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Jason Ross

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Everything posted by Jason Ross

  1. Jason Ross
    He's one of the only SPs in Iowa. There was a time two weeks ago Connor Noland was the only traditional SP on the roster.
  2. Jason Ross
    I was just talking about Pedro as a possible LF option. Glad to see I wasn't entirely off base with the thought.
  3. Jason Ross
    He probably has some intrigue, but I don't think there is going to be much trade value. Murray is a 26-year old who has been basically, unimpressive since 2024. He failed wildly at Iowa as a 24 year old and then was good in Double-A as a 25 year old. We're one month into his age-26 season and while his overall numbers look good, he's got pretty middling batted ball data sitting between the 40-60th percentiles in things like EV, max EV, sweetspot and barrel%. This is a player that was essentially a non-consideration for a top-30 spot entering the year. If you're a bad team and you get your pick of "throw in" types, BJ Murray probably is an interesting dart throw. Beyond that, I doubt any MLB team is salivating at this moment at a 26-year old repeater with little draft pedigree who has had one promising month in the last two years. I don't want to write him off entirely; he's doing some good things right now. But he's old for Iowa, he's a repeater, and it's one month. Another team is going to be highly skeptical of him and his value via trade is probably extremely limited.
  4. Jason Ross
    Yeah, I'm kind of in a weird spot with Kevin. There are aspects of his game I really like. Right now the K% is a concern, and more than that, the bottom barrel in-zone contact. Sadly, his chase numbers seem to be just as bad, but he's tanked his in-zone. I'm not willing to trash him entirely for it; I suspect with his swing change he's going through an approach change and with that, in-zone contact feels logical to be thrown off as a hitter learns to do that. Part of me sees a lot of Alexander Canario and Nelson Velazquez in the bat; lots of power with concerning amounts of in-zone contact. It's not really my favorite profile as a hitter. Obviously defensively he's got a bit of a different story in that he should be plus in a corner spot where as those two were not particularly defensive plusses in any way. Part of me sees his swing changes, his injuries last year, and thinks he's got a chance to be like the RF-version of Jose Siri but with a longer career? Running K% around 30, adding plus defense and base running and smashing 30 home runs and that's probably a 2-4 win player many years. One thing I'll be keeping an eye on is the trend of in-zone swing. If he gets back to that 50% percentile he was last year I'll feel much better about the Jose Siri in RF thing.
  5. Jason Ross
    Alcantara also feels like he breaks the mold of what the FO prefers. Even more so this year. I love the power surge and the added LA but the team has tended to shy away from the idea of power-over-hit profiles. I won't say they're entirely immune to them, but they have held hard and fast to their hit-over-power profile prospects and have gone after Bregman and Tucker. How much of that is circumstance and how much is preference? Not entirely sure, but a trend seems to have emerged under Hoyer that I can't ignore. Bummer he doesn't get a lot of trade action from others because my hunch would be that the team would be cool with him being movable. Maybe moreso than others. Not sure I'm fully at a point where I've gone from wondering if Ramirez was an MLB starter at 2b to "I think his bat can play in LF" yet, but it's hard not to be intrigued with a switch hitting LF with his contact ability if the power is decent enough, too.
  6. Jason Ross
    One of the things that's been bouncing around in my head recently is "...could Pedro Ramirez be the solution in LF? Is he a Steven Kwan with less defense?" On one hand, he's not your traditional left fielder. Even with the power surge, I'm thinking he's a 15 HR guy if it sticks at the highest level. But he's probably athletic enough to handle the position, makes a ton of contact and he's a switch hitter. Frankly, he's very much what this team salivates over as a player. I know this is about Alcantara more than anything, but that idea kind of changes how I feel about Kevin, as well.
  7. Jason Ross
    I looked at some video from last year and this year. Came to a conclusion. Note his pre-swing set up now. From a PA last year. And this is last year. The bat is more upright and you can see a bit of his weight is different. And from the beginning of last year: He looks like he's just getting set faster. His swing at the point of contact is pretty similar. Actually it's pretty similar to his stance now: This is after the pitcher gets into his motion. Notice how similar it is to the top. He was late on this pitch. Probably because it took him too long to get into a proper spot. I think he's just quicker now that he's much closer to his swing before the pitcher even offers. He's got less motion and less to get into a good swing position now. The weight balance is a bit different too.
  8. Jason Ross
    I don't think they did a lot. I think he's healthy.
  9. Jason Ross
    Oh, fully agree! But we hadn't seen them be effective yet (I always expected them to be good). Nice to see what it should look like.
  10. Jason Ross
    Nice to see Maton and Webb lock this down. They've not been great so far, but you can see glimpses of what they can be for the pen.
  11. Jason Ross
    I mean...ugh. Yeah kind of. (I vote Pedro but Triantos is a fun addition to the bench and could steal some games)
  12. Jason Ross
    One of my favorite things is that my work filter blocks gifs from time to time (when our school filter is working an when it is not is a random number generator it seems), and when I look at these on my computer I just get the description and I get to wonder "Man, I wonder what Squally sent". Then I get to check my phone, which is on my network to see what it really is. "A Man in a Suit and tie is talking to another man in an office" is this one.
  13. Jason Ross
    "Left side neck tightness". I'll take it. That doesn't seem the worst. (please don't curl, monkey paw. Please don't curl...)
  14. Jason Ross
  15. Jason Ross
    Here's to hoping it's another case of the butt cramps...
  16. Jason Ross
    Yeah, I won't defend not paying for a SP. I think it's silly. The Cubs should do it. Sadly, while I've thought for a bit that if the correct player came across in FA the Cubs would make that happen, I've got a lot less faith in the Cubs getting to that point in terms of a trade in July. What Hoyer does best (wait out the market, find value, etc) doesn't work as well in July in terms of being a buyer. Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but I suspect the Cubs best bet at a playoff rotation will include having either a healthy Wiggins or Steele and as of today that doesn't seem like something you should bank on.
  17. Jason Ross
    Boyd remains in the 86th percentile of chase, the 90th in whiff, the 93rd in K% and the 79th in walk rate. His FIP is 1.80 and his xFIP is 2.35. Sure, his fastball velocity is a little down (92.4mph last start) but anyone who thinks "Matthew Boyd is done" right now is ridiculous. Like, I might not expect him to make an All-Star game, but once he kind of gets into a groove and is fully healthy and up to speed, he's probably going to be a fine MLB starter. To put it another way, if Boyd is done, so is Jesus Luzardo.
  18. Jason Ross
    Who knows? The way the market has been for the past few years, it's probably well too early to even consider. Teams will have to begin to wave the white flag, but with how April shook out; if you're in the AL, your record probably sucks but so does everyone else's. In the NL, your record is probably over .500...but so is everyone else's. Cubs should have ammo, but as they made it clear last year, the prices were expensive and they were unwilling to make the kind of commitment others wanted for top arms. So I think any addition will be smaller than larger. If there's a positive, in theory the Cubs could be just fine. A playoff rotation of Cabrera, Boyd, and Shota is fine and while the Steele injury isn't great news or anything, it's not so bad that we have to cancel his season yet. You add him to that and that's a good four arms. You're missing a "playoff ace" but maybe you make up for it with four strong arms and a bullpen. They definitely need a BP arm or two but hey, they're pretty cheap comparative. (the down side is that the way the season has gone, expecting those four to make it to the finish line feels like a longshot, but I guess at some point, you'd think they'd stop all being broken)
  19. Jason Ross
    Don't expect one yet. Back injury was supposed to keep him out for at least April and considering his injury last year, the Cubs will be extra cautious.. The Complex league is about to kick up tomorrow. What will happen more than likely is someone like Rich Biesterfield will toss up a few photos of Conrad working in Arizona or AZ Phil will see him out on the backfields before we hear anything else official. Those guys are great for those things. And then he'll popup in an ACL game.
  20. Jason Ross
    Someone needs to go under SETTINGS and turn INJURIES off.
  21. Jason Ross
    Yawn. Pedro Ramirez hit another home run. Booooooring.
  22. Jason Ross
    Pete is primed to go on a run here. Strap in, it'll be a fun 2 weeks.
  23. Jason Ross
    Every time a player comes back, another breaks his leg. So be prepared for Hoby Milner to be down.
  24. Jason Ross
    Tatis was platinum glove last year with 8 OAA and 15 DRS., Pete already has 8 OAA and 9 DRS before May.
  25. Jason Ross
    He ended last year with a multitude of knee injuries and only pitched 11 innings. His ERA was good, but he walked the world last year. He had 13 walks in those 11 innings and 12 K's. He did so with velocity trending the wrong way, though still over 97mph (down over 1mph from the year before). MLB teams wouldn't leave a healthy arm laying around that they trust. So either: 1. He's not healthy and teams have red-X'ed him 2. He's not healthy and is taking extra time rehabbing and coming back and will sign with a team later But either way, I don't think he's healthy or he'd have signed a long time ago.
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