Jump to content
North Side Baseball

Bertz

Old-Timey Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    13,444

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    39

 Content Type 

Profiles

Joomla Posts 1

Chicago Cubs Videos

Chicago Cubs Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

2026 Chicago Cubs Top Prospects Ranking

News

2023 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

Guides & Resources

2024 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

The Chicago Cubs Players Project

2025 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker

2026 Chicago Cubs Draft Tracker: Picks & Bonuses

Blogs

Events

Forums

Store

Gallery

Everything posted by Bertz

  1. Bertz
    This makes me nervous. Counsell had some comments pregame about "Tuesday being a good day" which implied Swanson and Hoerner were coming back then. Vasquez can still come up if they're both healthy, it just requires dumping both of Madrigal/Mastro to Iowa. But what feels more likely is that Swanson will be back, Vasquez will be up, Hoerner will be IL'd, and just Madrigal gets sent to Iowa.
  2. Bertz
    He's coming off an injury so I'd give him a little more time to go on a heater but Verlander is looking pretty cooked. I do think rotation is an underrated need at the deadline. None of the youths outside of Assad and Wesneski can reasonably be expected to give you 150 innings this year. Between normal injuries, guys hitting inning caps, and guys losing effectiveness as they approach inning caps, May's rotation surplus may be thinned out enough to be a problem come August/September.
  3. Bertz
    Padres-Braves rainout means Atlanta plays a double header on Monday before flying to Chicago to play the Cubs. Pretty huge rest advantage, hopefully that lets the Cubs sneak 2/3.
  4. Bertz
    Cade averaged 94.4 on his fastball yesterday but when I checked mid game (after the 3rd?) it was 95 on the dot. So I do think the less than stellar velo were getting is largely a matter of him getting stretched out l.
  5. Bertz
    This is a silly way of looking at things. The playoffs allow you to tactically align and leverage your pitching in a way that's not reasonable in the regular season so it's really apples and oranges.
  6. Bertz
    HELLO
  7. Bertz
    Wesneski and Brown fit very cleanly into the bullpen. I do wonder if, assuming no more injuries in the meantime, Wicks' return is when something potentially drastic happens with Hendricks.
  8. Bertz
  9. Bertz
    I'm intrigued by some of the stuff about opposite field flyballs Trueblood posted, but broadly with Assad two things are true: - He has likely been extraordinarily lucky. He is not a soft contact guy. He is not an extreme groundball guy. He is not an extreme strikeout guy. The ways that someone can break FIP that we are aware of simply aren't present here - He has been good even when you strip out all luck. Going back to August 1st of last year Assad has, 3 short relief appearances aside, been a starter. In that time he has a 3.95 xFIP while the league mark is 4.16
  10. Bertz
    Statcast doesn't make this as easy as I'd like, and FG doesn't have any of their fancier data game by game for minor leaguers like they do for major leaguers. However, it appears that Davis has over the last week or so finally reached a level of contact that is not particularly problematic. Looks like he's running a ~70% contact rate in this time, which is below average but totally fine for a power hitter. April he was under 60%, which is basically only sustainable if you're prime Joey Gallo. Given the trials and tribulations you need a hell of a lot more than a week of adequate contact data before you start clamoring for a callup. However because of those trials and tribulations I think you can be more hopeful that the improved contact numbers are a rediscovering of form and not general ebbs and flows.
  11. Bertz
    Yeah I think unless/until our best DH option is not an outfielder, or until his performance craters, PCA probably ought to be up and playing 4ish days a week.
  12. Bertz
    Houston's won 4 in a row, they appear to be pulling out of it. Though the pitching matchups this weekend are not great. On the Cubs side, much like the road trip I view this series and the next as a package deal. You want to go 4-3 in these 7. That probably looks like 3/4 this weekend and 1/3 against the Braves? But with the Cubs having the off day Monday while the Braves play a wraparound series, plus the way the pitching matchups work out, beating the Braves this 2nd go around is much more reasonable than it would have been this past series.
  13. Bertz
    Remember all the dummies who thought PCA was a bust because of his September callup? lol. lmao even
  14. Bertz
    This is a really really great list. Lot's of extremely current info, e.g. Porter Hodge toying with a splitter. Last year it was clear 90% the blurbs were written in March/April and Eric just needed to get the list out prior to the draft.
  15. Bertz
    Sounds like Luis Vasquez is still in Iowa, which he probably wouldn't be if they expected Hoerner to be more than day to day
  16. Bertz
  17. Bertz
    Yeah count me in the camp who's willing to go hard for a 1-2 year option or two but thinks paying for 4 years of Miller is a bad buy. Like Ryan Pressly and your favorite Marlins' lefty feels more impactful for 2024 and significantly less expensive. Alternatively if you feel like all these top 100 prospects are burning a hole in your pocket add a deadline SP with some of the outfield surprlus and shift Brown/Horton to pure 1 inning relief roles at the ASB.
  18. Bertz
    When I looked like a week ago everything in Davis' profile looked good except the contact numbers. However those were so awful as to be more or less disqualifying. I see now that they are still very bad, but like at least they're low-end MLB caliber. I can't easily pull trending contact numbers but it's pretty clear they're on the way up. Hopefully that continues as he knocks off more and more rust.
  19. Bertz
    The thing most fans just absolutely refuse to acknowledge is the schedule. Last year the schedule for about 6 weeks from late April to early June was BRUTAL. There were some injuries on top of it but the team played most of their tough series in pretty quick succession and predictably got body slammed. This year's less extreme, but the tough part of the schedule is still front loaded. The Cubs are a little more than 1/4th of the way through the schedule and yet already have under their belt: - 2 of 4 series against the two super teams in the Braves/Dodgers - 3 of their 6 road west coast series - The worst stretch of the season in terms of off days (one day off between April 12th and May 8th) - 5 more road games than home games In August when tbe Cubs get 5 off days and play the Marlins, Nationals, and a bunch of central division teams and start fattening up it'll be because they paid for that luxury with the tough games early on.
  20. Bertz
  21. Bertz
    Great to see Morel's not dead. Also not sure there's a better option at the moment but poor PCA is going to get eaten alive by Sale.
  22. Bertz
    Yeah he's another good one. And Michael Arias isn't ready yet but I don't need him to string too many good outings in a row before he heads to Iowa either. The bullpen situation is dire enough that I'd love to get these stuff-forward guys to Iowa pronto, and then if/when any of them are throwing strikes (however fleetingly) bring them up to the MLB pen until that unit gets stabilized.
  23. Bertz
    As a corresponding move I'd love to see Eduarniel Nunez head to Iowa. Let's start pushing guys who might impact the MLB pen a little aggressively.
  24. Bertz
    https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2024-positional-power-rankings-bullpen-no-1-15/ Cubs were projected 13th in reliever WAR coming into the season, it wasn't like a vintage Brewers or Yankees bullpen but there was no reason aside from September PTSD to think the group wasn't fine.
  25. Bertz
    The opener is often used to protect lower end SPs, I wonder we could use it to protect our poor middle relief. Like against an opponent that's righty heavy, let Tyson Miller open the game and then bring in Assad. You're not getting the platoon advantage that you're normally utilizing the opener for, but you're putting Miller in a more advantageous position so hopefully the collective 6 innings you're hoping to get from Assad + Miller feature better results. Keegan's another great example. He's very effective when he's got 3-4 days of rest and is tasked with working a clean inning. Do you proactively use him as an opener (for two innings probably) rather than potentially being forced to use him in situations where he'll be diminished? It's not something I'd want to do long term but I wonder if it would stop some of the bleeding while we wait for the circle of trust to develop.
×
×
  • Create New...