Bertz

Except for Ben Roethlisberger, even back when he was good. That's one of my favorite weird NFL nuggets is that it essentially works for everybody in the league regardless of QB and RB quality... except for that horsefeathers. Huh don't recall seeing that ever.

I agree, all I'm saying is that the offense produced more with Lazor, regardless of reason, and there was no reason Nagy should have taken back over IMO. When Lazor took over the Bears called the most play-action passes in the league, designed to get Mitch out of the pocket and to one side of the field where he could scan the field easier and make a read. Maybe that would be useless for a veteran like Dalton but I'm just stuck on the fact that he made a quantifiable change and it worked. No, the Play Action definitely isn't just a Mitch thing. It's a good cheat code, even for good QBs. Except for Ben Roethlisberger, even back when he was good. That's one of my favorite weird NFL nuggets is that it essentially works for everybody in the league regardless of QB and RB quality... except for that horsefeathers.

Awesome to see, even though the proeuction hasn't been there lately. Like Gilby said in the other thread I'm guessing he's pretty gassed. I wonder if we see Morel or anyone else join him to take advantage of the extra two weeks the Iowa season has over Tenn.

He was part of Tenn's COVID outbreak. I assume Strumpf was as well but I don't think I've seen it confirmed.

Man, getting Anderson Espinoza for Jake Marisnick is starting to look really silly

Pinango and Herz just missing zero beat with their promotions. Really awesome stuff.

Ignoring today's games, since I made this post Made has raised his wRC+ from a 69 to an 81. That takes him from ranking #78 out of 89 players to being tied for #66. Given how hot he's been he'll likely leapfrog a few more. Also, Owen Caissie has become a relevant part of this discussion. While he's just turned 19, he's in his age 18 season, though with how late he got called up he's not going to get to 150 PAs. However, setting the PA threshold aside (because I'm too lazy to re-pull data), his 112 wRC+ coming into today would rank 29th on this list. The four guys ahead of him are Wilmer Flores, Cheslor Cuthbert, Manny Machado, and Isaac Paredes. Luis Urias and Chris Owings are just behind him. Obviously some duds there, but Owen's performance is enough to say he's more likely than not an MLBer, which is pretty horsefeathering cool.

I kind of think that idea is too smart by half, as they say. There are a lot more 20-26 types than there are 1-5 types. If you make a mistake with a 20-26 type, the penalty is not as large as a 1-5 type (See, Jason Heyward). If you hit on all or even some, the reward is not as great. But there is a theory in sport about building a team. It's called weak link/strong link theory. In sports like soccer and hockey, a team with a few stars and a bunch of weak players will lose more often to a team with no stars, but few weak players. In basketball, it's just the opposite. So team-building is much different in those sports. I think baseball is much different. With a pitching staff, you may want to go soccer mentality. With position players, you may want to go basketball. For sure, calling those spots more important is definitely silly. But after sitting through the last ~3 years of Cubs baseball I do believe they're much closer to even than conventional wisdom? I like your soccer/basketball analogies. And I think it's especially complicated because IMO it flip flops when going between the regular season and the playoffs. Like on pitching, I think my mind is pretty made up. I think soccer is clearly the right approach in the regular season, and basketball is clearly the right approach in the playoffs. The latter especially I'm not even sure is up for debate. Position players are a lot harder. I lean toward it being the same as pitching? In the regular season, you need that depth to avoid the inconsistency the Cubs have had over the last few years. Teams routinely exploited the two or three holes in the lineup (whichever stars were injured or struggling plus Heyward/Almora), and also some pitchers were able to attack the lineup nearly with impunity because a number of the guys have the same strengths and weaknesses. Good depth, plus I guess versatility of that depth, would help alleviate both of those issues. Hitters in the playoffs I feel least confident about. I tend to think you need a few really good hitters, because you need guys who can hit all that premium pitching. This might be leaning too hard on anecdote though? Maybe if you have a handful of guys who can REALLY hit velocity and a handful who can REALLY hit spin then that's plenty? This is also why I'm fairly bullish on this team turning around quickly. The Cubs are not going to have much star power next year short of ludicrous luck in free agency (like the Blue Jays this year). BUT, with what guys like Schwindel/Ortega/Wisdom are doing, plus getting Hoerner/Madrigal back from injury, plus having an actual good Iowa team for the first time in ~5 years, plus having nearly 9 figures to throw around this offseason, depth shouldn't be an issue. Like can they be the Dodgers next year? Horsefeathering no. Can they be the A's of recent vintage (the team that most epitomizes this depth approach IMO)? Yeah that's probably doable.

Good replies here and interesting conversation topic. I do think building from the bottom up is underrated. I think broadly depth gets you to the playoffs, and stars win once you're there.

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. Yeah 2:1 for a guy with power has always been impressive, but ESPECIALLY nowadays. Like that's some prime Gary Sheffield horsefeathers but it's coming against pitchers who throw on average 4-5 MPH harder.

It's interesting that Morel has started hitting the hell out of the ball while his K/BB numbers have gone the other way again. For most of the year, his plate discipline numbers were great for a guy with such a free swinger reputation, but he just wasn't hitting. Now it's essentially the opposite. That's not necessarily a problem, a lot of guys swing freely when they're feeling good and grind ABs a lot more when they're not hitting. If with a little more age and experience he can smooth things out a bit that'll work, though probably will lend itself to him being a streaky hitter.

Three guys who will all be on next year's team combined to give up one run over ten innings and that's....bad?? There's no reason to pitch both multiple innings. Give other guys shots in high pressure situation. Winning these games does nothing for the future. I feel like we went through this same thing in 2010 when the Cubs finished 24-13, bought into their roster, and finished the next season 20 games under .500 when the pressure was back on. Wouldn't you like to know if they're guys you can ask to go multiple innings, or whether they're like Craig Kimbrel and hate it? Isn't it nice to figure this out now while games don't matter? Like I'm all about the tank, but if guys who are going to be on next year's team want to step up right now go ahead. Going into the offseason I'd much rather have say, a 76 win on paper talent team with the 12th pick in the draft than a 72 win team with the 5th pick. Unfortunately, aside from Happ and maybe Steele, none of the guys currently playing are high upside enough to move the needle much on next year's projection. But if a bunch of guys all produce, like we're seeing right now, all together they can move the needle quite a bit.

Three guys who will all be on next year's team combined to give up one run over ten innings and that's....bad??

Despite having been a bonus baby, Perlaza's got fairly quiet tools right? Because numbers wise there's a lot to like.

Trevor Megill since August 14th: 9 IP, 6 H, 3 ER, 1 HR 0 BB, 1 HBP, 17 K, a 45ish GB% It's still mostly been low leverage work, though Ross appears to be testing him a little bit more in that regard lately.

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.

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.

This seems to be the genesis, but again I haven't seen anything about them cutting those guys. I think one of the beat guys mentioned they were considering a Quinn restructure before they did Graham but that's all I've found. I believe that’s for next year. This is the Graham maneuver that sparked it all (the good years means there’s dead cap next season too but I’m no cap expert and I’m not learning the intricacies of the cap now): Oh that makes a lot more sense if it's a thing people are expecting this offseason rather than a thing people are expecting right now. Getting mad about it today is certainly weird and unproductive, but at least I understand the actual issue now.

Huh? Haven't seen that. They did some cap maneuvers with Jimmy Graham to extend most of his cap hit to 2022. That was needed just to get back under the cap apparently, as they didn't have enough "in season" buffer. But yea, to cut Foles AND Quinn, I don't think they actually could do it. But I've felt for a while they probably should cut Foles just for the roster spot, but they'd need to restructure someone (likely Quinn) to defer some cap to accommodate Foles dead cap acceleration. But maybe just hang on to him until the trade deadline... Never know. This seems to be the genesis, but again I haven't seen anything about them cutting those guys. I think one of the beat guys mentioned they were considering a Quinn restructure before they did Graham but that's all I've found.

There's a bunch of hand wringing on Twitter this morning about the negative cap impacts of cutting Robert Quinn and Nick Foles but I haven't seen anything to indicate the Bears are cutting Robert Quinn or Nick Foles?

This is really good data. A few of these, like Morel and Canario, I'd never have guessed were anywhere near this high.

I'm full aboard #TeamTank but I still think there's some nuance needed here and a day like today had a lot more good than bad. Someone like Davies doing well? Unequivocally bad. I actively root against him at this point. I literally LOL'd when he gave up the slam Guys like Duffy and Adam Morgan doing well? Probably bad? They're pending FAs, but going to be low enough that they're going to sign somewhere for soft factors like comfort, opportunity, etc. Them doing well, and the Cubs getting a front row seat, helps everyone make the best possible decision in January. I think I'd rather have the draft slot but there's an argument here Guys like Schwindel, Ortega, and Wisdom well? Probably good! Schwindel is not going to catch the last out of the Cubs' next World Series, but can he be a quality bench guy or second division starter for the next year or three? Absolutely! There's real value there, especially with how many question marks are going to be on next year's team Happ, Alzolay, and Wick doing well? Phenomenal, easily outweighs losing a game in the reverse standings.