Author Topic: Cubs in '18  (Read 75514 times)

Deeg

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Re: Cubs in '18
« Reply #4215 on: October 25, 2018, 05:35:37 pm »
Had to go back 19 years for a counter, huh?

CurtOne

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Re: Cubs in '18
« Reply #4216 on: October 25, 2018, 05:42:13 pm »
Seems like yesterday.

Bennett

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Re: Cubs in '18
« Reply #4217 on: October 26, 2018, 08:38:00 am »
Jason Heyward is also a Gold Glove finalist.   His competition is Jon Jay of Arizona and Nick Markakis of Atlanta.

Deeg

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Re: Cubs in '18
« Reply #4218 on: October 27, 2018, 02:02:03 am »
Incidentally, Yu Darvish is currently involved in a major controversy here for defending Yasuda Junpei, a Japanese journalist who was kidnapped in Syria and held captive for three years.  Yusuda was there trying expose the atrocities of the Assad regime, but bizarrely in Japan when journalists or even students are kidnapped abroad the nationalists (who pretty much run the government and mass media) blame them for being kidnapped and causing trouble for Japan.

ben

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Re: Cubs in '18
« Reply #4219 on: October 27, 2018, 07:57:48 am »
Well done, Yu!
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Deeg

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Re: Cubs in '18
« Reply #4220 on: October 27, 2018, 08:07:31 am »
Worth remembering that Yu's father is Iranian, so has a particular connection to events in that part of the world.  Though he's generally been socially active, which is unusual for athletes here.

Ron Green

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Re: Cubs in '18
« Reply #4221 on: November 23, 2018, 11:08:38 am »
Very few GMs or Owners openly say they are unhappy with a particular manager, coach or player before they fire him.  Doing so would generally be countproductive.


Imagine a world in which Donald Trump were a GM or an owner....

Ron Green

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Re: Cubs in '18
« Reply #4222 on: November 23, 2018, 11:36:37 am »
I wonder if Schwarber isn't inherently a likely to always underperform in clutch?  He's an extreme splits guy.  A HR hitter with just 1 HR versus LHP; and a slow lefty who likes to hit grounders into the shift.  >200 points worse versus lefties.   

In high-leverage situation, why would an opposing manager let him face a RHP?  In the 2nd inning, they're not going to pull their RHP against Schwarber.  But in late high-leverage, won't his numbers stink because opponents make him face lefties all the time, against whom he always kinda stinks?

Excellent point -- in other words Schwarber may not actually be anti-clutch at all, and may actually perform the same in the clutch as in a first inning AB, but because of his dramatic L/R splits and the use of top quality relievers in clutch situations, his stats are always likely to indicate he underperforms in the clutch.

Ron Green

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Re: Cubs in '18
« Reply #4223 on: November 23, 2018, 11:45:28 am »
Second, I'm not sure that head-first sliding is either bad, or more risky than feet-first?  Players slide a ton; is there anything wrong with head-first sliding versus feet-first sliding?  And, even if head-first is somewhat more dangerous, can you imagine telling El-Mago to quit because it's too risky? 

But I really question whether head-first actually is any more hazardous than feet-first, Bryant's injury while sliding hand-first not-withstanding?  Hand-first would seem to be more vulnerable to jamming fingers, or perhaps hurting a wrist.  But I almost feel like hard, late feet-first slides are almost as, or more risky, for ankle-injury as hand-first slides are for shoulder or wrist injury. 

And to some degree I also wonder whether running through 1st base on a close play where you're really stretching to get beat the throw might not almost be equally as more risky? 
*Getting hit in the head with a throw or a tag? 
*Body-on-body collision, at risk to knees/ankles head/neck/ribs, if the throw is off-line and the 1B needs to step into the running path to catch the ball or make a tag? 
*Pulled hamstring or pulled groin while trying to stretch to extend and reach the bag? 
*Ankle injury when landing awkwardly on the bag?
*Tripping on either the bag or the 1B's foot, and falling awkwardly?


I would think you could run the stats and play the odds.  There are probably an average of at least 20 plays every game in which players run thru first and likely no more than a couple of dozen (if that many) such plays resulting in the batter's injury.  There are likely an average of at least 5 plays a game in which a player slides into one base or another and there are a relatively low number of injuries from such slides.  But the headfirst slide is relatively rare, yet seems to result in a very disproportionally high rate of injuries from it.  The issue would seem to be the frequency and severity of injury from each approach, not how many different ways you can imagine each approach resulting in injury.

Jes Beard

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Re: Cubs in '18
« Reply #4224 on: November 23, 2018, 04:04:30 pm »
I'm still really skeptical of Schwarber's defense. As soon as the league figures out they can't run on his arm, I don't think he provides any defensive value.

Crap, the comment I posted with that did not make it... so I'll try again.

Holding runners, even without throwing runners out, is of tremendous defensive value, and as soon as you mention the league figuring "out they can't run on his arm, that sounds like what you are talking about.  The best outfield arms often do not lead the league in outfield assists.

Who knows, maybe some GM out there thinks he can catch twice a week.  I don't think he's going to fetch anything huge when he's dealt, but it should certainly be more than negligible.

My hope with Contreras and Schwarber has always been then the Cubs can use the two of them in something of a rotation at catcher and LF, giving the primary catcher enough time playing the OF that his hands stayed fresh for hitting over the course of the season instead of getting beaten and bruised over the course of a full season of catching that the hitting performance seriously declined toward the end of the season.  And even two days a week catching for Schwarber would be enough to accomplish that, much the way Stengal in the Yankees' glory days with Berra and Elston Howard both allowed to put up much better hitting numbers than they ever would have as a full-time catcher.

So for me the hope is that the GM who thinks he can do that is Hoyer with the Cubs.  If two years after his injury Schwarber is in fact again physically able to catch, he offers far more potential value to the Cubs than to other teams (at least partly because Contreras also has a fair amount of experience in LF to make such a rotation feasible), and therefore would not be likely to draw as much from other teams in a trade as the value he could add himself to the Cubs in 2019.
« Last Edit: November 23, 2018, 04:27:24 pm by Jes Beard »

Bennett

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Re: Cubs in '18
« Reply #4225 on: November 26, 2018, 11:58:20 am »
Mark Gonzales  @MDGonzales  2h2 hours ago

Cubs award 68 full postseason shares, the most of any 2018 playoff team. Each full share worth $16,155.34. World Series champion Red Sox awarded 66 full shares ($416,837.72 per share), 10.025 partial shares, eight cash awards. Dodgers awarded 67 full shares ($262,027.49 per share

Ron

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Re: Cubs in '18
« Reply #4226 on: December 16, 2018, 08:41:33 am »

ben

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Re: Cubs in '18
« Reply #4227 on: December 16, 2018, 05:00:21 pm »
Ron, thanks for passing on that link about Baez!  Excellent! 

Deeg, you better check this one out!  You were the 1st to talk about Baez as MVP.

He was truly awesome last season!

Deeg

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Re: Cubs in '18
« Reply #4228 on: December 16, 2018, 05:34:40 pm »
He was the biggest reason we won 95 despite regression and injuries.
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craig

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Re: Cubs in '18
« Reply #4229 on: December 21, 2018, 09:08:02 am »
On Tulo, it's been argued that he'd not have opportunity to start for the Cubs.  I don't think that's true, apart from merit.

The Cubs have only Baez as a starting middle-infielder.  If Tulo was worth starting, he could hypothetically win the other spot.  Obviously Baez and Russell are better than Tulo defensively, whether at 2B or SS.  But a Baez/Tulo combo, in either configuration, might be as good or better defensively than anything short of Baez/Russell. 

The larger question is merit.  Sure, Tulo hypothetically *could* win a starting job... *IF* he was healthy and *IF* he could hit.  But in his last four seasons at Toronto, he's been no-play in 18, and OPS/OPS+ of .678/80; .761/102; and .697/89 the previous three seasons.  So hitting-wise, he's been about as useless as Russell and Hayward.

Perhaps Tulo wouldn't want to try to compete with Bote, Descalzo, Zobrist, and Russell to win that job.   But I'd think that might be almost as accessible a starting job as their might be.   

I think that given that Russell is suspended for a chunk of the season; that he's been a bad bad hitter for several years; that he too is repeatedly injured; and that his personal-life garbage makes it unclear whether the Cubs will keep him; I think all of that makes it pretty obvious that the 2nd middle-infield starting spot is very wide-open.