Fear The Chorizo

Would be nice to make a free throw or two late, Giannis...at least keep it a two possession game here

I believe he said "of his generation", so yeah he was saying Durant is better than LeBron across their careers since they were drafted within a couple years of each other. As a volume shooter/scorer only, Durant is better. But its not close between LeBron and KD in terms of an overall player. LeBron is on that mount Rushmore of all time greats, KD just isn't.

Goes to show you; will be a sellers market Not at all, really. This trade never happens if Acuna doesn't get injured and if the Braves weren't in a division nobody wants to be good in - so they send a guy who is probably on his last legs being considered a prospect at all for a 2 month stopgap in case the rest of their team starts playing better. The fact that Pederson was moved right now means there aren't more than 1 team calling the cubs about him and they took the first possible deal. Ball is apparently now rated the Cubs 29thish best prospect in their system....so basically a guy everyone would be shocked ever makes it to MLB.

Game 4 seemed like it was the Suns' best shot at a road W in this series...and the Bucks found a way to squeak it out despite Booker going off. I think if Jrue/Milwaukee's D can continue to harass Paul and keep the Suns from getting exactly what they want on the offensive side of the floor the Bucks definitely can win one of Game 5 or 7 in Phoenix.

The other part of this Urias play at the plate is I believe he was trying to score from second on a single...which means there's no way his preferred baseline is right along the chalk line between 3rd and home since he rounded 3rd and his straightest route to home would've been shifted further into foul territory (as that 1st image shows Urias lined up with the 3rd base coaching box angling toward home). The catcher actually straddling or being mostly on the field side of the chalk is perfect positioning by him on that play. You could see Urias starting to shift his body to attempt a slide around the catcher because he saw he was about to be dead meat with a decent throw. The catcher collision rule has been one of the few good rule changes to the game recently after some of the initial confusion with it, IMO.

That may actually be perceived as buying from the Cubs standpoint.

Yes, and it's no different for baseball at any other level - mounds on the field are different than in bullpens. Agreed in general the biggest time suck on MLB baseball is how much time there is between pitches during at bats - a big chunk of that at the game's highest level is the batter's routines and analytics driving pitcher/catcher interactions and pitch selection. Maybe a pitch clock is the answer.

The problem for the Cubs isn't just that they're 8 games back, it's that they're tied with one team, have two in front, and likely no wild card spot to compete for. If the Brewers fall on their face, then that means the Reds won't have fallen on theirs. Cubs need the Brewers and Reds to collapse, and also to match the Cardinals. Any one of those on its own is not unreasonable, but all 3 at once? This line of standings thinking is given constantly as reasons why teams can't crawl out of a hole, particularly late in the season...but huge swings in the standings happen often when they are aided by a team atop them hitting a wall over a couple weeks - I guess my point is despite their 8 game deficit, I think the Cubs could still find themselves in the mix mainly because the team they are 8 games behind has shown so far this season that it really struggles offensively, and the other NL Central teams are also seriously flawed. I love the Brewers and root for them to death, but being 8 games behind the Brewers in the NL Central is a far easier hill to envision climbing than being 8+ games behind the Dodgers/Padres/Giants - two of those teams having much better rosters in terms of talent level than Milwaukee. Keep in mind the Brewers' current division lead was built on the back of a very unlikely 11 game winning streak - particularly for a team with an offense firmly entrenched towards the bottom of MLB statistically. The Cubs fell apart with an 11 game losing streak during this same period - no matter how great or bad teams are, those type of events just don't happen often and in particular don't happen simultaneously. I do think the Cubs ultimately wind up being sellers given their current spot in the standings, poor starting pitching, and just how many free agents to be currently on their roster, but I think it won't happen until right at the end of the deadline which will limit how many players they find a way to deal - which would make it a soft sell and could be the best thing for the Brewers longterm.

I personally think if they want to stick with the onfield/in-game interviews with mic'd up players, the questions and back n' forth should have nothing to do with baseball - find out what players are into in terms of off-field hobbies/interests and let their personalities shine. It would be much more enjoyable if announcers weren't looking to act like postgame beat reporters with their questions.

Boras is still Bryant's agent, right? Based on the rift between Bryant's team and the Cubs with how they delayed starting his service time to delay his free agency by at least 1 year (in Bryant's team's opinion) to wait until the MLB team was on the upswing, there's no way they're working out an extension until he hits free agency and the only way he stays a Cub is if they are the highest bidder. With respect to Rizzo, I can see him staying with the Cubs or resigning with them even if he's dealt at the deadline because of how much he is revered by both the Cubs and their fanbase. One item specific to Rizzo (and frankly any other potential trade candidates) is whether they have been vaccinated for COVID yet or not. This isn't about personal choice to get jabbed or not, but wondering if teams just over the thresholds of vaccinated personnel would be more hesitant in trading for a player like Rizzo that we know isn't vaccinated if it would drop the team back down to the level where more restrictive COVID protocols and testing would be necessary for the whole team again. At 8 games back and 4% playoff odds, the only way to have a chance is to become heavy buyers That largely depends on how the Brewers play coming out of the break - the Brewers open with 3 against the Reds and have a pretty light schedule through end of July, while the Cubs have 6 against the Dbacks and series with the Cardinals and Reds....If the Brewers fall on their face and the Cubs have a mini hot streak that 8 game deficit could easily get cut in half or more for the Cubs before they would reach a point of selling. Ultimately I think they do sell, but they will be in a holding pattern for the next week or so of games to see how things shape up.

The Cubs and other NL Central teams will wait to see how the Brewers finish off their July schedule before determining whether or not to sell or hold at the deadline....if the Brewers scuffle the division is wide open for a mediocre roster to wind up earning a NLDS berth, and that postseason path is much more realistic than catching the Padres/Dodgers/Giants for one of those wild card berths. I think we as Brewer fans bought too much or even more into this Cubs' young position player corps as all being good/great than many Cub fans themselves. To be honest the Cubs won the WS because Bryant played at an MVP level that season (he is still good, but hasn't been close to the same player since then) and they got key contributions from veterans like Zobrist and Fowler, plus great pitching from prime Arrieta. Many of their other homegrown or acquired young talent never took the next step from being replacement level MLB players to good or even elite. For all the talk about how well Theo and company rebuilt the Cubs' org from the ground up into a competent and well-run big market machine, their downfall has been a failure to develop enough of their own talent to sustain being an elite team like the Dodgers have - and the fact the Ricketts have poured a fortune into the club outside of team payroll (buying the team, self-funding wrigley renovations, buying and developing much of the surrounding properties, etc) means they don't have near the deep pockets as other big market clubs to continuously buy themselves out of roster issues.

I think the biggest difference in how the Bucks perform as a team offensively in these 7 game series against opponents that try to make adjustments from game to game lies with how efficient Giannis is on the offensive end - if he is able to get his within the normal offensive flow of the game it automatically gives players like Middleton and Jrue, Lopez better scoring opportunities, and they look like they have a gameplan. When the offense is routed through Giannis inside and initiated from Jrue or other guards this tends to be how the Bucks look offensively. Where they scuffle with Giannis on the floor offensively is if the Bucks get into too much iso ball expecting Giannis to create from the top of the key - particularly if other shooters aren't efficient from the perimeter. Then the Bucks offense looks stagnant mainly because Giannis is a 7' point guard trying to force his way to the basket against 2-3 defenders and his teammates are planted around the 3 point stripe - that's going to look clumsy no matter what. Either way, Giannis a great enough to wind up getting his - if it seems like he gets a quiet 35 within the flow of a game, that's normally when the Bucks win big. He's never going to be that explosive scorer and drop 50 on occasion with the ball always in his hands because he's not a great 3 point shooter, and that's just fine. Particularly against this Suns team, he belongs inside the paint scoring at will and getting a bunch of players in foul trouble.

The Cubs probably don't even take the Brewers call unless Garrett Mitchell is the first words they hear. if that's actually what the Cubs' front office should be the starting offer for 2 months of Kris Bryant, he's not getting traded. A developed prospect without Mitchell's talent ceiling or a couple young lottery ticket minor league arms seems more realistic at this point. This year's deadline is a buyer's market. And it wouldn't be 9 Million in remaining contract by the time a trade is made a few weeks from now - it would be more like $6M....and even a team like the Brewers would have no problem picking all of that up if it meant not including premium prospects in the deal. I'd imagine the Cubs would actually prefer to pay all of what's left to Bryant if it meant a better trade package return, though. I've long thought that teams unloading veteran position players who are set to be free agents often get poor return in deadline trades compared to pitchers.

The Suns opened the game making 7 of 11 threes...and very few weren't at least somewhat contested. If they make 4-5 instead of 7 of those, we have the 10 point lead and can pile on from there. We played much much better than the Suns in the 1st quarter. I would like to think coach will look at that and try to play more like that in game 3. Giannis also should theoretically feel better and stronger each game going forward. He's such a devastating mismatch for this team(i mean he is for most teams but it's really magnified against the Suns), he's at maybe 90% and just wrecking this team. It would also be cool if Jrue stopped shooting altogether and Middleton showed up for a few games. For the Bucks, it's all about getting an efficient 40 points from Middleton and Jrue collectively to go along with Giannis' 30+ against this Suns team. Getting more outside scoring lets Giannis wreak havoc on the inside even more. If the Bucks can get balanced offensively they win these games even with the Suns shooting the lights out from 3 - the problem hasn't been opportunities, it's that Middleton and Jrue aren't making shots.

What killed the Cubs' potential dynasty was the fact it never should have been viewed as a dynasty to begin with - hindsight is the moves the Cubs made in order to get that WS win and immediately thereafter actually prevented a dynasty from happening. That's because most of their homegrown position players that were supposed to all be perennial all stars never really happened, Bryant had a meh last 4 seasons instead of building on the MVP year when they won the WS, and the Cubs using both dollars and prospects a few years ago to bring in veteran pitching wasn't ultimately worth it because their position player core wasn't good enough. Guys like Happ, Russell, and Almora never lived up to the hype, and Schwarber was inconsistent enough before being dealt that never should have made trading position player prospects like Soler, Torres, Jimenez, etc. a good longterm organizational strategy. In many ways once they got to the top they made a bunch of bad decisions on who to keep and who to deal.

The biggest issue facing a team like the Cubs who appear to have more than a handful of position player rentals they could be looking to trade is that it appears like there may be limited buyers at this year's deadline, and many of those buyers are already pretty well set at positions the Cubs have players to trade. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see them wait until the last minute to gauge whether they have a prayer at a wild card spot and then either trade hardly anyone or unload most for little perceived value in return because there just aren't enough guaranteed buyers at the moment. I can see Kimbrel being the most valued piece they have over all their position player rental options because of that. The Brewers actually match up very well in terms of what positions/roster spots they may want to trade for - the question will be if other teams get into the mix to drive the prospect value price up for corner infield rentals like Bryant and Rizzo. I'd imagine Kimbrel and Chafin already have multiple teams after them.

I don't think I'd want Rizzo for the short term rental for what it might take in terms of prospects, as he's not really having a good year. Bryant, I'd definitely be interested in acquiring, along with some of their bullpen pieces - Kimbrel and Chafin in particular.

Gotta hope the rims are a little tighter for Phoenix in milwaukee...shooting over 50 percent from 3 is the difference in this game

Not the only issue, but Giannis' free throw struggles are a huge reason the Bucks have issues going on extended runs...and if the suns are going to shoot over 50 percent from 3 they have no chance.

Its really not much more than the fact Middleton and holiday are playing terribly on the offensive end so far this series...same goes for the losses they had against the hawks or nets - if they play well as a whole the bucks beat anyone, if they don't they lose to anyone because giannis can't just take a game over offensively.

I don't know if it's as much finding something unexpected with Urias as it his him settling in as an everyday player at the MLB level and his career minor league numbers translating. Maybe a bit more pop, but then again that comes a little later for guys who aren't linebackers in terms of stature that flew through the minors before they turned 22. Urias was formerly a top 20 prospect in all of MLB for a reason at a very young age, and we are seeing why.

I actually like the idea of the Bucks going to a zone defense against the Suns in this series to limit their pick and roll game and make their shooters have to create more on their own and have to shoot over length instead of relying on Paul orchestrating and giving them open looks. Aside from Giannis, the fact the rest of the Bucks roster attempted only 4 free throws for the entire game is a joke, too. Booker had 10 while Middleton played 45 minutes, took 26 shots, and never got to the charity stripe. For me the biggest bit of news from Game 1 is Giannis seemed to get through playing a game on his knee unscathed, which is a very good sign for the Bucks. Yes, Milwaukee lost game 1 but there wasn't anything from last night's game the Suns did that screamed to me the Bucks won't be able to compete and wind up on top if they play better offensively.

Giannis upgraded to questionable for game 1...wouldn't be surprised if he sits tonight and his presence for game 2 hinges on if the Bucks win or lose game 1.

I wouldn't say non-existent. If Oakland called and offered a premium prospect if the Rockies ate half of the remaining $, they'd have to consider it, no? The Rockies were running a $140-150 million payroll the last 4-5 years when it seemed like they had something with Freeland, Gray, Marquez, etc. making peanuts along with Story, Arenado, Blackmon, etc. Obviously some of that was a mirage and they made some mistakes, so I'm assuming paying $4m for a premium prospect may be worth it as they run an $80m payroll the next few years and rebuild. I'd imagine the Rockies would gladly eat all of Story's remaining contract if it meant getting premium prospect talent that was deemed MLB-ready sent back to them compared to eating none of his contract and getting marginal prospects or undeveloped high-upside talent with a higher likelihood of flaming out. Despite Adames being a Brewer, I still really like adding Story to this roster and figuring out who plays 3rd and SS once he's in the clubhouse. Having Adames at SS now actually should allow DS to use some of the other SS minor leaguers in the system with MLB talent as trade pieces this deadline if he wants.

And Yelich won an MVP while the guys we have up amounted to worse than nothing. This was a great trade for the Brewers but hardly the fleecing the Yelich trade was. I don't think the Marlins would do the Yelich trade over. Conversely, I think the Rays are just as happy as the Brewers so far. For perspective and maybe to help explain the attempted comparison to the Adames trade, the person you are responding to's initial reaction to the Yelich trade was 'Ugh' after it happened and lamented all the impact prospects with bright MLB futures given up to get Yelich in Milwaukee. Guessing he's still waiting for one of those former prospects struggling to stay in the majors 4 years after the trade happened to blossom into a perennial all star to try and declare that trade a wash. Debating the merits of whether or not to extend Yelich before the 2020 season started instead of trading him for more prospects is a separate discussion - the actual trade to acquire Yelich with what he had remaining on his former contract was flat-out highway robbery by DS and company, the Adames trade is nowhere near it. Adames was an expendable player for the Rays because they wanted to get their top prospect into the majors - Yelich was the last piece of a firesale trading offseason that was supposed to quickly replenish the Marlins' farm system with impact ML-caliber talent. Two totally different types of trade scenarios. Had the Rays not had Wander Franco ready to be called up and a deep farm system behind him that would be requiring 40 man roster flexibility, Adames never gets dealt this year for bullpen pieces.