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Bertz

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Everything posted by Bertz

  1. Bertz
    I'd love to do some one-stop shopping and do a monster deal with the A's or Angels. Something like Rooker and Langeliers or O'Hoppe and Rengifo (and Detmers?). Roll into the offseason with a to-do list of, pending what goes down with Taillon and Bellinger, one starting caliber player and some relief help. Like I don't love Alex Bregman this winter, but if you've got all that added oomf in the lineup from Rooker and Langeliers banked it's a different story. Filling the one remaining hole in the lineup with one of the premier patience/contact hitters in the sport makes the calculus completely different.
  2. Bertz
    You're always going to have slumps, and you're always going to have unfortunate periods where like 4-5 slumps line up together concurrently. The problem with catcher is that it has until these last 9 games been entirely made of slump. Having what is functionally a traditional NL lineup for half a season is far and away the primary issue with the offense this year (there is also the run environment like TT brought up this AM but people get super pissy when you bring that kind of thing up).
  3. Bertz
    I swear it's the not lack of offense the last two games, but I think I'm pulling a 180 on this not being my preferred route. It's actually the 3B conundrum that's pushing this. There's just not a perfect option there despite it being the ideal place to pour a big chunk of resources. Trade for Rooker and get some pure unadulterated offensive improvement banked, and then you don't have to sweat catcher and 3B so much. Like don't get me wrong you still need to address them, but there's just less need to get someone perfect. Plus Rooker's salary makes it easier to pile more upgrades onto the roster.
  4. Bertz
    Literally just fixing catcher moves the Cubs up 7 or 8 spots in runs scored per game.
  5. Bertz
    There were some very early murmurs around Hoerner to Seattle. If those were accurate you've got to think it'll be ratcheted up.
  6. Bertz
    Baseball is a game of thin margins, and most execs got to where they are by piling up a bunch of 52/48 type victories. The unfortunate side effect is they are, by and large, terrified of doing anything that isn't a slam dunk win. They NEED deadlines to act like adults and consummate deals. That's why more and more all the offseason activity happens around key dates as well (winter meetings, holiday break, nontender deadline, spring training reporting).
  7. Bertz
    Cool glad we didn't cash Canario in over the winter when it was already obvious he had no place on this team and was inevitable trade bait.
  8. Bertz
    Yeah I think all indications around Happ have been that the NTC was for personal reasons not for leverage like a lot of guys use them for.
  9. Bertz
    Hoerner makes sense for them but I don't see an OF like Happ. I think they are a VERY sensible Taillon suitor though, maybe the most.
  10. Bertz
    Looks like the latter Also yikes to this
  11. Bertz
    Do we know if this is an opener deal or a full on bullpen game? Because Zastryzny has been in pure short relief to this point in the year, even in the minors.
  12. Bertz
    I could totally see it. But even premium prices on a second division starter is still not anything worth stressing over too much.
  13. Bertz
    I was briefly tempted into this line of thought a few weeks ago, but I think if you bring in a veteran for that type of role you want someone who A) doesn't have the social capital where you have to worry about cutting them if it doesn't work out and B) might work out in the bullpen. Someone like Patrick Corbin who you can squint and say "if he's airing it out for 2-3 innings and throwing 70% sliders maybe...."
  14. Bertz
    Looking at slot values, they're essentially valuing Southisene as an early 3rd rounder and Lovich as an early 4th. That's fun, along with a lot of the IFAs who are progressing through the complex leagues MB should be pretty fun next year.
  15. Bertz
    Re: 3B....Luis Rengifo maybe? He's more of a supersub who's played primary 3B because of Anthony Rendon's issues. He's a switch hitter who absolutely mauls lefties (157 wRC+ going back to the start of '22) and is adequate against righties (94 wRC+). He's under control through the end of next year and as an Angel is surely available. It's a low ceiling "3B equivalent to Mike Tauchman" type move that would obviously necessitate going bigger elsewhere, but if like me you don't like any of the bigger options and want Shaw or Smith to ultimately own 3B he's probably about the perfect type of stopgap.
  16. Bertz
    Fair enough. Milwaukee and Boston are 23rd and 25th in this measure. They lack an extreme monster power bat (Devers is a great hitter but not an extreme raw power goof) and are two of the three biggest teamwide xwOBA overperformers.
  17. Bertz
    This is not the secret sauce you're convinced it is. You know what team leads the league in the rate they pull their fly balls? The Mariners (22nd in wRC+). The two teams directly in front and behind the Cubs? The Phillies (6th) and Yankees (3rd).
  18. Bertz
    Since getting to Iowa his contact rates have been much lower than a strikeout rate in the teens would indicate. This was probably always due. I'm not worried longer term, but he is most definitely not a guy who's imminent.
  19. Bertz
    https://www.audacy.com/670thescore/sports/chicago-cubs/jameson-taillon-cubs-relievers-could-be-on-move-at-trade-deadline Levine name checking Teel feels notable. I'd assume it'd be Taillon and additional young pitching Breslow feels strongly about (Wesneski?), as there's no way Taillon gets Teel directly.
  20. Bertz
    I don't love a pure DH as the way to improve the team. That said the A's are a team that is likely to just want value and not be picky about what it looks like, i.e. they see no difference between 2 quarters and 5 dimes. Also his salary is nothing, even with his breakout we're probably talking $6-8M next year? He's a major addition that you can do a lot on top of, which you can't necessarily say for a lot of the others.
  21. Bertz
    Funny I was just looking at him yesterday. He seems at minimum to be a lefty mashing utility man with a chance to be a low end starter to bridge us to Shaw or Smith. Padres need some OF depth, Canario for Rosario doesn't seem that far from fair? Maybe we tack on a reliever?
  22. Bertz
    Pretty decent chance this is Taillon’s last start as a Cub. He's slated to go again Monday night but if a move gets made for him I imagine it's before then.
  23. Bertz
    I think it's actually quite likely he opts out this fall, assuming he doesn't tank down the stretch coming off the finger injury. If nothing else the fact that the market for him right up until the injury was robust even with the contract structure in place tells you that he can go out and beat a raw $52M in free agency. You're anchoring off of last year's offensive production, but respectfully only huge homers thought he was going to repeat that. If 130 was the fair expectation he would have gotten $200M+ easily. The heavy analysis pointed to something like a 110 or 115 and low and behold look where we're at. The main reason Bellinger's market didn't materialize last winter is that '21 and '22 were so horrendously awful, he provided an inordinate amount of downside risk. This season he has largely put a return to that form to bed. Combined with already burning his qualifying offer (valued at ~$20M), and he should comfortably be able to exceed what's left on his deal. Maybe he wants to try for a bigger platform year and wait until next winter, but I'd guess age makes that a losing proposition and he ultimately opts out.
  24. Bertz
    There wasn't really an option with the doubleheader before the break but man Assad could have used a rehab start or two. Bullpen is rolling. Definitely need to move Leiter and Neris in what is very much a seller's market.
  25. Bertz
    I think most of the measurement error on batted balls was on popups rather than grounders, and with hawkeye has largely been eliminated either way. I'm also not aware of limits on GB exit velo except at the very extreme ends. Like I've never seen a 120 on a grounder but there are 115s pretty regularly. The 90th percentile measure is largely to eliminate outliers. You will sometimes have a guy with 1-2 balls above a certain threshold and everything else well below, so this is meant to account for that. There's not a ton of difference between doing like 90th or 80th, I believe Ben Clemens did an article on it, I think 90th was just what the first guy did and so it has stuck as the norm. There is an aging curve on exit velo, I don't remember the details off hand but Lance Brozdowski had a short primer on it in one of his prospect lists for Marquee a year or two back and I remember it knocked some shine off the James Triantos apple when he was in A ball.
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