Bertz

Fun Iowa game. Another good inning for Wiggins, Triantos on base x3, and an Ayers walkoff double

I honestly don't hate this. It makes the winter meetings appointment viewing again, and restarting FA in early Feb makes it so this isn't some cudgel that's going to put players up against the wall. Maybe make that second window start a week or two earlier and allow trades in between and I'm fully on board?

Escobar is playing a lot more 2B lately. I'm curious if he's gotten better or if this is "the bat would play so well there we've gotta try our damndest to make it work"

He just hit another one! I suspect Cepeda is not far from getting some national attention

Good catch, looks like he's on the IL *sigh*

I mean off the top is he being paid in this scenario? If it's after the minor league season and he's not on the 40 almost surely not? And he might be okay with that but it does feel like something the union absolutely should nip in the bud. I would guess "Hey Owen you're officially our Minor League Player of the Year TM come spend an afternoon at Wrigley" is probably totally okay. Genius' idea of making him like some shadow September call-up catching bullpens and attending meetings and hanging out in the dugout but explicitly avoiding a 40 man roster move is wildly inappropriate. I don't know exactly where the line is (and without wasting my Tuesday night reading the official rulebook I won't find out), but it's surely much much much closer to the former than the latter.

Szczur was on the 40 man. Teams generally have injury replacements ready to go in the playoffs. But in the regular season they're in the minors. There's a reason Sam Bernero breaks 90% of the Cubs' roster moves by simply noticing a new guy arriving at the field. There was a designated taxi squad immediately post COVID (I remember Brendan Little pitching a game in Toronto while not on the 40 man for instance), and there is similarly for international trips (Japan last March) and the postseason. But teams generally don't just have a cadre of dudes just hanging out during the regular season at this point. And while I wouldn't be surprised if some level of taxi squad is still permissible, there's definitely not guys not on the 40 at the park. The Players Association would (rightfully) have a conniption if the Cubs went "oh this is just our new bullpen catcher 😉" to get around putting a guy on the 40 man.

They're definitely not allowed around during games I don't know the exact contours pre-game but I assume there's a difference between a one-off for a fresh draft pick and functioning as a de-facto 29th man.

I know IFA pitching is in an ebb league wide and some of our specific failures can be blamed on injury (Marquez) but man would it be nice to have anything acquired in the last decade to show for our efforts.

Also I'm like pretty confident you can't just have a guy not on the roster hanging out in the dugout eating peanuts having a good time. Like why would you think that's a thing?

PCA's already so good that his career projections are 2340 for hits and 440 for homeruns. He's 24, and has banked 374 and 74 respectively. Insanity. Dan didn't project steals, but I'd presume PCA projects easily to 300/300 and has a decent chance at 400/400?

The Brewers have not exactly had all sunshine and roses with their pitching health. That said, it's impossible not to let your mind wander to the scenario where literally everything else is the same but Miz goes down in his second start of the year and Horton stays healthy. Probably a 6-7 game (and counting) swing.

Yeah Hancock especially took years to figure it out. I suspect the lessons are A) there is some legit worry about PTSD from the insane AAA run environment. For instance I suspect the Cubs shifting Wiggins to relief was very much to get his confidence back up. And B) if you've got a guy dominating at AA who looks like he can pitch in MLB right now don't bother wasting bullets just to check a box. The flipside is though that the AAA run environment is so inflated there's not really much of a jump to MLB? Like if you've got an ERA under 4 at AAA with peripherals to match I feel pretty confident you're major league ready right now. Total opposite of hitters where even guys with an 1.100 OPS you're white knuckling those first couple hundred PAs.

Ironically I think the question has very little to do with Ayers. He's probably not quite major league ready, but the time up here should be valuable from a soft skills standpoint. Instead the questions are: - As you, is the 40 man is an issue? The team dealt away a lot of their 40 man eligible prospects in July (definitely wasn't an accident), but still the team tends not make moves earlier than they need to on this front. Are they willing to roll the dice there won't be a R5 draft? Are enough guys rolling off the roster to FA that it doesn't matter either way? - Do they consider Shaw a backup SS? If not, and especially given the timing, keeping the position player group as is and simply adding Shaw back next Tuesday is the path of least resistance - Separately/relatedly, does the team want Alcantara up even after Shaw comes up? Kind of feels like this is a test of whether the team actually likes/wants to move forward with Kevin. Evidence seems to be pointing more and more at "No", but this would be a significant signal in the other direction - Does the team want to add a "luxury" player with the extra roster spot? e.g. Justin Dean as a pinch runner I'd call him up. I think it's good for his development, the 40 man questions are kind of muted this year, and a 3rd catcher is pretty normal as that "luxury" add with the extra roster spot.

Pfaadt is pretty solid. He's on a heater since he got back from the minors, but mainly it's batted ball luck that he'd been deprived the last few years. He's still mostly the same guy: a mid-rotationy starter that generally can't be trusted to face the lineup a 3rd time through. Cubs should still be favored with Holmes on the mound, but it's not as lopsided as yesterday.

Wiggins has to be added to the 40 this winter and things appear to be clicking in relief. I think if the team was still desperate for arms I'd totally expect him to be our September callup. But yeah I don't think you can add him to the roster with all of the other moves coming up. The team already has to make some tough choices: - You can probably only afford to roster one of Thielbar/Milner. And Milner's 30 day rehab is about to close so you have to make a call I believe by Friday - You get an extra roster spot next Tuesday, and timing-wise that seems like it'll be Miller or Cabrera. But I don't believe you're locked into doing either. Miller gets an extra long rehab window if needed because he had TJ and there's nothing that says Cabrera can't go out on rehab to get a few bullpen appearances under his belt - With Civale's emergence cutting Rea feels obvious? Especially for Cabrera who will also give you some length - Brown and Steele are far enough out (2-3 weeks for the former, 3-4 for the latter?) that that you can assume someone will go down in the interim. And Steele will be late enough that you can just IL someone to float you to the end of the season. But you have to do something you don't like for these guys. Drop the other of Milner/Thielbar (Miller and Webb are reverse split guys, Peterson and Steele will be added to the pen), option Zeferjahn or Palencia, drop Civale or Thornton even though they're finally pitching well...none of these options feel great even though they come with a big carrot

Don't conflate causation with correlation (e.g. Hancock finally got good here in year 4) but hard not to wonder about this.

E-Rod's rocking some sort of Assad devil magic where he's outperforming all his peripherals by at least a run and a half. Pfaadt, after being one of the most prolific FIP-laggards in the league his first two years, appears to be getting his makeup from the baseball gods. This should be a series where runs are there for the taking. And with Marte out their lineup's not super scary either. Mainly just don't let Corbin Carroll go nuts and you should be fine.

We're actually at 33 IP of Civale doing this if you count last September. I'd love to get him on the Rea deal this winter. He's the goods out of the bullpen and I'm not entirely sure it wouldn't work in the rotation. He's still a 5 pitch guy and the velo didn't jump a ton moving to the pen.

An additional wrinkle with Thornton is that his velocity keeps climbing. So more or less IMO Thornton has progressed from 'bad and super lucky' early in the year to 'okay and kinda lucky' mid year to 'maybe really good actually' over the last few weeks? Thornton through 6/16 (his first game back after Pat leave): 94.8 MPH fastball, 1.86 ERA, 5.14 xFIP, 26.6% chase rate, 90.5% z contact rate, 89 pitching+ Thornton 6/20 - 8/7: 95.1 MPH fastball, 3.71 ERA, 5.04 xFIP, 35% chase rate, 87.2% z contact, 99 pitching+ Since 8/11: 96.2 MPH fastball, 0.00 ERA, 1.59 xFIP, 31.8% chase, 80.8% z-contact, 115 pitching+ So basically early on he was terrible and it was pure smoke and mirrors. Mid year he improved as his stuff started coming back. I think that xFIP probably understates the improvement, 35% chase is stellar and he probably got some legitimately earned soft contact that would have regressed to more Ks. Lately though? He's just been awesome. I don't want to get over my skis over 5.1 IP but holy cow he looks like a different guy.

There were some rumblings (I specifically remember from Eric Longenhagen) that he was mid-breakout and quietly the headliner to that deal at the time. It looks like he'll be a reliever but might be a hell of one

Wild for a team in first place, even if that is only thanks to an awful division. I suspect this is a franchise that's going to be in the wilderness for a while after this

Wiggins averaged 97.7 last year in his brief time at Iowa. He sat at the same velo this year in spring training. Jaxon wasn't fully stretched out last year at Iowa (and obviously not in ST), his three starts only covered 9.2 innings. So he probably comes in under that 97.7 as a fully stretched out SP? But he's been averaging ~96.5 in short relief and ~95.5 as a SP. So even if 97.7 is a little inflated he's still probably missing about 1.5 MPH?