Addison Russell's Barry Larkin-esque 2040 HOF Primer Thread

[Powdered Toast Man]

So, Mike Olt to the 60-day DL and Alcantara to Iowa. Without Baez, Iowa's lineup is a sadness bowl. Maybe Vogelbach will get promoted in a few weeks and Baez can come back from being with his family. Other than that...we have Schwarber to sploosh over and...? Brian McKinney? C. J. Edwards? Jake Stinnett? Yeah there's still lot of sploosh left in this nut canister.

Is Brian McKinney related to Billy McKinney?

And yeah my hope is at least a midseason promotion to Iowa for Schwarber and Vogelbach so I can watch some fat guy homers.

I'm kidding, because I will have like a 2 month old baby and I will never do anything fun again.

My apologies to Billy McKinney. I'm drunk.

[Bort]

So, Mike Olt to the 60-day DL and Alcantara to Iowa. Without Baez, Iowa's lineup is a sadness bowl. Maybe Vogelbach will get promoted in a few weeks and Baez can come back from being with his family. Other than that...we have Schwarber to sploosh over and...? Brian McKinney? C. J. Edwards? Jake Stinnett? Yeah there's still lot of sploosh left in this nut canister.

Is Brian McKinney related to Billy McKinney?

And yeah my hope is at least a midseason promotion to Iowa for Schwarber and Vogelbach so I can watch some fat guy homers.

I'm kidding, because I will have like a 2 month old baby and I will never do anything fun again.

The trick is to brainwash yourself into believing the things you do with the baby are more fun than any of the awesome things you did before they were born, like Cyndi Lauper karaoke, hailing cabs, and wearing belts.

[CT III]

So, Mike Olt to the 60-day DL and Alcantara to Iowa. Without Baez, Iowa's lineup is a sadness bowl. Maybe Vogelbach will get promoted in a few weeks and Baez can come back from being with his family. Other than that...we have Schwarber to sploosh over and...? Brian McKinney? C. J. Edwards? Jake Stinnett? Yeah there's still lot of sploosh left in this nut canister.

Is Brian McKinney related to Billy McKinney?

And yeah my hope is at least a midseason promotion to Iowa for Schwarber and Vogelbach so I can watch some fat guy homers.

I'm kidding, because I will have like a 2 month old baby and I will never do anything fun again.

The trick is to brainwash yourself into believing the things you do with the baby are more fun than any of the awesome things you did before they were born, like Cyndi Lauper karaoke, hailing cabs, and wearing belts.

Errrr...

[Powdered Toast Man]

Addison, there's someone close to you who knows what it's like to come back from a 3K 0-for debut. Talk him up.

[Eli]

Fangraphs with some PLAYER COMPS, sure to make Pen happy:

Since he joined the Cubs organization last July, Russell has drawn a walk in just under 4% of his trips to the plate. Even in a small sample of games, such a low walk rate should raise some eyebrows, especially coming from a player who hits for as much power as Russell does. These sparse walks might be a sign that he's apt to chase pitches outside of the strike zone. And as we saw with Javier Baez last year, this is a flaw that can be a real problem if it's exploited by big league pitching.

To try and zero in on players with Russell's unique combination of low-walk high-power skill set, let's pull up some comps. Below, you'll find a list of all hitters aged 19-21 whose league-adjusted walk rate, strikeout rate, BABIP, ISO and stolen base frequency fell within 1.25 standard deviations of Russell's marks from Double-A. The table includes each of these hitters' major league stats through age 28.

Player/WAR through age 28
Carlos Gonzalez 18.6
Jose Vidro 14.3
Javy Lopez 13.9
Tony Batista 13.0
Jermaine Dye 10.3
Juan Encarnacion   5.5
Randal Grichuk 0.6
Arquimedez Pozo   -0.5
Kevin Witt   -0.6
Ruben Mateo -1.6

[SKO]

Fangraphs with some PLAYER COMPS, sure to make Pen happy:

Since he joined the Cubs organization last July, Russell has drawn a walk in just under 4% of his trips to the plate. Even in a small sample of games, such a low walk rate should raise some eyebrows, especially coming from a player who hits for as much power as Russell does. These sparse walks might be a sign that he's apt to chase pitches outside of the strike zone. And as we saw with Javier Baez last year, this is a flaw that can be a real problem if it's exploited by big league pitching.

To try and zero in on players with Russell's unique combination of low-walk high-power skill set, let's pull up some comps. Below, you'll find a list of all hitters aged 19-21 whose league-adjusted walk rate, strikeout rate, BABIP, ISO and stolen base frequency fell within 1.25 standard deviations of Russell's marks from Double-A. The table includes each of these hitters' major league stats through age 28.

Player/WAR through age 28
Carlos Gonzalez 18.6
Jose Vidro 14.3
Javy Lopez 13.9
Tony Batista 13.0
Jermaine Dye 10.3
Juan Encarnacion   5.5
Randal Grichuk 0.6
Arquimedez Pozo   -0.5
Kevin Witt   -0.6
Ruben Mateo -1.6

I had completly forgotten about Jose Vidro but holy shit would I take that from Addison Russell. That dude was good.

[Eli]

Fangraphs with some PLAYER COMPS, sure to make Pen happy:

Since he joined the Cubs organization last July, Russell has drawn a walk in just under 4% of his trips to the plate. Even in a small sample of games, such a low walk rate should raise some eyebrows, especially coming from a player who hits for as much power as Russell does. These sparse walks might be a sign that he's apt to chase pitches outside of the strike zone. And as we saw with Javier Baez last year, this is a flaw that can be a real problem if it's exploited by big league pitching.

To try and zero in on players with Russell's unique combination of low-walk high-power skill set, let's pull up some comps. Below, you'll find a list of all hitters aged 19-21 whose league-adjusted walk rate, strikeout rate, BABIP, ISO and stolen base frequency fell within 1.25 standard deviations of Russell's marks from Double-A. The table includes each of these hitters' major league stats through age 28.

Player/WAR through age 28
Carlos Gonzalez 18.6
Jose Vidro 14.3
Javy Lopez 13.9
Tony Batista 13.0
Jermaine Dye 10.3
Juan Encarnacion   5.5
Randal Grichuk 0.6
Arquimedez Pozo   -0.5
Kevin Witt   -0.6
Ruben Mateo -1.6

I had completly forgotten about Jose Vidro but holy shit would I take that from Addison Russell. That dude was good.

Vidro's bat with even average defense would be awesome.

[SKO]

Fangraphs with some PLAYER COMPS, sure to make Pen happy:

Since he joined the Cubs organization last July, Russell has drawn a walk in just under 4% of his trips to the plate. Even in a small sample of games, such a low walk rate should raise some eyebrows, especially coming from a player who hits for as much power as Russell does. These sparse walks might be a sign that he's apt to chase pitches outside of the strike zone. And as we saw with Javier Baez last year, this is a flaw that can be a real problem if it's exploited by big league pitching.

To try and zero in on players with Russell's unique combination of low-walk high-power skill set, let's pull up some comps. Below, you'll find a list of all hitters aged 19-21 whose league-adjusted walk rate, strikeout rate, BABIP, ISO and stolen base frequency fell within 1.25 standard deviations of Russell's marks from Double-A. The table includes each of these hitters' major league stats through age 28.

Player/WAR through age 28
Carlos Gonzalez 18.6
Jose Vidro 14.3
Javy Lopez 13.9
Tony Batista 13.0
Jermaine Dye 10.3
Juan Encarnacion   5.5
Randal Grichuk 0.6
Arquimedez Pozo   -0.5
Kevin Witt   -0.6
Ruben Mateo -1.6

I had completly forgotten about Jose Vidro but holy shit would I take that from Addison Russell. That dude was good.

Vidro's bat with even average defense would be awesome.

Just waiting for Pen to roll in and bitch that we ignored the Barry Larkin/Jeter comps and act like second baseman who post an OPS+ of 111 through age 29 grow on trees (although I'd have to imagine Vidro's #s today would be more like OPS+ of 125).

[PenFoe]

Fangraphs with some PLAYER COMPS, sure to make Pen happy:

Since he joined the Cubs organization last July, Russell has drawn a walk in just under 4% of his trips to the plate. Even in a small sample of games, such a low walk rate should raise some eyebrows, especially coming from a player who hits for as much power as Russell does. These sparse walks might be a sign that he's apt to chase pitches outside of the strike zone. And as we saw with Javier Baez last year, this is a flaw that can be a real problem if it's exploited by big league pitching.

To try and zero in on players with Russell's unique combination of low-walk high-power skill set, let's pull up some comps. Below, you'll find a list of all hitters aged 19-21 whose league-adjusted walk rate, strikeout rate, BABIP, ISO and stolen base frequency fell within 1.25 standard deviations of Russell's marks from Double-A. The table includes each of these hitters' major league stats through age 28.

Player/WAR through age 28
Carlos Gonzalez 18.6
Jose Vidro 14.3
Javy Lopez 13.9
Tony Batista 13.0
Jermaine Dye 10.3
Juan Encarnacion   5.5
Randal Grichuk 0.6
Arquimedez Pozo   -0.5
Kevin Witt   -0.6
Ruben Mateo -1.6

I had completly forgotten about Jose Vidro but holy shit would I take that from Addison Russell. That dude was good.

Vidro's bat with even average defense would be awesome.

Just waiting for Pen to roll in and bitch that we ignored the Barry Larkin/Jeter comps and act like second baseman who post an OPS+ of 111 through age 29 grow on trees (although I'd have to imagine Vidro's #s today would be more like OPS+ of 125).

Great, another injury-prone loser who peaked at 25 and was out of the league by 33.

Y'all suck at this.

[SKO]

Bump

[Powdered Toast Man]

So, Addison Russell hits his first MLB HR before Kris Bryant.

[ChuckD]

So, Addison Russell hits his first second MLB HR before Kris Bryant hits his first.

Who saw that coming? Russell also has a 7 game hitting streak going -- so there's that. But the 20:1 K:BB ratio is definitely a bad look.

[Tonker]

So, Addison Russell hits his first second MLB HR before Kris Bryant hits his first.

Who saw that coming? Russell also has a 7 game hitting streak going -- so there's that. But the 20:1 K:BB ratio is definitely a bad look.

He's looked pretty useful defensively.  I positive Russell, I think, all in all.

[Powdered Toast Man]

So, Addison Russell hits his first second MLB HR before Kris Bryant hits his first.

Who saw that coming? Russell also has a 7 game hitting streak going -- so there's that. But the 20:1 K:BB ratio is definitely a bad look.

Soler's and Russell's K's are making me uncomfortable.

[SKO]

So, Addison Russell hits his first second MLB HR before Kris Bryant hits his first.

Who saw that coming? Russell also has a 7 game hitting streak going -- so there's that. But the 20:1 K:BB ratio is definitely a bad look.

It's not great, but he actually seems to have a pretty good understanding of the strike zone? I'd have to see the datase but it seems to me like he's mostly just missing stuff in the zone, which is understandable for a 21 year old who basically skipped AAA and is learning on the fly vs. big league pitching. He doesn't seem to be a free swinger like Javy.

I feel like he's catching up and while it's probably going to take him a while to develop the patience to walk he should at least make more contact and bring that K rate down.

He's good. I like him. Once this team has been gutted of all the gutless fucking assholes Addison and Kris and Rizzo and Jorge will mend all of the broken hearts. For right now, though, they is broken.