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Bertz

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Everything posted by Bertz

  1. Bertz
    I'm loving what we're seeing from Taillon today. He has 15 whiffs through 4 innings, which already ties his high as a Cub. I love the new changeup, the curve looks like it has some extra bite, and like mentioned earlier the velo is not all the way back but is up from last year.
  2. Bertz
    Presumably Springs is done? 82 pitches through 3 innings for a guy with his injury history feels like a point you don't want to push past.
  3. Bertz
    Apparently it's brand new!
  4. Bertz
    Seiya!!!
  5. Bertz
    Taillon’s changeup looks kind of incredible today. Not sure what's happening there? Also sitting 93-94, so velo not all the way back to pre-2024 from but a big chunk of the way back.
  6. Bertz
  7. Bertz
    Pete has been getting under the ball early on here, but I'm pretty happy with him at the plate overall. The hard hit rate is up (backed by a huge jump in bat speed), the chase is down a smidge, the in zone contact rate is up, the pull rate is up. While he's hardly Kyle Tucker in terms of swing decisions, it feels like he's improving in that regard. Unless the pop-ups are inherent to the change in swing decisions and bat speed (which I wouldn't think?) I see more good than bad from his early season performance.
  8. Bertz
    We're not even a week into the real season and there's already some interesting stuff happening playoff odds-wise. - Cubs are flat-ish from where they were before Japan. Division odds are up a bit, wildcard odds are down a bit, chance of earning a bye up a smidge as well. Fangraphs has the Cubs winning the division by 3.5 games, though now it's the Cards in that #2 spot rather than the Brewers - The Braves have lopped 5 (!!) wins off their pre-season projection between the injuries/suspension/0-6 start. They are still a likely playoff team, but they coughed up the gap between them and all the wildcard teams. This is why the Cubs' odds of winning a bye ticked up, the NL no longer appears to have two super teams - The non-Rockies NL West teams are 20-3, which is what's dragging those wildcard odds for the Cubs down
  9. Bertz
    Springs is good, this game could be tough. Honestly if we're going to lose let Taillon get knocked around a bit so Keller/Pearson/Morgan can get some low leverage work in and hopefully take steps forward.
  10. Bertz
    Steele's velo is down and he's unable to miss bats in the zone. Those are bright red flags when the sample gets a little larger. The dongs don't concern me though. Dongs are fickle in small samples. Steele's xFIP is 3.78, which is lower than his standard but still quality. I'm fairly worried that he's sliding from a top of the rotation type to a middle of the rotation one, but I'm not worried that he's full out bad now.
  11. Bertz
    Caissie has balls hit 103, 110, and 102 with nothing to show for it.
  12. Bertz
    Workman should be in there IMO
  13. Bertz
    My meatballest baseball opinion is that blowouts like last night are bad actually because the team "uses up" all their BABIP for several days. Prove me wrong Cubs!
  14. Bertz
    Shaw was horrendous in Japan, but in America he's hitting .222/.333/.444 with even walks and Ks. He started looking better straight away on Thursday too. I wonder if the natural break that the Japan series forced helped give him that rookie reset a lot of guys don't normally get until much later.
  15. Bertz
    Playing the Yankees in New York is a really tough draw. So even beyond the SSS aspect I don't want to bite too hard on this. That said, the argument for the Brewers winning the division was more or less "they'll get a 60-70th percentile outcome for their pitching staff because they always do." Between their performance so far and the injuries it is getting tougher to just continue putting that blind faith in them.
  16. Bertz
    I think the issues are Brewers pitching and Aaron Judge's awesomeness than a new bat type.
  17. Bertz
    Amaya playing a day game after a night game with a lefty on the mound is kinda weird.
  18. Bertz
    James Triantos hit a ball 109.2 yesterday. On its own that's nothing crazy, but it's 4.5 MPH harder than anything he hit during his cup of coffee at Iowa last year. Equates to probably 45 grade power? Encouraging stuff, though certainly nothing to throw a parade over.
  19. Bertz
    I feel good about this matchup. I feel good about Boyd generally, and the Dbacks presumably be sitting Moreno helps him out further. On offense, Rodriguez was a mess last year and this spring his velo was still down. So while the Cubs had trouble with lefties last year I'm still hoping this is a good game from the offense.
  20. Bertz
    Aging curves rarely work linearly on an individual player basis. And for pitchers especially it tends to be velo rather than years that leads to declines. Case in point, ZiPS projected a 3.35 ERA for Pressly coming into the year. The only guy better the also old Ryan Brasier (who tends to get shielded from tough lefties). A player who has declined is not necessarily bad, it matters if they declined from a really high perch like Pressly did.
  21. Bertz
    I don't care what Pressly was 3 years ago, that is irrelevant. All that matters is will he he good this year. Pressly was very good last year, and my suspicion is if he doesn't have the velo issues he had his first two outings he'll be fine. Maybe he won't! But saying he's washed before we hit April is very very silly.
  22. Bertz
    Honestly pretty okay with that Pressly outing. Velo was back where it's supposed to be, he got a bunch of whiffs, and aside from pitching around Marte he threw a bunch of strikes. Geno Suarez is Soriano-level streaky and clearly on fire right now. But process wise that was a good outing IMO. I feel better about Pressly than I did this morning.
  23. Bertz
    If it makes you feel better I think Raisin's been on him since like last May, so we can blame him if things go south. 😉
  24. Bertz
    Would love a couple of these A ball pitchers to pop.
  25. Bertz
    Extremely early returns are that the Williams/Cortes trade is going to be one of those "everybody loses" types like the Kimbrel trade.
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