The divorce isn't really that bad. We had great years with him and it was time to try something new. It was more divorcing us to go marry our big brother that has more money that caused the hate. If he left for Cleveland or the Mets then I think pretty much everyone is over it already and the original backlash wouldn't have probably been non-existent.
Arm Strength is honestly just an overrated aspect of 3B defense. Monasterio had one of the weakest 3B arms but put up 6 DRS, 1 UZR, and 2 OAA in less than 500 innings at 3B.
Here you go: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/arm-strength?type=player&year=2023&minThrows=100&pos=&team=&sortColumn=arm_3b&sortDirection=desc
Statcast > Eye test
Of 58 guys with at least 100 throws at 3B last year Madrigal's arm strength of 85.1 was 23rd among 3B and the exact same number as Manny Machado. Maybe your eye test isn't as accurate as you think it is.
Yeah Boras might have actually hurt Bellinger here. He way overperformed his peripherals last year in a way that doesn’t look super sustainable. If he regresses then he’s really going to regret not signing a long term deal.
I agree the Cubs didn’t improve much this offseason. Bellinger returned and Imanaga replaced Stroman. That leaves their 2 best additions at Michael Busch and Hector Neris. Not exactly big time upgrades. I think I’d put them and St. Louis ahead of us going into the year though.
Must be a fangraphs mistake. He was drafted in 2021 out of HS. He shouldn't be Rule 5 eligible until 2025. Avina and Nicasia were both drafted out of HS in the same draft and Fangraphs has them Rule 5 eligible in 2025.
Just browsing Fangraphs this past week during their Prospect Week and Longenhagen is considerably lower on our system than the rest of the industry. Interesting to see. Feel like in the past he was higher on us than consensus but now he has us probably outside the top 10 in terms of farm system rankings compared to us being I think top 3 according to everyone else.
The bullpen likely is worse in 2024. They had the 5th highest bullpen WPA of the 21st century (720 different bullpen seasons) last year. They could have the same ERA this season but the likelihood they replicate how clutch the high leverage guys were this season is pretty slim.
He signed the same day that Liam Hendriks signed. Why would teams have signed him before the 60-day IL became available again? Just some very dramatic assumptions being made.