Bertz

I think on top of this, even if there is something to it that is not luck, the roster turns over fast enough to generally wash it out after a year. Obviously the team already swapped Ross for Counsell. And the bullpen, which I'd put 90% of the blame for this on, will have almost entirely turned over from the start of '23 to the start of '25.

I like Nate Eovaldi. Gives us that jolt of velocity we don't currently have, proven big game guy, and personally I am very "age is just a number" when it comes to pitchers. Fits very well as this generation's John Lackey IMO. He is a bit south of being a true impact arm. So I do think there's a bit higher baseline of what I want added to the offense if he's the SP add.

Are we getting the Phillies' hangover lineup tonight? Or does the fact that they could still technically lose the bye (plus the fact that it's a night game) keep this game more normal?

Dansby Swanson is 22nd in baseball in WAR since he signed. The two guys directly in front of him are Matt Olson and Kyle Tucker, the two guys directly behind him are Bryce Harper and Adley Rutchsman. Of his cohort of shortstops, he's half a win ahead of Trea Turner, two and a half wins ahead of Xander Bogaerts, and three wins ahead of Carlos Correa. It also feels pretty intellectually dishonest to spend 4 paragraphs on his one year decline in DRS and not note that Statcast says he's been the second best defensive shortstop in baseball this year?

This probably closes the book on whatever slim chances Kilian had of surviving roster crunch this fall

Hollowell is a fun little sidearmer the team added on waivers last month. He's been dominant at Iowa in SSS since coming over

One thing I'd like to see the team be sure to do that doesn't get talked about much is add a quality infielder. The starting infield is great, you'd probably project 12+ WAR just from the starters next year. Only ten teams did that this year, and a handful of those are just one guy doing all the heavy lifting (e.g. Bobby Witt earning 10 of the Royals 16 WAR). There's also great depth at Iowa. Shaw, Triantos, and Ballesteros are all super talented and not far off. Shaw especially is close enough if there was an injury during spring training next year I wouldn't be *that* worried about stepping in for a few weeks. But the bench, it's real bad. Wisdom’s a decent player with a limited skillset that doesn't fit this roster that well. Every other backup infielder in the org such as Mastro, Madrigal, Vazquez give no current indication they can hit a lick. The team could use that righty 1B to better shield Busch, and it *needs* someone capable of stepping in at 2B and 3B. Ideally that latter guy would be a lefty, though I'm not sure who that'd be as there aren't as many obvious options if we limit ourselves to lefties.

Apparently Counsell squashed the idea of of Caissie or any of the other hitter prospects coming up with the minor league season over. Not unreasonable, I assume they don't want to burn the 40 man spot early just to get him like two starts, but definitely annoying.

I think they want to keep the extra rest of a 6 man rotation, and with Wicks' injury this is how they make it work. So yeah I'd guess everyone stays on schedule from here.

It didn't end up in the box score because of the penalty but this was the most impressive play of the day IMO

Yeah it's like 90% luck. There was this weird thing in the first half where because Morel was so comically unlucky, it took up all the air in the room and it was hard to have the conversation about Swanson without it coming off as excuse making. And forget about Miguel Amaya getting in on that convo. And honestly I think the other part might be simple strength of schedule. There was a stretch in late April to early June where the Cubs played a brutal gauntlet of pitchers. Even teams that don't have the best pitching (the Reds for instance) the Cubs seemed to always draw the top of their order. By Pitch Info, in the first half of the year, the Cubs faced an average fastball of 95.01 MPH. The Braves were second at 94.68. That 0.33 difference is the same as the difference between the #2 Braves and the Orioles at #19. Velocity is not a perfect proxy for pitcher quality, but when you're more than a full standard deviation beyond your next closest peer it's a problem. Here in the 2nd half, Cubs are 27th. Swanson has improved across the board in the second half, but when looking at peripherals rather than production, it's all small incremental improvements. He cut his groundball rate, but not dramatically. His K's have gone down a lot, but the contact/discipline numbers have moved improved far less. I think those peripheral improvements are the ebbs and flows of quality of competition, while the topline production is largely BABIP.

I assume tomorrow's a regular bullpen day and Pearson's just going one or two, but it'd be fun if I'm wrong.

It is September of his rookie year and he threw for over 350 yards at just a hair under 7 yards per attempt. And this wasn't some game where they were trailing by 30 and he was playing against backups and vanilla coverages, it was never even a full two touchdown game. There was some ugly and of course the team lost, but man I have a hard time not being very encouraged by what Caleb did today.

Even setting the Cubs of it all aside TT's Luis Castillo trade idea feels the most right from the Mariners POV. If I'm Jerry DiPoto and my seat is getting a little warm, turning around and immediately throwing Castillo's salary at a bat (probably Alex Bregman) is far preferable to the extra prospect oomf you get from trading one of the younger guys.

Ethan Roberts has an ERA under 2 in September. There's some fortune involved but it's still an xFIP under 4. Getting a taste of leverage too. Not a circle of trust arm yet, but probably enough that you write his name in pencil in next year's opening day pen.

Might be a precaution in case today gets rained out.

My phone says it's supposed to rain til 6ish. I assume this close to the end of the year they camp out and we get a late one.

Here's a question I'd love to hear Jed's answer to: Pretend everyone is healthy and 40 man considerations don't exist, how many starters currently in the org do you start in a must win game over Brandon Birdsell? Steele, Shota, and Taillon are locks. Assad's a pretty safe assumption as well. Brown was a monster pre-injury so even with his lack of experience he's probably not far behind Assad. That leaves Wesneski, Wicks, Horton, and Kilian. I'd probably take those four in that order, and slot Birdsell just ahead of Horton? But it feels like you could argue Brandon ahead of any of them without too much mental gymnastics.

I was a big Riley Thompson guy, but I feel like the fact that he was pretty bad in relief is a sign it's safe to move on. Like if they want to keep him around as a warm body because of the familiarity that's fine, but he's not a priority roster add at this point.

Yeah I'm generally of the mind that we don't need an *elite* bat necessarily but we absolutely need a lefty masher. Teoscar Hernandez is probably the ideal in that regard but someone like Taylor Ward would be acceptable.

WOW

He's had a rough 2nd half but this feels icky. Impacts us the next two days.

This is another reason I'm not going to lose sleep if we end up with a more well rounded outfielder than a pure DH. I don't think that Seiya is a better hitter as a DH than as an OF, but it does appear that he's not worse. And that is a skill, most guys are worse or just straight up don't like to play it except as an occasional half day off. For example, Vlad Jr.: Overall - 137 wRC+ career, 167 in '24 As DH - 121 career, 131 in '24 Anthony Santander: Overall - 113 career, 131 in '24 As DH - 92 career, 95 in '24 Pete Alonso (only one game at DH this year so just career): Overall - 132 As DH - 111 It's not everyone. Teoscar Hernandez is fine at DH. Juan Soto unsurprisingly excels at DH. But just a consideration before we go completely moving around the defense like it's MLB the show.