Jump to content
Join us for a livestream as we discuss the red-hot Cubs, starting at 4pm Central time! ×
North Side Baseball

Bertz

Old-Timey Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    12,402

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    29

 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

Blogs

Events

Forums

Store

Gallery

Everything posted by Bertz

  1. Bertz
    I would think it'd be a Xander Bogaerts deal where he gets a silly long deal to reduce the AAV.
  2. Bertz
    I hope the Blue Jays/Ohtani stuff means they're out. At minimum I think it'd back up the idea that the wining & dining phase is done and we're just waiting for a decision?
  3. Bertz
    Slusser is the authority on Giants stuff
  4. Bertz
    Can we bring Valdez's 70% groundball rate back? The walks and strikeouts are moving in the right direction, so he's probably better tha he was a couple years ago, but he was way more fun when we was running freakish GB rates. But he'd be a huge add. Also feels more realistic for Houston to put on the market than Bregman. They've got decent pitching depth. Cost would be huge. Morel, their choice of Brown/Wicks, their choice of Alcantara/Caissie? I'd do it depending on what else Jed does. It'd also be something fun to pair with Glasnow in a no-Ohtani/no-Soto scenario. A rotation where Justin Steele is our 3rd starter would be one of the few ways to alleviate the sting of missing both those generational bata.
  5. Bertz
    The read I have is that whatever happened this weekend was the last bit of schmoozing. From here on I'd imagine it's Shohei sleeping on it and his agent nudging teams to improve their offers a bit more before committing.
  6. Bertz
    This is worded much more as speculation than rumor, but via Sharma this morning Clase is probably not a great idea but it'd certainly be fun
  7. Bertz
    Sharma from this AM So yeah, one of Assad/Wesneski and a couple of guys from the back of the top 30? Feels like this goes down shortly after there's clarity on Ohtani
  8. Bertz
    They're still the smartest pitching team around but the gap between them an other teams has shrunk significantly. It used to be Rays>>Dodgers and Guardians >>>>>>Rest of the league Now it's more like Rays >Dodgers, Guardians, Mariners >Cubs, Brewers, Phillies > Rest of the league Specifically to this rumor though, I don't think there's much to fix with Assad. He was pretty great from June on. Wesneski had his issues with lefties, though they're not very different from Alzolay's early in his career so I'm not convinced the Cubs can't fix him if he sticks around.
  9. Bertz
    I mean it would be pretty ironic to leave the Angels for being uncompetitive and then deliberately kneecapping your next team's first offseason
  10. Bertz
    If we have to do another week and a half of this horsefeathers I swear
  11. Bertz
    If the reason Jed isn't interested in Soto, why would he be interested in Ohtani? You don't give out the largest contract in North American sports history if you don't have championship aspirations in year 1 Fangraphs has the team, as presently constructed, with a .489 (winning percentage 79 game pace). ZiPS likes several Cubs (most notably Swanson) more than Steamer, so it'll likely add a win or three after it's incorporated. https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=Standings
  12. Bertz
    I know you know how wrong this is. If you have a finite budget and you're looking at a couple players that on their own would eat up ~50% of it, you're obviously going to focus on resolving things with them first before moving onto others. If options get scarce somewhere else you want to improve (e.g. 1B) you might move that up, but outside of market context you obviously start big and work small.
  13. Bertz
    This "one player away" thing is so pervasive considering how dumb it is - First off, I'm not sure it's even true on the merits? A team that projects in the low 80's for wins adding a player worth 5+ by himself is just about the textbook for maximizing impact on the win curve - There's no indication Jed would add Soto and then just turn his phone off til March - Even if we assume Soto will not sign an extension, you get a leg up on resigning him. If he signs elsewhere, you have $35M that was earmarked for Soto free to use on others (Pete Alonso, Alex Bregman, Corbin Burnes, etc.)
  14. Bertz
    I am mostly anti-Montgomery. Giving him ~$150M is not unreasonable in a vacuum, especially with no QO, but it's paying a premium for safety and stability and durability. A team with the cache of minor league arms the Cubs have should be doing more hunting for impact. It's part of why I'm so full throated in my support of the Glasnow idea. On the FA side I like Imanaga, who has a 3 WAR projection in 120 innings. Like the Cubs' rotation is not impervious to injury. Steele's huge innings jump is a major red flag, Taillon’s had two TJs, and Hendricks is not far removed from a major shoulder problem. But even still the volume is there that I don't love paying a premium for the safe option. Maybe to be safe you need to add two arms to mitigate risks, but this FA market has a really great crop of secondary SP options.
  15. Bertz
    No. It's Jed. You don't want it to be true because what Jesse's saying isn't great but it's Jed. Like before Jed got the big chair this was an annual thing between them: https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28607798/jed-hoyer-qa-where-cubs-stand-kris-bryant-more
  16. Bertz
    Also with the benefit of hindsight its pretty clear that whole kerfuffle with the Mets radio announcer the day after Thanksgiving is that Shohei was at Citi Field that day and that guy got told to STFU after his initial tweet.
  17. Bertz
    So my read on the situation from various reports flying is basically that Shohei's just finished making the rounds to all of the suitors and hearing their pitch. This weekend teams will come to LA, make their bids/closing arguments, and then it should be done? So we're looking at Sunday or Monday probably?
  18. Bertz
    He was first to get wind of the Darvish trade among many many other things over the last few years. He is an idiot but he is very well connected to Jed.
  19. Bertz
    Not quite, it's a bat short so back of the napkin I think it'd be closer to 88. That said Bellinger being able to play either 1B/CF and going for two SPs really limits downside risk on that team.
  20. Bertz
    Passan has the Cubs in on more or less everybody. I hadn't seen them tied to Cease or Montgomery previously, even if they made logical sense
  21. Bertz
    Rogers was also one of the first to pump the breaks on a Bellinger reunion IIRC so I don't think that's it. Like 1908 says I'm just curious what the backup plan is behind Ohtani if it's not Soto. Maybe there's more to the Bregman stuff than is out there publicly?
  22. Bertz
    Rogers is easily the most well connected beat guy here in the Jed era, so that is really not great to see
  23. Bertz
    My gut says this goes down tomorrow. We're getting increasing chatter about teams being out, and that's paired with a decent flow of player movement after things were absolutely frozen a week ago. His decision last time came out lunchtime on a Friday (he probably made the call end of the day JPN time?), and tomorrow's the last Friday before the winter meetings.
  24. Bertz
    I think there's some value in a local guy confirming it. I do kind of wonder if there's like a backlog of stuff that's going to happen boom boom boom once Ohtani makes his decision. Like if I recall correctly, in 2015 Zobrist, Montero, and Ross all happened within like a day of Lester. Now granted it was the winter meetings, but it felt like those there was a specific progression there.
  25. Bertz
    Paredes is somewhat ironically the best evidence for Cody Bellinger's offense last year being sustainable. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/for-bellinger-and-paredes-it-pays-to-pull/ On the whole, I wouldn't be a fan of a trade. I liked Paredes as a prospect, I like him as a major leaguer, but given the expected cost of acquisition I would want to be way more sure he's legit.
×
×
  • Create New...