TheLeviathan

I saw that. Trump is the embodiment of so much wrong in this country, but Hillary is the embodiment of so much wrong with politics. Fun choice.

Impressive. I don't really have the appropriate words for this @^*@ fest.

I believe it has been firmly established that your totally justifiable take makes you "not a real fan". Sorry, those of us that are being pushed out are forming a club.....want in? We haven't settled on a name yet though. "We thought we were fans but 8 hours to finish a game made us mad and now we're not allowed to be fans anymore" doesn't have a good acronym. I'm starting to wonder if the "you're not a real fan!" is referring not to baseball but the unending commercials.....

They let the fringe take over because they thought opening the gates to them would strengthen them. Well now it's a full on coup and the barbarians are already inside the gates.

I'm glad he made the decision on his own terms. It seems fitting for how the man lives his life.

Boy does Obama's dismissive attitude about Russia look stupid now. How the hell did it get this far?

Newt is yet another guy who sold his principles out to stay relevant with the party once Trump took over. The guy has been one of the more reasonable guys on many issues (education comes to mind) but in this cycle he has sold out to the crazies. That interview, good lord.

An excuse is: a reason or explanation put forward to defend or justify a fault or offense It need not be a fault or an offense for us to win a championship. It's an extra obstacle, nothing more.

I did conflate those, I actually just re-read that and noticed the issue as well. I meant "replacement", I'm just accustomed to saying "average". His bat has been slightly above average. The last five years have him at 108 wRC+, but that's noticeably behind many other players. (He's roughly 120ish) Yet for WAR he'd rank 12th. For me, that's too large a gulf for the defense to be making that big of an impact for a RF. As for the market, it's welcome to value players any way it wants. I try not to let money make that determination so much as what the player is actually providing on the field. Heyward is a balanced player with some good strengths. But a guy who isn't good enough as a fielder to play center and not a good enough hitter to play right....I feel like saying he's the 12th best player over the last five years is misjudging his value. And the core of that problem is that we still can't measure defense very well and we have an even harder time comparing it across positions by one metric. It's not the end of the world because WAR need not be the end of our pursuit of a valuable metric. But we should recognize why it's not the end of that pursuit and why it's actually quite a long way from that goal. Being the best of a bad group of alternatives doesn't make something "good".

The problem isn't so much this year, though again I'd argue his defense is misleadingly calling him above average when he should really be a bench or situational player, it's over the course of the last few years lopsided defensive numbers have made a player who can't even crack the top 100 players by WRC+ over the last 5 years, the 12th best player by WAR. I value defense, but that valuation is off from that position. And it's because our way of measuring defense needs a lot of work. We should have humility about that, not hubris.

Absolutely incorporate defense. Just go into it being honest about what that looks like. The problem with Heyward was that, relative to other players, too much of his former value as calculated by WAR was defensive. We're so drunk on that component that even when he can't hit, we're still doubling down on the absurd notion. I guess I just like to believe if we're going to be advocates for statistics we should be honest advocates. Most of the time when people talk about WAR I feel like I'm being sold a lemon. Sure, WAR is better than the past, but it's not the holy grail as it's often talked about. Just because I'm taking a dog-sled to work instead of walking doesn't mean I get to call it a limousine. WAR worshippers are becoming as bad as the Joe Morgan types they used to attack. Sorry to derail the thread, it just bugs me to read utter garbage like that from Fangraphs.

His bleh offense has always been masked by wonky defensive WAR ratings. Anyone who places too much value on the stat without recognizing that should take him as a case in point to temper your view. He is the poster boy for why you should really moderate your stance on that stat if you haven't already. It's still fine if you recognize the deep flaws and use it correctly. But virtually no one does so...yeah.

If you're going to play Schwarber in the OF, I"m not sure having him is all that much of a plus. They have to figure that out. What makes the Cubs different than the Indians is that they can spend more on Lester, The poster boy for everything wrong with WAR - Heyward, and Lackey than the entire active Indians roster. That is an advantage right now and that advantage will only grow over time. Again, not an excuse, but accepting and acknowledging that fact is every bit as vital to this discussion as accepting that the Twins can spend more than they do.

Short snippets of Cuddy have me intrigued by him as the color guy.

I like most of your post, but this goes a bit farther than I'm comfortable with. This is still a very good team without those big signings, but they haven't even fully unleashed their payroll possibilities yet. Right now they're where they are mostly from savvy GM work. The money is going to be the factor that keeps them in this conversation far longer than a team like the Indians.

Payroll should not be an excuse. It's also a significant advantage. Those are not mutually exclusive.

Leaving pitches up, making errors, or having defensive gaffes are not a direct reflection of talent. Sometimes the bad luck is that otherwise reliable players had that happen and the resulting damage is heightened in the playoffs. Call that whatever you want, but talent doesn't determine that either way. That sort of randomness is why the playoffs are a crapshoot.

Just a few relevant Fangraphs articles.

1) Most people believed the 2015 Cardinals were the best team. What happened to them? Go back and look at the teams with the best records and see what happened to them in the playoffs. This is what happens over a small sample size. The better team routinely gets beaten. Hell, how many play-in teams in just the last few years have made WS runs? So, c'mon, that argument is nonsense. 2) Of course the Cubs would beat a little league team. One of them isn't filled with professional baseball players. Again. C'mon. 3) 1, 5, or 7 game series after a 162 game season are the definition of a small sample size. Small sample sizes are not nearly as good a measure of quality as a larger sample. To deny that small sample size terrorizes better teams in the playoffs is to deny a simple reality about statistics. You are welcome to do so, but you're wrong if you do. This is, in no way, arguing the Twins were a better or worse team. That'd have to be a year by year thing. The argument that the playoffs do anything other than show "this team lucked and skilled their way over a ridiculously small sample to a title" is nonsense. The playoffs are purely for entertainment. The regular season always give us the best measurement of who the best team is. What happens in the playoffs is just crazy *@%$ you hope you come out on the right side of. Can you try and have a roster that gives you better odds of surviving all that crazy *@%$? Sure. You'll still fall victim. No matter how you construct your build. No matter how much more superior you are to your opponent. No matter how well you manage. You will still fall victim. Often. More often than you'd like. That's what small samples do, they lie. The outcomes frequently lie about who is better.

Calling it a crapshoot means the outcome is uncertain no matter what you think you see beforehand. I I could go back and pick out 5 game stretches and argue the Twins deserved to be a 100 win team. Would that be a valid way of determining their talent or ability? No? Then why is it ever? Small samples are prone to wild swings of luck and demonstrations of play that exceed or slump relative to expectations. We have playoffs for atmosphere, entertainment, and a variety of other reasons. It does absolutely nothing for determining the league's best team beyond ceremony. The 162 game season already pretty much told us who the best team was and that team doesn't win the playoffs with much regularity. So yeah, it's a crapshoot.

Why can't there be elements of the Cubs build we emulate and some we can't? The truth is, we won't ever be dropping multiple giant contracts on guys like Lester and Heyward and still afford guys like Zobrist, Chapman, etc. That's just reality. We can't emulate that. Arguing or denying that just looks silly. What we can do is be smart about investing in upside here in the early years. Try to find bullpen arms or other avenues to give available spots we have to guys that can build value and be traded. We can make smart trades like Rizzo and Arrieta. Some of that is luck, but you can make your own luck by targeting upside. We can also focus on drafting hitters with high picks because they have more reliable profiles. We can focus on defense. We can know when to sell like the Cubs did with Smarj and others. (Like we currently have with Dozier and Santana that some of you seem hell bent on ignoring) So, take some of the good ideas we can replicate and be creative to fill in the rest.

Did you watch any of those games? Because is there weren't nearly a dozen times you were flabbergasted by amazing strokes of bad luck, I don't know if we watched the same games. The other half of those terrible records was a psychological component. But to cut past all this, if you don't think isolated 5 or 7 games samples aren't the definition of small sample size, you just frankly don't believe in small sample size. And you should. That's a thing. Like, an important fact about looking at statistics. So...you're just plain off base. (No Punto Puns intended there)

I voted early in Arizona. Maybe it's the much higher ratio of Trump-hat-wearing Tea Partiers....but I've never voted so many Dems in my life.

I don't think the point was to dog Santana. The point was you can't just say "have a couple great pitchers and you're good". Baseball playoffs are basically small sample size terrorism. You can try to plan and have the best talent available to give yourself the best shot, but the small sample will always be there to humble you. I think the point is, you can call it a crapshoot (totally uncertain) and still prepare the best you can. But no matter how good Johan pitches he can still go 1-3 over a small sample and have his team lose most of those games.

I'd like to see what Gibson, Berrios, Santiago, and some trade acquisitions can do if we prioritize defense going into next year. I'll sacrifice that a bit at third base to see if Sano can improve with regular playing time, but everywhere else we have the potential to be playing a plus defender if Rosario-Buxton-Kepler are the outfielders, Polanco and Vargas/Mauer, are on the right side, and we address catcher and shortstop from outside the organization. Plus, it'd be nice to have the kids we call up given the best odds of succeeding possible.