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Stratos

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Everything posted by Stratos

  1. Stratos
    Well the point is the Cubs have lots of assets and a ton of options. As long as they keep one of Nico/Dansby to play SS the Cubs could literally trade any of our vets and have a suitable prospect replacement ready within the next year if not today. I doubt any vet gets traded this winter but within the next year we know either some vets or prospects will likely get traded. For me Canario, Triantos, and Ballesteros (if he can't catch) seem like the odd men out but also may not bring a ton in trade, they could be saved for a deadline trade or as Iowa depth. I'd be very hesitant to trade Alcantara, he has the power/speed combo, he could be a beast. A poor man's Elly De La Cruz or Oneil Cruz. I like Caissie too. Seems like he'll whiff a ton but he has the sweet swing & approach to make adjustments and work all fields, unlike a Morel or Canario.
  2. Stratos
    Hope so. There isn't much out there in FA at catcher it looks like. Will be a really tough position for Jed to figure out. I'd be happy with a league average catching combo that can handle pitchers.
  3. Stratos
    I actually don't think the way the WAR breaks down matters much. At the end of the day the Cubs spending is inefficient. We're not getting enough WAR per million spent. The team needs more surplus or needs to spend more if they're ever going to be a 90+ win team. Players like Baez, Bryant, Russell, Hendricks, Schwarber, Contreras, Rizzo etc gave us a ton of surplus and we're nowhere close to that yet. We may have almost twice the payroll as the Brewers but if we spend 3-4x on players of the same WAR it's moot. If players like Caissie, Alcantara, Shaw, Horton, Brown etc can perform well we can afford to trade more expensive guys like Happ, Bellinger, Nico or Swanson, etc and sign upgrades elsewhere while reloading our farm to reload the surplus years down the road. Rinse and repeat. The other option would be to trade some of those prospects mentioned for mlb-ready prospects at positions we need, like we did with Busch. I don't think trading 3 top prospects for 1 very good mlb player with 3 years left until FA and entering arbitration years is going to be enough. Maybe to get us into the playoffs but we should aim higher
  4. Stratos
    We probably need to acquire a quality bat, a quality SP, and figure out how to build a pen not filled with JAGs who suck the first 3 months. Anyone with a set of eyes can tell the talent difference between someone like Hodge and guys like Michael Fulmer, Jose Cuas etc
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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
  10. Stratos
    They took the standings link off the main Cubs.com page. Go eff yourself Cubs.com
  11. Stratos
    He looked nasty in Spring Training. Too bad he got hurt. He had bite on the curve then if I remember.
  12. 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.
  13. Stratos
    Maybe Craig can bring in the entire Brewers organization.
  14. 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.
  15. Stratos
    Alcantara so far has shown 91st percentile sprint speed. Holy jeez.
  16. 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.
  17. 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.
  18. 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
  19. 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).
  20. 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.
  21. Stratos
    Ok i guess i'm wrong on the ranking. Changes nothing about my point though
  22. Stratos
    Then who is 2nd, 3rd, and 4th? I've never seen anything ranked this way in my life.
  23. Stratos
    Was Alcantara already on the 40-man before he was called up? Hope so.
  24. 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?
  25. 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.
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