Bertz
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Everything posted by Bertz
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Sweep tomorrow would be big. The two weeks starting Friday are arguably the toughest stretch of the season. Pick up another win against the Rockies and you could go 5-7 and still come out the other side at .500
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Craig before the game implied it would be Brown. My guess is the only reason he didn't confirm is Brown might have given them length tonight if Assad got knocked out early
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WOW that was a majestic dong
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Minor League Discussion & Box, 4-2-24
Bertz replied to CaliforniaRaisin's topic in Cubs Minor League Talk
Keegan Thompson topped out at 92 again tonight -
Four games is nothing. But every real trend has to start somewhere. Here's a couple early ones worth keeping an eye on: 1. Jordan Wicks' velo and movement on his fastball were way up in his first start 2. Chris Morel's contact #s are WAY WAY WAY up Perusing game-logs I don't believe he's ever had a one strikeout in 17 PA stretch before. On top of that Eovaldi and Gray are guys he previously would have had difficulty with...there really might be something here 3. Michael Busch is doing everything at the plate...with little to show for it Here's the percentile some of Michael Busch's underlying stats would rank last year if he did them over a full season: Contact Rate - 95th Chase Rate - 99th Average Exit Velo - 98th GB Rate - 34th Barrel Rate - 74th Pull Rate - 72nd xWOBA - 98th Literally the only blemish is a couple extra balls on the ground. That .400-something OPS is not going to last.
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They'll be absolutely miserable to attend, but IMO as of right now looks like they'll get both today and tomorrow's games in.
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One of my favorite things about the Counsell hiring is the irony that the fans who most vocally hated Ross are going to find out Counsell not only does those same things they complained about but turns them up to 11. Fans lost their GD minds any time Ross was proactive about load management, getting mad at very benign things like not using the closer for the 5th time in 6 days. Well turns out Ross' sin was not too much load management but not doing enough load management. Look forward to a manager who will rarely let relievers go days 3 in a row. And oh the howling the first time the team is down 2 in the 8th and Craig goes to like Almonte instead of Merryweather. Fans HATE when a guy has a big game and isn't in the lineup the next day. Look forward to a manager who eschews the hot hand completely and is meticulous about getting matchup advantages! I'm enjoying the Counsell experience so far though. I liked Ross but there were probably like 2-3 things a day where I'd disagree with him. Few of them big enough for me to do any more than raise an eyebrow, but still pretty regular disagreement. Through 4 games I think the only thing I've disagreed with Craig about was Morel starting in the field at 3B behind Wicks on Sunday?
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Minor League Discussion & Box, 4-2-24
Bertz replied to CaliforniaRaisin's topic in Cubs Minor League Talk
Curious what Iowa's rotation ends up looking like this week since they didn't really have 5 starters even before they lost Brown Good news is Horton and Birdsell do not have to wait long to come up if they do their thing at Tenn to open the season -
On opening day I saw one of the writers I follow (Mike Petriello?) do his bold predictions and one of them was "Mike Trout has one more legendary season in him" and man I really really want that to happen. Good start.
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I don't know how anyone could watch the last 4 games and not be more encouraged by Busch than they were coming into the year. He's looked phenomenal IMO.
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Smyly up in the bullpen? I assumed when Brown made his debut out of the bullpen Smyly was taking Steele's vacated spot in the rotation
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Good call. Quintana was a monster in his debut.
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The weather obviously impacts things, but this was the best Cubs pitching debut since what, Matt Garza?
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We'll see if the nerves of his first game or or the cold mess him up, but Imanaga with the wind blowing in should be more or less a cheat code
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Rain is supposed to hold out until closer to 3 now. They'll likely get this in, even if it's not the full 9 innings, knowing how bad the next two days look.
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Good win, and honestly good series. On the road against a team of this caliber you're happy with 1/3. A few things that stood out for me: - Morel made A TON of contact and still hit the hell out of the ball. He might have leveled up from good bat to special bat - The defense has uhhh.... not leveled up accordingly - Good god Michael Busch has a good plate approach - Not a great outing overall, but a ton of swing and miss from Wicks today. Very encouraging - Aside from the modest velo spike, Hendricks outing was about as concerning as one outing can be - Luke Little absolutely attacked the zone during his outing. If he continues throwing strikes combined with Leiter looking fixed here early the pen could end up dominant
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I just cancelled plans with my buddy to go to tomorrow's game so now they'll definitely get it in
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Jon Gray's not a pushover and I don't expect Wicks to get through the Rangers order unscathed, but I like that lineup for today
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I can join the rotation
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Results obviously weren't great in that second inning but Brown threw a lot more strikes last night than he did overall in AAA last year. I wouldn't want him taking an upcoming start but I'm not sure he's not major league ready.
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Great point on the catchers. I think this will be a good stretch to see how Counsell is going to approach that timeshare. In this latter part of his career Gomes still pretty consistently mashes lefties, while his effectiveness against righties comes and goes. You've got soft tossing lefties tonight and Tuesday (Kyle Freeland) which are probably great matchups for him. Amaya has splits too but is much closer to even. On defense, Amaya caught a lot of Kyle last year because he calls his own games and I think they didn't want to put that on Amaya's plate as much. And then on Monday for Shota's debut you probably want someone sufficiently pitcher whisperer-y. So I think the next four games will tip Craig's hand as far as how he trusts Yan's bat and Amaya's brain and the relative weighting of those two things.
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This would have been a nice game to have Wisdom for. If you were building a pitcher in a lab Wisdom would wreck Bradford's pretty close to what that would look like. Overall this is one you really want to come away with. If you're being reasonable this is a series you're cool taking just 1/3, and this is clearly the individual game with the most favorable matchup.
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Minor League Season Opener Discussion & Box, 3-29-24
Bertz replied to CaliforniaRaisin's topic in Cubs Minor League Talk
Ooooffff, Keegan Thompson sat 91-92 tonight. If that's not a one-off he might be cooked
