Bertz

100%

Yeah this version of Horton feels pretty close to major league ready. He's got to cut the walks, though like we talked about in the game thread yesterday he hasn't been nearly as wild as 10 walks in 12 innings would say to you. I think if we were the Marlins, I'd expect him up before May, and be shocked if he wasn't up before Memorial Day. But given the Cubs' competitive aspirations combined with his IP cap likely being something in the 100-120 range, it's harder to say what the plan here will be. I wouldn't be surprised by minimal MLB time in the first half, maybe a few spot starts, followed by a more permanent callup coinciding with a move to the bullpen around midseason. But regardless of the specifics I anticipate inning management, both Horton's and Brown's, to have a major impact on Cade's MLB time this year.

Looks like Cade threw 54% of his pitches in the zones, which is pretty good. He only got 5 whiffs though, which is kind of bad. So yeah 3 walks overstates the wildness but it sort of evens out because he probably shouldn't have had 6 Ks either.

Moises dong! OPS up to .934

Yeah no horsefeathers

It's pretty wild that they're still this bad. Like if Paul Skenes isn't pitching on a given day they're not any better than the White Sox/Rockies/Marlins. And their farm is good but not great.

Bullpen's gonna be dicey today. Everyone but Little and Palencia would be working their 3rd game in 4 days. Merryweather and Thielbar are likely fully down as it'd be 4 of 5.

What a phenomenal game from the bullpen. Merryweather's very much back in the circle of trust for me.

The Velo was definitely more 2023-y than 2024-y which is good to see.

The Cubs don't face a LHH SP until Luzardo during the Phillies series next weekend. Though it looks like against the Pirates it will be Skenes and two lefties. So what I'm saying is Workman better get like 90% of this playing time.

It's certainly not as good as Iowa, but because of the shiny-new-toys of it all I am finding myself going to SB first now when I check scores. Really fun development.

The Shaw thing is dumb. The only argument I can see is helping keep his confidence intact by avoiding a tough slate of pitching. But if that was the goal sending him off with Glasnow and Cease is doing him pretty dirty.

He has exactly 1 at bat against lefties this year, so preposterously platooned. Also rocking a 40% strikeout rate. Still, good for him. Hopefully he can stick in MLB even if its likely to be a bench guy long term.

Palencia is a clear call. Like you mention he is a pretty similar profile to Pearson, and on top of that he's absolutely shoving to start the year (and frankly, going back to middle of last year). The other guy is where there's arguments in a couple directions: - Ideally to your point it'd be a lefty. That said Cosgrove hasn't pitched a game in the org yet, Little's looking rusty, and Martin hasn't been sharp yet. If you feel dead set on a lefty I think Brandon Hughes is throwing the best *right now* though he requires a 40 man roster move which isn't ideal - Keegan Thompson is, aside from Palencia, the guy getting the best results at the moment. But as called out in the game thread his velo is down, and of course he's not a lefty - Jordan Wicks already seemed relatively likely to come up and provide some innings in short order. That said after going 3 on Sunday, he's probably down until the homestand - Gavin Hollowell and Jack Neely are the only other optionable guys on the 40 man not covered above I think the plan probably depends on what the team was already planning with Wicks. If you are wanting to call him up on Friday, maybe you leave Pearson on the roster through the end of the road trip? If Wicks isn't imminent, I would probably eye Thompson or Hughes on the plane with Palencia.

Keegan's velo did weird things early last year at Iowa too and then immediately got fixed before his first MLB outing. He wouldn't be my choice for a callup but I wouldn't be shocked if he came up and looked totally fine.

Randy Vasquez is probably the worst full time SP on a good team in the entire league. Tonight is about as good as you can possibly feel playing a good team on the road.

We've got a freebie roster spot in Steele whenever Jed wants to cash that in.

Hard to be mad about Keller's outing, yeah there was a walk mixed in there but it was simple bad luck. Morgan and Pearson have to be swapped out today though. Palencia and Brandon Hughes maybe?

Understandably overshadowed by Hernandez, Brethowr's seeming breakout has been really fun to see as well. The contact numbers are worse than the strikeout rate, so there's probably some regression coming there (and for as much as I'm cheerleading for Cristian, ditto), but he's looking like he's validating the spring training hype.

One of the things that's nice too is that we do actually have reinforcements available to the pitching staff if things backslide further. Last May when the season was slipping away one of the things that sucked was that every pitcher of substance at Iowa was also hurt. So the only guys available to stop the bleeding were like Colten Brewer and Richard Lovelady. On the SP front we just had to keep running Hendricks out there even though it was clear he was cooked. Right now I'm excited for Palencia and Wicks to come up. Neely and Horton and Little don't seem that far off. If you just needed to stop some bleeding guys like Noland and Hughes could probably give you some boring innings. It's a far cry from a year ago even if there are some parallels with the bullpen.

I think it depends if his UCL is messed up or not. If his UCL needs to be replaced, because it's his second TJ I think realistically he misses most/all of next year too. If it's not the UCL I suspect given the timing he'd be good to go next spring.

It's definitely possible with all the off days, but with the Monday off day the Dodgers would have to skip someone. Right now it's slated for us to get Dustin May and Landon Knack.

Cease has a horrible ERA but the peripherals do not back it up. This is still going to be really a tough night. Conversely for this upcoming weekend Corbin Burnes and Zac Gallen's horrible ERA's are largely backed up by bad peripherals. So there's an argument that this is the last really tough pitching matchup until the Phillies come to town in a week and a half.

Cristian Hernandez has a 17% groundball rate right now which is ludicrous. Even in small samples I never really see it drop below 20 for a player. He's also rocking a fantastic 17.5% strikeout rate. Though his contact numbers make it seem pretty likely that bumps up with more sample size.