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He sure has shown something along those lines lately, hasn't he? This new development group would earn a huge feather in their cap if that guy makes it here.

Anyone is free to throw all the data out and go with their gut as they like. I'm no data scientist, but my view as an autodidactic stats layman is that, if multiple sources tend to agree in the same direction, then small sample sizes are more believable. Unless by small sample size you mean Willi hasn't played enough innings anywhere to be able to trust him playing 1,440 innings a year at any one position, but then I think that would apply to something like 90% of all players, even big leaguers.

Fun fact: Willi had positive defensive metrics on Baseball Reference, Fangraphs, and Statcast for his infield work, and on Reference for his outfield work, both this year with the Twins and last year with the Tigers. Another example of how the narrative sometimes drowns out the evidence.

Early on I thought we might have kept him, and I would have been fine with it, although as with Jeimer, I just think in the end the clamor to shtcan him was just too loud. It does not surprise me that he would put up a 2-win season. And he's done it while playing four positions pretty regularly and three others when needed!

As they all do! So maybe we sign Jeimer to a 4/50 this winter! 🦆🦆🦆

Right, Skubal is nothing like a workhorse ace, which are generationally rare unicorns. But he's what Harris/Greenberg have inherited so he's what we have to try to count on for now, at least until whatever players this front office brings aboard through draft or trade or free agency move into a position to become the dominant, franchise-leading forces that ring-winning teams need. I think we are probably years and years away from that happening.

My early sense of this is that, based on his background with the Cubs, Jeff Greenberg is going to take on the nuts and bolts part of general managing—negotiating with teams and agents, feeling out trade possibilities, taking on point-of-contact responsibility between executive management and other departments like scouting and analytics, leading preparation for and executing the drafts, and probably a few other things not immediately leaping to mind—while Scott Harris works with ownership and the executive team to develop the overall vision for baseball operations as well as the strategic direction for Greenberg to implement. In other words, as the titles suggest, I believe Greenberg will do the managing, while Harris does the presiding.

Maybe. That may end up being a distinction without much relevance since I am not totally sold on Manning yet, either. The only pitcher we have I am reasonably confident, or at least optimistic, will be an important part of our playoff team pitching staff is Tarik Skubal. Even Casey Mize is on notice to start killing right out of the box next year. This may be as good a time as any to remind everyone that, tantalizing though his stuff may be, Mize's future is starting to evaporate, as he turns 27 next May while cobbling together a very thin resume. He's not anything like a lost cause yet, but man, a whole lot of sand has fallen in his hourglass already. Sht, man, he's already arb-eligible next year!

Lachlan, right? Nothing changes.

Mmmm, burgers and whiskey. Breakfast of champions.

They may be hoping, maybe even assuming, that Trump will take all that away from illegal aliens and teh blacks and keep it for them the real Americans

Yeah, this two-bit RSBN operation need to vet their interviews better.

I wold think that everyone would move to Threads, which needs something like Musk doing something stupid like this to accelerate their growth.

I was working at a thing yesterday and one of the women there is from Indianapolis, and we both agreed that the majors would have to expand to 40 teams before Indianapolis gets a big league club. We also agreed that it’s time for the AAA team there to change their nickname.

Reese Olson is having a nice little season out of nowhere at this level and he has earned the right to be penciled in as an early favorite for the rotation next year, but I’m gonna need to see him do it for a couple more years before I believe he will be in the middle of the rotation of the next playoff team.

Candelario also hadn’t been doing too well before the Cubs put him on the IL.

Yeah, he was coming off a downballot MVP year with the Cardinals, which is why the Cubs threw 8/168 at him. It seemed reasonable to believe that this 26-year-old coming off several 5+ win seasons had a lot of great years left in him, and then he just collapsed with the Cubs. Now he has a career revival as soon as he goes to the Dodgers. Just goes to prove again how much what system you’re playing in can really matter.

That was always the thing with him—he had all the tools except command, and if he could lick his problem with walks, he could potentially be one of the elite closers. It’s just that his best pitch is so hard to control, it looks like he may never get to that exact point. I do believe he still has a good chance to have a decent career because left-headers who can wipe out hitters are very valuable, and he does have a very low sOPS+ against even RHHs. Whether we keep him, or we dump him because he can’t reach the pinnacle, he’ll be fine. I wouldn’t be too surprised if he sticks around all next year, barring abject collapse.

Yeah, I also remember that the nuns were not so big on the concept of validating the humanity of the children in class. 😅

Because of course why wouldn't a congressional rep retire to do this instead?

I'm not anything like Team Lange, so you don't have to tell me so. 😁

I should stop talking now. 😛

I was using "UCL" as an inexact synonym for a tear requiring TJ. I have no doubt that is the tendon in question.

Looking at that list, I can see why some people here are pining for that for us. We grew up with a bunch of those teams!

That would make them just the 44th team in history (out of some 2,500 teams total) to ever achieve that, and the first since 2012.