Bertz

It's not just that. MLB hitters are talking about how it's getting harder and harder to get base hits and just put the ball in play now. Defensive shifts, better and more detailed scouting reports, probably better catcher framing/presentation hurts them as well. Right now, offense is fine but I'm worried about down the road if they ever solve this "juiced ball" paradox then HRs should correspondingly drop. I can see strikeouts keep rising to new crazy high levels if pitchers keep throwing harder. I don't see this trend of pitchers throwing harder letting up. But there's been no noticeable downward trend in OBP or runs scored. So I'm not convinced that there's really some grand effect on offense. I'll be worried when that data points to some other offensive stat decrease. There is absolutely a noticeable downward trend in OBP. It's been staved off a bit by the juiced ball, but it's happening. Here's the average MLB slash Line going back 15 years 2003 - .264/.332/.422 2004 - .266/.335/.428 2005 - .264/.330/.419 2006 - .269/.336/.432 2007 - .268/.336/.422 2008 - .264/.333/.416 2009 - .262/.333/.418 2010 - .257/.325/.403 2011 - .255/.320/.399 2012 - .254/.319/.405 2013 - .253/.317/.396 2014 - .251/.314/.386 2015 - .254/.317/.405 2016 - .255/.321/.417 2017 - .255/.324/.426 2018 - .247/.318/.407 The ball got juiced at the ASB of 2015, and unfortunately I don't have splits for that, but in 2014 horsefeathers was getting dire. And you can see this year now that the ball is only sort of juiced, things have taken a significant step back (though admittedly, playing out the rest of July/August will bump that line up a bit more). I'm in the camp that I'd like to see something done. The two suggestions I've heard that I like the most are moving the mound back and making it so that relievers have to face at least 3 batters before you can make a mid-inning pitching change. Moving the mound back is the big one, I believe it's something like 6 inches equates to 1 MPH of effective velocity. So moving the mound back a foot would essentially return us to the velocity levels from 10 years ago. The other one probably wouldn't move the needle too much on offense, but it'd help some and it'd make games a hell of a lot more watchable.

It's hard to say. DeGrom is likely the most valuable pitcher in baseball right now (Kluber?), but at the same time he is a pitcher. Happ and Almora both look like ~3 win guys right now with plenty of control. There's maybe not as much upside as one might like from the Mets POV, but short of like Vlad Jr. I'm not sure there are any prospects floating around more valuable than them. I feel like both fanbases would justifiably feel ripped off, so I think it's in the right neighborhood.

Look at their schedule for the first few weeks out of the break. It's brutal.

After the KB dong I feel weirdly confident in the guys pulling out the W today.

Sure, because to this point he's had an OK year at best, and, as pointed out, he's been a disappointment this season relative to expectations. Yeah, it's great his ERA has been trending the right direction for a while now, but it's not like anyone has to dig deep to see where he's struggled or been noticeably worse this year. Like, I'm much more encouraged if he stops walking so many guys (and he did that last night, huzzah!) and gets that walk rate and WHIP down than really ever worrying about his ERA. He's walked 3 or less batters every game in his last 9 games and 12 of his last 14 (2 or less in 9 of those). He's largely been the same pitcher he's always been going back to late April. This is pretty misleading because of how few innings he's thrown. That's a 9.7% walk rate his last 9 starts, and only a 20.4% k-rate. Quintana's been generating a good ERA because of our defense, but he's been pretty bleh. The velo's fine and he's still throwing strikes and getting swings and misses so it's probably just a slump or weird sequencing or something, but he has not been good.

I think we need to differentiate between Q in '17 and Q in '18. In '17 he was exactly what he's always been and if that was disappointing it's really on you for having crazy expectations. Q in '18 is a totally different story. I haven't seen anything that makes me think he's irreparably broken, but the fact is that he has kind of sucked.

I'd definitely trade DeGrom right now. He's good, but IMO he's more All Star good than the Cy Young level he's been on this far, he's likely at his apex right now. I'm fine with holding on to Thor though, his value is probably down a bit with all the injuries and the Mets aren't such a mess organizationally that they have to tear it all the way down to the screws.

Is he fixed? I'd honestly rather not see him in a close WS games Basically. He was still walking the world early in the season. but since like the third week of the year he's been nails. The exception being that one absolutely disastrous appearance against the Reds during that double header.

With everyone of consequence healthy and Wilson fixed this bullpen is stupid good.

Len did. Everything is fine, this was planned from yesterday to not put Morrow into yesterday or today's games because they worked him a little too hard over the weekend. Should be available tomorrow.

that was the wbc oddball one though. that doesn’t count Yeah I want to say the change happened because the HR leader at the time didn’t make the ASG, somehow,so they changed it to let him in. Maybe I’m not remembering correctly though. I believe it's this as well. Might have been Ryan Howard when he had declined enough to no longer be a star but not so much that he wasn't still a prodigious dongsman.

I'll take the loss considering the good signs from Kyle. I'd gladly make the same trade tonight with Quintana.

I still overwhelmingly think we will win the division but scary question: if it was today, who do you trust on the Cubs to start a 1 game playoff? Try to get 5 out of Lester then go Cishek, Edwards, Strop, Morrow? Probably depends on the opponent and who's hot. But yeah if our guys don't get it together any potential playoff run by us will look like last year's Yankees and 2016's Indians. Bullpen early and often.

Like Cubswin said the defense is the through line here. Their starting pitching in particular sucks and is being propped up by the defense. The offense has not been particularly clutch by FGs measures, so the 1 run victories are coming from the run prevention side as well.

Yeah Baltimore is a good call. Though I tend to think Duquette knows what he's doing and Angelos is just a nightmare, meaning their issues are more big picture and less not properly valuing guys in trade. The larger point still stands, there aren't any FOs anymore that don't get BABIP or FIP or other concepts that were novel like 12 years ago. If we can spend 30 seconds on Fangraphs and figure out that a guy has been fortunate then they're not going to be overvalued on the market. Given that Colorado demoted Gray because they didn't understand it, how about we propose that swap? I believe most indications out of Colorado are that they wanted to give him a mental breather more than they actually think he's bad now. Similar to Schwarber being sent down last year, pull the cord before he starts pressing too much and developing bad habits.

Baltimore. Unless you didn't list them because dumb is way too positive of a description for them. Yeah Baltimore is a good call. Though I tend to think Duquette knows what he's doing and Angelos is just a nightmare, meaning their issues are more big picture and less not properly valuing guys in trade. The larger point still stands, there aren't any FOs anymore that don't get BABIP or FIP or other concepts that were novel like 12 years ago. If we can spend 30 seconds on Fangraphs and figure out that a guy has been fortunate then they're not going to be overvalued on the market.

I actually agree about the over-valued thing. It's not 2005 anymore, if his BABIP is really just a mirage that's not fooling anybody in the game to give up excess value for him. There are no dumb FO's anymore except maybe Colorado.

JP Morosi makes it sound like the Brewers are the frontrunners for Machado. I'm torn on that. On the one hand obviously you don't want them getting good players, but on the other hand most of their success can be attributed to defense, and Manny at SS would piss all over that.

Wilson's been phenomenal since like the third week of the season. I think if not for his monumental bed-horsefeathering against the Reds during that double header, he'd have won us all over by now.

Damn, neutral wind and that's out. Let's ignore that the Reds would have like 6 more runs in neutral conditions.

I’m not arguing Q has been that good or that I’m not expecting more. Just that he hasn’t been “that” bad that we need to be in “OMG rotation is doomed and we need starters at the deadline.” There’s reasonable belief that him and Hendricks will get better sooner than later and I just used Verlander as an example since he’s held in some regard here that he’s always great and that’s just not the case. These guys go through weird/bad stretches Not to continue the derailment of the game thread, but when the Cubs got Q, wasn’t he statistically a Top 10-15 starting pitcher in all of baseball. Has he even been close to that for a significant period of start.... yet? Yes. He was fantastic with us last year pretty much from the jump.

It's crazy how spoiled I am by our defense. Zobrist bobbled that DP ball just a tiny bit, and in my head I was still like "Jeez Javy wouldn't have done that!"

Looks like Lorenzen is their Randy Rosario. Let's hit him with the regression stick today.

I expect that they're just going to go with what they've got and assume at least 2/3s of Yu/Q/Kyle will figure it out. If not, look forward to a bunch of bullpen games this October. It almost worked for the Yankees last year, and the Indians the year before. I'm not sure it's the right move (though I lean yes), but it's what I expect.

When did Tommy turn into Jacoby Ellsbury with all the CI's?