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Stratos

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Everything posted by Stratos

  1. Stratos
    An issue with our team is having so many great glove, mediocre bat players. Nico, Swanson, PCA, then you have Amaya who isn't good at hitting or defense. That's 4 guys in the lineup that don't hit much (PCA is a work in progress - jury is still out). Their overall value via WAR is the same, the gloves on these 3 guys help our pitchers overachieve which is great. But I also think some of our pitchers aren't quite as good as we think they are because of it since it lowers their ERAs. xFIP/FIP can come in handy here to help evaluate.
  2. Stratos
    If you don't make the playoffs I call it an automatic F grade. I thought they were a slightly better team than last year and yet didn't improve. Busch over Mancini, Imanaga in for Stroman (was hurt last year). The offense totally tanked from May to around the ASB and blew the season, along with Jed's crappy bullpen in the first half. They should have been right there in the wildcard hunt. Adding Busch, Paredes, and Imanaga is solid though for years to come. Just MUCH too long of a rebuild. We got quality prospects for Rizzo, Baez, and Darvish but they were so young, and Ricketts should have overspent on the payroll to make up for it until they're ready, at least the last 2 seasons. Last 2 seasons we're about 5 wins short of being a legit playoff team. We still burn too much money on fringe FA's. They sign Imanaga and then bring back Hendricks for 16.5m. Sign Swanson and then sign Mancini/Smyly/Barnhart on 2-year deals. Gotta be smarter and live the "value and efficiency" mantra on the smaller signings too.
  3. Stratos
    Seiya has the 7th highest wRC+ in the NL right now, a tick ahead of Freddie Freeman. Happ is 16th. Imanaga was the 10th best pitcher in the NL in terms of WAR (which uses xFIP over ERA). If he pitched today he would have been even higher. He has the 3rd best ERA in the NL. Taillon was 15th.
  4. Stratos
    Its hard to enjoy baseball sometimes when they keep smearing poo all over it. When you say "don't really matter", that's your own opinion. I think they do matter, at least to me. I'm a romantic at heart, which is why it's hard for me. The ownership group for the Field of Dreams movie site in Iowa is building some hotels and restaurants on the site, I can't wait. But you're right in that if I want to be happier I need to accept the fact that baseball is increasingly poo-stained in order to appeal to the smartphone generations or whatever and create more corporate profit. Or maybe i'll go watch more local little league and men's league games or something.
  5. Stratos
    "As long as we're in the race until the last week we'll fill the seats and I'll be satisfied. This year was a success!" Ricketts probably
  6. Stratos
    They took the standings link off the main Cubs.com page. Go eff yourself Cubs.com
  7. Stratos
    He looked nasty in Spring Training. Too bad he got hurt. He had bite on the curve then if I remember.
  8. Stratos
    Maybe Isaac is a little banged up, or Craig is playing matchups. Maybe they want to see if Wizzy can do better with more regular playing time? Hard to come in and hit when you're only playing once a week.
  9. Stratos
    Maybe Craig can bring in the entire Brewers organization.
  10. Stratos
    The Cubs sound guy started playing the track "Sweet Emotions" by Aerosmith over the speakers when Kyle came off the mound for the last time and gave the teammates hugs in the dugout and gave the curtain call. C'mon sound guy, just let the moment breathe and play out.
  11. Stratos
    Alcantara so far has shown 91st percentile sprint speed. Holy jeez.
  12. Stratos
    Clark the mascot doesn't matter to me. The flashing LED lights are a bit tacky for a 100+ year old ballpark. I don't mind Ricketts making lots of money, the Cubs are a business and not a charity. But there's also a way to do and a way not. There's just something so cold, calculated, corporate, uncaring and impersonal about everything now. That's not what attracted me to the Cubs in the first place. Just seems like every decision is made with the intent of sucking as much money out of my pocket as possible and its hard to root for that as a fan. If you want brand loyalty then put the customer #1 or at least somewhere near it. I feel the business side of the Cubs is tone-deaf and don't use the history of the ballpark and franchise enough for their business advantage. If you want more night games I get that. If you want to put up a giant scoreboard to show more advertisement then ok i get it, but don't turn Wrigley into an amusement park. Flashing LED stadium lights don't bring in revenue and aren't why fans come to Wrigley.
  13. Stratos
    The Ricketts have turned the Cubs into just another cold corporate product. Complete with flashing LED stadium lights after a win and Clark the Cub for your kids private box suite birthday parties. It makes me sad.
  14. Stratos
    The pre-pitch hitch in PCAs batting stance is back and has been for at least a week. Not as bad as pre-ASB but it's there
  15. Stratos
    It's really not possible to "prove" why Alzolay got injured or Leiter sucked in Sept. I think there's a decent chance that if they had another reliable arm or 2 they may have been able to avoid the injuries and/or some Sept fade (even though the pen did ok in Sept besides those 2 guys).
  16. Stratos
    I looked at Baseball Savant. Alcantara has already showed elite bat speed. Based on the very small sample (5 competitive swings) he'd rank 13th in MLB between Juan Soto and Vlad Jr in bat speed among qualified hitters. He's above De La Cruz, Alonso, Soler, Tatis Jr, Witt Jr. Has the same bat speed as Mike Trout. Not sure if his numbers may drop with more swings, this stat measures avg bat speed on competitive swings, not max bat speed. On the Cubs he ranks above Wisdom and below Morel and Canario (who has insane bat speed). He has the longest swing on the Cubs per Savant which isn't surprising. Gotta think the HR power will come for him, and given the bat speed and swing length he may whiff a lot. PCA to compare shows well below-average bat speed and avg to below-average max exit velo.
  17. Stratos
    Ok i guess i'm wrong on the ranking. Changes nothing about my point though
  18. Stratos
    Then who is 2nd, 3rd, and 4th? I've never seen anything ranked this way in my life.
  19. Stratos
    Was Alcantara already on the 40-man before he was called up? Hope so.
  20. Stratos
    I said they were TIED for 1st, 2nd etc. Read my last post to rcal. The 3 of them were used a lot those 2 months. How is that not clear and obvious?
  21. Stratos
    From July 1 to Sept 2 there were 3 guys tied with Leiter for 1st, 6 tied with Alzolay for 2nd, and 12 tied for 4th with Merryweather. Of the guys tied with Alzolay he threw more IP than all of them. Of the 12 tied with Merryweather he threw more IP than all but one. For the guys tied for 1st with Leiter, one guy threw more IP and the other threw as many as Leiter. We can slice it another way. There were 174 qualified relievers over that period, not 183 like I said. My bad. Of those 174, those 3 Cubs relievers each appeared in more games than 145 of them. There were a bunch of guys who threw more relief IP than those 3 Cubs relievers in that period but almost half of those were clearly longmen given the number of games they appeared in (e.g. 11 games vs Alzolay's 27). We can split hairs any way we want but they were on the mound a lot that summer.
  22. Stratos
    Leiter and the Cubs are pretty lucky he only wore down and didn't get hurt. I guess Ross thought he did what he had to do which is why I blame Hoyer more. Riding a guy hard and risking his career or future earnings via injury so you don't have to give a prospect for a solid relief arm is unethical IMO.
  23. Stratos
    In 2023 between July 1 and Sept 2nd there were 183 qualfied relievers in the MLB. Leiter tied for 1st in appearances (28), Alzolay tied for 2nd (27), and Merryweather tied for 4th (25). From the ASB to Sept 2 Leiter led everyone. They were used a lot. Alzolay especially given the history of arm injuries. They played a ton of close games during those months and those 3 guys seemed to be in virtually all of them. That's mainly on Jed, he didn't get Ross a proven dependable arm at the deadline. He said at the time the cost for relievers at the deadline was too high. Alzolay went down with injury in Sept last year, was bad to start this year and blew 5 saves and now his arm is in a sling. I'd like to ask Jed what the cost of that has been. It might have cost us the playoffs last year given Alzolay was hurt in Sept and Leiter had a 8.59 ERA in Sept and was probably gassed.
  24. Stratos
    Merryweather was largely a starter in the minors. Cubs played 27 games in Aug 2023 and Alzolay and Leiter threw in over half those games, which is especially a lot for a guy like Alzolay with a history of arm injuries. Merryweather threw 14 IP in 27 games that Aug. 14 IP x 6 months = 84 IP pace.
  25. Stratos
    Nobody but Jed liked that Neris signing, i'll never understand it. Maybe the stats he looked at didn't show 25 balks per year.
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