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Bertz

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Everything posted by Bertz

  1. Bertz
    Yeah I hadn't thought too much about the Mo/Caissie decision being about contact vs. power, but it's a good point and the team has almost always chosen contact when forced to choose the last few years. I'd guess too they have fewer hangups about Mo likely being a Mitch Garver style DH/C/1B type than we do.
  2. Bertz
    The Mets' non-Soto OF/DH situation sucks. Tauchman has a golden opportunity to hold down an everyday spot until Benge is ready, and by then there's a decent chance Luis Robert or Mark Vientos will have played themselves out of everyday at bats.
  3. Bertz
    My read is that the team likes Ballesteros more than Caissie, maybe even a lot more. I'm sure there's a Marlins component to this too, they did essentially trade for him two offseasons in a row. Caissie is also super similar to Kyle Stowers so they certainly seem to have a type. For 2026 Mo and Caissie were mostly redundant. Caissie's glove mainly only would have mattered in the event of a Happ/Suzuki injury, and maybe not even then so much if Shaw takes well to the grass. After '26 it does suck to lose that ready made Happ replacement, but my guess is corner outfield is easy enough to backfill that the team isn't sweating it too hard.
  4. Bertz
    Looks like he was #80 on their midseason list, so my guess is he fell off but not by a ton. I think I saw him as a Just Missed/Honorable mention on one of the earlier lists (Keith Law?) and I'd guess that's similar here.
  5. Bertz
    55 - Jefferson Rojas 60 - Kevin Alcantara 72 - Jaxon Wiggins 84 - Moises Ballesteros Owen Caissie actually made the list this year at 62, Fangraphs has generally been low on him.
  6. Bertz
    . Great year to pick in the 20's and have an extra second rounder
  7. Bertz
    A little weird they're DFAing an infielder rather than just throwing Justin Steele on the 60 day IL. I wonder if Steele is being obstinate and doesn't want to commit to being out til Memorial Day.
  8. Bertz
    Sounds like Collin Snider's already got his 2024 velo back, and the team has some specific ideas for keeping Harvey healthy.
  9. Bertz
  10. Bertz
    Close the book on this one
  11. Bertz
    Levine's pretty hit or miss at this stage of his career. That said the only time from the last couple of years I can remember him being this on something was Jesus Luzardo last winter. And that deal was done before the physical spiked it, so I'd consider it a win for him.
  12. Bertz
    My understanding is LT numbers are vased on guaranteed dollars. So presumably for Harvey it's $5M with a $1M buyout, and thus the $6M guaranteed is the LT hit. I do know that option decisions that retroactively change the AAV can have a carryover. For instance Stroman's contract was 25/25/21, for a 23.7 AAV. When he opted out before that 3rd year we got a 2.6M 'penalty' in that 3rd year to make up for that AAV gap the first two years. I don't think this happens on mutual options though, mutual options are essentially just deferred money.
  13. Bertz
    He's supposed to miss 2026 so this is a pure IL stash play. Still he's been great when healthy the past few years.
  14. Bertz
    Worth noting Schwarber was significantly more raw than even Mo. As far as I can find he caught 100 games in college and another 70 in MiLB. Mo's at about 240 if we only count full season ball. FWIW Amaya was only 265 before he became a full time big leaguer.
  15. Bertz
    The outfield's a little tricky. There's not really room for another lefty at the moment unless you decide to send Mo to Iowa. On the flip side we have essentially zero LHH outfield depth. Dylan Carlson is a switch hitter but much better against lefties, and then...Brett Bateman? And even the righties all have their question marks. On the pitching staff you handle this by adding another veteran like Tauchman, pushing Mo down to Iowa and telling him to hang tight knowing that attrition will work it all out in short order. On the position player side though? There's no guarantee of that injury, Happ/PCA/Seiya combined to miss less than 30 games last year. Ideally we can get someone of substance on a minor league deal. Max Kepler or Michael Conforto? I suspect those guys can do better though, and we'll just have to live with the idea that if god forbid something happens to Happ or PCA our lineup just gets a little too right handed.
  16. Bertz
    I think there's a decent chance of another bench guy, and a decent chance of more pitching. Probably won't be a surefire starter if it's not Gallen, but someone you can stash on the IL (Griffin Canning?) or someone you think might take off in relief (Walker Buehler?).
  17. Bertz
    Each of the last three years we've gotten 30+ games at catcher from guys who weren't one of our top two catchers heading into the season (Amaya in '23, Nido/Bethancourt in '24, McGuire last year). Amaya especially is made of glass, I don't think we should write off Mo getting some run at catcher. He of course could just hang out at Iowa until the IL trip that opens up that playing time, but A) is it really possible for him to radically change our defensive evaluation on him between now and like July and B) to your point of growing pains we're just kicking the can on getting those out of the way. I just don't see the point of blocking the kids for low margin upgrades. Especially at DH, where we're not boned if Mo faceplants. Austin projects really well, Long purely offensively is probably a bit better than Mo (at least in the short term), or we could of course just rotate guys through it as a rest spot. And of course I think KC's got a great point that DH is about as easy of a spot to fill at the deadline as you could ask for.
  18. Bertz
    I just don't really see the point? Like why bother? For 5 points of wRC+? And if you want to lean really heavily on projections it's worth noting they really like Austin's bat and they don't think Mo provides zero defensive value.
  19. Bertz
    Cubs fans will suggest literally anything to avoid giving a job to a kid
  20. Bertz
    Felix Hernandez and Zack Greinke both did the "changeup almost as fast as my fastball" thing. Unfortunately neither guy did it early in their career when they still had primo velocity. It was a lot of 92 MPH fastball with an 89 MPH change, but it worked exceptionally well.
  21. Bertz
    👀
  22. Bertz
  23. Bertz
    As the resident Ben Brown fan (apologist?) I'll do my monthly reiteration that he has the peripherals of a strong #2 starter, and those tend to become meaningful far faster than quality of contact. I'll also say my read on the situation is that his issues last year were more between the ears than in the arm. Everyone wrings their hands about him only having two pitches, but smaller repertoires tend to result in more of a times through the order penalty rather than the first inning struggles that really torpedoed Brown's results. I think the best way to balance the standings and Brown's development is letting him be a multi-inning reliever, slowly increasing leverage and/or length as his performance dictates. That said if the team has specific arsenal changes they want to make Iowa wouldn't be the worst thing. The changeup is obvious and already in progress, but I also wonder if there's something that moves glove side that they could implement. Pretty much the first thing they did post trade was kill his slider and focus on his curve, but that was A) at the height of the sweeper fad phase and B) pre-Zombro.
  24. Bertz
    Watched the presser, nothing too crazy which is probably good news: - Jed made it sound like they were done with big transactions and just continuing to hunt for depth - HOWEVER Bruce Levine tried to get him to bite on a thinly veiled question about Zac Gallen and Jed got a big horsefeathers eating grin on his face and said something about having plenty of resources - No one is hurt that we didn't already know about. Carter mentioned Steele and Trent Thornton rehabbing but no one else is currently hurt. - Apparently Hunter Harvey was absolutely gushing about the Cubs pitching and medical staffs. He's come from some particularly backwards orgs but still feels notable - A question about the roster cliff came up. Jed then mentioned the young SPs and how good they feel about them - Michael Busch is apparently getting the opportunity to play every day against LHP?
  25. Bertz
    Kind of shocked that Palencia is the anointed closer and not just "in the mix".
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