Cubs option Cuas to Triple-A, Corresponding Move Pending

[LBiittner]

Let's hope Wicks goes 8 and Adbert cleans up nicely

[LBiittner]

1908, I'm on the Jed band wagon, but I think when you've done deep statistical analysis control charts you need to bombard Jeds Inbox

[Jason Ross]

6 minutes ago, LBiittner said:

1908, I'm on the Jed band wagon, but I think when you've done deep statistical analysis control charts you need to bombard Jeds Inbox

I'm sure the folks in Chicago know everything x100 over me. I'd guess this is a temporary few day thing and they're hoping as much as we are hoping that Keegan is only needed to be used in mop up duty based on game flow. He's someone you can easily return to Iowa in a few days while keeping a "break glass in emergency" starter in Wesneski ready. The drop off from Wes to Keegan right now probably isn't huge considering the mop up nature he will likely serve and the lack of important moments he would see. 

And then he becomes a pretty clear DFA guy if he tanks (replaceable by a CJ Edwards?). Or a simple shuttle to Iowa guy if he's not horrid.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

To play devil's avocado(since I don't feel particular conviction about him), Keegan has been fine or even good since a poor opening outing: 5 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 6/2 K/BB.  His velo is down and that is not a good harbinger, but if he's effective at 90-91 instead of 93-94 then as a short term fill in I don't see a huge issue this soon after everyone got a very good look in ST at all the options.  Plus we might see something tick up in an MLB environment, different weather, etc.  Not gonna bat an eye if he's here to pitch in one blowout and then get DFA'd for someone else though.

[Rcal10]

1 hour ago, LBiittner said:

I'm more curious about Brennen Davis suiting up with SouthBend.

Good chance his place on the 40 hangs in the balance 

I don’t see them getting rid of Davis. I think they will want to see if he can actually be healthy before doing that. Which, I understand, may never happen. 

[Rcal10]

1 hour ago, LBiittner said:

I'm more curious about Brennen Davis suiting up with SouthBend.

Good chance his place on the 40 hangs in the balance 

I don’t see them getting rid of Davis. I think they will want to see if he can actually be healthy before doing that. Which, I understand, may never happen. 

 

1 hour ago, Bertz said:

Yeah I'm guessing it's this.  Even though I was thinking with Taillon there they don't need to hold Hayden in reserve but they probably disagree.  So Thompson can give you a little length in a blowout or extras over the next few days and then you've got an obvious person to send down when Taillon’s ready on Wednesday or Thursday.

I also think this is an indication Brown stays up and moves to long relief when Taillon’s back next week, which is fun.

I agree on Brown. I think Palencia and Thompson would go down before Brown. And I also think Brown will get spot starts if they want Imanaga to get 5 days between starts. 

[Rcal10]

1 hour ago, LBiittner said:

I'm more curious about Brennen Davis suiting up with SouthBend.

Good chance his place on the 40 hangs in the balance 

I don’t see them getting rid of Davis. I think they will want to see if he can actually be healthy before doing that. Which, I understand, may never happen. 

 

1 hour ago, Bertz said:

Yeah I'm guessing it's this.  Even though I was thinking with Taillon there they don't need to hold Hayden in reserve but they probably disagree.  So Thompson can give you a little length in a blowout or extras over the next few days and then you've got an obvious person to send down when Taillon’s ready on Wednesday or Thursday.

I also think this is an indication Brown stays up and moves to long relief when Taillon’s back next week, which is fun.

I agree on Brown. I think Palencia and Thompson would go down before Brown. And I also think Brown will get spot starts if they want Imanaga to get 5 days between starts. 
 

I know a lot of people, including me, are not happy with the pen. But it does look a lot better if/when Taillon and Steele come back. Guys like Brown and Assad could be pen arms making the pen stronger. 

Edited April 12, 2024 by Rcal10

[Stratos]

5 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

I don’t see them getting rid of Davis. I think they will want to see if he can actually be healthy before doing that. Which, I understand, may never happen. 

 

I agree on Brown. I think Palencia and Thompson would go down before Brown. And I also think Brown will get spot starts if they want Imanaga to get 5 days between starts. 
 

I know a lot of people, including me, are not happy with the pen. But it does look a lot better if/when Taillon and Steele come back. Guys like Brown and Assad could be pen arms making the pen stronger. 

Thing is you always have to prepare for and even assume there's typically gonna be a starter or 2 on the IL at any given time.  We can't assume Assad and Brown are in the pen.

We have the SP depth and we knew that going into ST.  But as I said in the offseason we needed another quality pen arm besides Neris because injuries happen, and you disagreed.  I said 1 injury and we were back to 3 late inning guys pulling most of the workload and back to the same issues as last year.  Merryweather is out, and so here we are.  Now imagine if Alzolay or Leiter go down again for a bit, we'd be in trouble.  It's only April 12th and we're in this situation again.  Let's just hope we get lucky with some JAG who might turn into the next Leiter or Merryweather.

Hoyer has gone light on the pen 2 offseasons in a row and each time the issues were foreseeable.  Each time all we needed was another 5-10 million from old man Ricketts for another arm that wasn't JAG-tastic.  Hoyer wasn't even able to get us a pen arm besides Cuas at the trade deadline last year.  Clearly he just doesn't see the value in the pen as worth the cost.  I get it but you can't live on scraps and expect to be better than the competition.

[Stratos]

Keegan for Cuas is underwhelming, I don't even see the point, other than throwing things at the wall and crossing our fingers.

[chibears55]

3 hours ago, LBiittner said:

I'm more curious about Brennen Davis suiting up with SouthBend.

Good chance his place on the 40 hangs in the balance 

I saw that too, same with Howard, he should at least be in Tennessee by now

[Crusader]

3 hours ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

To play devil's avocado(since I don't feel particular conviction about him), Keegan has been fine or even good since a poor opening outing: 5 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 6/2 K/BB.  His velo is down and that is not a good harbinger, but if he's effective at 90-91 instead of 93-94 then as a short term fill in I don't see a huge issue this soon after everyone got a very good look in ST at all the options.  Plus we might see something tick up in an MLB environment, different weather, etc.  Not gonna bat an eye if he's here to pitch in one blowout and then get DFA'd for someone else though.

One other thing to point out, while Keegan doesn’t have the biggest track record, and the wheels have completely fallen off at this point; he was also someone that tended to gain velo as the season progressed (or at least he did in his previous more successful MLB stints). It’s not really unusual to see his velo where it is at this point in the season at least (it’s not great, but it’s not surprising). A resurgent Keegan Thompson would definitely go a long way to fixing our bullpen issues. It looks like he’s throwing strikes again. So at least there’s that, and that was his biggest issue last year (his stuff also wasn’t as good to be fair). Really hoping things go well for him tho.

I remember when there was a great deal of debate between Steele and Thompson on who had the most potential. Steele ended up putting himself into the Cy Young conversation, but if we could get that type of arm back to bolster our shaky pen right now, it would be huge.

Edited April 13, 2024 by Crusader

[Jason Ross]

1 hour ago, Crusader said:

One other thing to point out, while Keegan doesn’t have the biggest track record, and the wheels have completely fallen off at this point; he was also someone that tended to gain velo as the season progressed (or at least he did in his previous more successful MLB stints). It’s not really unusual to see his velo where it is at this point in the season at least (it’s not great, but it’s not surprising). A resurgent Keegan Thompson would definitely go a long way to fixing our bullpen issues. It looks like he’s throwing strikes again. So at least there’s that, and that was his biggest issue last year (his stuff also wasn’t as good to be fair). Really hoping things go well for him tho.

I remember when there was a great deal of debate between Steele and Thompson on who had the most potential. Steele ended up putting himself into the Cy Young conversation, but if we could get that type of arm back to bolster our shaky pen right now, it would be huge.

His velo drop is combined with a spin rate and tilt rate loss. That's not normal. We usually see these major drops preceding injury, or simply, decline. 

[Crusader]

5 minutes ago, 1908_Cubs said:

His velo drop is combined with a spin rate and tilt rate loss. That's not normal. We usually see these major drops preceding injury, or simply, decline. 

Keegan Thompson is like the Jason Heyward of pitchers though (well, with less long term success before everything fell apart). He's been constantly trying to find himself and his mechanics and his release point. I also wouldn't be surprised if he's putting less on it to try to gain control after all his command issues.

Edited April 13, 2024 by Crusader

[Jason Ross]

Just now, Crusader said:

Keegan Thompson is like the Jason Heyward of pitchers though. He's been constantly trying to find himself and his mechanics and his release point. I also wouldn't be surprised if he's putting less on it to try to gain control after all his command issues.

If that's the case, then he's robbing Peter to pay Paul (though there's nothing but speculation there). The reality is, at 91-92 mph with less spin, he's likely going to be hit real hard. Throwing more hittable strikes isn't a recipe for success. He already had a weirdly homogenous arsenal between fastball, slider and cutter. With lower velocity and less spin/tilt from the cutter, he's in no-mans-land with the differentiation of pitches.

As a Cub fan I'm rooting for him, but nothing he's doing is a recipe for MLB success currently. 

[Stratos]

3 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

His velo drop is combined with a spin rate and tilt rate loss. That's not normal. We usually see these major drops preceding injury, or simply, decline. 

He was all over the place last year, but I looked on Baseball Savant at his outing today.  The velo was sitting 93-94, which is usual.  The spin on all his pitches were up about 1000 rpm last year in MLB compared to 2022, possibly due to only pitching out of the pen last year.

Last night's game his fb spin was still up to 2023 levels, but the spin on his curve and cutter were up a bit and the spin on his sweeper was way up to almost 3000 rpm, up from 2700 in 2022 and 2800 in 2023.  It would put him in the top 10 in the MLB.  Not sure if stuff & velo is still the issue for him, maybe just the command.  But i didn't look at pitch movement.  Wesneski's sweeper spinrate is far lower, around 2600, but his active spin is much higher.

[Jason Ross]

3 hours ago, Stratos said:

He was all over the place last year, but I looked on Baseball Savant at his outing today.  The velo was sitting 93-94, which is usual.  The spin on all his pitches were up about 1000 rpm last year in MLB compared to 2022, possibly due to only pitching out of the pen last year.

Last night's game his fb spin was still up to 2023 levels, but the spin on his curve and cutter were up a bit and the spin on his sweeper was way up to almost 3000 rpm, up from 2700 in 2022 and 2800 in 2023.  It would put him in the top 10 in the MLB.  Not sure if stuff & velo is still the issue for him, maybe just the command.  But i didn't look at pitch movement.  Wesneski's sweeper spinrate is far lower, around 2600, but his active spin is much higher.

The velo drop has been in Triple A. As was the spin rate. Yes, both have been down all year. This isn't 2023 to 2022, it's his 2022 to...well...yesterday. The Cutter RPM and the fastball velo has been down all five appearances in Triple A. He's also lost movement. 

His velocity was sitting 92-94 last night. He's been around 91 to 92 prior. Why the velo was up last night is an interesting question. And if the velo bump is real (and not adrenaline, max effort, etc) than my opinion on his ability to have success would change a bit. His control issues were due to a release point problem (all of this can be found in my article btw) that has been cleaned up. But I'm not making this up. This is all from baseball savant. He was presenting as a player who had issues. Why those issues vanished last night is an interesting data point, however. 

[Crusader]

Can we change the post and article to Keegan is brokenly overpowered? 😄

Velo up to 95 tonight. Numbers don’t always tell the whole story.

Edited April 16, 2024 by Crusader