Bertz

Colts are somehow the #1 team in the NFL by DVOA, but I believe that's not schedule adjusted yet so their 36-7 pantsing of the Jets is being treated like a real accomplishment. Colts will be comfortably favored, and should be, but this is a winnable game.

Gonna go on record now with this being a bad idea

I believe I saw that the Marlins are going Alcantara-Lopez-Sanchez in this series. Lopez is probably the best of those three, but he's had a crummy September. Marlins have an 89 wRC+ against righties, and a 111 against lefties. So even beyond the fact that he's clearly cooked Jon Lester *really* shouldn't be starting in this series.

Sounds like Yankees are 7 PM both Tuesday and Wednesday Edit:. And here's the whole thing

While I don't like good things happening for the Brewers, them beating the Dodgers would be AMAZING

Quintana sitting 93-94 is fun. 3-4 innings of Adbert and 2-3 of Q is probably a pretty damn good #3 starter.

The wheels are going to have to *really* come off for me to not want Alzolay as the #3 playoff starter at this point

Yeah I think so. It feels a bit gross but ensuring we get the Marlins in round 1 and breaking the Brewers' hearts makes it worth it.

Yeah, I think at this point you can comfortably consider one spot filled. I wonder how Cory Abbott has looked at the alternate site. He could be in that mix as well.

Alzolay looks GOOD today

Regardless of the score, they need to get Kimbrel in the game tonight. He's only pitched twice in the last two weeks, and his last outing was only one batter.

:flythew: Magic # down to 1

So I'm still generally opposed to the three man booth, but Demp is not bad at this. And it helps that Len and JD seem to actually like working with him.

If he gets his ERA under 2 I'd imagine he's a lock for the Cy Young A lock? I thought Bauer had pretty much locked it up? It’s at 2.01 now. It dropped .03 points in the last inning so I’m not doing the math but I’d guess 2 outs would get him to 1.99 It's moot now, sounds like he's done. But I think the analytics like DeGrom and Darvish a tick more than Bauer, and so Darvish getting down to 1.99 would have probably helped him lock up the traditional vote (since he already has the best W/L record).

If he gets his ERA under 2 I'd imagine he's a lock for the Cy Young

One thing I'm going to miss from this season is hearing the dugout flip out on a dong before the camera has a chance to switch to the OF

This article from Dan Szymborski (ZiPS creator) a few days ago has before/after projections for KB, Rizzo, and Baez (unfortunately no Schwarber) tl;dr is this year has been enough for the projection system to drop them each from very good to above average, not bury them completely. I'd imagine for Schwarber, who was merely above average before, he projects around average at this point. With each guy being on the eve of FA, and given the payroll cutbacks we're going to see around the league this offseason, I think they're all movable. KB and Javy probably have a bit of value, with Rizzo and Schwarber being breakeven-ish. I'd ammend my plan from a month ago slightly, given that I'm starting to think Hottovy is a miracle worker and it doesn't take as many resources as I thought to keep the pitching staff afloat. There were some rumblings that Happ is down for an extension. So I throw some money his way, trade Contreras for a pretty good haul, and I trade KB for whatever pitching I can get. I'd imagine he's worth something like another team's Alzolay at this point. Payroll at this point is somewhere in the $150Ms. I don't know what PTR is going to find in the couch cushions, but I'd think that leaves at least $40M to spend, probably closer to $60M. You need 2 starters and 2-3 bats, but for the bats you can be pretty position agnostic since Bote, Vic, and Nico mean every position is at least nominally filled. I'd do something like Jon Gray and Mike Minor on the pitching side, paired with Brantley, Semien, and Kiké Hernandez on the hitting end, but there's a million reasonable combinations.

I feel like we're discussing how unlucky the Cubs' offense is every year in some form or fashion. I'm not saying you're wrong, the numbers suggest you aren't, but I feel like there's got to be a different explanation for this. The Cubs' problems with this group have generally been related to sequencing: how does an offense with X OBP and Y SLG only score Z runs. It's happened enough that there's probably something there. My pet theory is a homegeniety in what kind of pitchers they feast/famine against, but it could be a million things (including dumb luck). This BABIP issue is more of a run of the mill bit of unluckiness. And it's happened to this group before, such as in the first half of 2017. The problem is that BABIP is the sort of thing that does usually mostly even out over a season, but doesn't normalize quite so fast enough that it smooths out by Memorial Day.

So, I don't want this to come off as a Leslie Nielsen everythingisfine.gif sort of thing, but there's a real BABIP component to that performance since 8/1. Since 8/1 the team wide BABIP is .271, 25th in the league. This comes despite being 10th in hard hit rate, 18th in barrel rate, 15th in exit velo. They hit the ball on the ground too much, but that's a dong killer not a BABIP killer. They should probably have a modestly-above-average BABIP. Give them even an average .295 BABIP, and the team suddenly has an ~average offense (their slash would look in line with the Cardinals). Being merely average for this long still sucks given the resources invested, but we'd be less in the existential crisis state of fandom.

This is sobering to say the least

Second tiebreaker is division record. - Cubs are at 22-16, with 2 left against the Pirates - Cards are at 19-16, with 5 left against the Brewers - Brewers are at 17-17, with 5 against the Cards and 1 against the Reds - Reds (though it doesn't matter for us) are at 20-19, with one against the Brewers So in the Cubs 0-5 scenario, if the Brewers tie it would go to the third tiebreaker, which is record in last 20 division games. I'm not going to calculate that, but I bet the Brewers have it, considering this scenario has them winning 5 of their last 6. In the Cubs 1-4 scenario, if that win is against the Pirates, then again it would go to the third tiebreaker again, but if that win is against the White Sox, I think the Brewers would pass us.

Based on what? He's been one of the better setup guys in the league the last few years. that's a bit generous. but it's not the last 2 years. he's been butt for both teams he's played for in 2020. i don't see what bringing him into a tie game is going to show you, even if he pitched a perfect inning. It's not, he's 40th in reliever WAR from 2017-2019. He's pitched 8.1 innings this year. And only one (scoreless) appearance for us. You're gonna weight that more than his 150 very good innings the last three years?