a nice round number while being conservative?
I've wanted a Trea Turner type speed demon with power for so freaking long and except for that good half season from Corey Patterson we've never had one. My brain is unable to accept that this looks like it's happening.
Before - 25.9% K, 4.6% BB, 24.8% hard hit rate
After - 16.3% K. 7.0% BB, 45.9% hard hit rate
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For reference, the league average numbers are 22.4% K, 8.2% BB, 38.7% HHR
The dramatic improvement, in all facets, is so wild.