bmags

He took a home run cut yesterday. That's the evolution, when he gets into favorable counts where he feels good about what's coming, he should feel okay to take a big cut. Nick is playing fantastic ball and I'm glad when he comes up to the plate. Fine if the dude keeps flipping off the haters (me) for his whole career.

Hell yeah

Steps of caulfield posting: 1. See a players name in yahoo news binge 2. Regurgitate all players names in wherever thread you happen to post 3. get pushback on why player you don’t really know was mentioned 4. furiously, quickly research to try and create a reason why it makes sense 5. dig deeper hole 6. Never back down

Yeah we should have traded Betts for Verdugo.

this is interesting, you don’t often hear Denver trading out of top ten

As Chicago fans, we are in this position constantly, no guarantees next regime is any better so all I can do as a fan is hope they make the next best decision. I don’t really think Paces evaluation here matters as much to me here, Fields especially has enough of the great QBs qualities that you hope you get lucky. Not like nfl as a whole is crushing the QB evaluation beat.

I’m with @Chisoxfn it’s a rare draft that fields would be gettable, that’s a swing you take regardless of current decision makers.

Maurice Archdeacon is an incredible username opportunity

@Jack Parkman

Offspeed home run nerds

There are so many reasons why this is a stretch of an example, but I don't really care because it still feels apt just because I think the world of Moncada's raw talent: first off, he (and pretty much every baseball player ever) will not get close to the defensive value of this player that made him extremely valuable even when he was inconsistent early Said player never had the low levels of contact Moncada has had But I just think about the early offensive inconsistency of Adrian Beltre, and then how after years and years of being a fine offensive player he became a consistently great one for the second half of his career. Yoan has already shown how big of a difference just a change in approach can make for him. Not a swing change, not a stance, just better plan at the plate. He struggles with what he thinks should happen at the plate vs what does happen, and in 2019 it felt like he just accepted what was coming to him more. I think he may struggle with that, but will eventually click on this front consistently. Also, holy crap Adrian Beltre's 2004 season. You look at that and go "Man he was MVP right?" and then remember that Barry Bonds existed and had a .600 OBP that year hahahahahaha this is just insane: .362/.609/.812 slash line hahahahahahahaha

I just absolutely don't get it, and donovan really needs to figure it out. Bulls even now don't have less talent than the Knicks, who are surging. Lavine getting hurt and then out hasn't helped, but still, no excuse for getting blown out by cleveland and losing to the freakin magic. I mean, I have seen this story before, this decade, just absolutely cratering after march. We are certainly past "ah well a point guard will make it all work" territory unless you are getting a freakin chris paul type guy. We can't get the wing production we get from Williams. We can't get the trash PG production. And if we do get that kind of production, we can't have trash interior defense. But that is the case.

Went with Madrigal. If he can’t hit for power, he’s going to need to control the weather more than he has so far. It’s early thou, I get it.

I wish we could set the top 3 before letting it go.

Here's a nice double-dip draft. Bears should def consider this insane strategy.

Yeah I've been doing the heavy trade back scenarios of which there are probably way more available in that game than realistic, however, there's a lot of times I like it but think I just like these guys more because I've done 100 mock drafts on this thing and start to like certain names.

in that draft simulator ended with a run that left me with a choice between going tackle with Brady Christianson (there was a run on OTs just before in 3rd round) or Amon-Ra St Brown (whom I went with). So I had Fields and St. Brown, then no 4th round pick, so a lot riding on Goodwin and our oline progress being real. But i'd be 100% supportive!

Interesting stuff to talk about with a week to go. https://fansided.com/2021/04/21/dolphins-2021-nfl-draft-best-players/ So in this article, Lombardo throws down that the Falcons are obsessed with Pitts at 4, and know that the dolphins are obsessed with him at 6. This may make like a scenario where we have. 1 QB 2 QB 3 QB 4 Pitts 5 Chase? Sewell? 6 Chase? Smith? Waddell? 7 Caroina So, basically I illustrate this to show a - more likely than described weeks ago - scenario where at pick 7 there are still two top QBs. The rumory rumorvilles has all pointed to Jones at #3, but that could be smoke, just unclear what benefit SF still has in throwing smoke when the Jets/Jags are near set and nobody is likely to move ahead of them. So, again, in theory we see a possibility of Lance & Fields available starting at 7. So at that point, we can check out the article from Fishbain. https://theathletic.com/2529724/2021/04/20/could-the-bears-trade-up-in-the-nfl-draft-for-a-quarterback-again/ "Nos. 7 or 8: Detroit Lions or Carolina Panthers Proposal: Bears trade pick Nos. 20 and 52 in 2021 and a 2022 second-round pick to the Panthers for No. 8." That seems like a much more realistic trade to pull off for Pace than a leap to 4 and providing a package similar to what the 9ers gave up. But you'd also be fighting against the Broncos or Pats for the team getting to drop just a bit of position for a 3rd round pick or so. I don't see this happening without 2 firsts, but regardless, getting Fields would be worth it to me, but Lance, who knows. This likely means Lance is amazing. Or they'll both suck. Who knows!

?

Though Cespedes was quite a bit of the last class, I would recommend posters check out the Badler Jan 15th review post in futuresox board which has some really interesting infro on some previously underreported guys.

I really hope so. But there is a nagging feeling that if we are back of line for international draft and the surer thing Cuban emigres go earlier, that Paddy would have trouble convincing spend on 16 year olds and we end up using less of our allotted draft budget. But, I don't think that's likely. JR on the whole seems to value cost certainty more than anything, and if he has it they are blessed to spend it. But international that hasn't exactly been the case with the current budget allotments.

I was sorta hoping this was the start of a new reality for then (smaller draft budgets and competition pushing them for established vets) Though I guess with new CBA who knows, I probably shouldn't consider the future.

I really don't know what to think this year. I'd say if I could make it binary, either this is the year that college pitching development so leapfrogged hitting that 20% strikeout rates will no longer be the boogaboo they were, or this is as bad a college hitting group as we've seen. But of course, it may be a truly special college pitching crop - it came from a crazy special HS prep class that many didn't go pro. OR, it is just a weird year because it WAS a weird year. I don't envy the college evaluators. I guess what I'm saying is in 4 years, we could look back and say "wow there was so much value to be found in college hitting by those who ignored the weirdly high k-rates" OR it's "man what a trash college hitting class that was". And I wouldn't bet money on either, but it definitely feels like the k-rates are soooo much higher in all the top guys. It used to be a big red flag if they weren't close to equal on BB and K, now it's hard to find guys under 25% krate.

I worry this will lead them to lean into their worst habits internationally, but they are still fairly productive with it so it’s hard for me to grade either right now.