Lathund

Anderson left with the lead, but went less than 5 innings so wasn't eligible for the W. It's then up to the official scorer to decide who gets the W. I presume Hader got it because he pitched a scoreless inning while Knebel didn't. But then again, so did Jeffress and Soria. Perhaps the argument goes something like Hader being the only pitcher to leave with a bigger lead than he entered with? Anyway, games like this are yet another reason the W-L stats are meaningless.

PCL in general is hitter-friendly, yeah. CS takes it to the next level though. EDIT: Actually this was linked in another thread. Plenty of hitter-friendly ballparks in the PCL, none more so than Colorado Springs. But also several that aren't very hitter friendly at all.

Holy crap, I just looked up Granderson's stats and he hit 23 (!!!) triples in 2007. Highest total since 1949 (23), and last time someone hit more than that was in 1925.

Is walking Javier Baez the baseball equivalent of a canary in a coal mine?

I hate playing against Quintana, usually is at his very best and dominates us. Let's hope for something different, or that he at least runs up a pitch count and leaves early enough for us to score soms runs.

The issue with Santana is indeed that I believe he won't have options remaining; would have used them in 2014, 2015 and 2018 as far as I can tell. So Brewers would be on the hook for his arbitration salary, and would need to add him to the 25-man roster to start the season in order to keep him. Whether that's a good idea or not depends on what the alternative is. If the other candidate(s) for that spot have options remaining, then tendering Santana and starting the year with him in the majors is doable, unless the money is needed elsewhere. Personally I don't believe in Santana at all, as in I don't think he'll ever reach those 2017 levels of perfomance again. I wanted to trade him this time last year, before that even. Sadly there'll be even less interest this offseason I'd imagine. Perhaps the best option is to reach a reasonable agreement to avoid arbitration and judge in preseason whether he's on the right track or not. If the salary is low enough to eat if he's not good enough to be on the team, it might be the best move. But I'll maintain that if there's anything of actual value being offered in a trade DS should take it.

Cardinals coming back like that obviously sucks. But Dodgers lost, meaning we now have a 4½ game lead over them, with the Cardinals inbetween there too. And the sneks are truly getting stepped on in Denver, down 13-2. Barring a miraculous comeback, they'll be 7 games behind us.

Brewers are so bad at challenges. I mean sure, in the 9th challenge if there's any chance to overturn, but there clearly wasn't here.

RHP coming in to face Aguilar, time have Shaw or Thames hit for Aguilar?

Let's add on a few runs to lower my blood pressure a bit.

MVP voting is still a pretty conservative and old-fasioned affair. Home runs, RBIs, name recognition and being flashy count more than defense or getting on base, or baserunning. So I think Cain won't even be close, even when he should be. Right now I think Javier Baez would win; 30 HRs, 100 RBIs and almost .300 BA (.296) while having several highlight reel plays. Just what the voters love. Carpenter is probably second; He has the numbers, but most of all he has the narrative, for those that really follow the "most valuable" approach. His insane resurgence coinciding with the regime change, boosting the Cardinals into playoff contention when people started to count them out. Had that not coincided with a manager change, that narrative would be even stronger. Also, salsa. As for Yelich, he'll win only if those two falter IMO. If he gets the 30+ HRs and 100+ RBis. I think he'll also need some separation; any situation where he's essentially tied with these bigger names (Whether they be Carpenter, Goldschmidt, Freeman, Arenado, Baez) would see him lose out. Mind you, this is what I think will happen, not what I think should happen. As for the pitchers, I think that would only be a real possibility if Nola, deGrom or Scherzer had fueled a CC-esque run to the playoffs. All three teams look likely to miss out, so I think that rightly or wrongly voters will disregard them.

The issue with Aguilar for a TOR starter is that there is not much overlap between teams looking to deal a starter with multiple years of team control remaining, and teams looking to trade for a 1B with a ticking service clock, even if that player does have 4 years left. One is a rebuilding/retooling move, one is a win now (and for a couple more years) move, where only the last 1-2 years of Aguilar would really give any benefit. The Mets, with their history of less than stellar decision making, might actually be one of the few overlaps. I think, and hope, that Stearns won't make that type of deal though.

Cubs lose twice, Cardinals lose, Phillies, Diamondbacks and Dodgers lose. Braves won, which is fine as long as they win the division and rather them than the D-backs. Rockies won too, but of course it was either them or the Dodgers and while you can argue over what would've been best, both outcomes are fine as it means someone is losing ground.

Reading the IGT can sap the enjoyment out of any game. I enjoy this team a lot more when I'm not following that thread alongside the game. Muting the worst culprits helps too, but avoiding it altogether is better.

I will always enjoy big budget teams failing spectacularly. Primarily the Yankees (and Cubs) of course, but the Dodgers having a $300m payroll recently (And multiple years of $250m+ around that) and still coming up empty-handed is rather funny.

We've constantly heard on this board that various defensive metrics have problems with them and don't accurately reflect the quality of the defense a player has. Furthermore the extreme weigh they put on defensive positions is not reflective of current value. Sogard got a huge bonus over Braun just because he played middle infield, not because he played it well. That seems somewhat dubious just on it's face. The issue isn't that they don't reflect the quality, it's that they take a long time to stabilize. Over a couple of seasons they will do a good job. Over half a season not so much. Or rather, over such a short period of time they may very well reflect it exactly, but we can't say for sure whether they do. This really isn't all that different from offensive metrics though, even traditional ones. Batting average, individual pitching matchups, platoon splits and such also take a long time to stabilize and to accurately reflect true talent. Yet the same people trashing advanced metrics will still put their faith in a pitcher vs hitter matchup over 30 plate appearances. It's just a case of the people behind one set of metrics being clear about both flaws and benefits. I know it's popular to hate Sogard on here, but he does play infield defense fairly well, while Braun didn't play particularly good defense in LF last year. And yes, it is a harder to position to play defensively than LF is, of course that should be factored in somehow. Francisco Lindor and Jesus Aguilar have very similar offensive numbers (Both have a 138 wRC+), yet would you say that Aguilar is anywhere near as valuable? Fewer balls being put in play might mean the positional adjustment gets reduced by 10-15%, it doesn't mean it disappears. If even that; fewer balls in play affects all positions. Truly elite defense, the ability to make a real difference on even fewer chances than before, might even become more valuable.

Trevor Cahill could be an intriguing option for the 2019 version of 2018 Jhoulys Chacin. Ryu is another guy I like, but he has had his health issues.

It should not be the sole determining factor, on that we can agree. But if your statement goes further than that, and that it shouldn't even be one of the factors, then mind explaining what aspect of bWAR for pitchers makes you feel that? bWAR for pitchers has a black box feel that often doesn't pass the smell test. Look at Chacin's numbers and Arrieta's numbers and explain why Arrieta is a 3.3 bWAR and Chacin is 1.9 bWAR. Chacin has better numbers for Games, IP, ERA, FIP, WHIP, K9, H9, HR9, and WP. Arrieta leads only in BB9, K/BB and HBP. The reason I specifically mentioned pitching bWAR is because it's something that really isn't a black box, bb-Ref quite clearly outline how it's calculated themselves. And their version of WAR is based on RA/9, trying to separate the pitchers part in that from the defense but still looking at the result, not how (i.e high strikeout numbers or some other way) they got there. In the case of Arrieta and Chacin the difference comes from adjusting for defense. Chacin has had the second best defense in majors (by DRS) behind him, Arrieta has had the absolute worst. Brewers are at +85 DRS, Phillies are at -112. So essentially it's RA/9 adjusted for defense, park and opposition. Which, other than extreme outliers, means that pitchers with a low ERA and a lot of innings pitched will accrue a lot of WAR. ERA and IP being two of the primary stats many people use for Cy Young consideration. So I wanted to see what the arguments were behind it. Wanted to see if it was a case of, say, trashing xFIP as a metric but in the same breath praising K/BB ratio. Baseball Prospectus' Deserved Run Average (Which is the basis for their WARP for pitchers) takes a rather different approach, trying to incorporate absolutely everything into it. But that rates Oliver Drake as one of the best performers on the Brewers this year, so I don't think most Brewers fans would prefer that. That one is pretty simple. Defense and positional adjustment. Braun was better offensively, but not by all that much. He's obviously the better hitter, but he had a down year last year and Sogard had an unlikely career year. bWAR is descriptive, not predictive. Braun played poor defense in left field, which is near the bottom of the defensive spectrum. Sogard played average to above average defense at 2B and average to below average defense at SS, two of the more important defensive positions. One way to look at it would be how much better or worse the team would be if Braun played SS/2B and Sogard played LF. Which is why it's a good idea to, when they differ a lot, take the average. When it comes to position players, differences nearly always stem from defense. DRS (used in bWAR) tends to produce more extreme differences between good and bad defenders than UZR, even when they both agree on who the best and worst defenders are. Generally though the problem with WAR isn't so much WAR itself, but how it's used. And a lack of understanding of what it is and how it's calculated. Small differences in WAR over short periods of time should be ignored (Which their creators also are very clear with), but larger differences over time are a whole other matter. That's largely due to defensive metrics needing a long time to stabilize. What WAR essentially does is package together offense, defense, baserunning and playing time to give an overview of roughly how much a player contributed. It's a way to compare a baserunning phenom, a defensive wizard and Chris Carter. It's a good starting point, you can then look further to see in what manner they accrued those WAR. Lorenzo Cain isn't an MVP candidate because he leads the league in bWAR. He's an MVP candiate (or should be) because he's good at the plate, a good baserunner and a good defender. WAR simply sums that up, and shows how valuable that is. It's also evolving all the time, and as defensive metrics get better it will get more accurate. Statcast data, when/if it gets implemented, will likely be a big step forward.

It should not be the sole determining factor, on that we can agree. But if your statement goes further than that, and that it shouldn't even be one of the factors, then mind explaining what aspect of bWAR for pitchers makes you feel that?

No, and and that's because stat-based incentives are prohibited.

I'm enjoying this. Please add on some runs though!

Most likely Fresno I would think. Not ideal perhaps, but it beats having Colorado Springs as your AAA affiliate, where you can't really evaluate either hitters or pitchers. Colorado Springs as a short-season Rookie affiliate is much more tolerable.

Not really related to this specifically, but has anyone else noticed how salty Cubs fans are? Not talking about today, after losing a game like that we'd be pretty salty too. But I mean more in general. They ended a WS drought in 2016, they have been to the playoffs three years in a row and in all likelyhood will be there for a 4th. They have a good young position player core under team control for several more years. They have all the money in the world to get the pitching to complement that. They have a good front office. They have seemingly dedicated owners who are investing in the team, renovating Wrigley field and such. I mean as far as being a sports fan goes, being a Cubs fan right now should be pretty sweet I would think. Yet there is so much salt anywhere. Now as someone who lives nowhere near either Illinois or Wisconsin this is mainly based on their online presence, so perhaps it isn't reflective of the fanbase at large. Or is it? I'd be curious to know.

Is the same true for Jake Thompson, i.e he'll also be a minor league free agent after the season (unless added to the roster)? Also, they have seemingly both played in parts of 7 minor league seasons, and so would be minor league FAs at the end of the season in any situation where they were not on a 40-man roster at the end of the season, correct? Would the same be true of a player with, say, 4 years of minor league service time? As in, is it inherent in being outrighted that you become a minor league FA, or is it down to their minor league service time?

For those of you who don't use Reddit, here's the Celine Dion Play of the Game: https://streamable.com/ecthl Just for the hell of it, why not the last one too: https://streamable.com/8fqss