CubUgly

The swing and miss was fantastic. He made Schwarber and Harper look like minor leaguers!!!

I agree, lots of good looking young arms on the Pirates. You never know how injuries will affect them, but if they stay relatively healthy their pitching is scary both starters and pen. Their hitting still look pretty mediocre/below average. Ozuna is past his prime as a hitter and is an absolute liability in the field, Reynolds I think has seen his best days, Lowe and O'Hearn are upgrades on what they had but neither really strike fear in me. The 19 year old will likely be a star, but probably not this year.

Yes, good at bats. Yes the Phillies D is horrible but that's not our problem. They actually made a great play to get Nico at third or we would have scored at least one more run that inning and maybe more.

Absolutely, I will totally ignore the standings until June. But I always down for a Brewers losing streak.

It also appears to me JD is making a more concerted attempt to engage him in conversation. They still have zero chemistry but JD's one word answers to his questions last year made me actually feel sorry for the poor guy. But I agree the try hard was strong with that one last year.

Yeah, I mean I think it's one that could have been caught, maybe not should have been? Awkward slide there.

Same here - Palencia is really easy to root for - love that guy and love that he's a Cub.!!

But ultimately it was the lack of hitting, not the pitching that cost the U.S. this one. Much like the Cubs game 5 vs. Milwaukee. We saw pitchers you would reasonably expect we could do some damage on and we just didn't. In both cases.

If the same call had happened to the U.S. I'd be pretty upset about it. But as a person who was always taught to adapt and overcome by my coaches back in the day, I would have also pointed out the many missed opportunities we had to control our own destiny.

I have always been of the opinion that calling a game and the relationship with the pitcher is a catchers most valuable trait and that really is not something that can be measured by analytics. It's IMHO why two teams and now probably a third decided even though Wilson Contreras has a cannon arm, he was still a liability as a catcher. Some say it was his pitch framing, but when it comes out as it did in St. Louis that he was calling pitches one of his pitchers did not even throw.....that is pretty telling. We'll see how this ABS stuff factors in, but the soft factors to me it seems always weight heavily internally for catchers.

Well, I would agree - it's now or never I think for him, I don't see the point of another full year in the minors to get at bats. Conforto is strictly a why not - sign as many minor league deals as you want - if two make an impact like last year it's worth it.

Agreed, he does not move the needle for me. He gets a shot to make the team just like McCormick, Carlson, Dean and Alcantara, and I'm not sure he's the favorite at all to win that battle.

I think lot's of teams to. I think that's why two different teams decided to move on from Contreras as a catcher. I absolutely believe it had more to do with that than pitch framing.

I get it - a pitcher if he's good is responsible either directly or indirectly for maybe an average 20 outs over 6 half innings every 5 games. I think breaking it down to no of plays/pitches and the value of that is debatable - as there is a lot of nuance to the degree of value that can be attached to every pitch and that pitcher's results every pitch that IMHO are random - but I do see logic referencing that factor. We can go deep down the rabbit hole on this and I'm certainly not saying you are wrong and I am right. But in this direct comaparison - Bregs vs. Valdez, I'm taking Bregs even if before you factor in the unmeasurables like clubhouse leadership and other intangible values, which by all accounts Bregman brings more of. But I do absolutely understand your take here.

I hear you and understand what you are saying Stratos, I do understand the concept of WAR though it's not my favorite or what I'd call most bullet proof analytical measurement I understand it as a tool, but I just can't get past the fact that an SP can only affect 2/3 of a game out of 5 and a position player has a chance to affect 5 games out of those same 5.