Bertz

Today will be I believe Shota's first start on 4 days rest, will be interesting to see how it goes. The Busch thing is fun. You probably should only do it on Shota day but hey here we are.

Under the hood Diaz looks like a vaguely average catcher getting a Coors Field bump. Vaguely average is a massive upgrade over Yan Gomes, and there's probably not a lot of other optionsyou can pull in June. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. get someone cromulent now and figure out if you can/should do more in 6 weeks.

Have we gotten any defensive updates this year? I wonder if moving back to 2B full time is working.

So the schedule only matters when it undercuts their wins not when it explains their losses, got it.

4-6 in their last 10. But sure, freefall

Wasn't Frisch a guy with big stuff who was currentlh injured on draft day?

They are literally in a playoff spot right now my god you people are dramatic

I understand the roster machinations and why they make this messy, but they really should have called up Brennen Davis for today.

Yeah that second point is really big and frustrating. If you want to go really bold on someone we feel suspect is legitimately on the market you're kind of limited to OF/SP/1B. The team isn't so good at those spots you can't upgrade but it's certainly not ideal. Honestly what I kind of wonder about is a young player swap at the deadline (think Gallen/Jazz) and then a more proper buy trade over the winter. I think with the young player swap you probably open doors to more positions, e.g. catcher, and it's not too pot committed if things go south in the second half. Then you make your big buy trade concurrently with a big FA signing (even if Bellinger opts in and LT is a hard cap there's enough room for a $30M+ player this winter).

I think 98% of statements that start with "good teams don't" are wrong, and not just a little wrong but like wildly wrong.

So, it probably doesnt absolutely have to start right away at the deadline, and it certainly doesn't need to happen all at once, but there is a certain extent to which Jed *must* begin spending some of this prospect currency over the next year. Let's take the outfield where things are most crowded. The Cubs have 8 outfielders on the 40 man roster - Happ, Suzuki, Bellinger, Tauchman as major league veterans. Bellinger has an opt out that looks 50/50ish today while the other three are definitely under contract for next year - Canario and PCA on the Iowa shuttle. Canario is already on his last minor league option, so he basically has to get traded or permanently force his way onto the roster between now and next April - Davis and Alcantara as (currently) pure minor leaguers. Both only have this year and next with minor league options, so the clock is ticking on them - Owen Caissie has to be added to the 40 man this winter, and will begin burning options from there 1B is similar. You have Busch and Wisdom right there now, Bellinger and Caissie as options depending on how crowded the outfield is, a very strong argument to move Morel over there over the winter, and while he's got plenty of like roster administration runway Ballesteros is probably a 1B and probably not far off of MLB relevance. You've gotta start cashing in some of these chips. Maybe Robert's not your choice but if you sit around waiting for perfect you risk burning through runway with guys like has already happened with Canario.

LF - Happ RF - Suzuki CF - Robert 1B - Bellinger 3B - Morel DH - Busch C - Jansen SS - Swanson 2B - Hoerner Do it, cowards

Assuming he gets back to being what he was in '21-'23 and his rough start to this season fades as he knocks off the rust I think there's a real fit there. The Cubs lineup could use a good impatient hitter IMO. I wouldn't want a lineup of 9 guys that swing at everything, but every lineup should have 1-2 who do so and do so extremely well. I think too the issue of too many outfielders is probably not as relevant for a plus defensive CFer. It's not totally moot, but Robert pushing Bellinger to a corner where he's more unequivocally plus is a good thing. I think for 2025+ planning, if you're making this move at least one of three things needs to be true; - Bellinger is playing well enough you expect that he is opting out after the year - You use PCA or Caissie as the currency to make the deal - You've soured heavily on PA'S bat, and think he's a speed/glove oriented 5th outfielder type and not someone who will be getting many starts TT has made good points about how we set the bar way too low for "too many outfielders" but going into 2025 with Happ, Suzuki, Robert, Bellinger, Tauchman, PCA in MLB with Alcantara/Caissie/Davis at Iowa is certainly too many outifielders unless you're down on several of the youths.

I am just getting into paying attention to specific names, but I think from an organizational health perspective you'd definitely want to go college. The South Bend roster is horrifically thin. And honestly MB was even worse before the fun wave of promotions the last few weeks. The upper minors are as healthy they have ever been and I think most reports out of the complex leagues are glowing, but that middle part of the system could desperately use an infusion of talent.

Will Sanders is still low 90s right? Trying to calibrate my level of intrigue. And man Ballesteros is going to force some interesting convos. If you don't think he's a catcher, there's probably nothing left for him at Tenn and honestly I wouldn't expect much of a bump in the road at Iowa. If he is a catcher, just how far away are we considering his glove? The bat's probably got an ETA of like August/September, could he catch enough to do like a Mitch Garver thing this year or early next? Give him one dedicated SP pairing and then have availability for fun mid game switches and PH opportunities?

I'm a tad worried about Assad. The runs the last couple starts don't concern me, it's simple regression after he spent the better part of two years with ludicrously high strand rates. The velo though appears to really be dipping. A lot of 90s and 91s last night and even a few stray 89s. And I don't think they're misclassified cutters either as the top end velo hasn't been there. I wonder if he gets the bump from the rotation for Wicks. Not as a punishment or a demotion but as a breather. It also doesn't hurt that he has shown he can excel out of the pen.

Seiya's OPS for his career is 200 points lower as a DH. A lot of guys famously hate it.

I think you expect both guys to struggle pretty heavily with premium velo at the top of the zone like Greene attacks with, but with PCA you at least get that defense.

Honestly not as far off as I was expecting, but you're definitely misusing ordinal. The individual grades are based on a bell curve, with every 10 points being a standard deviation. Why 20-80 I have no idea but that'sthe scale. And yes of course it's subjective (though increasingly less so) but the idea of e.g. slapping a 70 on a guy's curveball is to say "it's better than 95% of major league curveballs you'll see." The FV values are a holistic player grade. It's on that same 20-80 scale to give an attempt at that same bell curve treatment. But mainly it's to get away from ordinal rankings and think more in tiers. A 45 is not "5 FVs" better than a 40, it's a sign that player is a tier higher in projected quality. FV rankings taking off on FG were to accomplish two things 1. Get people to stop freaking out about the difference between like #63 and #78 on a top 100 list 2. Have a way to compare the Cubs #8 prospect and the Angels #8 prospect. Those two farms at totally separate ends of the quality spectrum, so despite that same #8 ranking those players are very very different in quality.

Sure fine. But what do you think these numbers are trying and failing to convey? I won't bother with trying to argue their efficacy, but what do you think they are pretending to say.

Great, then you can say it

What do you think these numbers are measuring?

That is literally the opposite of what they are. FV grades gained popularity on FG explicitly because they are not ordinal rankings.

I'm cautiously optimistic about these two games. I think hitters usually get a boost seeing guys in quick succession like this. Though as we saw with Skenes that's not a hard and fast rule. Plus I'm not sure that Greene's not hurt. The rain delay on Saturday obviously could have impacted preparation but his velo was alarmingly down. Seriously, the two slowest fastballs of his career and 6 of the slowest 11 came on Saturday. Even if I'm wrong, after tomorrow the pitching schedule in general gets lighter than we've gotten used to. It's not light, but we'll go about a week and a half before facing another SP I'd consider intimidating - Abbott and Montas for the Reds are not bad but they're probably south of average (don't believe Abbot's ERA) - The three Rays starters are better than their ugly ERAs but still more solid than anything - We currently project to miss Sonny Gray in the Cardinals series - Unfortunately looks like we will draw Logan Webb during the Giants series Not an opportunity to fatten up against like the Angels but a fresh change from May where it felt like we faced an Ace every 3 days.