GDT 5/12/26: Braves vs Cubs - Kim’s Season Debut

Strike3urout said:
I think you just hate him because he‘s a Phillies fan (and rightfully so…f them).

Still, a lot of what you say reeks of recency bias. If I could time-travel back to late March, and show you last night’s lineup, and also told you that Ronald was injured and sitting on 2 HR in mid May, and also told you that Rey Lopez is now in the pen and we are giving regular starts to Elder, Holmes and JR Ritchie, would you have said „Sounds like a .700 team to me!“? Even if I also told you that Olson and Baldwin are having all-star seasons,Ozzie is closer to his old self, Sale is Sale, and we have one of the best reliever trios in the game, you‘d probably still think „Hopefully we‘re above .500“.

Point being: Based on the true abilities of these players, I think we are playing over our heads. I wouldn’t bet on the Braves even playing .600 ball the rest of the way, let alone .700. I still think they’re going to cruise to the division title. But I don’t think they will look like the best team in MLB by the end of the season.
Click to expand...
Recency bias? I never thought the Phillies were that good and felt they heavily overperfomed last year. Coupled with the Braves having a weird year, they won a lot of games. But I never thought they were that level of talent.

They’re not a terrible team. I just don’t think they’re terribly impressive either, and definitely not a 96 win team like last year. They are old and getting older, and we’ve been saying that for years. They have a bloated payroll because they can’t develop players at all. Their chickens were going to come home to roost at some point. They do legitimately have one reliable BP piece. The Braves have three. The Phillies depth is awful. The Braves depth is good. Awful depth with an old, expensive team is a recipe for a poor season.

I don’t think anyone is arguing that the Braves will play at a 70% clip the rest of the season. They’re not going to win 113 games. But it’s clearly the most talented team in the division and frankly has been for years.
 
One of the reasons I'm encouraged by the start of the season (besides, you know, everything about it) is that it hasn't been a case of everything working out perfectly and getting 95th percentile performances from every single player on the roster. Lots of things have gone wrong. Acuna was mediocre and got hurt. We lost multiple starting pitchers in spring training. Murphy, for all intents and purposes, hasn't been a part of this team. Dubon has had to start every day. Riley has been bad. Yastrzemski has been terrible. We clinched a series against the hottest team in baseball while populating the bottom of the lineup with Sandy Leon and Jose Azocar.
 
Strike3urout said:
I think you just hate him because he‘s a Phillies fan (and rightfully so…f them).

Still, a lot of what you say reeks of recency bias. If I could time-travel back to late March, and show you last night’s lineup, and also told you that Ronald was injured and sitting on 2 HR in mid May, and also told you that Rey Lopez is now in the pen and we are giving regular starts to Elder, Holmes and JR Ritchie, would you have said „Sounds like a .700 team to me!“? Even if I also told you that Olson and Baldwin are having all-star seasons,Ozzie is closer to his old self, Sale is Sale, and we have one of the best reliever trios in the game, you‘d probably still think „Hopefully we‘re above .500“.

Point being: Based on the true abilities of these players, I think we are playing over our heads. I wouldn’t bet on the Braves even playing .600 ball the rest of the way, let alone .700. I still think they’re going to cruise to the division title. But I don’t think they will look like the best team in MLB by the end of the season.
Click to expand...
Obviously, we're not a .700 win team. That would be 113 wins and only 3 teams have won 113 games or more. But there was plenty of reason to believe this team would win 90+ games this year, even with the pitching injury woes.

Having Acuna and Riley healthy to start the season was reason enough for optimism, as both guys missed 60 games or more last season and their replacements were really bad. Combine that with a reasonable expectation that Albies and Harris would not be competing for the worst hitters in baseball again, and that Dubon would be a considerably better hitter than Nick Allen, and that's easily an improvement of 10+ expected wins over last year.

And while the pitching was a major concern coming into the season, we had considerably better depth to start this season than we had last year, with Holmes and Lopez healthy to start the season, the signing of Martin who has always been an average 5th starter, and Fuentes and Ritchie being on the cusp of the majors.

Last year, the only real depth to start the season was Elder, AJSS, and Waldrep. Elder was garbage the year prior and Waldrep was looking like a bust. So it was basically just AJSS as the only quality SP depth to start the year in 2025.
 
Strike3urout said:
I think you just hate him because he‘s a Phillies fan (and rightfully so…f them).

Still, a lot of what you say reeks of recency bias. If I could time-travel back to late March, and show you last night’s lineup, and also told you that Ronald was injured and sitting on 2 HR in mid May, and also told you that Rey Lopez is now in the pen and we are giving regular starts to Elder, Holmes and JR Ritchie, would you have said „Sounds like a .700 team to me!“? Even if I also told you that Olson and Baldwin are having all-star seasons,Ozzie is closer to his old self, Sale is Sale, and we have one of the best reliever trios in the game, you‘d probably still think „Hopefully we‘re above .500“.

Point being: Based on the true abilities of these players, I think we are playing over our heads. I wouldn’t bet on the Braves even playing .600 ball the rest of the way, let alone .700. I still think they’re going to cruise to the division title. But I don’t think they will look like the best team in MLB by the end of the season.
Click to expand...
No one is saying they are going to win 120 games like they’re currently on pace to. But the Braves are a very good team currently playing like a great team with the potential to sustain that greatness.

Also, this topic was originally about the Phillies. They’re not good.
 
Super said:
Recency bias? I never thought the Phillies were that good and felt they heavily overperfomed last year. Coupled with the Braves having a weird year, they won a lot of games. But I never thought they were that level of talent.

They’re not a terrible team. I just don’t think they’re terribly impressive either, and definitely not a 96 win team like last year. They are old and getting older, and we’ve been saying that for years. They have a bloated payroll because they can’t develop players at all. Their chickens were going to come home to roost at some point. They do legitimately have one reliable BP piece. The Braves have three. The Phillies depth is awful. The Braves depth is good. Awful depth with an old, expensive team is a recipe for a poor season.

I don’t think anyone is arguing that the Braves will play at a 70% clip the rest of the season. They’re not going to win 113 games. But it’s clearly the most talented team in the division and frankly has been for years.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it’s certainly not decency bias. I predicted the Phillies to miss the playoffs before the season. I’m feeling vindicated.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top