Bertz
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Everything posted by Bertz
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This really sounds like it's more or less ready to go and just contingent on Pressly saying yes. I also liked this:
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David Robertson talking to Cubs about returning
Bertz replied to Southpaw19's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
I'm an "age is just a number" guy for pitchers, though I will say 40 and beyond does make me a little extra nervous. But Robertson has been consistently dominant since he came back from TJ so it's hard to find anything wrong with him besides his birthday. This would get a hell yeah from me. -
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6084614/2025/01/23/astros-alex-bregman-free-agent-discussions?source=user-shared-article My guess is there's a deal done conditioned on Bregman going back to the Astros and/or Pressly waiving his NTC. That's mean Bob jumped the gun but it's still likely to go down.
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This is a really good question, I believe the answer is no though. I believe on an administrative level we'd return him, he'd go back to being a non 40 man prospect for the Tigers, and then we'd acquire him as such.
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Usually when there's a disconnect like this between the national guys and the local guys it's a semantics thing and the team just doesn't like the deal being framed as almost done. Inevitably though a deal gets confirmed within an hour or two. Bob though is very liable to just totally bungle something like this.
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Ryan Pressly took a step back last year, but he was still 29th among relievers in Stuff+ (one spot ahead of AJ Puk, two spots behind Luke Weaver) and 44th in xFIP (two spots behind Luke Weaver, 4 behind Tanner Scott). So yes he's declined but he's gone from elite to still very good. ZiPS projects him for a 3.35 ERA. Probably knock a 10-15 points off of that in the conversion from Houston to Wrigley.
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Nice, I wanted Pressly during certain variations of the Tucker deal. I would rank him pretty close to Kenley Jansen among the FA RPs, so at his salary the player return needs to be nominal. One of our relievers feeling the roster squeeze like Keegan Thompson?
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By the way this math has been done ad nauseum. Here's a Pete Palmer article from 43 years ago that built on three already existing analyses: https://sabr.org/journal/article/runs-and-wins/
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Cade Horton either needing shoulder surgery or twelve months of rehab is a prominent that comes to my mind.
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No. It's the contrarian who the burden of proof falls on. Especially given your propensity to make horsefeathers up, I'm not going to put effort into proving e.g. the sky isn't purple.
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I think if you want to say that runs saved =/= runs scored then its incumbent on you to prove that out. Ditto tossing out park adjustments.
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On a park adjusted basis the Cubs offense was better than their pitching last year. On top of that they've added Kyle Tucker, and you'd expect that the worst of Amaya/Busch/PCA's growing pains are in the rear view mirror.
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A 1B is a virtual certainty. After trading Bellinger and Mervis there's not another 1B on the 40 man roster. Miguel Amaya has played 4 games at 1B since the pandemic, and as it stands he's the team's most experienced defensive option if Busch needs a day off. The question is what beyond that. If you don't add anyone, just give the spot to one of the lesser kids (Canario, Brujan, Workman), you're running out a lesser team to open the year but you're keeping a roster spot warm for when any of the prospects starts making noise at Iowa. If you add someone, like a Yoan Moncada or a Jorge Polanco, you give the team a *very* strong bench but make it that much harder to break any of the kids to break onto the roster. I'd prefer the latter but it's not a total slam dunk.
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I don't know if I agree with this conclusion (I think it presupposes Brujan's name is written in pen on the OD roster), but if it is the right read I think you'd expect a RHH 1B and that to be that as far as the bench goes. If it is right read, I'd really want to work out a deal with the Tigers to keep Workman. Need as many potential bullets as possible down at Iowa for 3B if Shaw flops and Berti is your only MLB safety net.
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I mentioned this in the megathread but this is a better place for it: If Berti is an upgraded version of Brujan this is great. If Berti is the primary backup to Shaw I'd be very nervous.
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Berti instead of Brujan as the utility guy would be great Berti as the Matt Shaw handcuff....yeesh Losing out on Scott should mean we can squeeze in a third bench salary, so I'm hopeful for the former. Berti, Moncada, Canha, and Finnegan for instance likely comes in a bit under $30M still?
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Is this intentional? Because if so bravo if not boy do I have some funny news for you.
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One thing that's worth understanding is teams aren't dumb anymore. Okay aside from the Rockies teams aren't really dumb anymore. If a team does something that makes you go "why would they do that?" the best reaction is to dig into why they might have done that. There's invariably a reasonable explanation.
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What do you think would be different about this offseason/2025 if the team had come in just below the tax line in 2024?
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There are people really sweating Michael Arias? Like he would absolutely get demoted to AA if he were still in the org on opening day. There are upwards of 20 guys you would pick to save a game before you'd pick him right now. Like yeah the stuff is good (and to be clear, just good not amazing), and there's a chance he goes somewhere and it clicks, but so what? Relievers do that all the time. If you hold onto every reliever with a live arm just because you're scared of the 5% chance they suddenly develop command you're not going to have any depth options capable of actually getting outs.
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If the team wants to add 3 bench guys instead of 2 to compensate for some of the lost oomph in the bullpen after missing on Scott, you could do worse than Bader. That said two of the last three years he's been worse against lefties than righties, so he's not necessarily still equipped to be that strong compliment to PCA that a younger iteration of Bader would have been. I have been surprised at how little attention a veteran backup CF has gotten. It seems likely that will be Brujan or Canario to open the year. Is it a resource thing, where they'd like a CF but want to fill other holes first? Is it a situation where they want PCA facing lefties for his development? Is it confidence that Alcantara will be up before too long?
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In the bullpen I'm largely fine with it. When things were really bad last year part of why they couldn't pull out of the skid is that guys at Iowa like Palencia were also hurt and lesser prospects like Bailey Horn were struggling, so alternative options were to just ride it out or try our hand with the Colten Brewers and Thomas Pannone's of the world. As much as I chuckle at this and wonder how they're going to juggle it, it is nice to have someone like Ethan Roberts as like RP15 instead of RP9 or RP10. The rotation...yeah I still don't like the Rea decision. But I guess charitably if they want to really lean on depth and optionality Rea's ability to adapt and swing could prove valuable for maximizing how many starts from our younger more talented arms the team can fit into the schedule.
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Yeah I put pen to paper on it under Trueblood's article yesterday because it's getting kind of ridiculous. Barring injury we don't know about, there's one spot open on the MLB pitching staff before you start having to cut guys. And Iowa's not a lot better unless the plan is to push legitimate prospects back down to Tennesee just to hoard arms.
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This doesn't feel firm enough to post as a rumor, but from this morning's Athletic And paired with this "Add a closer" and "deepen the bullpen" as two separate items on the to-do list? I guess don't be surprised if they add two RPs of substance? I wonder if the second has to be a Raley who would be stashed on the IL, or if Keegan Thompson is pure placeholder at this point.
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