Jake

My hope for Madrigal is that he's a .750 OPS guy with great fielding and baserunning. His downside is being Chris Getz.

This is the second-lowest 5-game K% Moncada's ever had and the second-best 5-game wRC+. He hit poorly in the only other 5-game stretch with a lower K%. The only 5-game stretch with a better wRC+, he struck out in 41% of his plate appearances. He's swinging at strikes a bit more often than his career norms, but what stands out more is the amount of contact on pitches in the zone. He's chasing pitches just a bit less than career norms, but this is impressive when considering he's gotten more aggressive in the zone.

It's not like it really matters, but this doesn't make much sense. Covey faced 10 batters, 1 of whom he intentionally walked and another who reached on error. Of the other 8, he got 4 out. What about that run changes your mind about having him in the pen vs Jose Ruiz, who hasn't pitched since the end of ST? Again, this really isn't important, but I'm very confused about what kind of decisionmaking process leads to this move.

I've had the same weird feeling since draft day of feeling like he was the right pick and also having pretty low expectations for him

I honestly have a hard time saying Robert has a higher ceiling than Moncada and it's meant as nothing negative about Robert

I think they're clearly too low on Kopech and Cease and probably too high on Madrigal. There are a number of guys in the 45/50 FV that it's easy to see climbing up these kinds of lists soon.

Starting the year after his big defensive season in 2013, he's still been one of the most valuable 3B defenders https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=3b&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2017&month=0&season1=2014&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=20,d

Great start for Gio and to be frank I think this was the right amount of time to leave him in.

I thought he was trying

Velo trending downward for Lucas

Couldn't decide if the hate was clouding my vision as I was thinking he may have cost Lucas the run by slow-playing the ball there

Good for them. I remember what happened last time Preller tried hard to put together a winner

Who would have guessed Lucas would both fix his first inning problems and keep his pattern of getting better each time through the order from last year

For the sake of our pitchers we really should be giving Engel the bulk of the starts in CF for the time being. As a RF, Palka is by far the worst player on this team

Eloy put some good wood on that hook

Jesus WGN can you please stop missing game action

Abreu baby

This guy's breaking ball is pretty damn tough on the lefties.

I try to counterbalance the rampant negativity in the game threads when I can

Time to get on the Giolito hype train folks

Leury shouldn't be batting leadoff but he's not some horrible player. On most days he's one of our best 9 and his flaws aren't the kick-in-the-nuts type.

When you put a really terrible defense out there, it's the one thing you can do to actively harm your young pitchers. I don't see a compelling enough reason to keep running Palka out there given how detrimental it is to the defense. I'm thinking and hoping Palka goes to AAA once Jay is back and we have to add Santana to the 25-man.

Yikes, he screwed him inside and then low

I see Tim as a glove-first 2 WAR type guy that you need a few of to be a consistent winner. As far as Eloy is concerned on D, what I see is a dumb error, him looking really slow, but also comfortable reading the ball in the air.

Got Abreu with the old straightball