Bertz
-
Posts
12,382 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
29
Content Type
Profiles
Joomla Posts 1
Chicago Cubs Videos
Chicago Cubs Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits
2026 Chicago Cubs Top Prospects Ranking
News
2023 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks
Guides & Resources
2024 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks
The Chicago Cubs Players Project
2025 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker
Blogs
Events
Forums
Store
Gallery
Everything posted by Bertz
-
A good amount of Cubs love in here
-
-
I would guess it's quite unlikely, but I wonder what the chances are that Tucker gets extended in the next few days in lieu of settling on an arbitration salary. I think even if we knew 100% that Tucker would get extended, Opening Day +/- two weeks is by far the smartest money for when it would happen. That said, some reasons I'm wondering about this: - It would explain the urgency to get the Bellinger deal done despite no teed up followup move - Not only was there not an immediate followup to the Bellinger deal, it has been deafeningly silent. The team signed a cheap LH reliever and has been sniffing around various cheap LHH infielders. These are not things Jed needed to free up $25M for. You know what $25M could do though? It could bridge you from a $16M arb salary to a $35M extension salary - The team absolutely has to sit down and talk dollars with Tucker's camp anyway - Arbitration negotiations are ugly, and you probably don't want your first substantive interaction with your new star to be so ugly. Arguing about numbers between $350-400M is presumably less contentious than arguing between $15-17M
-
Yeah I tend to think that the primary value of this data is going to be in establishing a baseline. Similar to Max Exit Velocity, but likely much faster to return meaningful results. For example I remember Cody Bellinger hit a ball 109 MPH in the first week or two of the '23 season after topping out at 107 his last two years with the Dodgers. That alone didn't immediately say he was fixed, but it made me hop on board the bandwagon much faster than I would normally find appropriate. With our current data you generally need months of data to say whether someone is breaking out or is suddenly cooked. With this bat tracking data I could see arriving at reasonable conclusions in weeks.
-
The thing about Kim is that while he might be a good option for the Cubs, the Cubs are an awful option for him. He is presumably going to take a 1 year pillow contract. I'd think he'd want to go somewhere with a more clear path to playing time, particularly playing time at shortstop. The Cubs would very clearly want Swanson, Hoerner and Shaw to play themselves in front of Kim.
-
Sharma and Mooney put out a podcast last night. Not a ton in there, but some notes: - This week is dead because of the arb deadline. Don't expect anything of substance for at least a few more days. It's not just the teams that are preoccupied, but also the agents (I had personally never thought about that) - The team is certainly going to add a late inning closer type reliever. With how many options are out there and how late in the winter it is, don't be surprised if Jed does his patented wait out the market play - The team is going to add another SP. Feels like this could go a number of directions. But even if it just ends up being someone boring like Kyle Gibson, seems pretty certain they're adding someone - They expect something of substance to happen by Cubs convention. Didn't seem to be informed by any sense of something specific, my guess is just that the team generally just likes to have something shiny to talk about then. If you'll recall the Michael Busch deal got done a couple days before last year's convention
-
Really really good read. Zombo seems pretty clearly to be viewed as Breslow's successor. Should also color how you view certain acquisitions this winter. For example I know Greg Zumach tied one of Zombo's videos talking up certain characteristics to the Cody Poteet acquisition.
-
-
Verlander seems pretty cooked, but that park and that defense might be able to keep him viable and let him rack up some more milestones, which would be cool
-
There was some point relatively late in the year where he was actually hitting .303 and I remember there being some funny interactions around that.
-
If Roki chooses the Cubs he will take up their entire pool and these guys who have a handshake agreement will go back out onto the market. Instead of signing these guys on 1/15 like the team traditionally would, this year they will hold off a week or so until Roki has made his decision. Every team in the Roki sweepstakes will operate this way. The Dodgers have very little money committed to this period, I'm guessing because they presume Roki will choose them. If Roki goes to another team though, expect the Dodgers to more or less inherit that other team's IFA class.
-
They're simply going to wait a week to put pen to paper. Everyone understands the situation.
-
I would generally only expect one reliever from here. No one is making enough money that you can't easily cut bait on them, but there's only one spot that truly feels open. I'd expect the remaining reliever to be a closer caliber arm though. Likely more in the Yates/Robertson/Jansen neighborhood than Scott.
-
This feels a bit silly. You just spent the better part of a year trying to find a good deal for Jonathan India, and now you acquire a similar player? Did Matt Mclain suffer an offseason injury?
-
Kind of shocking that Iowa ranked that high. I think it has normally been hitter friendly but not particularly so. Especially with some of those PCL monstrosities like Oklahoma City. Generally the takeaway from these numbers when released is you have to further mentally adjust wRC+ numbers you see. Fangraphs adjusts wRC+ in the minors by league, but not by park. So give someone like Jefferson Rojas a bit of a boost and give all the Iowa hitters a bit of a pump of the brakes.
-
If that's the case doesn't that undercut any doomerism about teams moving away from traditional scouts? I also don't agree that both lists look comparable. That second one generally has more success in the realm of young talent. Now it can be hard to disentangle scouting and PD, but still it raises my eyebrows and IMO not in the way intended.
-
I uhhhh, don't think these lists tell the story the scouts want them to tell.
-
I'm having a tough time reconciling the fact that there's a very finite amount of money each team can offer him, and thus no reason to do protracted negotiations, with the fact that he already knows it is going to take another two weeks to decide. My guess is any team that gets to the stage of an in person meeting will not know they're out of it until he's made his final decision.
-
Arbitration deadline is apparently this Thursday. Probably safe to assume if anything happens the next few days it'll be pretty small, like a Moncada.
-
I didn't realize until just now how long he's been off of 2B. I wonder if he'd be viewed as a 3B/1B and someone else would be looked at as the backup MIF (Workman?).
-
Means we will not see Ohtani as a SP this season unless it's in the playoffs
-
This is notably worse than the Cubs even with a very generous innings projection for Brandon Woodruff.
-
For the third time in less than a week the Cubs are being tied to a left handed (or switch hitting) 3rd baseman. This time it's former White Sox Yoan Moncada. Moncada is entering his age 30 season and looking to rebuild value after a few years marred by injury. The Cubs meanwhile appear to be looking for someone who can plausibly handle full time 3rd base duties if Matt Shaw proves not yet ready for primetime. Given that Moncada, Josh Rojas, and Hyeseong Kim can all bat from the left side, it appears that having that platoon compliment to Matt Shaw, Dansby Swanson, and Nico Hoerner is also being viewed as a desirable trait. View full rumor
-
For the third time in less than a week the Cubs are being tied to a left handed (or switch hitting) 3rd baseman. This time it's former White Sox Yoan Moncada. Moncada is entering his age 30 season and looking to rebuild value after a few years marred by injury. The Cubs meanwhile appear to be looking for someone who can plausibly handle full time 3rd base duties if Matt Shaw proves not yet ready for primetime. Given that Moncada, Josh Rojas, and Hyeseong Kim can all bat from the left side, it appears that having that platoon compliment to Matt Shaw, Dansby Swanson, and Nico Hoerner is also being viewed as a desirable trait. -
Essentially every free agent SP has exceeded projections this winter, and there are still several teams out there looking to spend some money (Tigers, Giants, Mets, Cubs, Blue Jays). I won't say no chance to Flaherty's market collapsing because there were some rumors about a shoulder injury around the deadline, but you should still expect something in the vicinity of $100M for him.
