Bertz

God if we get Harvey back for the final ~quarter of the season and the playoffs that alone would cancel out a healthy chunk of the bad injury luck from this year.

Choosing not to read into Will Sanders being skipped

Well that's a fun way to kick off trade szn

Looks like we will miss all three of Ohtani/Snell/Glasnow when we face the Dodgers the week after next

Yeah the fact they were the same day is WEIRD. They have either been told to expect a trade or the polar opposite they are pulling a page put of the Willson Contreras playbook and just trying to get a rise on social media because they think it's funny. Or I guess the 3rd option of Alcantara's being sincere and Mo's being mocking.

Pirates are legit a great counterargument to the "we don't need WAR we need OFFENSE" arguments of the last three years. They have the same wRC+ and a lightyears better starting rotation than the Cubs but they're having their lunch eaten because their defense is horsefeathers and their roster is crazy top-heavy.

I know no one can say it but there's probably not going to be a Rule 5 draft this year because of the lockout, right? Because there's a lot of guys who have at least an argument for being added. Here's a rough list from perusing roster resource: Iowa - Jonny Long, Brett Bateman, Jaxon Wiggins, Will Sanders, Grant Kipp, Jace Beck Tenn - LMG, Jefferson Rojas, Carter Trice, Brody McCollough, Marino Santy SB - Kohl Franklin, Jose Escobar, Jostin Florentino, Naz Mule, Mason McGwire That's a lot of names. And they're not all impact guys, we won't rue the day if Marino Santy gets taken, but they're generally guys you wouldn't want to lose for nothing. The SB guys are probably safe, teams have backed off of taking A-ballers. Though probably worth considering when later in the year we're like "Why hasn't Escobar been promoted yet?"

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7466928/2026/07/24/one-player-traded-mlb-deadline-2026/ From the Athletic one player from each team who will be gone by the deadline - For the Cubs Alcantara is listed, which feels right. Even if he's not in the "big" deal he's probably going somewhere - Reid Detmers listed for the Angels, yet more smoke they're actually willing to sell

Ummmmmm Hollowell might be a thing now that he's added that changeup?

I'm going to be very patient with him given he missed more than a calendar year. But man patience is a lot easier if he's hitting like .230 instead of .130

OMG LMG 12 K's through 6, and on that pitch count a slim chance he might be able to go out for more

So this is probably about going back to Iowa, but given the time of year just gonna throw it out there

I guess too the fact that Triantos is getting one of these type callups tells me he's either about to be traded or they're less disappointed in him internally than we are on the outside.

I mentioned this in the minor league forum, but there was an article last year talking about this. Basically the team would like to get in the habit of calling these guys up for a week or two at a time and just let them hang out and get comfortable. They didn't do it last year because the bench was such a god damn disaster it made it difficult. But they're clearly following through this year. I'll be interested to see if it helps. It'd be nice to find ways to not need ~300 PAs to get rookies over the hump.

No way to say, but I feel like the arrow on his defense is pointing up this year. Not way up, but up. - Subjective but I thought he looked perfectly ordinary in ST, and was really good at challenging - Craig and Tommy started trusting him to play behind the plate shortly before they sent him down, which is not proof of anything but we know they're pretty finicky about catcher defense. Especially the soft factors we can't measure - His defensive metrics from behind the plate are average in a tiny sample - His defensive stats at AAA via BaseballProspectus paint the picture of something like a -5 defensive catcher. Definitionally below average but hardly to a noteworthy degree I don't think there's really anything Ive seen that indicates he can't catch. A lot of people simply can't get over the weight IMO.

I don't think teams have that level of recency bias

Not the primary thrust of this article, but good lord these ZiPS projections for PCA. ZiPS has Ohtani and Witt at around 32 WAR over the next five years, PCA and McGonigle at 30, and then a sizable gap before you hit Wood/Caminero/etc. around 25.

I understand that it's the time if year to maintain a high price in case someone blinks. But if the Twins honestly think they're going to get a package of Shaw and either Rojas or Hartshorn, much less something noticeably better than that, they're hilariously delusional. Even with the price premium for the deadline they're simply not going to out kick the Gore/Cabrera/Baz deals to that degree. Detmers has been my guy for a while though, so I'm loving all this smoke around the Angels the last few days. And if they like Rojas all the better. Love Rojas as a prospect, but his path to a full time job with the Cubs is fraught. Combining two largely expendable pieces to address our SP hole would be a slam dunk. Of the rentals/guys to settle on I like Peralta. It seems like his issue is part plain bad luck and part that he's dropped his arm angle and traded some whiffs for some grounders. The cure to the former is to simply get him away from the Mets. The arm angle thing I wonder if that's actually fixable on the fly in-season. Even if it's not though I trust Hottovy and this staff to shepherd him through working a little more east/west than he's used to. Been a Michael King fan the last few years and I know the FO is too, but that contract is Mariana Trench levels of underwater. Nooooooo thank you unless he's doubling as a way to make the prospect cost on Mason Miller more palatable.

Among guys who have given up at least 10 dongs this year, this is the average those homeruns were hit. Taillon sits 33rd between Cristopher Sanchez (!!) and Tarik Skubal (!!!). Taillon has gotten very unlucky this year. The problem is that he's also pitched poorly, and then gotten unlucky on top of that. It's the same reasons that despite his 3.68 ERA last year Taillon was viewed as a #5 starter that ideally we'd find a way to replace. You can't just choose whether you look at the ERA or the peripherals depending on which tells a worse story.

A pitcher is, broadly speaking, not doing anything different to determine whether a ball in the air is hit 300 or 400 or 500 feet

There was an Athletic article in the last week or so that said the Cubs are a little more willing to deal some pitching at the deadline than they have been recently given the way the draft fell and some of the breakouts. I don't necessarily want to deal any pitching, but selling high on McGwire would not be the worst idea.

For sure. I mean he averaged 97.7 in his cup of coffee at Iowa last year so there's a lot of velo missing. The question is just how much of this can be blamed on the fact that from his arm's perspective it's essentially early April vs. anything permanent.

Wiggins' fastball got as high as 97.4 and as low as 92.8. Feels like he was pretty clearly battling his mechanics and that probably impacted both the command and the velo. The run environment at Iowa is brutal on your best days, much less when you're trying to work your way back through rust like this. I'd send him to Knoxville for 3-4 starts.