Bertz
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Everything posted by Bertz
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It should also probably be noted that Connor Joe and Ty France each signed 1/$1M contracts in the last week. Donovan Solano, whose current profile isn't too terribly different, got $3.5M. There's a pretty good chance we're talking about $4-5M rather than $8-10M, and the only alternative move this is truly incompatible with is Bregman
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I try to avoid linking to Twitter but Marquee doesn't cross-post videos and you can't screenshot one Counsell explicitly calls out the org's lack of depth at 1B. So I definitely expect one at this point. Likely Turner if no Bregman, and then someone more league minimum-y (Juan Yepez?) if paired with Bregman.
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Yeah Vlad Jr.'s probably the most expensive player they could plausibly add and even he'd be a smidge under $10M come the deadline? I don't hate the team holding onto more than the customary $10M for in season stuff, but once you get past like $15M you start leaving the realm of likelihood IMO.
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Why are you setting the bar at "up year" and "impact player" for someone everyone is clear eyed will be on the bench?
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Do you...think ZiPS (or any projection for that matter) doesn't know about this?
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If only there was some data that gives us an objective estimate of how age impacts player performance. Darn!
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Justin Turner has a 118 wRC+ the last three years, and ZiPS projects him for a 112 this season. That would make him the Cubs' 5th best hitter. None of the other bench options project to even 90. The projected offensive difference between Turner and Berti (our best offensive bench player currently!) is the same as last year's difference between Ian Happ and Bryce Harper. This also grossly underestimates how much playing time reserve players get. Even players who never hit the IL still miss ~20 games a year on average to normal rest. So while I'm in total agreement that Turner is primarily a 1B/DH at this point, there are ~80 starts to be had backing up 1B/DH/LF/RF (the latter two indirectly through Suzuki moving out of DH) even in a fantasy world where no one gets injured enough to hit the IL this upcoming season.
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Spring Training Moves/Transactions Thread
Bertz replied to Outshined_One's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
This was Tucked away in Mooney's Bregman article last night. Combined with what Trueblood wrote, I'm assuming the Bregman backup plan is Turner and Robertson, maybe Finnegan. -
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6130234/2025/02/11/cubs-alex-bregman-clubhouse-fit/ Again it's just vibes, but this really reads with a sense of inevitability. Especially from someone like Mooney who is very much *not* a cheerleader for the team.
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Devers is pretty terrible at 3rd. I wonder if for like player politics reasons they know they can only ask him to move off the position for a Gold Glover, and so there's some incentive to add a Bregman/Arenado rather than ask him in a year to move for one of the youths like Campbell?
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Yeah it's admittedly just vibes but this all feels way too similar to the Bellinger stuff last year. I kind of assume it's the Cubs right now on an opt-out heavy deal, and he's holding out hoping for someone to step up and give him the lengthy deal he really wants. I wonder what the drop-dead dates are. Because Bellinger fit the Cubs roster *so* cleanly it was kind of whenever. But there are more moving parts with Bregman so I wonder if the Cubs have a line in the sand somewhere in the next week or two. Because the longer this goes the less likely I think they are to for instance deal Nico somewhere.
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There's a tough line to walk with the bench. You want to allow for the kids to be the fill-ins if there's a lengthy injury or extensive underperformance. I think that's part of why versatility has been the focus to this point. But at the same time, I don't think we can just punt on the bench. Right now the bench is Kelly, Berti, and two of Canario/Brujan/Workman. That group combined for 12 major league homeruns last year. ZiPS does not project any of them to crack a 90 wRC+ this year. It is an offensive black hole. Circling back to the kids, we don't have a good 1B candidate in the immediate term, certainly not a RHH one. Caissie's not played the position in real games, Ballesteros would ideally focus on catching, and Jonny Long hasn't played a game at Iowa. This team really needs an actual backup 1B, even if we'd quibble about who and how many resources to allocate to him. So i understand wanting to hold resources back for bigger moves, and that's certainly why this hasn't already happened already. You read the article and Turner's already got wife approval, this sounds fairly far along, and probably gets finalized within a day of Bregman's decision.
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Spring Training Moves/Transactions Thread
Bertz replied to Outshined_One's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
Angels signed Kenley Jansen. Wasn't an option here with him very understandably insisting on closing. But the relief market, in terms of guys you'd probably be willing to replace one of our incumbents with, is basically just Robertson now. -
The rumor du jour the last two weeks in Cubs land has been Alex Bregman. We finally have an indication of what the team's backup plan is if he chooses to go elsewhere. Ken Rosenthal and Patrick Mooney indicate tonight the team is eying the aged Justin Turner. After the Cody Bellinger and Matt Mervis trades, the Cubs' roster is very thin at first base behind starter Michael Busch. Matt Trueblood wrote about the issue earlier today. Turner would give the time a far more viable backup than they have on hand currently. Turner is mostly a 1B/DH at this point in his career, so while his Baseball-Reference page says "Third Basemen" he would not be a threat to block Matt Shaw unless things went very very wrong for the rookie. Turner would likely play 1B and DH primarily, and get just a smattering of playing time at 2nd and 3rd. -
The rumor du jour the last two weeks in Cubs land has been Alex Bregman. We finally have an indication of what the team's backup plan is if he chooses to go elsewhere. Ken Rosenthal and Patrick Mooney indicate tonight the team is eying the aged Justin Turner. After the Cody Bellinger and Matt Mervis trades, the Cubs' roster is very thin at first base behind starter Michael Busch. Matt Trueblood wrote about the issue earlier today. Turner would give the time a far more viable backup than they have on hand currently. Turner is mostly a 1B/DH at this point in his career, so while his Baseball-Reference page says "Third Basemen" he would not be a threat to block Matt Shaw unless things went very very wrong for the rookie. Turner would likely play 1B and DH primarily, and get just a smattering of playing time at 2nd and 3rd. View full rumor
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1. Fair for a longer deal is probably in the neighborhood of the 6/$156 the Astros presumably offered, maybe a smidge higher. Shorter is harder to say because the devil is in the details but comfortably north of what Bellinger got. Either an extra $5Mish AAV or a 4th year. 2. It sounds like Boras wants an AAV that beats Rafael Devers $31.3M, AND wants 6-7 years. I think you can justify either but not both. 3. My gut says he's a Cub and gets roughly the contract Trueblood laid out
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Yeah Assad might not even impact his regular season by more than a few starts. Similar to the Taillon leg injuries the past few years. But this is what the depth is for. Feb/March/April is always especially brutal.
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And so it begins
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There has to be someone, maybe multiple someones, converting to the position this spring. It's the only thing that makes sense. There has barely been a peep this winter tying the team to a 1B. I think the Athletic mentioned Ty France one time? The backup catcher right now is either Berti or one of the catchers. Down at Iowa we do have Ballesteros, but if something major happened to Busch do you really want to take Moises away from catching for a couple months? Canario is interesting, that would be a good way to get him onto the big league bench to open the year. I also think Caissie needs to start a couple days a week there in case of that aforementioned long term Busch injury. I'm hoping the team is in in Canha/Turner, and just don't want to pull the trigger until the Bregman situation resolves itself. For as much as Jed's MO is depth and solving for downside situations this is some pretty major exposure currently.
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We all noted it was a bad angle, but Moises' possible weight loss from that other video seems to have been overstated.
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1B defense has three components: - Vertical range - Horizontal range - Receiving (both throws and groundballs) Moises' height means the 1st one's going to be bottom of the scale, and there's nothing he can do about it. Moises' weight will go a long way in in determining how he nets out horizontally. Receiving though, he's probably got the hands to crush it. There are endless examples of mediocre to bad defensive catchers who went to 1B and excelled, and I think a big part of that is because of the hands piece. The aforementioned Carlos Santana looks like a posterboy for this. The bar at catcher is SO high, if you're even vaguely major league quality, your receiving almost by default outstrips any non-catcher. I don't know how to weight these three in terms of importance. I suspect receiving is number 1 by a very healthy amount because it influences the largest number of plays. So I would tend to be less worried about Ballesteros than I would be e.g. Chris Morel. I'm going back a ways with these examples: but guys like Mike Napoli and Daric Barton taking to 1B like fish to water while guys like Adam Dunn and Edwin Encarnacion simply couldn't make it work stands out to me. I'd rather try to convert a bad raw athlete with some skill than a premium athlete who's a putz.
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Carlos Santana is a 5'11" former catcher pushing 40 and is probably the best defensive 1B in the league right now. No one bats an eye if someone 5'10" or 5'11" plays 1B. What major problem suddenly pops up in those last two or three inches?
