Jason Ross

SEIYA IS A horsefeathers MONSTER! 5-2

Wild pitch! 3-2 Cubs!

The two runs (so far) have been huge, but the real benefit of this inning is getting Miller up to 50 innings. The Dodgers' bullpen has been their weak point so far, with the 17th best xFIP. Get into that pen!

Fun to hear "Mark Prior to the mound" regardless of the reason why.

Madrigal! Tie game!

He did. Worked a 3-0, strike looking, fastball swinging, foul ball (fastball, 98mph), change in the dirt for the walk. Nice PA.

HR, walk, hit. We're making some inroads. Alright!

Dansby! 2-1

This is what Bobby Miller did to him.

I think there will be a reoccurring "holy horsefeathers, Bobby Miller" theme. Which is not to say the Cubs can't get to him/someone else, but that first inning was something I haven't seen too often.

How any one hits Bobby Miller is beyond me. That curveball he threw to Suzuki had me saying "what the horsefeathers?" from my couch let alone standing in the box. My god.

Bobby Miller is from McHenry County? And he went to Louisville. Dude's just trying to be me.

I'll give Happ a pass there. That's not an easy play. Moving away from him, wind, sun...would like to have gotten it, but think that's a pretty tough play all things considered. On a warmer day, that might have gotten out anyways.

Yep. I really wouldn't be surprised to see him still in the lineup. I have a feeling the Cubs really like him and the processes by which he goes about things. The Cubs face Darvish Monday, who throws a good deal of sweepers/sliders (almost the same amount of fastballs as sweepers/sliders last year), with Musgrove going Tuesday (who, doesn't). With the off-day yesterday, I think Monday is probably the "best" sit-day of the next 4, but it could also be two sit-days, as well.

Entirely. His stuff is gross, and mentally, there's little reason to doubt him. It's that command that has just so badly escaped him consistently. He's a fun lottery ticket right now and if he can just be "not the absolute worst" at throwing strikes could be a useful depth arm to squeeze into the bullpen this summer if needs arise.

Yeah, if we're sitting him once this weekend, it's probably Bobby Miller to pick. Where Busch sucked at consistently in the MiLB was against sliders, and neither Yamamoto not Stone throw them. Added with the iffy-ness in his career over the velocity (though, I'd actually say Bryan Smith's tweet does the opposite for me; I think that shows a bit of bad luck, as he hit the ball decently well against 95mph and just didn't always get the results) Miller's probably the worst of all 3 matchups for him.

I so want Cam Sanders to be a thing. His mound presence is "evil villain" status of cockiness and watching him shoulder wiggle in mid-summer-heat after a nasty slider would be a blast.

He threw 15 pitches earlier this week at EXST for his first official time spent against live hitters. I'd expect he's going to get at least April at EXST and then move him to Myrtle Beach for 2 inning stints by early May, as a guess, with the hope that he finishes the season going 4+ a few times at South Bend.

So a bit of a misnomer on the Busch thing. Mike Pietriello had put out a tweet that showed Busch's struggles against high velo...but it dated back to 2022. In 2022, Busch was pretty terrible against velocity at Triple-A but made some really impressive gains (in the MilB) in 2023 against velocity. He put up an OPS over 1.000 against 94-97mph (compared to .796 the season before) and improved his in zone whiff% on pitches in this range from 23% to just around 8%. It's kind of hard to see if he made much improvement on pitches above 97mph in Triple-A considering that in 2023 he had just 8 PA's in which he faced high velocity. What we can say is that on those 37 pitches he saw in those PA's his in zone whiff% dropped from 55% (2022) to around 14%. He didn't do much with them, but with the amount of pitches he faced, it's really hard to say what any of that really means. He also saw two pitches over 100+ mph in Triple-A and swung at one...he hit a single. Considering the progress made on the 94-97mph, I think it's fair to think that some progress had been made at 97+ and we'd have seen that with a sample size worth really noting but how much is really questionable. Main point: I think the "Busch struggles with velocity thing" is a bit overshadowed by initial struggles in Triple-A and his 100 PA's in the MLB last year. I'm not confident he's good at it, but steps were taken from 2022 to 2023 and I didn't see a mechanical change, so I think his pitch recognition got better and his swing decisions improved (thus why even in small samples his in-zone whiff% got better). I'm not entirely sure what the cut off on elite is, so feel free to tell me semantically, the 94-97mph range isn't that interesting, as well. I'd say the top end of that sample size is definitely on the "elite" side myself, but the word elite is so hard to define, I can see if we have different opinions.

Entirely agree on the Canario thing. I think Canario has MLB upside, but he's a very long shot to be an MLB regular. I think he's in a vein of Patrick Wisdom to a degree: I think he's the type who can start for your second division teams, compile his way to 25-30 home runs, and go on terror runs of 10 days where he looks like a world beater. But consistent contact issues and the like will always hold him back as a reserve player on a better team where you need to deploy him in a thoughtful manner and curate his 200-250 PA's to maximize the power.

On Thursday, MLB Pipeline dropped an article making a prospect prediction for each MLB organization. What did they predict for the Chicago Cubs? And how likely is it to happen? Image courtesy of © Lily Smith/The Register / USA TODAY NETWORK In a bit of fun off-day content, MLB Pipeline (Major League Baseball's internal prospect ranking team) dropped an article offering a "prospect prediction" for each team. Inside the article were a few fun predictions, such as Jackson Holliday coming up mid-season to take the second base job in Baltimore at just 20 years old, and even some National League Central coming attractions such as Rhett Lowder (Cincinnati) and Termarr Johnson (Pittsburgh) knocking on the doorstep of their parent clubs. For the Cubs, their prediction consisted of not one, nor two, but three Cub prospects making their MLB debuts this year, in Pete Crow-Armstrong, Cade Horton and Matt Shaw. Not stopping there, however, they also predicted all three would be starting for the Cubs when they won their first playoff game since 2017 this October. Obviously this is just a prediction, but let's have some fun and break down whether or not this is likely, and how it would happen. For this to occur, the Cubs would need a few things to go their way; the first being that all three prospects will need to make it to MLB this season. Luckily for the prediction, there's good reason to believe all three will at least be in Iowa come June. While PCA is already there, the other two had a bit of success in 2023 at Double-A Tennessee, and are just a small step away from joining Pete. For this to all happen, all three would need to be enjoy successful campaigns in Iowa, and with prospects, it's always hard to tell if they'll hit the ground running. All three have the types of tools that could make quick work of Triple-A competition. Crow-Armstrong is a defensive wizard, Horton has a devastating one-two power fastball-slider combination, and Shaw is a unique blend of power, contact and speed. It's hard to guarantee that, but the skills are there for all three to be successful making this part of the prediction something that feels like it could happen. Not only would all three prospects need to be doing well in Iowa, there would need to be openings on the Cubs to necessitate bringing them up mid-season and letting them start. Again, lucky for all three prospects, there should be opportunities. Cody Bellinger's ability to play any outfield position and/or first base would allow him to clear space in the middle of the outfield for the speedy center fielder. The Cubs pitching staff is already seeing attrition, which has forced them to call on fellow rookie Ben Brown to go four-plus innings in just his second appearance last night. Horton will likely get a chance to fill in for some future Cubs pitching injury victim, and take over a rotation spot. For Shaw, third base will be there for the taking if Christopher Morel (who's already made four errors at the hot corner) can't get it together. On this part of the prediction, it, too, feels like something that could really happen. Lastly, the Chicago Cubs would need to be in a position at the end of the season for them to make the playoffs. Entering the season, projection systems such as PECOTA and FanGraphs's ZiPS had the Cubs as roughly an 84-win team. On the surface, that's not spectacular, but it may be just enough to win a lackluster National League Central division. Jed Hoyer was very frank earlier this spring when he said "It's our job to beat those projections". While the Central is weak, the Cubs' path to the playoffs remains somewhat tough. With the strength of teams in the West and the East, winning a Wild Card spot will be very difficult. It's likely they have to win the division. Adding high-end prospects such as the three mentioned in the Pipeline prediction, as well as potential trade candidates during the season, will help in that aspect, too. From there, as was evidenced by last season, anything can happen, so making the playoffs would give the Cubs the ability to win that elusive playoff series. So just how likely is it for the MLB Pipeline prediction that these three will not only be starting, but help the Cubs win a playoff series in October? It's not that crazy, all things considered. All three are highly-regarded prospects, will be one step away from the big leagues very soon, and will not be blocked by MLB talent. It may take a well-timed injury for them to take the starting position, but it doesn't seem out of the question they could all cement themselves into regular roles fairly immediately. It's never easy to win a division, but the Cubs are arguably the best positioned of the five teams in the Central. It feels like it's a bit less than a coin-flip to actually happen, but even considering the number of things that need to go right for their prediction to hit, it feels like a prediction grounded in reality. If the Cubs' prediction ends up coming to fruition, everyone involved is going to be quite happy about the future of the franchise. The Future 2.0, one might say, would be very bright. What do you think of the MLB Pipeline Prediction? Do you think it's likely? Let us know in the comment section below! View full article

The Rockies gave that right back. Thank you.

Yeesh. Thought it was safe to go to bed.

Yeah, Almonte feels like a place holder. Whether that's for Brown, when Taillon comes back, or Palencia later...I think he's the first arm right now that doesn't look like he's going to make it. He has stuff but he's just struggling to use it right. Looks immensely hittable despite it. Hopefully it works out, but he's the early leader of "BP arm who's looked least impressive" through the first 6 games. Fingers crossed we look back at this post and laugh in two or three months, however.