d-mac

You mean drafting relievers with the hope to turn them in to starters didn't work out? No way! Nobody could have ever guessed!

I never understood the hype about Diaz. He's never produced.

The best return of all the trades so far looks like the one for Pressly. A bit of stretch on value by Houston, IMO. Either that or we didn't know what we had. Anyway, the Twins were clearly blown away enough to move Pressly. Doubt they move anyone else with team control for next year. The rest of these trades have just been to offload impending free agents and we got back about what I'd expect for all three.

Gotta think the FO thought the return was too good to turn down for Pressly, a controllable asset. As mentioned above, gotta believe if Gibby gets moved then that tells you how the front office thinks about next year. But I'd also add that that means they probably aren't putting too much stock into Buxton and Sano ever become decent players.

His batted ball profile has never been very good. Over his career only 16.7% of his balls in play are liners and more than 10% of fly balls are of the infield variety. He is setting career worsts in both categories this year. Frankly, he needs to re-tool his swing. He needs to generate more loft.

Fair assessment. But I think people are overselling the pitching improvement significantly. Odorizzi and Lynn have xFIPs in the mid-to high fours and even Romero's is like 4.14. Bullpen has been improved substantially, but we'll see how long that can continue with Molitor's misuse of Presley, Reed, and Hildy.

The cubs up to this point have been very lucky. Their xFIP is actually worse than the Twins. They can't sustain that outperformance for an entire season.

Did you read the portion in my post about how inflated minor league BABIPs does not qualify as raking? His BABIP in the minors was about .400. That is just not possible at the major league level NO MATTER HOW FAST A PLAYER IS. It just isn't. Buxton has never proven to be able to control the strike zone or make quality contact AT ANY LEVEL. Assuming that he can just turn that around after six years of pro ball is a hell of a lot of faith. Any GM worth their salt cannot rely on a player like Buxton.

His BABIP is incredibly low because his LD% has cratered to 11%. His career average prior to this season was about 21%. And a 40% K rate. That's a lot of easy outs.

The entire staff has an xFIP of 4.14. That's 8th in the AL. Not terrible. But we aren't going to compete for the playoffs without a high powered offense in this scenario.

Luke Ritter and Zach Thomas look intriguing. I wonder if we can get them to sign. I liked the strategy of going after college players in top conferences. That seemed to be a theme in this draft. With the previous brain trust there seemed to be a lot of college picks from mid-major conferences. There is an ocean of talent between the lower end division one conferences and the SEC, ACC, and Pac12s of the world- which are almost like glorified minor leagues.

I've been saying it since 2012... I would have drafted Gausman over Buxton and the Astros ran circles around us during that draft. The concerns with Buxton's bat have always been there- as an amateur he was extremely raw and came from a high school conference devoid of any talent (other than himself)- he had probably never seen a breaking ball before pro ball. One should always be wary of the uber athlete with contact deficiencies- the power won't play in a game if they can't make contact and the speed won't play on the bases if they can't get on base. Furthermore, age and injuries can make athleticism fleeting. None of that means he couldn't have become the player we had all hoped he would. The previous development team had absolutely destroyed any chance he had to be come a productive major league hitter. He should have been moved at the glacial "one level a year" pace. His speed inflates BABIPs in the minors- many of those infield singles turn to outs and doubles and triples turn to singles and doubles at the major league level. He never learned to control the strike zone- his best BB/K ratio was .79 at A ball in 2013. His BB/K in AA in 2015 was .51. He was recovering from a major concussion. He should have stayed there for the entire season. He should have stayed in AAA for all of not most of 2016. Instead they chose to cash in on his hype for short term gain instead of focusing on his long term success as a player. Sadly, with 1074 PAs at the major league level he probably is who he is at this point- an often injured 4th outfielder with a .230/.285/.387 triple slash and an abysmal .21 BB/K rate. As far as Sano goes- I was a believer until this year. The events of these past 7-8 months have really caused me to sour on him. Maybe shipping him to AAA will be the wake up call he needs to get his s*** straightened out. Kepler is at 1257 PAs and is probably is who he is at this point- he hits too many ground balls and pop ups- doesn't drive the ball enough- either he's got to add more launch angle or he's going to be a fairly fungible player for the remainder of his career. As far as Dozier, Mauer, Santana go- getting old sucks. That's a lot of hope on unproven players and players on the wrong side of 30. Here's to hoping this development team won't f*** up our next core of position players coming up.

Kody Funderburk- Plus, plus name. Intriguing two-way player out of Dallas Baptist. Interesting they took him as a pitcher- stats say he has some control issues. But solid triple slash with some power as a hitter: http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/profile.asp?ID=211989

Not Owen Sharts, but a plus name.

Michael Helman, just scouting his stats- he slashed .366/.453/.511 in 235 ABs in his first year in the SEC. Also put up a 1:1 BB/K ratio, hit six home runs and stole 12 bases in 14 attempts. Sollid pickup, but he may be a candidate to return for his senior year, as he was at the JUCO level his first two seasons and may improve his draft position with another year starting in the top baseball conference.

That acronym exists for a reason.

FWIW, fangraphs says Larnach's exit velo is ELITE, and he's improved his launch angle. Where do I sign up?

TINSTAAPP

Can't say I've had any time this year to follow the draft- probably the first since 2010 that I've been tuned out. But I like what I see so far from Larnach. Hits for average, power, draws walks- all at a top tier college conference. Very pretty swing on video. And it sounds like he'll hold his own in the field. Likely underslot too. Use that money to nab a number of top 200 draft prospects with our limited number of picks.

I kind of hate one dimensional players who can't hit in the first round. Athletes that can't hit can be found in any round.

Imma is so 2012, bruh.

I don't normally do the game thread... But I wanted everyone to know that it is today opening day, but it is also my birthday. So yeah, today is awesome! I know you're all jealous.

Great value pick up. MLBTR pegged LoMo for a 3 year $33 mil contract. Another power bat in the lineup never hurts. If he regresses, just costs us $6.5 mil and JT Chargois. But I think that he can replicate last season. He boosted his power numbers by increasing his launch angle. Top 30 in both barrel% and exit velo last year. Boosted his walk rate. Statcast says he slightly under performed his xwOBA by a few points.

Also had below average peripherals in '16. He's been trending downwards for a while now. Without more data his September looks nothing more than an aberration and not the start of the new trend. He is cheap. For a reason.

Move past the ERA. It's just an illusion, man.