NL CENTRAL PREDICTATRON

just curious, are the brewers going after dallas keuchel at all? their only weakness is starting pitching imo, seems like it would make a lot of sense? is it just money, i guess? i know the brewers are a small market team but am i wrong in thinking that pretty much any team in baseball, in the era of billion dollar tv deals, can afford keuchel?

is it his beard? it's probably his beard

he's had a couple majestic seasons and quite a few very average seasons, he's 31, his strikeouts are down, etc.

so i can see him thinking 'i am a cy young winner' and other teams thinking 'not anymore, really' and there being a gap in perceived value. but yeah, any team *could* afford him

still projected for ~ 3.5 WAR for next year, though, which would make him the ace of the brewers and bump a mediocre SP out of the rotation. i'm just surprised they haven't jumped on it

3.5 WAR would be better than their first three starters combined.

In any case he is represented by Boras so we will be lucky if he signs anywhere before Opening Day.

Makes You Think

Cubs manager Joe Maddon says “Own It Now” is his mantra for this season. Taking ownership. Owning the moment. And, “now” backwards is “won”. pic.twitter.com/vWl50DcLuC

— Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) February 12, 2019

If Keuchel wants a multi-year deal I can see why the Brewers would be gun-shy. they have a long history of signing 31-year old SPs to 3/4-year deals and watching them become totally worthless halfway through year 2 (or from the very first start in the case of Jeff Suppan)

honestly have no clue what they're planning - the big questions for Milwaukee are 1) do you expect Jimmy Nelson to be healthy and effective and 2) is Corbin Burnes gonna be a serviceable starter. if both those things are 'yes' then I don't think they necessarily need another SP (at least, not at the price they'd likely have to pay)

of course he wants a multi-year deal

i don't actually believe the cubs will finish last -- they do, after all, Own the Now -- but lol anyway

updated PECOTA has Cubs last in the NL Central. 😬 https://t.co/KBxbepFrm2

— Rob Arthur (@No_Little_Plans) February 13, 2019

😬

not a lot of margin of difference/error between those bottom three teams

it's weird they have the cubs defense rated so low compared to the pirates. i don't know much about the pirates defense but i thought the cubs defense was pretty good, except for when schwarber is in the game

that seems to be the reason for the cubs being in last considering they're predicted to be better at the pirates at everything else

neither the pirates nor the cubs seem to have done much of anything this winter, but the cubs will have a full season of hamels and possibly some darvish. no idea why this somehow closes last year's 12-game gap between them

On lower left corner of Cubs workout schedule: pic.twitter.com/oOJfhKyo0q

— Mark Gonzales (@MDGonzales) February 18, 2019

this quote about Matheny really takes me back:

In the Mike Matheny days, bullpen crunches were...well, bullpen crunches seemed to be about a twice a week problem, which was amazing given that Matheny somehow managed to leave starters in too long far too often, use his ‘pen in such a way there were never enough arms, and also lean so heavily on certain players as to burn them out midway through a season. It would seem, in any rational world, that doing two of those things would mean the third would be almost impossible, yet Matheny managed the trifecta of bullpen disasters pretty regularly. I suppose it takes a man of great faith to produce miracles.

watching the first Cardinals ST game and the announcers, and they've spent every single one of the 15 minutes i've watched complaining about how baseball is all strikeouts and HRs and how baseball sucks and "they're analyzing the analytics now, and they're finding that there is too much shifting" and they don't run enough anymore and back during the days of Whiteyball there was more hit and run and baseball sucks

i seriously can't take this shit again this year. guess i'm just going to start off with my late 2018 season approach of starting the game with the opposing team's broadcast, and then switching to "stadium/atmospheric noise/ambient" mode if i can't stand them either.

i am jealous of teams that have broadcasters who aren't annoying buffoons

Woah - how does one get just stadium noise?!

it's an option on mlb.tv, maybe just during regular season games. in certain situations, it is amazing how much better it is

Park sound wasn't available on their Apple TV app last year iirc, but it is now, hallelujah.

this is kind of a ridiculous idea, but i always wonder about what would happen if teams made their broadcasters open source - they could provide the video feed and some basic stats to everyone for free and allow them to do play-by-play over the top. in my head i have this idea that the next vin scully is sitting out there on their couch somewhere, just needing a chance. but in reality it would probably end up like Twitch where the most popular broadcasters are increeeeeedibly annoying and it's depressing to consider that most people actually like it

but for now, i will just be happy that park noise is there as an option, as it is so often better than the professional human options that are available

I’ve honestly wondered the same about open source broadcasting.

I might do the silent broadcast for the Blue Jays. Martinez is awful.

otm

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/pittsburghs-increasingly-cold-relationship-with-the-pirates-is-an-example-of-modern-baseball-gone-awry

alex reyes . . . lives

he just needs to live to to retire one more batter before he's no longer a rookie (exactly 50 innings in his career so far)

here are some assholes i hate

aroldis chapman
josh hader
craig timbrel
manny machado
jose reyes
jung-ho kang
manny machado
addison russell

in no order

double machado is vicious

one for the lame ankle kick as he was crossing first
one for refusing to apologize

carlos martinez has already gone down an injury, "received a platelet-rich plasma injection", and seems likely to be a reliever again this year. it kinda makes me sad because he's one of my favorite players. but actually, he's kind of electric as a reliever. and if hicks' arm avoids exploding, miller is even half of what he used to be, and leone is still pretty good, that would be a pretty excellent bullpen.

fp'd you for not asking how hot dominic leone is in person

get yr shit together karl malone

i saw that earlier today and fp'd myself for the same reason. but really i should have done that last year. i have no idea how that didn't occur to me

I am sincerely enjoying the wide array of opinions about whether Javier Baez can sustain his 2018 performance or not.

do we need an NL CENTRAL PREDICTATRON 2019 thread at least? or just keep going in this one

I might do the silent broadcast for the Blue Jays. Martinez is awful.

― Van Horn Street, Sunday, February 24, 2019 5:58 PM (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I like Buck. Not his insight but mainly his old timey California accent

i favor restoring team threads; this concept is too 'cute'

Stay in yr own division!! ;)

I like having one divisional thread because the cardinals thread is mainly just me and it gets lonely

yeah i don't know that we really have enough posters to sustain individual team threads. in any case, i'm going to start a predictatron thread just bc it's fun to try and guess who's going to win.

oh shit, i didn't notice the new thread til now! (i am hopelessly reliant on bookmarks). for other pitiable souls:

NL CENTRAL PREDICTATRON 2019