Bertz

The Cubs are 8th in the league in called strike 3s and 10th on a rate basis. Teams ahead of them. There are very good offensive teams high on the list (Minnesota) and very bad teams low on the list (Miami has the fewest by a decent margin). This is one of those things like not getting the runner in from 3rd that is just not nearly as uncommon and "only my team" as you think.

I think the best guess for the next three games is Opener + Spencer Bivens Opener + Spencer Howard Opener + Mason Black Between injuries and trying to line Webb up for the Dodgers series the Giants rotation is a huge mess.

Get that man to Iowa. Chase Strumpf is starting everyday for crying out loud it's not like there's not room for him.

Hopefully Pagan is alright. I feel like the outfielder always takes the worst of it because they're *just* looking at the ball and don't protect themselves as well. Hopefully just the wind knocked out of him and an abundance of caution.

Yeah I think 3 things are going on with Roberts: 1. The velo is legitimately down a tick or two. As TT points out he wouldn't be the first guy this year holding back some velo while at Iowa. 2. He's kind of a nightmare for the pitch classification systems. Much like Justin Steele he's got a fastball that's on the border between a 4 seamer and a true cutter. I also wouldn't be surprised if some of his harder sliders in the upper 80's are getting called cutters and pulling down his average "cutter" velo. 3. This is tough to disentangle from #2, but it looks like he's getting more movement on his pitches. '24 minors vs. '22 majors. It looks like - His cutter has the same horizontal movement but another couple inches of drop - His sweeper traded about two inches of drop for two more inches of horizontal movement - His curve did the opposite, trading 4-5 inches of horizontal movement for 4-5 more of vertical Those latter two probably don't have anything to do with his velo, but getting more distinction on his breaking balls is probably a good chunk of his current success. .

Yeah the Giants are in a real bad way right now Literally only two healthy starters until next weekend, and Webb is going today. The only guy at AAA pitching well would require some 40 man messiness. Also Yaz is on the IL. Winning 3/4 feels a lot more likely than under normal circumstances. If the Cubs win 5 or 6 of the next 8 heading into the next off day that would start to make up for some of their recent swoon.

Followed by a dominant save from Hunter Bigge I imagine it's not an accident Bigge's getting all the save opps right now, he's probably next man up once there's a natural opportunity to open a 40 man spot.

I assume at this point theyre just holding out to the draft when they need to clear spots at MB to promote him? But he's ready to be promoted.

Jameson Taillon so far in June: 24 IP, 4 BB, 24 K, 3 HR, 3.00 ERA, 3.79 xFIP I do not expect the team to end up selling, but if they end up doing so and Jameson can stay on this heater for another month it shouldn't be hard to dump his contract.

I was just looking ahead to the Giants series and the pitching matchups are really forgiving. No Webb, and Blake Snell and Robbie Ray are still rehabbing (both pitch at AAA tomorrow so for sure out through the Cubs series). It's basically Jordan Hicks and three bullpen/opener type games like Wednesday. You should never expect 3/4 on a West Coast series against a solid team, but it feels much more reasonable than it would under most circumstances. About time the scheduling gods throw us a bone this season.

What the hell did Colten Brewer do on the IL to come back out of the gate throwing so much harder?

The Dodgers didn't give out a long term mega FA deal between Greinke in 2012 and Freddie Freeman in 2021. Even if you want to count the Betts sign and trade as being close enough (totally fair IMO) we're still talking 7 years of Friedman steadfastly refusing to play in these waters, and now they basically won't stop. The "Team X won't do Transaction Y" thing is usually very context dependent and only true til it's not.

Oh hey look flyballs to CF can be dongs and they're not just xwOBA killers

Very baseball that they had a 5 run inning in these conditions and no dongs were involved.

It snuck up on me the season Birdsell is having given he started so slowly. A 3.79 ERA isn't amazing in this year's Southern League but it's solid and he's trending up. Probably an MLB depth option by this time next year?

That's not true from what we know publicly. It was very widely reported that the Giants and Blue Jays were at $700M and as soon as the Dodgers matched the deal got finalized and there was no additional soliciting of counters. As for the Jed of it all, I suspect he would do a Corey Seager or Rafael Devers type deal, $300-400M for a 25 year old, but I have no expectation he will ever be the guy to break records on e.g. Soto because of his aversion to deal length.

Not totally sure this goes here but it's not worth its own topic. If you want a frontline SP in the short-medium term a Luzardo trade is one of the most viable avenues, now looks likely to be an offseason deal instead of a TDL that looked inevitable 3-4 months ago.

That 2.8% HR/FB rate for Megill is screaming for regression so hopefully the weather today accelerates it.

I just got around to Kiley's mock from earlier this week. I did not know anything about Waldschmidt prior to that but he actually sounds really fun. I wonder of you could get him at 14 and push some money to day 2.

I wouldn't hate Busch or PCA getting a start today. Q is pretty split neutral and obviously not a flamethrower so he's a good lefty to give a young guy a shot against.

Dansby Swanson monthly wOBA and xwOBA It's mostly just batted ball luck. He had a rough stretch in early May leading into his trip to the IL but there's less progression here and more just getting what he's due. Morel and Amaya have some of this coming their way too. The groundball rate is too high, I think that's the one thing that's actually been problematic. Interestingly it was also really high last April when he was crushing it. I wondered at the time if it might be a somewhat intentional choice due to the April weather. This has lingered into the summer though so it's clearly not on purpose this year.

You probably can't justify the 40 man machinations of bringing him up with such a short runway of him performing like this, but Hunter Bigge looks like an absolute DUDE right now. Throwing way way way more strikes than last year right now.

It would be extremely ballsy to do mid-season but a young Mariners arm for a young Orioles bat would be extremely fun. The actual answer is probably Jack Flaherty.

Again, I don't think you get this stuff. It's really hard and any team drafting outside of the top 5ish range in any draft (or wherever the top tier with the slam dunk blue chippers ends in a given year) would kill for a draft like '21. A mid rotation SP, a fringe top 100 bat, and a second division bat is a haul. That's how low the bar is. The MLB draft is TOUGH. And then in 22, you've got Cade Horton, who now that Skenes has graduated is in the discussion for best pitching prospects in baseball? Plus Jackson Ferris who netted us Busch. Plus a handful of 40 grade pitching prospects. With how pitching-heavy it is it can very easily go bust still, but right now? If you think it looks bad right now that's absolute crazy talk. '20 was awful for sure. No one would dispute that. Kantrovitz did have to deal with this little pandemic thing 2 months into his job starting, but even setting that context aside he looks 3/4 in strong drafts. Or do you also think Matt Shaw being a top 40 prospect less than a year after being drafted 13th is somehow bad? 19 was a completely different group. Theo was in charge of the org and McLeod was in charge of the draft. 19 is about as relevant to the conversation as '12-'18. Speaking of 18 funny you didn't mention the draft where the Cubs picked the top performing player in the entire thing at #24.