Bertz

One more rehab start for Wicks apparently

I'm sympathetic to the spray angle argument, it's more or less the opposite of Cody Bellinger's whole deal. That said I'm not sure it holds up here? Chris Morel is pulling the ball 50.9% of the time this year. That's down from last year's 55%, but still well above the league number of 40.1%. He is 6th out of 155 qualified hitters this year. And it's not a flyball/groundball disconnect. I'm a novice at Statcast search, but below is I believe Morel's pulled flyballs + liners as a portion of all flyballs + liners 2022 - 35 /105 = 33.3% 2023 - 60 / 129 = 46.5% 2024 - 34 / 75 = 45.3% This is not a reverse-Bellinger happening. I know some of these examples are balls hit to center, but Chris should probably still have some extra doubles to his name. The other instances where you look at a wOBA/xwoba disconnect and don't cry luck are when a guy is slow/fat (nope) or when a guy has built up a track record of underperformance (nope). I know the fanbase is in a real self flagellating mood right now but I just don't see anything that says Morel hasn't been ludicrously unlucky to this point.

Literally shoulder high!

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/gamefeed?date=6/5/2024&gamePk=753137&chartType=pitch&legendType=pitchName&playerType=pitcher&inning=&count=&pitchHand=&batSide=&descFilter=&ptFilter=&resultFilter=&hf=playerBreakdown&sportId=11 Ethan Robert's touched 97 today? Which is especially notable since while his rehab has gone well so far he has been lacking a little oomph on his fastball. The confusing thing though is generally his fastball has been misclassified as a cutter, while today he is listed as throwing some of each?

Brewers not immune either

Stealing a TT move: Player A: .238/.335/.440, .338 wOBA, .335 xwOBA, 121 wRC+, 1.1 War Player B: .237/.309/.475, .338 wOBA, .336 xwOBA, 125 wRC+, 0.9 WAR Which of these players is Michael Busch and which is Pete Alonso?

Fedde has actually been quite good in his stateside return. Games where he or Crochet are starting aren't a gimme.

There's not actually that much to sell. TT made this point yesterday but the core of this group is pretty locked in for the next two years due to NTCs. It's probably Tauchman, a couple relievers, and maybe Taillon? No one who will return anything of major consequence. If the team is bad, I would wonder about two other routes. First, any sort of buy low opportunities. Like for instance Bo Naylor has struggled mightily this year while David Fry is making a star turn, do you go grab Naylor knowing you have two months of runway to let him try and work things out? Second, a challenge trade. The Cubs have this cache of young starting pitchers, is there a young arm for young bat challenge trade out there to be made? Something akin to the Jazz Chisholm for Zac Gallen deal. For example, keeping it with catcher, Ben Brown for Shea Langeliers?

The team needs a closer caliber arm, full stop. Leiter and Neris are getting it done, the latter through gumption and platoon splits, but it's clearly a tightrope act and they'reclearly a guy short in the circle of trust. Another guy you can give 9th inning duties to, ideally one that you can do so regardless of situation, will have a cascading effect and honestly do most of the bullpen fixing in one move. Tanner Scott still feels like the guy, he was awful to open the season but he's been himself since April 20th. Go get him ASAP, do it yesterday. As for what else the pen needs, I think that's more wait and see. I am not expecting Merryweather, Almonte, and Alzolay to come save the day, but odds are probably that one of the three slides back into the pen next month and resumes contributing at a high level. I also feel good about the kids. Hodge has surprisingly been incredible in the early going, and both Palencia and Little feel *really* close to figuring it out. You've also got other live arms at Iowa like Arias, McWilliams, and Roberts. If the deadline was today you probably need to add some unexciting depth types, but I'm hopeful a month from now that's no longer going to be a need.

The Cubs are actually extremely well set up for the playoffs generally and that best of 3 round particularly. Being able to follow up Shota Imanaga with 2-3 innings of Ben Brown is a terrifying prospect. And then the very next day doing the same thing with like Steele and Horton? I'm not pissing on that opportunity if the Cubs have the temerity to end up the road team.

I think the flipside is if you have too many of your offensive resources consolidated into 2-3 bats it can be problematic as well. Think about how the 2017-2021 Cubs were generally less productive than the sum of their parts. The problem with the Cubs IMO is they attempted to focus on depth over starpower, but have still ahd 3-4 duds in the lineup a lot of days. A lot of that can be blamed on the rash of injuries in late April/early May. I think with the position player side now healthy and the rough part of the schedule past it's reasonable for things to start settling in more like April where, catcher aside, the team was generally running out positive offensive contributors throughout the lineup.

Flexen was the SP for that 7 run comeback last year against the Mariners I believe. I don't believe in gimme games in baseball (no game is ever more than ~80/20), but you really gotta get this one. Tomorrow's a little more forgiving as Fedde's looking solid since he came back to the US. Very surprised we didn't draw Crochet. It would have been very 2024 Cubs to draw Crochet and Fedde in both White Sox series.

I know this used to be the case, and I believe it still is, that Fangraphs' wRC+ numbers do not take these park factors into account for the minor leagues. They do take league and level into account, but not specific park. So like Cristian Hernandez's 141 wRC+ is that much more impressive, while on the flip you might ding all those Iowa outfielders a little bit.

BABIP - 28th (.253) Hard Hit Rate - 19th (38.4%) HR/FB - 29th (7.0%) Barrel Rate - 19th (7.8%)

Maybe a better explanation is that it's time for folks to have some introspection about their view of the magnitude of difference between different managers.

There are IMO four positions that you might want to do something substantial about on the trade market this summer: C, RP, 3B, SP. There are some other positions where the production is not quite where you want it (the fanbase is starting to get really nasty about Swanson like they were about Happ right before) and you might argue for some tweaks, but if you're not a dummy or a reactionary or both you're probably focused on the four spots above. 3B and SP there's clearly no rush to address. Morel's glove is a problem, and mileage may reasonably vary on whether that's something you want to run out there every day regardless of the offense it comes with. But I think he's gotten it above the line for minimum playability, and so it can hold for the deadline or Shaw/Murray to start breathing down his neck from behind. SP to this point has been great, any move there is more about being proactive with all the young arms or consolidating value. Again, neither position needs a paradigm shifting move pre ASB. RP is where I think an argument starts to build. We KNOW it needs to be addressed in July. So what is the premium for addressing it in June? Like the Arraez trade was not some insane windfall. If you actually try and trade with the Marlins for Tanner Scott today vs. July 31st what's the cost difference? My bet is it's something not totally unreasonable, something like Canario then vs. Davis now. I'd be willing to pay a pretty hefty premium considering you get twice the time with the guy, though I would believe the costs may be prohibitive. Catcher's the big one, and again I would really like to not sit on our hands. Do something small, I like the Caratini idea above. Do something big and short term like Danny Jansen. Hell do something big and long term and go get Shea Langeliers or Logan O'Hoppe. Do SOMETHING, and do it ASAP. If we're supposed to buy that catcher is a position you can't just change out on a dime because of the soft skills that's fine, that also means there's no excuse to wait until July to make a move. If you want runway for your guy to learn the staff before dumping Gomes go get him now. "June's too early to make a trade" and "catcher's need extra time to get acclimated to a new team" are conflicting ideas. Pick one to abide by but something needs to be done because Gomes is totally cooked and whether it's physically or mentally Amaya's not currently able to handle the workload.

I kind of wonder if part of the Bote calculus was opening up those infield PA's in Iowa. I wouldn't be shocked at all if Shaw was promoted for Tueaday.

I would guess this will be the standard lineup vs. lefties. The fact that it was Bote specifically up for Madrigal makes me think there's some level of getting Morel off the field over to DH motivating this as well.

Yeah Lodolo is really really good. This is why Friday sucked because beating Greene or Lodolo is a reasonable ask beating both is a tall order. Hopefully Brown can trade 0's with him and we can beat their bullpen.

I expect very little out of Bote but to his credit his under the hood numbers at Iowa are as good as they've ever been. And even if he's replacement level that's a substantial upgrade on what we've gotten from Madrigal.

I mean that's still down for Greene. Like 94-98 like he was last night is great velo for most pitchers but Greene when healthy sits 99. Like I said the rain delay could be a simple explanation but I'd be scared horsefeathers-less if I was a Reds fan.

For me, I pull Brown from the rotation for Wicks. I know some people will howl about this, but Ben does not have the innings in his arm to stay in the rotation the rest of the year, and he's also the best suited to thrive in relief and help an ailing bullpen. I would use Ben like we used Keegan Thompson at his best, 1-2 times a week working 2-3 innings of high leverage work, including occasionally taking games all the way to the house. I also bring up Colten Brewer for whichever one of Smyly/Hendricks it's easier to phantom IL. Brewer is nothing special, but he actually throws strikes and he was pretty death on lefties during his pre-IL stint. We need some help against lefties if we don't want Leiter's arm to fall off by August 1st, I DON'T swap out Porter Hodge. I like Palencia over Hodge broadly, but given circumstances I think we ride the hot hand. If one of our stuff freaks is currently throwing strikes don't mess with it. Hodge will unfortunately probably lose the strikezone in a few weeks and we swap him if/when that happens. I also keep Little up. He's not throwing a ton of strikes but he is death on lefties. I'm comfortable with him in LOOGY duty even when he's not at his best and he can earn his way into more.

Jordan Wicks is presumably making his 3rd rehab start today (maybe Tuesday), which likely puts him back in Chicago against the Reds next weekend. Daniel Palencia has pitched multiple rehab outings and is probably ready to come back up. Colten Brewer is also on rehab and could probably come back up in a week or so with Wicks. Ditto Keegan Thompson. On the flip side updates on Merryweather, Almonte, and Alzolay indicate all are at least a month out. So with some reinforcements shortly available, what does your pitching staff look like a week from now? Who, if anyone, do you pull from the rotation for Wicks? What swap(s) do you make in the bullpen?

Has there been any post game report about Greene's velo? I know the circumstances with the rain delay were weird but I'd be DEFCON 1 if I was a Reds fan this mornimg.

8th unluckiest in BA, 4th in wOBA