IST: Cubs @ Cardinals

fatbeard

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Happ needs to be the starting LF next year with his 35 HR potential and decent fielding skills. Schwarber needs to be traded to clear up the logjam. If Schwarber had played fulltime this year he woould have been on pace to have the 5th most KOs in the history of baseball

Happ's K% was higher than Schwarber's.

Dipshit.
 

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Just where will that be? It certainly won't be here. Do you think Maddon is suddenly gonna change his stripes? Not likely, he loves to mix and match and he will row that boat till his arms fall off. And you know what? It's working....I see no reason for him to stop.
Nah. With Zo showing his age Happ will take more of that role. Need that bat in the lineup and frankly he's a better LF than Schwarber to boot.
 

beckdawg

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Ian frickn Happ

Cant wait to see what this kid can do playing everyday

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Isn't happ basically playing every day already? Guy has 402 PAs this year. Contreras has 423 in 3 more games.
 

beckdawg

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Happ needs to be the starting LF next year with his 35 HR potential and decent fielding skills. Schwarber needs to be traded to clear up the logjam. If Schwarber had played fulltime this year he woould have been on pace to have the 5th most KOs in the history of baseball

Happ probably doesn't have 35 HR potential. He's more a 25-30 HR guy best case and the scouting prior to this year had him far lower than that. Not 100% why as he'd shown 20ish HR power in the minors. As for Schwarber vs him, people always want to make it about one young guy vs another but that's not really how a roster works. You frankly want a lot of overlap in players both in terms of injury coverage and in terms of depth for days you rest guys. Next year I think what you're going to see is Happ take most of Jay's role opposite Almora in CF. Almora is going to play vs LHP and probably some more vs RHP but he's not going to play 160 games or whatever. He's at 319 PAs this year and I think given his recent performance you could argue for him getting 400-500 PAs next year. Jay has 427 PAs this year so if you roughly split his playing time with Happ that's 200 PAs Happ can easily get.

As for the rest of Happ's PAs, think you can fairly reliably play him as a rotational piece at 2B. Baez is going to be Bryant's back up at 3B so when Bryant or Baez sits Happ can play 2B. And chances are you're going to sit Schwarber vs some if not all LHP so that opens options there.

Long story short if there's a guy left out in the cold to me it's not Schwarber it's Zobrist. Zobrist is going to be 37 and is hitting .238/.323/.384. Schwarber obviously has some flaws but is hitting .208/.313/.462 on the season and .241/.333/.553 since the start of june. You give Schwarber a healthy offseason where he's not rehabbing a knee and I think you will see those numbers since the start of june improve even more. If he cuts down his k rate to say 25% he's probably something like .270/.360/.590. And the thing is Schwarber wasn't a high strikeout guy in the minors. That's important to note because typically speaking players eventually return in line with their minor league numbers after they fully adjust to the majors. Mentioned this before but right now his swing doesn't handle anything on the inner third of the plate. But that's the same exact problem Rizzo had prior to 2014 as a lefty slugger. Schwarber has work to do there but it's not like it's impossible to fix that.
 

beckdawg

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Also for what it's worth, people in general probably need to worry less about having fixture guys at one position save for Bryant/Rizzo. The thing with being a team that goes deep into the playoffs is it wears on you more. That's why it's so hard to repeat in baseball. I think part of the idea the cubs front office is running with is to have so much redundancy offensively that you can take your foot of the accelerator a bit early in the year and have enough talent to push around midseason. More simply put, I think in an ideal world the cubs probably don't want 8 guys with 600+ PAs. They'd probably rather have 10-12 guys with 400+ PAs if they can get away with it because in theory that means the guys will be fresher during the playoffs.
 

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Also for what it's worth, people in general probably need to worry less about having fixture guys at one position save for Bryant/Rizzo. The thing with being a team that goes deep into the playoffs is it wears on you more. That's why it's so hard to repeat in baseball. I think part of the idea the cubs front office is running with is to have so much redundancy offensively that you can take your foot of the accelerator a bit early in the year and have enough talent to push around midseason. More simply put, I think in an ideal world the cubs probably don't want 8 guys with 600+ PAs. They'd probably rather have 10-12 guys with 400+ PAs if they can get away with it because in theory that means the guys will be fresher during the playoffs.
Or you could look at it that everyone looks forward to coming to the yard every day, as they are regular contributors to the team.
 

chibears55

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Or you could look at it that everyone looks forward to coming to the yard every day, as they are regular contributors to the team.
That always been my thinking...

I can appreciate having a guy or two on bench who plays multiple positions and can give guys days off without putting a hole lineup..
But
I remember always hearing from players that they love seeing their name on the lineup card everyday , mostly because they want to play and because it keeps them in rhythm ..

They would say that sitting for a couple games between playing hurts at times cause it can be hard getting back into the flow of things like timing etc...



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chibears55

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Isn't happ basically playing every day already? Guy has 402 PAs this year. Contreras has 423 in 3 more games.
Playing everyday from game 1 of season, is what i was referring to.

He started in 88 of 113 games he been up this year...
Love to see what his numbers would be starting in 135 or more in a full season..

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fatbeard

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Long story short if there's a guy left out in the cold to me it's not Schwarber it's Zobrist. Zobrist is going to be 37 and is hitting .238/.323/.384. Schwarber obviously has some flaws but is hitting .208/.313/.462 on the season and .241/.333/.553 since the start of june. You give Schwarber a healthy offseason where he's not rehabbing a knee and I think you will see those numbers since the start of june improve even more. If he cuts down his k rate to say 25% he's probably something like .270/.360/.590. And the thing is Schwarber wasn't a high strikeout guy in the minors. That's important to note because typically speaking players eventually return in line with their minor league numbers after they fully adjust to the majors. Mentioned this before but right now his swing doesn't handle anything on the inner third of the plate. But that's the same exact problem Rizzo had prior to 2014 as a lefty slugger. Schwarber has work to do there but it's not like it's impossible to fix that.

It might be "that time" for Zobrist anyway. His numbers since June 1st of last year are not good.

http://www.fangraphs.com/splitstool...&startDate=2016-6-1&endDate=2017-9-30&filter=
 

chibears55

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It might be "that time" for Zobrist anyway. His numbers since June 1st of last year are not good.

http://www.fangraphs.com/splitstool...&startDate=2016-6-1&endDate=2017-9-30&filter=
I was saying he should of been relegated to bench duties before ST started but most on here said i was nuts cause he was "WS MVP " and you dont bench him...

Barring any major trades, young guys in Baez Happ Schwarber Almora all need to be getting regular ABs and playing everyday or most everyday a whole lot more then Zobrist..

Zobrist needs to be put in a David Ross Role and just start once a week , come off bench, and just be more of a veteran presence on a young team in his final 2 years.

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beckdawg

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That always been my thinking...

I can appreciate having a guy or two on bench who plays multiple positions and can give guys days off without putting a hole lineup..
But
I remember always hearing from players that they love seeing their name on the lineup card everyday , mostly because they want to play and because it keeps them in rhythm ..

They would say that sitting for a couple games between playing hurts at times cause it can be hard getting back into the flow of things like timing etc...



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What's best for the player isn't necessarily best for the team. I'd imagine most players would play 162 games if you let them and they weren't hurt but then by the playoffs their body would be shot. The reason of course is because the more games they play the more stats they acquire and thus the higher they get paid. As for keeping them in rhythm, who cares about them being in rhythm in april and may? Obviously you'd like to win those games if possible but I'd rather be a team like the cubs/indians who are hot now than the dodgers who ran up a ridiculous first half and have struggled in the second.

Ultimately the baseball regular season is a marathon not a sprint. It's about when you push because no team can realistically push for 162 games.
 

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Schwarber's opposite field power is so good.

That's what he needs to start doing, driving in some teammates. If he catches fire, the rest of the teams are in trouble.
 

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