Jump to content
North Side Baseball

Jason Ross

North Side Contributor
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    6,720

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    50

 Content Type 

Profiles

Joomla Posts 1

Chicago Cubs Videos

Chicago Cubs Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

2026 Chicago Cubs Top Prospects Ranking

News

2023 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

Guides & Resources

2024 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

The Chicago Cubs Players Project

2025 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker

2026 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker

Blogs

Events

Forums

Store

Gallery

Everything posted by Jason Ross

  1. Jason Ross
    With Pierce? Maybe, But I think Hall ticks most of the Cubs boxes. I've been beating down his door for a bit, but I'd handicap him and Pierce as the two hitters who tick off the most this year.
  2. Jason Ross
    Smoked it. Had second hit for 104mph as well.
  3. Jason Ross
    That swing had an xBA of .690 We have to accept some poor EV's with Shaw. His average EV is likely going to be low because he has the great ability to take a pitch like he did, and a swing he did and single on it (that ball usually gets down). He trades K's for weak singles (and some weak contact overall). He also had a 97 EV on the single before. It's just the Matt Shaw experience.
  4. Jason Ross
    Rare Tucker awkward swing.
  5. Jason Ross
    He's an aggressive swinger. We saw this from PCA when he first came up. Saw this with Ballesteros. Nico is this as well. The Cubs like the profile of "aggressive swinger, lots of contact". It takes a bit of time for these types of rookies to adjust to the concept of "just because I can hit it doesn't mean I should hit it".
  6. Jason Ross
    Nothing has been reported that the Cubs basically phoned it in and "just drafted the popular Chicago kid". Kantrovitz has been in this role since 2019 and he's crushed most drafts. It's okay to not have liked the Howard pick! But let's stop short of claiming every one was lazy and phoned in a draft, yeah? Howard was essentially the consensus prep-SS in the draft with a decent floor with his glove. Nothing about that is phoning it in.
  7. Jason Ross
    Just to be fair to Squal, he highlighted a few players who were really struggling and said "the rest" of the offense had picked up the slack. Which...is true. Over the last two weeks: Happ - 108 wRC+ PCA - 132 wRC+ Suzuki - 97 wRC+ (but to be fair, if you add one game to this sample he's at a 106 wRC+ and a second gets him to a 146 wRC+ - it's the issue with looking at arbitrary end points) Tucker - 164 wRC+
  8. Jason Ross
    Just to add on to this even a bit more, this is just baseball. Fans want consistency (players, teams, etc) but it doesn't exist. There's no such thing as a team that just stays level. There will be times when everyone is playing well, and others when they're not. And far too often people get caught up in the minutia because they're living and dying on every game. It's a grind. Every year the World Series winning team has these kinds of stretches a few times a year.
  9. Jason Ross
    Blah.
  10. Jason Ross
    Bu you're actively looking for reasons why they'll fail. If you think the Cubs are a good team, you probably wouldn't be actively searching under every 10 game sample size to find the fatal flaw or the reason they'll do bad. The Cubs are a good team. That's really what matters. Flawed? Yeah! Every team is flawed. The TDL should hopefully help that.
  11. Jason Ross
    Just...building the drama...right? Right? ...right?
  12. Jason Ross
    And when that was happening there was a contingent of fans who kept pointing to the BP as the reason the Cubs season would collapse; all they've done is turn in the best ERA in baseball since late-April in that regards. The reality of baseball (and anything) is that if you go looking for a reason to be skeptical, you'll always find one. If the Cubs win tonight, you can point to the RISP hitting, or the lack of runs. If they win 7-6 it's the pitching or the defense. If they lose 4-3, there's a reason. We're deep enough into the season that it's pretty obvious that the Cubs are a good team. They have flaws, but every team does (for example, the Dodgers SP is a mess of injury right now). I don't think every stretch requires a referendum.
  13. Jason Ross
    Pete!
  14. Jason Ross
    BP's stuffpro+ and pitchpro+ like it more than fangraph's Stuff+ right now and stuffpro+ sees it as an average-shape. This has been a decent trend across Cub pitchers this year, there Stuff+ doesn't love a pitch, but the results for the pitcher have been strong. My guess is that while the shapes of these pitches don't grade out as elite or excellent, that what the Cubs are doing well is using these pitches in good counts, and they're "sum of the parts" pitches. They might not stand out on their own, but with everything else, they're much better in conjunction.
  15. Jason Ross
    I don't think anyone is entirely off the table prospect wise. Matt just wrote an article saying the Cubs were even considering Matt Shaw trade situations (I would imagine those are very narrow and the return would be crazy good). Wiggins could go! But it'd probably be in a trade that would be very exciting on the return, as well. But I do expect that if the Cubs go big on a trade, it'll likely mainly centered around their Iowa talent, ultimately.
  16. Jason Ross
    I would say quite the opposite. Wiggins is in a tier of his own when it comes to P-prospects for the Cubs. I would expect he's among the least likely to go.
  17. Jason Ross
    Yup. He either offered the kindest "horsefeathers you" ever, or he got his feelings hurt because Nico dared, and kindly, mentioned it wasn't a strike. I'll guess it's closer to the latter.
  18. Jason Ross
    THEY horsefeathers TOSSED NICO? What a bitch.
  19. Jason Ross
    This might be his best start yet. 10 whiffs already, I like the fastball placement overall. I know he gave up a few runs at the top, but hes looked really good so far, IMO.
  20. Jason Ross
    Correct send. Things are just coming up Detroit very often right now. Sometimes luck is on your side. Detroit has that advantage right now, it seems. Still plenty winnable.
  21. Jason Ross
    I think his hand got in.
  22. Jason Ross
    Busch probably isn't going to learn enough for it to matter. Finding short-side platoon partners isn't particularly expensive, nor overly difficult. I'd guess the true talent of Busch against LHP is somewhere between like 80-90 wRC+ right now, so even if he improves it's still going to be in the "not very good " territory, and not worthwhile to experiment. Easier and better off just having a platoon partner. I realize Turner hasn't lit the world on fire this year, but there's more than enough platoon partners out there. In the end, I wouldn't call this as a "limiting" your offense; it is what it is. Platoons are becoming increasingly more common as LHH hit LHP worse and worse. It's just specialization.
  23. Jason Ross
    He's not good against LHP, the OPS+ is hiding the reality. Last year he had a 103 wRC+ against LHP, yes. But he did so with a .344 BABIP that was very FB% heavy. He saw a significant reduction in hard hits against LHP as well while keeping similar K% and BB%. So the 103 wRC+ is likely inflated by some soft-flyball BABIP luck and is unsustainable. It was also in 90 PA's, likely more curated than most samples...he hit against the lefties the Cubs wanted him to and the tough ones he was shielded against, another reason to believe the 103 wRC+ is inflated. Secondly he's been terrible against them when he's gotten chances this year, rocking a 47 wRC+. Is that probably affected a bit by small sample, bad luck and playing sparingly? Yeah probably! Meaning the truth of "how well does Busch hit LHP?" is between the 47 wRC+ and the 103 wRC+ last year. It's likely not good enough for him to play against LHP. He's not entirely futile against them, but there's no reason the Cubs should feel the need to play a 90 wRC+ hitter if they don't have to. The Cubs still believe that Turner's the better option.
  24. Jason Ross
    Certainly not the case. Most prep pitchers are running a fastball + one other pitch set up. They might occasionally work in a third, but any prep pitcher who's got three developed pitches out of HS is pretty much a unicorn now a days. Slider is very popular for the 2nd pitch. There are some who have better feels for the changeup but its not a very popular pitch in the HS ranks outside of a show me.
  25. Jason Ross
    Hey, not me!
×
×
  • Create New...