Bertz

Happ Seiya Bellinger Morel Swanson Busch Hoerner DH/Bench guy du jour Gomes/Amaya

I'm not a big lineup guy in general, and I think with this roster it's even less important than most teams. You've got, setting aside catcher, 7-8 spots each day that are going to be filled by hitters projecting from average to pretty good. Unless Suzuki's 2nd half carries over there are no star level hitters, but at the same time there's no spot you really worry about either. Even catcher looks to be above average by the lowly standards of the position. So when I look at the lineup, I look at it more in terms of wanting to balance strengths and weaknesses throughout to prevent pitchers from having pockets where they can breeze through. Some things I'm mindful of - On days where Wisdom and Morel both play they need to be separated. Both guys are very susceptible to pitchers who work north/south, particularly with big velocity. Swanson isn't vulnerable to the high fastball, but as a RHH with big swing and miss in the zone I also don't love him back to back with either of Wisdom/Morel - Similarly you want Hoerner and Madrigal to be separated when they're both in the lineup. I like interspersing them with the low contact guys. E.g. a pocket of Morel-Hoerner-Swanson - Happ has fits and spurts of being effective against lefties but mostly he's not. Same with Bellinger. So you probably don't want to do something like Bellinger-Happ-Busch because Happ doesn't really break up the lefties - Suzuki, Busch, and Tauchman are all guys who walk a fine line between patient and passive. So again guys you don't want to pocket together Ultimately I really like the lineup Counsell appears to be settling on. The nit I'd pick is that at I would either swap Bellinger and Morel at 3/4 or move Hoerner up to 5th to separate Morel and Swanson.

https://theathletic.com/5362707/2024/03/22/cubs-justin-steele-injury-spring-training?source=user-shared-article Mooney's article in the Athletic this morning makes it seem like Carl is making the team. So we're presumably looking at a bullpen of Alzolay Merryweathet Neris Leiter Almonte Edwards Smyly TBD That last spot I'd guess would be Little? I think him not getting sent down at the same time as Palencia is somewhat notable.

Mish is the Marlins' beat writer so very likely "source" is Garret himself.

Really good rundown of the entire timeline. The most likely explanation is that the initial story was true and no one (including the crisis handler) realized Ohtani covering Ippei's debts was super illegal until Wednesday. That said this exchange set off major alarms in my head That's such a sadly transparent lie it makes me more strongly consider the more sinister variations of this story.

Obviously hold your breath, but I would be very surprised if a ball that hit him on the bounce did any major damage.

Probably? Madrigal isn't that far off so Canario's time will probably be short but that's what I'd bet.

I saw a Marquee article that said Peralta would likely open the year at Iowa. So he might be planning to stay even if he doesn't make the team. Probably because he's still rehabbing from injury. Then Cooper's a lock to make the team with Wisdom’s injury. Carl's Jr is the big outstanding question.

Given where we are on the calendar, how confident are we that Montgomery would actually outperform Assad if you slotted him into the rotation right now? The track record of guys signing super late is not great and I think that needs to be in the back of your mind in any recommendation like this. The projections have Montgomery like half a run better than Assad, a pretty sizable gap. But in practice now you should probably assume a smaller gap than the on-paper one. And if Assad is bad, you simply swap him out for another one of our optionable depth SPs. If you sign Montgomery to a medium to long term deal, you've got to ride it out if he struggles out of the gate.

The Reds are getting absolutely crushed by injuries (and a PED suspension) this spring. That said they're actually the central team that scares me the most. I think if they can weather these injuries that's a potentially special position player group. Their pitching was pretty bad last year and they didn't add much this winter, but as you mentioned there is a ton of upside on that staff. I think you probably expect some of that upside to manifest and some of it to blow up on them and the team to settle in around .500. But I think between the Reds, the Cardinals, and the Brewers the Reds are easily the most likely to clear 90 wins.

If the MLB club wants to hold onto more than one NRI they need to clear a 40 man spot. And if Brennen still mostly looks like the guy from the last two years then he's pretty easily the most expendable guy on the 40.

I think, now knowing that the luxury tax was more or less a soft cap, it's hard to quibble too much with Jed's offseason. Jed added nearly 10 wins all at positions of need with less than $60M in 2024 salary (and reasonable future commitments too). That's quite frankly a homerun? Jed could have traded some prospect depth for a 3B or another SP but overall feels like Jed did his job and quite well. Now the Cubs' offseason you could call a B- or frankly worse. There was clear opportunity to add more impactful talent and there *should* have been a lot more resources at Jed's disposal. But that blame lies at Tom's feet IMO.

Oh good catch he might not be that same level of FA. He does have less service time than the others.

Sometimes these guys have a separate opt out in like May, but generally the team needs to make some decisions on Carl, Cooper, Smith, and Peralta this weekend. And those decisions should give us a pretty complete picture on the bench and bullpen.

Ohhhh this is real messy

Wasn't Ippei like his best friend even outside of baseball? This is like Grizz or Dotcom stealing millions from Tracy Jordan.

I'm pretty pro international openers. That said 3 AM west coast time first pitch is pretty dumb. Do a weekend series and start the games in the early afternoon local so the time difference brings you to a more attainable 9/10 PM for the US fans.

Cooper's pretty much 100% to make the roster now. Canario probably gets the last spot on the bench to avoid 40 man messiness?

Maybe a hot take, but I don't think this schedule is as tough as it looks on paper. Rangers Marlins, and Astros have major injury issues in the short term, and with all the off days in April west coast trips aren't as scary as they are later in the year.

They went over the 2nd threshold in 2019

It's hard to do this without doubling up on anyone but among names that aren't discussed a ton I'm high on Christian Franklin and Drew Gray and low on basically every hitter slated to open the year at Myrtle Beach.

I am definitely of the mind that the Weak Link theory of roster building applies in baseball. Maybe not in the playoffs but certainly in the regular season. In that vein, I feel really good about the Cubs pitching staff. There will certainly be pitchers who underperform, but half the pitching staff is optionable and half the Iowa pitching staff is guys I'd feel comfortable taking major league innings in the short to medium term. Of the MLB guys you might side-eye, Taillon’s the only one locked up long term and thus you'd have to continually run out there even through struggles. Having both depth and flexibility means that you should feel good about most innings on most days. That's a really good way to pile up a lot of wins. Even really really good teams often have a messy back third of the pitching staff. Like the Braves gave Jared Shuster (5.81 ERA) 11 starts last year. The Dodgers got a collective 5.61 ERA across 46 starts from their #5-#8 starters. If the quartet of Wicks/Smyly/Assad/Wesneski give the Cubs ~50 starts of a ~4.50 ERA that's an enormous competitive advantage.

Really good read from Sharma on the roster battles: - The lineup is likely to be the one Counsell's been running out there recently, with Happ inserted into the leadoff spot. It very much won't be a static everyday sort of thing though - He currently expects Madrigal on the IL and Cooper on the bench to open the year - Wicks is the 5th starter, and would have made the rotation regardless of Taillon’s injury - Adbert, Neris, Merryweather, Leiter, Almonte are the "core" of the bullpen - There's going to be a ton of fluidity with the bullpen to get the starters more rest. So expect plenty of Smyly/Assad/Wesneski spot starts, and that to impact which of the optionable guys (Little, Cuas, Palencia) are up at any given time