Transmogrified Tiger

If you turn the phone to landscape it should show up again, in portrait it cuts down the options to fit seemingly without another way to expose them.

Assad hasn't gone more than 2 IP and hasn't pitched in a game since the 6th, feels like he has to be a long shot to take a start in the first turn of the rotation. Given that reporting and Wesneski getting a multi-inning relief appearance his last time out, I have to assume it'll be Smyly at least the first time around.

I'm pretty sure I had mentally combined Carico and Trice into one person in my description. I'd go with Carico too.

Hitters Sleeper: Josh Rivera - Took a bit to adjust to pro ball(.176/.246/.314 first 14 pro games), but he turned it on(.346/.404/.577 final 14 games) and was playing like he needed to be in AA. SS defense keeps the floor low enough to be a reachable bar for prospect legitimacy Keeper: Carter Trice - They slow played his post-draft path by not putting him with an affiliate, but he can really hit, and if he can take to catching at all he's gonna be well worth hanging on to Weeper: James Triantos - AA is where you start paying the price for a bad approach/swing decisions, and it's also where we may find out he's a LF/DH prospect defensively. Pitchers Sleeper: Brandon Birdsell - Look at the K%-BB% leaders among Cubs SP prospects, and it's mostly names you know(Wicks, Horton, Ferris, Brown) and Birdsell right there with them. The velo + control is a really good foundation to work with since through pitch dev or gameplanning they can likely minimize some other imperfections(HR tendencies), or at a minimum be a leverage RP prospect. Keeper: Jaxon Wiggins - probably a cop out pick, but I think there's a real chance of a near-Horton like breakout now that he's healthy Weeper: Michael Arias - Kinda insane prospect helium(45+ grade on Fangraphs, 14th on Pipeline) for a guy who can barely keep his BB% below 15 against A-ball hitters

Splitter

the Liverpool/Leverkeusen Europa League final days after Alonso agrees to go to Liverpool is gonna be something to see

Yes. Said another way I don't think Sosa not being welcomed by the club is a Ricketts-led conspiracy, the extent that he does or doesn't agree with the people who wouldn't welcome Sosa back isn't affecting the way that situation has developed.

Apologizing or reconciling with the team/ownership is just a proxy for a decent percentage of the fanbase. I really doubt Ricketts has strong feelings about stuff that happened years before they owned the team. Anything surrounding Sammy being recognized/honored is PR, and the motivation to trot out Sammy without some type of (probably contrived) reconciliation likely leads to a big chunk of the audience booing him. And that's probably not PR worth doing? I dunno the whole saga is like HOF stuff to me, in that most people seem to care way more deeply about it than I do.

A lot of this comes down to what the org thinks of Wisdom. On one hand, they've held on to him when they didn't really have to on a couple different occasions, he played 60 games at 3B last year, and he's as good an option as any to add RHH thump off the bench. On the other hand, there isn't a whole lot of difference between him and a Cooper(or a JD Davis for that matter), and Counsell saying he's gonna work at 1B feels like maybe they feel his meaningful 3B days are in the past. Regardless though this is not going to be a *tidy* bench, and we know from the Luis Torrens era that Jed is not above going off the board at the end of the roster at the start of a season. So there's very few permutations that would outright surprise me.

Marmol got extended. They didn't want him to be a lame duck the full year, but still, funny.

Madrigal is not going to make the opening day roster and Happ might need a few extra days too. After that point you likely have other players having minor injuries or considerations(e.g. prospects look ready) where this is more of an academic exercise. But to answer the spirit of your question, I probably wouldn't keep both Madrigal and Mastrobuoni on the roster if I have Morel taking the lions share of 3B time, I'd prefer keeping Wisdom and one of the NRIs to start with.

Stay healthy, hit left handed, and have option years remaining. But I agree that getting rid of Madrigal and Wisdom is unlikely. Madrigal isn't healthy at the moment anyway right, he's gonna start on the 10 day so the more substantial decision gets punted down the road til later in April.

I would still vote for Germany over England for any prospect that young(or really in general), and honestly Dortmund is still a good option among those. Good developmental track record, lots of games to be able to break in, proven they'll sell on, and no worries about being stuck playing negative soccer or battling relegation.

I suspect there will be enough at bats to go around at 1B/DH or even LF without needing to move Nico/Dansby. But I can squint and see a world where DH playing time isn't so wide open, and one of those guys is so undeniable with the bat that you move Nico to 3B for the last 12-18 months of his deal. Maybe I'm just leaning into the mystery box angle with prospects, but this feels more likely with Shaw, both for timeline reasons(I don't see this happening in 2024) and because he hasn't completely shut the door on being baby Bregman with the bat while Morel probably can't cut down on whiff enough to consistently challenge a 130 wRC+.

Things also start to look sunnier if you consider even with some meaningful regression Bellinger is also in the 120s, but yeah there's no monster you can bank on to be tippy top of the offensive leaderboards.

What is fun or "fun" depending on your perspective is that especially if you take any interest in MLS, it really doesn't. European club soccer generally follows the school year, with breaks to allow for small doses of international play. International tournaments (mostly) happen in the summer as a result. In the US, partially due to weather and partially due to the sports landscape and where soccer sits in it, MLS plays roughly overlapping with when baseball games are happening(season starts in Feb/March and runs to Oct/Nov). So there are like 2 weekends a year there's not some level of high level soccer you can follow. If you want advice, I've found the easiest way is to have a rooting interest you can follow on a weekly basis. Whether it's picking an Premier League team, or the MLS team that's closest to you(Nashville or Atlanta), I only really was interested in the national team(which plays a handful of times a year) until I forced myself to follow a club team and pull for them through their season. Helpfully, all the MLS games are free this weekend through Apple TV(normally 1 or 2 are free while the rest require the MLB.tv-esque subscription), so it's maybe worth checking one out that looks interesting.

Start the countdown to AJ Preller typing "reverse mortgage MLB how to" into Google

Oh maybe? IMB's post loads perfectly for me.

I've noticed that links to specific posts often end up offset, depending on how many embedded Tweets are on the page. I assume we load to a spot on the page representative of that post, and then the embedded tweets eventually load after and push it further down.

That seems to bring Fangraphs into alignment with the consensus for the most part, or at least it corrects for the biggest outliers I recall from their last full list(bearish/hesitant on Horton, bullish on Triantos).

It liberally quotes the Director of Pitching Ryan Otero about Horton. The most relevant bits about his ramp up:

Using career averages for Cameron is going to depress this a bit because it includes the entirety of his decline. His first 6 seasons averaged a 106 wRC+(including 4 seasons of 110+), 18 HR, and 29 SB good for a 4.2 fWAR when combined with his elite defense. A good outcome for PCA would be him having some pre-FA seasons like Cameron did, alongside some that were more Bader or Bradley-esque. The adjustments he does or doesn't make will determine how many seasons (if any) look like peak Cameron or good JBJ compared to Bader or bad JBJ.

Minor league performance isn't the end all be all, but no, that's not true. It's especially not true in the sense that the gap between AAA and the majors has never been wider, so if you can't get AAA hitters out consistently it's very unlikely you'll be able to effortlessly transition to be 'one of the 3-4 best relievers' in a MLB pen. But really it looks like all of this is just working backwards from this feeling of impatience you have about Brown. He may very well be up this year, and he may play a key part in the bullpen. He's also a guy who has significant control issues and has spent only a couple months at AAA before coming down with an injury. Whatever the role, let him start in AAA and prove his readiness. He's a good prospect but he's not so special that we need to ignore all other signs because he's not going to be able to stuff his way to getting MLB hitters out at a high level.

Brown had a 5.33 ERA in AAA, as a reliever in Iowa he gave up 8 runs in 7.2 innings with a 10/11 K/BB and .856 OPS against. His injury clouds things a bit, but this narrative that Brown's developmental timeline is near expiration and that as a reliever he's ready to step into a prominent role today is not supported by the facts on the ground.

PCA has some decent flame out risk because of the swing and miss he's displayed, which you can divide responsibility how you please between swing decisions, bat to ball ability, and mechanics. I've been as loud as anyone about wanting him to start in Iowa, but it's not because I'm down on him relative to last summer. He needs reps to help refine those things, which probably has outsized impact compared to the average prospect since he just hit 1000 total PA in MLB. I have a tough time getting on board with the average power complaint though, he had 14 HR in 73 AA games for a .238 IsoP, and has a .200+ Iso at every level as a Cub. They overhauled his swing and he has more physical maturation in his future, both which can be harbingers of greater future power too. Longenhagen comped his peak seasons to Mike Cameron, and I think that's a very fair positive outcome all around.