Bertz

As a pitcher he's legit but he throws hard as hell and he's already had had two TJs which gives me the heebie jeebies. I'd probably prefer any of the other multi-year starters over him, but I'd much rather have Soriano than any of the rentals?

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/live-blogs/mlb-trades-deadline-2026-rumors-transactions-analysis/wFlwrdzNLbnb/ Two starters LFG

Morejon's a monster, an order of magnitude better than Luke Weaver and without the rollercoaster-esque performance of Jeff Hoffman's last year and a half. And so he's going to be expensive, you could argue for a Top 100 guy honestly. Pretty hard bar to clear for a reliever One of the nice things about the Padres is their org is really stripped down right now. So I'm wondering if you can do a bit more of a deal centered around quantity (4 or 5 for 1) and hold more of your blue chips in reserve. That is fairly antithetical to Preller but they are REALLY overleveraged right now.

I'd be aghast if the Cubs settled for Kremer but as someone who thinks HR/FB rates are mostly RNG he's a nifty pickup for a bubble team like the Twins.

It's definitely been zero power production to this point, though the little bit of exit velo data we've gotten on him has been decent and not indicative that he's physically limited to the extent of e.g. Nick Madrigal. But it's been very good production from a 20 year old who it sounds like should be able to stick at shortstop (though maybe be more comfortably plus at 2B). 0 homerun power is a non-starter in the big leagues, but if a little more physical development plus a little bit more lift+pull in the approach can get him up to 5-10 homers a year the rest of the package is pretty attractive. Like Xavier Edwards doesn't feel like an unreasonable outcome?

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7483744/2026/07/31/cubs-bullpen-injuries-trade-deadline/ Fun read. Adrian Morejon gets a lot of ink

Glad to see he has the post-blister velocity right from the jump

100% Love seeing this Snell hot streak too. I was high on him in ST so hopefully it was a "not wrong, just early" situation

Kepley needs to be either in Tennessee or another org come Tuesday

Those are nice prospects but as expected that is a farrrrrrrrrr cry from "Top 100 guy and more" Value wise (but very much NOT style-wise) that feels something like Cepeda and Southisene.

Add Mize to the "guys getting scratched" list Not gonna lie it feels like the damn is going to break. I know baseball execs love nothing in the world more than to procrastinate so I have my expectations on Sunday night for the fun starting in earnest but the tenor of rumors makes it seem like we're closer than that.

Honestly I'd be aiming to go into next season with a 6 man rotation AND a quality long guy like Assad in the pen. Between Steele and Brown having ruby red injury flags and the inevitable disruptions to ST you need to simply assume you're losing a SP to something nasty before we hit Tax Day.

Also worth noting Sammon is a Mets writer who is transitioning to mode national stuff, so there's the same grain of salt as if you heard something suspiciously Cubs friendly from Jesse Rogers