Bull

It's still awful. That timing mechanism with his hands always makes it look like he is surprised that someone is throwing a baseball toward him.

He was worth half a win last year in very limited playing time (127 PA). Does that scale to 300 PA and 1.2 wins, or is he the type that would have diminishing returns? Wisdom was only worth 1.1 fWAR in 534 PAs. Why is there not more conversation about giving more of that playing time to Bote? Wisdom (3), Bote (1) and Madrigal (2) all have options. Bote is younger than Wisdom, older than Madrigal. I just don't understand why he's not getting more attention. Is it the fact that he was able to clear waivers due to his higher salary, and therefore doesn't take up a 40 man spot, while the others wouldn't pass waivers and therefore do take up a spot? I understand the concept of sunk cost, but if he's able to outperform Madrigal, isn't Madrigal the sunk cost?

Kind of looks like a left-handed hitting Wisdom. Not awful for your 25th or 26th guy on the roster. This has to mean goodbye to Madrigal, right? He was already superfluous, starts taking reps at 3rd, then we sign this guy. There may not even be room for Madrigal at Iowa at his point.

But is the .018 more if he pulls more balls. And will he pull more with no shift?

This page shows the players most likely to benefit from the shift this year. It's a fairly simple analysis that shows what they did in 2022. It doesn't attempt to predict if players like Seager and Muncy will change their swing patterns to pull the ball more. Hint: they will. The other interesting thing here is Cody Bellinger on this list (alongside Schwarber). His 9 outs that would have been hits on line drives adds .018 to his BA automatically. Add the grounders that would have snuck through. Add the fact that he won't be afraid to pull the ball because of the shift and I think you have something even without any "improvement". His barrel percentage was in the 54th percentile, which means he was making good contact better that 54% of hitters, but his hard hit percentage was only 38th percentile, meaning that these barrels were not resulting in the power you'd expect. You might write this off as a lack of strength due to the injury, but his average exit velocity was 57th percentile, meaning when he did make good contact, it was really good contact. Sooo... either he was sometimes weak/sore and other times his old MVP self --or-- he was being shifted so often that he was afraid to really pull the ball and do what he was capable of. Either way, I think we can expect big things from Bellinger this year.

Seems like a misleading headline. They aren't giving the Brewers money. They are giving the district money to improve the statement and the Brewers renew their lease. I mean, I don't want brewers fans to have nice things, but it's not like this is going to payroll. I don’t care where it’s going, sports teams shouldn’t get tax payer money for any reasons. And the give us money and we’ll renew the lease or else we’ll leave is such a shallow threat. They aren’t moving. If the stadium needs repair or improvements use your own horsefeathering money, Attanasio. I generally agree, but if the stadium belongs to the state, they (the landlord) should take care of it. I guess I just hate slumlords more than I hate taxpayer money going to fund properties that generate revenue. I know the Brewers' rent is a lot less than the money being invested, but their impact on the economy is pretty strong.

Seems like a misleading headline. They aren't giving the Brewers money. They are giving the district money to improve the statement and the Brewers renew their lease. I mean, I don't want brewers fans to have nice things, but it's not like this is going to payroll.

I think this is the year I’m back. I haven’t subscribed to anything that helped me watch games in two years. I’ve been in a doctoral program that finishes up in May, and they’ve just been uninteresting. Even the games I could watch were against the pirates with pirates broadcasters. Brutal. But maybe I’ll have more time, and maybe they’ll be watchable. We’ll see. Some interesting story lines anyway. Bellinger will never be an mvp caliber player again, but what if he returns to a 110 ops+? What if Nico takes another step forward? Will the young pitching really be a strength? Will one of Wisdom, Morel, or Madrigal take the job at third? Is David Bote still alive and who killed him? Their hope, mystery, and intrigue. Or meh.

A small bright spot in a channel filled with nothing but bad Dempster impersonations and Ricketts loving company men. what is going to prevent Dex from being a Ricketts loving company man? Plot twist: he already is. Bum-bum-bum.

Back of the napkin you'd probably say something like 83. Coming into the offseason they were at 74 https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-absurdly-preliminary-2023-zips-projected-standings/ They've added this offseason 13ish WAR. That's not going to equate to 13 wins though because it was spread so much through the roster, rather than being concentrated in a few spots. So I think depending on how you evaluate some of the particulars you'd probably say they added 7-10 wins. I think you have to also consider that they were better in the last half than the first half, making that 74 perhaps not the true baseline.

The only real platoon opportunity I see is at catcher. Gomes mashes lefties. Barnhart hits righties better than Gomes does, but it’s not as pronounced. I’ll be curious if they play the catcher based on who’s pitching for the Cubs or who’s pitching for the opponent. If/when Mervis comes up, there will be some platoon opportunities at 1B/DH. Looking at handedness, Madrigal would be far more useful if he were a left handed hitter. His only place on this team right now seems to be insurance against Hoerner or Swanson getting hurt. I think that’s a yes to both. It will be by Cubs pitcher, but if they really want the other in the lineup, that one will DH.

I think it was Carlos Marmol who was unhittabke a few ticks slower than his top speed. At 95-96 his movement was less, pitches straightened out and he got rocked. At 92-93 the four seamer had some natural sink, complementing that wicked slider well. Maybe they see something like this possible here? Also maybe I’m remember this all wrong.

Was it news that Henricks may not be ready for opening day? I don’t remember hearing that explicitly stated before.

Stroman and Suzuki were the only ones not there for opening ceremony of cubs convention. Has to be one of them.

The Hosmer signing itself is almost impossible to be that bad, let alone terrible. It's a league minimum signing. Now, it sets up terrible downstream roster and playing time decisions. But the signing itself is pretty much risk-free. The playtime decisions are kind of the point. If this middling Cub team wants to sneak into the playoffs they need some people to outperform projections. Mervis provides that upside. Hosmer's upside is mediocrity. This team isn't talented enough to waste 250 to 300 pa on Hosmer. I don’t get this take at all. I see Mancini, Morel, Wisdom and Hosmer sharing time at three positions. In May, hopefully Mervis has continued to mash and pushes one of them out. Hosmer is insurance against ANY one of Morel, Wisdom and Mervis sucking, which I’D say is fairly likely. His 108 ops+ is not bad at league minimum, and if he’s more like his 77 with Boston, he’s the one pushed out and you’ve lost not league minimum, but a pro-rated portion of league minimum. Really zero risk.

Correa at 6/$200 is a really good deal. Probably. Depends how bad that ankle is. If he never tops 140 games and misses one entire season in the first half of the deal…maybe not.

"pending physical"...so it's just like the other contracts at this time. Yes…but The expectations of that physical are very different given that, A. He’s been with the Twins and their doctors have some familiarity here, B. Everyone now knows there’s a problem C. The numbers are very different than they were with the other two deals.

I wish I could be that optimistic. In that they weren’t supposed to win in 2015. The wild card was a surprise. I would say a wild card berth would be equally surprising this year.

I like staying under this year. They going over for one 5 war player takes you from a 79 win team to an 84 win team if things break right. And if they don’t you have to pay larger penalties next year to stay decent. This way you weather Heywards final year and have a big chunk to spend next year, the farm reaches maturity - or at least you know what you have in Davis, the pitchers, and Amaya heading into ‘24 - and you can spend big next year. There are so many question marks on this roster that even if things go reeeeally well and you are in the wild card or division drivers seat come July, there no way to forecast WHICH things went well and which things needs addressed at the deadline. Not to mention that a decent run this year makes you more attractive to FA next year. Lets be honest this wasn’t an attractive destination this off-season. In many ways this is 2015 all over again. Don’t expect this to be the year. Compete this year. Window really opens next year.

Can’t see it being the Cubs. Too close to the LT now I think As has been mentioned a lot, I don’t think they’d be against going over the LT this year for the right guy/moves. With all the money falling off after the year they could easily reset next year while having room to add. The only reason not to be in on Correa would be if this medical issue is really that big of a worry, which don’t blame them, or if they truly think they can get Ohtani next year and will wait until then to go over the LT. Nobody has said they are adverse to going over the LT, they try and not be repeaters but I’d be surprised if they aren’t over the LT in the next 3 years. Next year will be their year to be over. They will stay under this year unless the team **significantly** over performs as they approach the trade deadline.

Happ and Dansby with similar OPS last year. So…three almost big bats?? A few years ago here someone was arguing that multiple 3-4 win players were better than the same WAR concentrated in one player surrounded by 1 win players. Not sure if they were right, but we will have the opportunity to see.

How does another team’s acquisition of a player make the position less of a priority? I think the implication was that they were going to get a significant bat, and if Abreu was available, he would be that bat. With him gone somewhere else, there's no one else available at 1B that they feel fills that need, so they will find the bat at another position. I don't agree, but I think that's what is implied.

There’s been so much noise and smoke about us doing a big addition or two for literal months, idk how that can be your expectation. Literally everyone from Jed to Ross to beat guys to national guys say we’re gonna be doing some significant additions. Didn’t Jed basically come out and say we weren’t signing a top tier guy? I’ll say it again: there won’t be long term contracts until Heyward’s is off the books.

Yeah, I believe that was Rizzo Bryant money coming off. I think they’ll be able to spend what comes off this year, but the next big signing will be when Heywards comes off.

What counts as a major signing for you? They added a 5/100 and 3/71 contract last offseason, and not too many had longer than 5 years or higher than 24 AAV(and even fewer had both). Should have said “top tier.” They will replace Heyward’s contract with a Heyward level contract when it’s gone but not before.