Desipio Message Board

Quote from: SKO on August 02, 2017, 10:34:41 AM

Quote from: R-V on August 02, 2017, 10:30:01 AM

Quote from: SKO on April 26, 2016, 12:55:14 PM

Quote from: Eli on April 26, 2016, 12:47:42 PM

Quote from: R-V on April 26, 2016, 11:52:44 AM
If he can sustain the offensive improvement - it's early but he has his walk rate up to about 9% and k rate down to about 10% this year - I think a less speedy Lorenzo Cain could be within reach.

That's the comp I've had in my head for a little while. Something somewhere between 2013 and 2014 version of Cain seems to be a reasonable upper projection that we could all be happy with.

2013/2014 Cain averaged out to one season: .278/.325/.383/.708, 4 dingers, 50 RBI, 25 doubles, 4 triples, 21 stolen bases, roughly 3-4 win player assuming Almora's defense in CF is as advertised. That would be pretty cool.

Revisiting the Almora discussion from last year...the Lorenzo Cain comp is looking pretty good from an offensive standpoint:

Cain career line: .285/.337/.417/.755
Almora thus far: .276/.321/.417/.738

One caveat - Almora is crushing LHP while not doing much of anything against RHP, while Cain has put up respectable numbers against RHP. Of course, it's still early, he's not playing every day, Maddon has intentionally given him favorable matchups against LHP, etc etc.

If Fat Albert could just shed whatever lead weights he's carrying around in his shoes so he could actually provide some value defensively and on the basepaths, we'd have a stew going.

Yeah it sounds like Albert added bulk to have more power this year and it's cost him defensively. Not much he can do about it now but hopefully in the offseason he eases up a bit, because the team can deal with him not providing much pop, they need the defense. Then again if CF is really Happ's for the foreseeable future who knows where Al will be next year. Either way he's certainly become a much better offensive player already than I expected based on 2014/2015 in the minors.

If they'd just implement the rassafrassin' DH in the NL already, it would help. But once Jay & Zobrist ride off into the sunset, a 4 way OF timeshare among Schwarber, Happ, Almora and Heyward is workable. Between Schwarber taking on DH duty in AL parks and Happ also getting some infield playing time, I'm guessing you could get each of them about 500 PAs.

Quote from: SKO on April 26, 2016, 12:55:14 PM

Quote from: Eli on April 26, 2016, 12:47:42 PM

Quote from: R-V on April 26, 2016, 11:52:44 AM
If he can sustain the offensive improvement - it's early but he has his walk rate up to about 9% and k rate down to about 10% this year - I think a less speedy Lorenzo Cain could be within reach.

That's the comp I've had in my head for a little while. Something somewhere between 2013 and 2014 version of Cain seems to be a reasonable upper projection that we could all be happy with.

2013/2014 Cain averaged out to one season: .278/.325/.383/.708, 4 dingers, 50 RBI, 25 doubles, 4 triples, 21 stolen bases, roughly 3-4 win player assuming Almora's defense in CF is as advertised. That would be pretty cool.

Revisiting the Almora discussion from last year...the Lorenzo Cain comp is looking pretty good from an offensive standpoint:

Cain career line: .285/.337/.417/.755
Almora thus far: .276/.321/.417/.738

One caveat - Almora is crushing LHP while not doing much of anything against RHP, while Cain has put up respectable numbers against RHP. Of course, it's still early, he's not playing every day, Maddon has intentionally given him favorable matchups against LHP, etc etc.

If Fat Albert could just shed whatever lead weights he's carrying around in his shoes so he could actually provide some value defensively and on the basepaths, we'd have a stew going.

He's got an OPS over 1.000 in the cleanup spot.

Quote from: SKO on July 24, 2017, 08:07:52 AM...but really though, did Kurt just block out the 9 million sportswriters who were trying to trade Kyle Schwarber for Andrew Miller last year because he was TEH MISSING PIECE? If so, good work I guess

Kurt, no one will think any less of you if you visit this thread and admit you have never actually watched baseball.

Quote from: Saul Goodman on July 17, 2017, 02:36:36 PM

Quote from: SKO on July 17, 2017, 12:16:10 PM

Quote from: Quality Start Machine on July 17, 2017, 12:08:36 PM

Quote from: SKO on July 17, 2017, 10:19:49 AM

Quote from: Quality Start Machine on July 17, 2017, 09:53:20 AM

Quote from: SKO on July 17, 2017, 08:51:07 AM
I don't really feel bad throwing his one great start in the faces of people who shat on the trade even though it's a small sample size since those people have already decided that 3-4 bad starts this year mean more than 150+ starts of awesome over the last 3 years. Anyone who had a problem with this trade can still get soundly fucked.

Forget it. Quintana can win World Series MVP each of the next three years, and the first time Eloy puts one into the upper deck at Glen Lerner Field (that's what it will be by then), meatballs will be lighting up the Score's call-in lines.

Oh the meatballs don't bug me, it's the Extremely Rational Fans^TM who stand alone in the wilderness, the only souls smart enough and brave enough to say "umm, excuse me, but Prospects are actually Good and therefore this trade is bad." There are an annoying number of those, people who have spent way too much time writing about Cubs prospects the last 5 years and have reached the point where they can't rationally discuss parting with any of them and thus slander a dude like Jose Quintana as unworthy.

Yeah, but that's kind of meatballish thinking too...do you think they'd feel any differently had the same 4 guys brought back Kershaw?

Look, the Cubs have two lefties in the rotation now that are as good as any two lefties the Cubs have had in (looks it up) ever. Yeah, I admit I thought the price was high at first, until I remembered that it cost Torres to get a rental that helped the Cubs win the World Series. If Torres ever becomes a 5 WAR guy for the Yankees, you don't think people here will piss and moan about it?

Oh people bitch about losing Torres now, that never stopped. Most of 'em just point to game 7 as proof they didn't "need" Chapman, which kind of ignores how crucial he was in Game 5 among others, but oh well.

I agree we need to re-define meatball a bit. We live in a post-analytics world and have to stop assuming anyone with even a basic working knowledge of things like WAR or whatever has to be in "our" camp vs the meatball camp. The fact is prospect huggers and Dave Cameron-esque people who make up trade value rankings in a vacuum and tut tut any trade that doesn't line up perfectly in terms of their own scoring system are meatballs of a different sort. It's really just a more advanced way of doing the meatball fan trade proposal of "a buncha crap my team doesn't need for your star" whether they admit it or not.

I'm still using Phil Rogers' system, which rates the Quintana trade as a -3 and therefore it was bad.

It's actually a +1 using the true Rogers system.

Admittedly a minor quibble, but why do the Cubs keep calling up this Floro putz when Rosscup and Mills are both on the 40 man?

Quote from: Quality Start Machine on June 08, 2017, 12:35:29 PM

Quote from: Cannonball Titcomb on June 08, 2017, 10:59:59 AM

Quote from: Quality Start Machine on June 08, 2017, 10:18:17 AM

Quote from: R-V on June 08, 2017, 10:10:52 AM
I want the Cubs to trade for a good starter and move Lackey to the bullpen. Mostly because he sucks but partially because I want to laugh at his inevitable red assed reaction to the demotion.

Anybody interested in a shortstop with sore knuckles?

What's that got to do with Lackey?

Man, when Fork gets a notion in his head, he's unstoppable...

Trading for a good starting pitcher was the first point here. How do you propose the Cubs get one without giving up anything good?

I mean, even if this whole shitstorm winds up just being a wet fart, one of the choices Jepstink might still have to make is Baez or Russell.

Pretty confident when I say that literally no one on this message board has made that argument.

I want the Cubs to trade for a good starter and move Lackey to the bullpen. Mostly because he sucks but partially because I want to laugh at his inevitable red assed reaction to the demotion.

I thought the finale was perfect in that it went in a totally unexpected direction (par for the course) and I thought Nora's story about where the 2% went was outstanding in that it was a pretty straightforward explanation but still punched me in the gut. All this time the show has focused on how the 98% were affected, and how impossible it would be to process the Departure, only to throw a last second curveball in making you consider an even more fucked up scenario.

Mods!

Agree that this season has been slow, quite a bit of wheel spinning in advance of several shits hitting several fans next week. Interested to see where they take the story with Phillip's brother and son - there are a lot of Russia threads (Mischa, Martha, Oleg, Gabriel) that may or not come together.

Quote from: Cannonball Titcomb on May 19, 2017, 10:21:35 AM

Quote from: flannj on May 19, 2017, 10:18:28 AM

Quote from: Quality Start Machine on May 19, 2017, 10:09:21 AM

Quote from: Cannonball Titcomb on May 19, 2017, 09:55:46 AM

Quote from: flannj on May 19, 2017, 09:37:22 AM

Quote from: Wheezer on May 19, 2017, 12:54:00 AM

Quote from: Bort on May 18, 2017, 10:42:01 AM
Baron Harkonnen outlasts another one.

I still think Terry Gross is kept alive in a tank.

Don't GIS Terry Gross.

Nobody has ever looked (and sounded) more like a lesbian without actually being a lesbian.

Bobby Hull?

Don Imus?

Let me amend that...No woman has ever looked (and sounded) more like a lesbian without actually being one than Terry Gross.

I thought you were talking about Roger Ailes.

Quote from: flannj on May 16, 2017, 04:25:53 PM

Quote from: Quality Start Machine on May 16, 2017, 04:19:58 PM

Quote from: Chuck to Chuck on May 16, 2017, 04:18:34 PM

Quote from: Quality Start Machine on May 16, 2017, 04:14:20 PM

Quote from: Chuck to Chuck on May 16, 2017, 04:13:30 PM

Quote from: Quality Start Machine on May 16, 2017, 02:03:55 PM
People don't tune in to hear everything is fine.

People don't turn in to hear everything they think is wrong.

This is a large part of the problem. People would rather feel informed than actually be informed. Tuning in for daily affirmation achieves that.

Just another form of faith.

"Thy guy you hoped would make your life better is a fraud."

"Yes, I mean both the politicians and God."

This is where I recommend listening to "Joe's Garage".

Chuck is right
Fork with the FZ reference
And as I edited above "confirmation bias".

Can we all just agree that our President is a sociopath and there is no true and honest reporting?

Is there an example of true and honest reporting from days gone by that you are using as a baseline? All reporters have their own worldview and biases on which facts are worthy of gathering, and they report to editors who have their own worldview and biases that impact their decisions on what gets reported, and they report to media executives who have their own worldview and biases that impact who they hired in the first place, and they report to board members who want to consolidate and synergize and cut costs in an industry that should be a public good. I don't know how a rational person could expect there to be any One True Journalism that could emerge through all those filters.

Quote from: SKO on May 11, 2017, 02:21:32 PM

Quote from: Quality Start Machine on May 11, 2017, 01:54:22 PM

Quote from: SKO on May 05, 2017, 03:32:15 PM
Got some help from the defense but still had 5 K in 5.1 innings and has allowed just 2 runs in his last 3 starts.

Too bad Carl let in his inherited runners yesterday, or his ERA would have been under 3.

I don't even know if I want to pin that on Carl. A pitcher hit an 0-2 fastball that was at his fucking eyes. I don't even know how the fuck that happened.

Because the Cubbiez are cursed! Seriously though this first 5+ weeks of baseball has reminded me why I hate all sports fans and especially all Cubs fans. People would much rather shit a hole in their underoos over this team's .500 record than listen to a LITERALLY 10 SECOND explanation that every team in baseball goes through a 30 or 40 game stretch of .500 baseball and we need to kind of let this motherfucker play out.

Quote from: SKO on May 09, 2017, 07:59:23 AM
I feel like basically no part of the team has been consistently good outside of Kris Bryant, Wade Davis, and Carl Edwards, and they're still over .500. Unless you just think Arrieta, Schwarber, Contreras, Russell, and Zobrist all suck now and aren't just in prolonged slumps you'd think a positive run is coming. I don't know. It's always amplified when it is the beginning of the season and you have no other sample to compare it to but this feels like a lot hand-wringing in the media and from people over a 16-15 stretch, when basically every team in baseball will have a 16-15 stretch at some point.

Maybe I'm too much of a bullshit tolerator but I'd add Almora, Jay, Miggy and Rondon to the good side of the ledger over these first 31 games. Which even if you allow that, to your point 2/3 of the roster has ranged from not good to pretty bad. Compare where the Cubs are at to the early holes the Blue Jays, Royals and Rangers have dug for themselves and it could be much worse.

Are there any really good starting pitchers who may be available at the deadline other than Quintana & Archer? Obviously the current rotation does not suck but just wondering if the mythical good and/or cost-controlled starting pitcher trade will ever happen.