Spring Training Chit Chats

[Bertz]

Really good read from Sharma on the roster battles:

- The lineup is likely to be the one Counsell's been running out there recently, with Happ inserted into the leadoff spot.  It very much won't be a static everyday sort of thing though

- He currently expects Madrigal on the IL and Cooper on the bench to open the year

- Wicks is the 5th starter, and would have made the rotation regardless of Taillon’s injury 

- Adbert, Neris, Merryweather, Leiter, Almonte are the "core" of the bullpen

- There's going to be a ton of fluidity with the bullpen to get the starters more rest.  So expect plenty of Smyly/Assad/Wesneski spot starts, and that to impact which of the optionable guys (Little, Cuas, Palencia) are up at any given time

 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Assad hasn't gone more than 2 IP and hasn't pitched in a game since the 6th, feels like he has to be a long shot to take a start in the first turn of the rotation.  Given that reporting and Wesneski getting a multi-inning relief appearance his last time out, I have to assume it'll be Smyly at least the first time around.

[Andy]

On 3/16/2024 at 11:28 AM, Rcal10 said:

I have seen various reports that have the Cubs over the LT line. I thought they were a few million under. If they are over a few million or plan on going over at the trade deadline why not use some money now to add a bat and eliminate the discussion of who is the last guy on the team. Add either Belt or JDM. Just stay under the next line and leave some room to add at the deadline and still be under the second tier. What could Belt cost? $10M. They would still be $10M under the second tier so they could still add at the deadline. Unless Jed really likes one of Peralta, Smith or Mervis, I don’t see why they don’t go after Belt. Might be tougher with JDM. 
 

I believe the consensus is that in theory the Cubs are not over the line but in practice, given the various roster shuffling that every team can expect over the course of the season, they will be. That could change if they suck and sell some people off.

[Rcal10]

1 hour ago, Illiterate Scholar said:

Sharma and Mooney put out an opening day roster article this morning. Of note, they have Cooper as the favorite among the NRIs to make it. The most interesting part to me was them writing Wesneski is not viewed as likely to make the rotation, even with Taillon on the IL; instead, it will likely be Smyly or Assad.

I think if they bring Mastro north then Cooper can be the last bat. If they bring Madrigal north or when they bring Madrigal up, I would expect the last bat to be a left handed hitter. 

[chibears55]

2 hours ago, Rcal10 said:

I think if they bring Mastro north then Cooper can be the last bat. If they bring Madrigal north or when they bring Madrigal up, I would expect the last bat to be a left handed hitter. 

Madrigal been in 6 games (Hamstring), none since March 4th and has 13 AB, with 11 days left I doubt he's in consideration to be on OD roster.

Amaya(RH)

Mastrobuoni (LH)

Tauchman (LH)

Cooper, Wisdom, Canario  RH

Smith, Peralta  LH

[chibears55]

I think it'll come down to Assad(likely) or Brown to fill in for Taillon at the start.

[Rcal10]

1 hour ago, chibears55 said:

Madrigal been in 6 games (Hamstring), none since March 4th and has 13 AB, with 11 days left I doubt he's in consideration to be on OD roster.

Amaya(RH)

Mastrobuoni (LH)

Tauchman (LH)

Cooper, Wisdom, Canario  RH

Smith, Peralta  LH

Which is why I said when they bring him up. I think Wisdom is sure to make the team if he isn’t traded. And I doubt he is traded. If Mastro does make it, as I would expect(since Madrigal is hurt) I would bet the last spot would be either Cooper or Canario. 

[Bull]

1 hour ago, chibears55 said:

I think it'll come down to Assad(likely) or Brown to fill in for Taillon at the start.

I expect them to piggyback Assad (R) and Smyly (L) until Taillon is back. Twice through the order with each then to the bullpen. Prevents a lefty righty advantage or burns through opponent's bench giving Counsell a strategic advantage either in the 4th inning or the 7th. 

[Rcal10]

2 hours ago, chibears55 said:

I think it'll come down to Assad(likely) or Brown to fill in for Taillon at the start.

I don’t think it will be Brown. Honestly I doubt he is even considered at this point. I would guess Assad or Wesneski. 

[Stratos]

On 3/16/2024 at 11:21 AM, Rcal10 said:

Has to laugh a little at this because I was just thinking that the Cubs could go 90-72 this year. Then I stopped myself and realized I may be drinking too much cubbie kool aid. And then you suggest 93 wins. I will give you this, when you believe something you go all in. But I think 93 is a bit aggressive. I do believe they will win this division. But I am thinking more like 87-90 win range. 

I think they go as far as their pitching.  There's lots of unknowns with Taillon, Imanaga, Hendricks, and Wicks or whoever is #5.  The K rate for Wicks has been below average every stint above AA so far.  Imanaga is hopefully league average or better, but Taillon and Hendricks have stink potential.  Neris could easily regress back to his mean and be pretty league average too.

Edited March 18, 2024 by Stratos

[Jason Ross]

11 hours ago, Stratos said:

I think they go as far as their pitching.  There's lots of unknowns with Taillon, Imanaga, Hendricks, and Wicks or whoever is #5.  The K rate for Wicks has been below average every stint above AA so far.  Imanaga is hopefully league average or better, but Taillon and Hendricks have stink potential.  Neris could easily regress back to his mean and be pretty league average too.

I think this line that I've bolded is incorrect and skewed. First, let's be real, "every stint" is two months, one month in Iowa and another in Chicago, neither are substantial sample sizes and both have caveats attached. Secondly, we should look deeper into what we're consider "K-Rate". His K/.9 doesn't look great, but K/9 and K% are different numbers and I'd prefer to deal with the latter. In Iowa, Wicks K% was 22.2% and the K% for the league was 22.4%, which is for all-intents-and-purposes, average (not below). Lastly, his whiff% in Triple-A was above average, so he generated plenty of whiffs. He's on record about his MLB performance that he was pitching intentionally to contact, which makes sense of a rookie in a pennant race. That doesn't excuse the rate as a "concern" but also gives context to the sharp decline. I don't expect him to be a K% machine, but a more confident Wicks will generate more whiffs than he was, more than likely. 

Overall, while I understand the concerns on Wicks (his swinging strike rate at the MLB is something that needs improving), that line is just something I cannot agree with and think it's wrong. 

[Crusader]

Reds' CF TJ Friedl will be out for a while after breaking his wrist in a ST game. NL Central getting a bit weaker.

[chibears55]

Snell 2 yrs 62 Mil with the Giants

[Rcal10]

10 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

Snell 2 yrs 62 Mil with the Giants

Makes the Giants better. Cubs better win the central. About if solid teams will be in a wild card race. Aside from the Rockies the West is pretty good. East have Atl. and Phillie. 

[Stratos]

12 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

I think this line that I've bolded is incorrect and skewed. First, let's be real, "every stint" is two months, one month in Iowa and another in Chicago, neither are substantial sample sizes and both have caveats attached. Secondly, we should look deeper into what we're consider "K-Rate". His K/.9 doesn't look great, but K/9 and K% are different numbers and I'd prefer to deal with the latter. In Iowa, Wicks K% was 22.2% and the K% for the league was 22.4%, which is for all-intents-and-purposes, average (not below). Lastly, his whiff% in Triple-A was above average, so he generated plenty of whiffs. He's on record about his MLB performance that he was pitching intentionally to contact, which makes sense of a rookie in a pennant race. That doesn't excuse the rate as a "concern" but also gives context to the sharp decline. I don't expect him to be a K% machine, but a more confident Wicks will generate more whiffs than he was, more than likely. 

Overall, while I understand the concerns on Wicks (his swinging strike rate at the MLB is something that needs improving), that line is just something I cannot agree with and think it's wrong. 

How is what I said "wrong"?  I said his K-rate is below average at every level since AAA and he's part of the unknowns in our rotation.  His K/9 has been below average at AAA, MLB, and so far in ST, which is what i meant by K-rate which everyone should assume since virtually nobody uses K% around here for pitchers.  You like Wicks so you dug into his numbers and cherrypicked some stats that agree more with your like of Wicks.  Yes obviously 80-something IP above AA isn't large but it isn't tiny either, and the K/9 has been consistently unimpressive and below average at all levels above AA so far, where he was a very advanced SP compared to the hitters he was facing in the A and AA levels.

All the projection systems on FanGraphs project him with a K/9 around 7.60, and around league average BB/9, HR/9, and GB%, and an average-ish ERA for a SP around 4.40.  Every SP has potential to pitch above expectations, but my point is that there's a lot of real suspect unknowns in our rotation.  Any of Hendricks/Taillon/Wicks and even Imanaga could fairly easy end up being league average or worse this year if things don't go their way.

But in good faith let's use your stats too and assume the most likely scenario which is that his stuff is average to below average.  Since his BB/9 throughout his career has been average, and his career HR/9 and HR/FB has been around average, and has been slightly above average with GB%, then if you're going to make a bet at least for this season then he's most likely going to be around an average SP.  A well above average change-up, below average FB, basically average everything else besides mound presence & polish for his age, that's a pretty logical conclusion to point to him most likely being an average SP unless something changes.  I'll take it, he's probably a MORP of the Taillon variety or slightly worse in terms of overall results, but let's hope for better.

[Stratos]

If the Cubs are going to pass on great deals like Chapman and Snell then I can't ever seen them going much over the first LT line, and Ricketts has never done it yet even with a WS caliber core.

[Jason Ross]

12 hours ago, Stratos said:

How is what I said "wrong"?  I said his K-rate is below average at every level since AAA and he's part of the unknowns in our rotation.  His K/9 has been below average at AAA, MLB, and so far in ST, which is what i meant by K-rate which everyone should assume since virtually nobody uses K% around here for pitchers.  You like Wicks so you dug into his numbers and cherrypicked some stats that agree more with your like of Wicks.  Yes obviously 80-something IP above AA isn't large but it isn't tiny either, and the K/9 has been consistently unimpressive and below average at all levels above AA so far, where he was a very advanced SP compared to the hitters he was facing in the A and AA levels.

All the projection systems on FanGraphs project him with a K/9 around 7.60, and around league average BB/9, HR/9, and GB%, and an average-ish ERA for a SP around 4.40.  Every SP has potential to pitch above expectations, but my point is that there's a lot of real suspect unknowns in our rotation.  Any of Hendricks/Taillon/Wicks and even Imanaga could fairly easy end up being league average or worse this year if things don't go their way.

But in good faith let's use your stats too and assume the most likely scenario which is that his stuff is average to below average.  Since his BB/9 throughout his career has been average, and his career HR/9 and HR/FB has been around average, and has been slightly above average with GB%, then if you're going to make a bet at least for this season then he's most likely going to be around an average SP.  A well above average change-up, below average FB, basically average everything else besides mound presence & polish for his age, that's a pretty logical conclusion to point to him most likely being an average SP unless something changes.  I'll take it, he's probably a MORP of the Taillon variety or slightly worse in terms of overall results, but let's hope for better.

If we are going to use "good faith" then lets stick to the statistic set I used, which is K%, not K/9 and the sentence I took issue with, which dealt only with the idea that his "k-rate" was below average "at every stint" past Double-A. The reason why is because K/9 is significantly worse at showing what we're talking about. You don't have to take my word for it: you can do some reading on it! And I'll provide a second,. as well! But if you're wanting a quicker anecdote, I'll provide a short one below:
Pitcher A: 5  IP, 5 K, 1 BB, 2H 
Pitcher B: 5 IP, 6K, 4 BB, 3H

We're going to assume, for anecdote's sake, neither pitcher has any errors occur in the game, nor any double plays. In the above scenario, Pitcher B has 6 strikeouts compared to Pitcher A over the same amount of innings. Using K/9, this means that Pitcher B would look like the better strikeout pitcher, because over 9 innings, he'd strikeout more hitters as his K/9 would be 10.8 compared to the 9 pitcher A provided. But here's the thing: pitcher B isn't a better strikeout pitcher, because K/9 gives preferential to pitchers who walk a lot of hitters and give up more hits because they face more batters. Pitcher B faced four more hitters, so the two pitchers actually have virtually the same K%: around 27%. K% is a far better indicator of how often a pitcher strikes a batter out.

Point is: Jordan Wicks K./9 might not be league average, but it's not the right statistic to be using. His K% is 22.2% in Triple-A where as the league average of Triple-A was 22.4%. It's .2% below which is less than a single hitter faced. Jordan Wicks barely threw in Triple-A, racking up just 33 innings. It's not worth it to consider this "below" average considering the sample size and the difference between average and "below". So he was,. virtually, a league average K% pitcher. As well, he generated more whiffs than league average. If we want to accurately describe Jordan Wicks' time in Triple-A when it comes to swings and misses, and strikeouts, this is a far more accurate statement than your original which was "he was below average in every stint above Double-A". So, yes, you're wrong. I've already written about this in an article here on NSBB, I'd recommend checking it out if you haven't.

Of course his K/9 over his last 80 IP looks bad: his MLB numbers were really low! But he's on record explaining why that may be. Funnily enough, I came to the same conclusion in that article before he said anything; he was being especially cautious. The point is we can't just combine Triple-A and MLB data, and we can't ignore context. He was perfectly fine in his 33 innings at Triple-A. I've cherry picked...literally nothing. I used a better statistic at one of his two levels to show, your statement was not factual.

In the overall concept of what you think Jordan WIcks is, I don't disagree. But that wasn't what I took issue with ever. I do think he's got some work to do at the MLB level in terms of generating swings and misses, but as stated, context suggests he changed himself to limit damage as a rookie. Where I disagreed was your characterization of his time in Triple-A. I still fully do. 

Quote

what i meant by K-rate which everyone should assume since virtually nobody uses K% around here for pitchers

To this assumption; you are incorrect. The article I linked you was written in 2016 and Fangraphs has written about this concept many times over the last decade plus as well. K% is the better number. K/9 has been more readily available, but has added flaws by giving benefit to high walk pitchers, especially. Look around the industry at the best at covering the sport, such as Dan Szymborski, Lance Browdowski, Jeff Seidler, Craig Goldstein...they're going to default to K% for this reason. We should all be using K% when we can because it is a far better measurement. 

[Tim]

I would add that the characterization that K/9 is the dominant metric used here hasn't been correct for ages.

[Bertz]

7 hours ago, Stratos said:

If the Cubs are going to pass on great deals like Chapman and Snell then I can't ever seen them going much over the first LT line, and Ricketts has never done it yet even with a WS caliber core.

They went over the 2nd threshold in 2019

[WhyCantWeWin]

9 hours ago, Stratos said:

If the Cubs are going to pass on great deals like Chapman and Snell then I can't ever seen them going much over the first LT line, and Ricketts has never done it yet even with a WS caliber core.

I think for those 2, it was more about the draft pick loss. If they didn't have the qualifying offer attached, I bet one of them would have been a Cub, but then maybe either of them wouldn't have taken what is basically a one year deal. 

[Stratos]

8 hours ago, Tim said:

I would add that the characterization that K/9 is the dominant metric used here hasn't been correct for ages.

I think the claim that K% is used more on these forums than K/9 is incorrect.  If you're talking about the site articles that could be true I don't know, but I don't write articles.  If someone on these forums mentions "K rate", the rate stat they're referring to is probably K/9.

[Bertz]

Maybe a hot take, but I don't think this schedule is as tough as it looks on paper.  Rangers Marlins, and Astros have major injury issues in the short term, and with all the off days in April west coast trips aren't as scary as they are later in the year.

[Bertz]

Cooper's pretty much 100% to make the roster now.  Canario probably gets the last spot on the bench to avoid 40 man messiness?

[Rcal10]

17 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Cooper's pretty much 100% to make the roster now.  Canario probably gets the last spot on the bench to avoid 40 man messiness?

I get the messiness issue with the 40 man. But if Wissom and Madrigal start on the IL, they might take Smith if he says he will opt out if he doesn’t make the OD roster. I just think he may be worth the longer look to see if he is healthy and if the last two years his hand was the reason for his less than average offense. If he agrees to go to Iowa a bit that would be ideal. Then I agree Canario gets the last slot. But if not, they may need to take him north.  The issue with the 40 man is, right now, there is only 1 space. And they may have to do that for Edwards too.  So that would be 3 spots. 
 

Edited March 19, 2024 by Rcal10

[chibears55]

23 hours ago, Rcal10 said:

Makes the Giants better. Cubs better win the central. About if solid teams will be in a wild card race. Aside from the Rockies the West is pretty good. East have Atl. and Phillie. 

Be nice if they can add another hitter for DH and SP like Montgomery, but we probably won't see any significant moves til the deadline as they hopefully look to upgrade the roster for a solid playoff run.

The West as you said should be tough to beat in the postseason