Jason Ross

We're going live today directly after the game. Drop anything you want us to look into or answer here! I've got some answers for @Rob from last week!

He hit the ball 105mph in that clip. I'd hesitate to say he looked stiff when he made incredibly solid contact. Could be strong body control to get to that ball.

Yes. It goes that fast. Jameson Taillon was a pitcher who was living on a pretty razor thin margin. He's a low ground ball pitcher who outpitched his xFIP last year by a significant margin. He strikes out less than the league average. The one thing he did last year was control batted balls and limit walks. This year his fastball is down half a mile (give or take) his Stuff+ has dipped again, and his walk rate has jumped from really good to just "controlled". He's still giving up a lot of flyballs. It's not a winning combination. He's on the last year of his deal. For the time being, maybe he can eat some innings on a team who needs human beings (we just celebrated 4 pretty good innings from Bryse Wilson, the bar is underground right now). But he's also on the very short list for pitchers who can take a hike when the Cubs the upgrade the position. For example, right now, I would rank him behind: Boyd, Shota, Peterson and Rea. Brown and Cabrera are iffy on what you can expect either to give, but we can probably assume one of them comes back. Then add in a trade for another SP. He's probably 7th in depth. And that doesn't count a possible Jaxon Wiggins sighting or Justin Steele giving time in the rotation which are both "possible, but neither feel like it's more than a low-likelihood of happening". Taillon as well offers nothing in relief. Maybe his velocity rebounds and he finds some of the variance last year. But I think it does go that fast, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Jamo outside of the organization by August 1st.

The first was 105mph off the bat.

Someone told me (not on NSBB) that there was "no reason to not sell" about a week ago. That was a bad take, me thinks.

This offense sure is fun. Make the pitching fun enough. Please.

Bregman back?

I don't usually get too into the weeds of (insert random prospect evaluator here) and their personal lists. But what I wanted to highlight here is that Owen Ayers has moved his prospect light from a 19th round selection in 2024 to being neck-and-neck with the 30th pick in the 2025 draft. What a fascinating rocket ship he is on currently.

Man, unreal couple of games tonight. Morocco is a really good team, and Paraguay is way better than they showed against the US. Fun night.

Yeah, I'd guess a little bit of it is the ABS system. League wide-walk rate is over 9%; which is up .5-1% over the last few years. I don't think that big of a league-wide jump with ABS is an accident. It's also the lowest percentage of pitches that the league has seen in the heart/shadow over the last five. But here's one thing that wouldn't affect ABS: it's easily the highest% of waste pitches over that span, an almost 2% rise over the highest over that span. And the lowest, by around 2% in the heart. Neither of that would really change over the ABS. My best assumption off the top of my head is a combination of: stuff is getting insane and harder to control, and there is just a rash of pitching injuries across baseball right now. That has to be apart of this.

One thing that's important: Pete cooled off, but his approach didn't. And that's new information. We've seen him run a pattern of: better approach, get hot, go nuclear, get overly aggressive, cool off terribly and stay aggressive. This time the calm demeanor at the plate is there post nuclear cooloff. And it comes with a mechanical change. I don't think he's super-saiyan walk guy, but I kind of buy the approach mostly sticking around.

Sadly, Miller hadn't pitched since the 23rd and Morejon hadn't been used in a few days. I'd assume both are perfectly fine for tomorrow. Adam is probably down, though.

They probably *can't*. But when it does go to hell for a week, these are the games that will balance it out. If there's a small benefit, the Cubs do seem to be finding a few guys. Ryan Rollison looks like a guy. Jacob Webb looks like a guy. Tyler Ferguson is showing you he might be a guy. It's a start. It's not great, but it's a start. You can begin to squint and see what it could look like if Palencia comes back, you trade for a reliever or two, and maybe add Wiggins or a few of these pop-up prospects. Please, word, don't ruin it because I said nice things

Good news is that the Cubs bullpen situation is probably at a decent spot headed into tomorrow and Wednesday. You've got an off day Thursday. The only arms you used tonight were Hollowell, Thornton and Thielbar. Puts a few other guys in play who probably were down tonight. And you've got Assad to eat bulk.

I kind of understand the send. Miller is a killer and you don't expect many flyballs against him. He strikes out over 50% of hitters. He gets 50% of ground balls when you hit the ball in play. That's a pretty low chance at a fly-ball. It was shallow but required a good throw. But you also probably have to trust Seiya more in that situation. Regardless, Seiya made it happen. We love W's.

SEIYAAAAAAAAAAA

Good job Alex.

A little shot of optimism for everyone: Bregman is a career 0-5 against Miller with 3 Ks,

Bregman gonna walk it off. (I'll delete this when I'm wrong. Also if I just keep guessing one day I'll probably be right)

I don't know how Thornton keeps doing this.

With peer pressure we can bully him into joining the others.

Great throw Amaya.

Cubs have to lead the league in pitchers who wear goggles/glasses.