Andre and Ryno

I dunno man. On the one hand, it's true that in today's game you need several young high performers who are earning the league minimum. On the other hand, running the September offense out there again has "third place behind the surging Reds" written all over it.

I like Alonso for these same reasons. And it's important that his market is somewhat limited. 1B/DH is perhaps the only position the Dodgers aren't interested in, which takes the largest bidder off the board. The Yankees will likely go with Ben Rice at 1B and have Stanton and plenty of others to rotate through DH. The Phillies have Harper at 1B and are not going to swap Schwarber for Alonso. The Braves are set at 1B (Olson) and DH unless they trade someone. The Red Sox have Casas but are a bit of a wild card. The Angels have Trout at DH and Schanuel playing 1B for free. The Blue Jays (Vlad) and Giants (Devers) are set at 1B but maybe have room at DH if Alonso is willing to give up 1B completely. The Astros are likely set, but like Boston their roster is somewhat in flux. The Rangers could maybe use Alonso but have bigger holes elsewhere. Other teams that might be interested are generally not likely to pay for pricey free agents (Seattle, Baltimore, Cincinnati). Realistically Alonso's market is the Mets and Cubs, with the Red Sox and Astros as wild cards, and then a Mystery Team or two. And lots of chatter in NY is that the Mets need to improve elsewhere; that chatter seems overstated, and the Mets seem to need Alonso, but he might also still be peeved by last year's awkward contract negotiations. The most likely outcome is that Alonso stays in NY, but his market is much smaller than people realize, which helps the Cubs.

Moises's swing is pleasing to watch, but there's real reason for concern. His GB% was nearly 66%, which is essentially unplayable. Unless he is able to elevate more, he is toast. His high GB% is not a wild fluke. His swing is relatively flat. Vertical tilt of 29 degrees, compared to MLB average of 32. And his attack angle is 5 degrees, compared to MLB average of 10. He's also an extreme opposite-field hitter, averaging 10 degrees to the oppo side, compared to MLB average of 2 degrees to the pull side. So we know that the most valuable thing for a hitter to do is pull the ball in the air, yet Moises has extreme opposite-field and GB tendencies. Hopefully this is all just small sample size and adjusting to major-league pitching. But the Cubs need to be confident that this offseason he will correct these serious flaws. If they're not, then they should look hard at a trade.

Very interesting! It might be useful to look at potential selection bias. If the manager lets a starter go through the order a third time, it might be because he's dealing. Whereas if he's getting shelled, he gets pulled after only one or two trips through the order, increasing those stats. So it would be interesting to look at his intragame progressions when limiting the data to only those games where he went through the order three times. As for bases empty vs runners on, my guess is that when runners are on base Assad intensifies his attempt to induce ground balls. He leans into his strength and has better results. Just a guess. Also possible that pitching out of the stretch is better for him, even though I think he doesn't do a full windup anyway.