Bertz
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Everything posted by Bertz
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I need to read the writeups still but Longenhagen gave the system a pretty noticeable bump down from mid-season.
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37 pitchers hit 170 innings in 2023. 16 of them, more than 40%, failed to get to at least 150 last year.
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You'd be surprised how many innings converters give you. They seem to average 120-130. Like even Jordan Hicks, probably the biggest fail among these conversion attempts, gave SFG 109 innings last year. I think too, at least for me I've basically chalked up that in a SP trade someone in the Assad/Wicks/Brown trio is gone. If you do handle SP via trade you're adding a SP, not swapping one. Between Poteet and the kids we already had on hand there is depth for a long reliever and an entire additional starting 5 at Iowa of guys you would be happy to give some MLB innings to next year.
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Seth Lugo, Garret Crochet, Nick Martinez, Michael King, Reynaldo Lopez are all recently converted SPs and were all Top 25 pitchers in baseball last year.
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I know a couple folks have been pushing for us to be the team that lets Jeff Hoffman try starting again. I think I might be coming around to that post Luzardo.
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Minter and Yates or Minter and Robertson is probably my ideal. I like Finnegan and Martin and to a lesser extent Jansen too.
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Passan's article today says Walker Buehler is in line for a multi-year deal. If true hardest of hard passes. I can talk myself into 1/$15M or thereabouts but I'd legitimately much rather take the risk and pitch lab someone rather than give Buehler a multi-year deal.
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It's certainly aggressive, but he's super young and put up 2.7 in about 75% of a full season last year.
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Walker Buehler feels the most likely now, by a decent margin. I don't feel good about the odds of him bouncing back all the way back to impact status, but he's been linked to a number of smart teams and there were some objective improvements to his slider in October. I was fairly all in on Luzardo, but two positives of this: - Having Taillon, Luzardo, and Boyd all set to hit FA at the same time would have been problematic. Not enough so to avoid making the deal, it is two years out after all, but I think dealing one of those three away next winter would have been pretty much a necessity - I suspect Jed's only going to do one more trade of substance and will fill out the rest of the roster with FAs. If this non-deal ends up meaning that SP gets handled in FA, you could do one of the other to-do list items via trade. My mind immediately goes to the bench. There's room for adding two bench bats, but in FA it's hard to find the right combo of offensive and defensive coverage. Trading for a Willi Castro simplifies things quite a bit IMO
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Yeah it's really hard to not tie this news and the Bellinger trade together. Especially hearing from Cashman earlier that Jed insisted on finalizing a Bellinger trade yesterday with or without the Yankees.
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Bummed, I liked Luzardo quite a bit. But with the medicals feeling like the likely culprit here hard not to defer to the team on this. Walker Buehler feels like the likely alternative. One of the Padres' guys would be the really fun alternative. Even after the Bellinger trade not sure you can allocate more than $15Mish to SP, so not even going to bother eying Burnes, Flaherty, or Pivetta. Hopefully there's another fun SP available in trade that's just not getting much ink. Someone like Mackenzie Gore? Among less notable FAs Patrick Sandoval feels like the most obvious pitch lab candidate on the market, so while I'm hoping for more obvious oomf in the next add he might be the savvy play as this year's Sean Manaea.
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Rumors around Jesus Luzardo were so hot and heavy over the last week that a deal was beginning to feel inevitable. Apparently not as Bruce Levine, who has been most plugged into this potential deal, declares that it's currently "dead." Luzardo has an extensive injury history, including major back issues in 2024. It's possible that medicals scuttled a deal either directly or indirectly by making it difficult for the clubs to align on a price that properly weighed the risk/reward. It's also hard not to view this in conjunction with yesterday's Cody Bellinger trade. While not simply "the cheap option", Luzardo was one of the lowest salary starting pitching options on the market. Did Jed Hoyer's newfound infusion of cash open up more attractive opportunities? Or did Hoyer push to free up cash as a response to this deal dying on the vine? View full rumor
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Rumors around Jesus Luzardo were so hot and heavy over the last week that a deal was beginning to feel inevitable. Apparently not as Bruce Levine, who has been most plugged into this potential deal, declares that it's currently "dead." Luzardo has an extensive injury history, including major back issues in 2024. It's possible that medicals scuttled a deal either directly or indirectly by making it difficult for the clubs to align on a price that properly weighed the risk/reward. It's also hard not to view this in conjunction with yesterday's Cody Bellinger trade. While not simply "the cheap option", Luzardo was one of the lowest salary starting pitching options on the market. Did Jed Hoyer's newfound infusion of cash open up more attractive opportunities? Or did Hoyer push to free up cash as a response to this deal dying on the vine? -
I know Trueblood poopooed Polanco as a 3B last winter, and it certainly doesn't help that he's had a leg injury since then, but man would he be a fun lefty bat to bring in. I also really want to know if Tucker is willing to play CF or (less likely) 1B. If you only need to worry about the IF or only need to worry about up the middle finding two bench guys for three spots is pretty easy.
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Yeah it feels like, especially given how much talent hits FA after '26, Shota's going to be in a situation where you'd rather hold onto him a year too long than a year too little.
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You would think this would indicate another move being not far behind if they set a deadline of yesterday
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And he followed up with Shaw
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This guy built out an app for doing Statcast sliders for AAA
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I think the big thing is the rotation if Luzardo ends up being the last SP. Having 3 SPs all leave at the same time is really rough timing, I think there might be a low key need to trade out of one of Taillon/Boyd/Luzardo and backfill with someone longer term essentially no matter what next winter. Yeah position player side it looks rough right now, but to your point if we're feeling good about either of Caissie or Alcantara at this time next year it shouldn't be too bumpy.
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Something I learned recently from a Szymborksi chat is that the replacement level is 47.5, and that there is exactly 1000 WAR to be earned in a given season. I guess that maths out to have league-wide WAR and league-wide wins line up at the end of the year.
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Wow, ZiPS has liked a number of players more than Steamer for a few years, namely Swanson and Busch, but I expected ZiPS to be like 2-3 wins north of steamer not like 6-7.
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This feels like when a little kid learns "Guess what, chicken butt" and gets some positive attention and then to chase the high tries the bit on everyone they see for the next week.
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So I think if you're the Cubs the questions you have to ask yourself from here as you fill out the roster are: 1. Do both you and Tucker feel comfortable having him play CF and/or 1B? 2. Of the non-Shaw kids at Iowa, which one(s) are you comfortable giving MLB at bats to in April/May if there's an injury? Adding a 3B to the bench is a given. But the answer to these two questions colors whether you also add a CF, a 1B, or both. Plus how to weight the allocation of resources between those bench spots. 3. Is Luzardo the SP you wanted, or is he the SP you basically had to pursue if you couldn't find a satisfactory Bellinger deal? With ~$40M to play with, adding a $15M SP like Dylan Cease is pretty doable. Hell if you gave him an extra year to keep the AAV down adding a Jack Flaherty wouldn't be insane. So now that you do have options it's probably good to confirm you're pursuing Luzardo because you think he's a GUY not because he's the best guy you could get for a sub $10M salary without blowing up the farm.
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ZiPS is weirdly feeling Poteet. A 99 ERA+ as a SP is a lot more than I was expecting from the big ol' pile of meh I got from initially perusing his Fangraphs page. I'm assuming Assad + a bat for Luzardo. Poteet opening the year as the long reliever until one of Wicks/Brown/Horton prove they're healthy and the rust is gone down at Iowa.
