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Bertz

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Everything posted by Bertz

  1. Bertz
    Fun fact, Dan Szymborski's ZiPS projections have Imanaga as a better pitcher than Yamamoto on a per inning basis. I've been beating the Imanaga drum almost all offseason. I think every single mock I've done included him or Glasnow. I'm still mostly feeling good about this offseason and have been rolling my eyes at the fanbases histrionics, but if Jed misses on Shota I think that's when I join the masses and start getting pretty nervous. His major wart is he's given up a ton of dongs, but it seems to be a simple case of having a fastball that is better suited for the top of the zone than the bottom, while Japanese baseball is still mostly in its pound the knees / groundballs über alles phase. The velocity is not ideal given the other soft tossers we have, but then again every time push has come to shove Jed has backed off on that requirement. Much in the same way that I keep saying I'm going to grow up and stop eating poptarts for breakfast every morning and then drop that resolution when I run into the slightest inconvenience.
  2. Bertz
    It's sticky because teams could potentially use it to hammer lower and mid-tier players, and as we know they don't need any additional help there. The two ideas I like are: - A transaction freeze over the holidays and a bit beyond. Something like the end of the winter meetings to 1/15 - An offseason trade deadline. Since it's not a signing deadline it shouldn't be anti-labor, but by closing off a bunch of avenues to change your team it should force execs to actually pick a lane and commit Neither of those would get us an NFL/NBA style bonanza, but would I think make most offseasons snappier akin to last winter.
  3. Bertz
    I actually mostly agree on the offensive needs thing, we don't ideally want another RHH who's vulnerable to top of zone fastballs (that can be mitigated with our 2nd hitter though). But total package wise Chapman and Bellinger are very comparable players. Bellinger will get more years because he's younger, but you're expecting ~3.5 WAR from either in 2024.
  4. Bertz
    - I would not expect Horton to start at Iowa. I think both for weather reasons and because I think they are going to want a deep well stocked Iowa pitching staff that will cause some trickle down. I don't think he'll be at Tenn forever but I would expect timing similar to Ben Brown last year. - I'd expect at least one, maybe both of Bote/Strumpf to finally get the ax. With Murray and McGeary coming up and Mastro potentially coming back down there's going to be a squeeze on that Iowa IF - Aliendo probably has to re-do Tenn, since one of the few things Jed has done this winter is add catchers on MiLB deals - There are several SPs who seem on the verge of being forced to the pen: Kohl Franklin, Riley Thompson, and Caleb Kilian. Porter Hodge got moved to the bullpen late last year but not sure if that's totally permanent. These are guys I could see becoming MLB relevant *very* quickly post conversion - He's more on the Christian Franklin level of prospect, but Ezequial Pagan was part of that SB -> Tenn end of season pipeline and is certainly worth paying attention to as well
  5. Bertz
    Generally the really really good QB prospects are known multiple years out. Like Wrigley said there are exceptions like Burrow, but usually the super exciting guys are not popup prospects.
  6. Bertz
    Thinking through this a bit more, in my mind: - You've got to pull down one of the lefties or one of the more primo trade targets. I like Bieber and think he's become underrated but you can't grab him and then declare mission accomplished on the SP front - You pretty much need to pull down one of Chapman/Bellinger. CF, 3B, and #5 SP are spots on the roster that I look at and think "It'll probably be fine?" But one of the costs of foregoing a true star like Soto is you can't have two many of those landmine type positions lying around. If you're not addressing the pitching one you damn sure need to address one, ideally both, of the offensive ones - This would seem to increase the odds Morel sticks around? Most of the hypothetical Morel trades were to add a second, less expensive SP. Not that you can't do Cease, Valdez, or Luzardo and include Morel, but it seems much less likely than just signing Imanaga or Montgomery - Adding two RPs makes it that much more likely one of them is like a boring Phil Maton/Brent Suter type. Let me just go on record right now about how much I hate adding that type of reliever this winter. Relief help should either be impact types or have minor league options, no exceptions
  7. Bertz
    You would presume if Tommy is saying this on the radio then this is the plan. A bit of a shame because I have preferred a two SP plan since we missed on the elite bats.
  8. Bertz
    Sounds like they are probably gonna be wrapped up after they close a deal with Joc Pederson.
  9. Bertz
    Yeah I think even if Hader gets to a price where Jed can stomach the dollars he's not going to give up the pick. There was talk Jed is willing to stretch out of his RP comfort zone in deference to Counsell. But I think that tops out at $20-40M for Robert Stephenson or Jordan Hicks or someone like that.
  10. Bertz
    I mean your Day 1 qualifier changes quite a bit. If you take that away I think most signings we've had word of well ahead of time. Like last year Taillon was more or less out of nowhere but I think everyone else we had pretty decent runway knowing they were being pursued.
  11. Bertz
    Thinking out loud, if you pulled down Alonso, Imanaga, and traded for Jansen with Boston covering ~half his salary, you would have filled the three biggest holes on the roster with legit 1st division talents. You'd also, we suspect, have $20-30M more to play with. You could at that point more confidently play a game of chicken with Boras for Chapman/Bellinger, do the Bieber/Naylor deal, or build Counsell a bullpen of doom with e.g Robertson + Stephenson.
  12. Bertz
    I believe Sharma mentioned him on TV over the holiday and it was the first time I'd heard his name basically since Stearns took over. He is the one guy who seems realistically available in that hitter-tier in between Soto/Ohtani and like Rhys Hoskins.
  13. Bertz
    Once again someone who's in the know is like "oh yeah they're definitely gonna make some trades". And this time specifically it's mentioned on the offensive side. Really curious if it's the usual suspects we've been discussing, or if it's anyone a little more off the radar.
  14. Bertz
    I think a lot of the conservative action around not starting high pick QBs early is worry they'll get themselves killed. Williams/Maye are pretty polished, plus the unique circumstances of the Bears' roster would have this as one of the best rookie QB supporting casts of all time. I'm very understanding of giving rookies ~6 weeks behind a vet before handing them the keys, but I don't think it'll be necessary here.
  15. Bertz
    Move the Reds from "probably done" to "definitely done"
  16. Bertz
    I still tend to think the team would have crossed the LT threshold last year if the plan was not to this year. The marginal value of even just an additional ~$10M was extremely high last offseason. At the deadline another 3-5 would have made a more substantial relief upgrade pretty easy. Even for someone as conservative as Jed I don't think you leave that on the table just for the ~20% chance you come down with Ohtani.
  17. Bertz
    I wasn't really buying Murray this time last year. As you get into in the video the tools are all average or a smudge below, and I chalked up the sterling production to beating up on kids. Most reports also had him fringey at best at 3rd. But this year he carried his offense up to AA without missing a beat, SUBSTANTIALLY dropped his groundball rate without adding any swing and miss, and now his defense is viewed as pretty average at 3B. All that from a true switch hitter (he has negligible lefty/righty splits) and I'm really big on Murray.
  18. Bertz
    Jed's done a really good job of bringing in well credentialed voices from multiple different orgs and GM trees. Like I'd love to poach some Twins/Mariners folks at some point but broadly I would be surprised if the org falls way behind in any area given how actively they are cycling in new blood from smart orgs. The Theo era had a lot of Boston retreads. They generally seemed to be smart folks but if every single person has that Theo throughline you're still missing something.
  19. Bertz
    I think for both Bellinger and Chapman their options look like Cubs, hope the Mariners secretly have money, hope the Angels are willing to spend to paper over the embarrassment of the Ohtani debacle, or hope the Tigers or someone else from that group decide to play mystery team. Never count out Boras but honestly it looks bad for him right now.
  20. Bertz
    Right, I'm saying I agree he had two INTs that shouldn't really be held against him, but he separately had two should-have-been INTs dropped by the defense so it's all a wash.
  21. Bertz
    Didn't he have two passes hit defenders in the hands and get dropped? I remember karma more or less working out for that game.
  22. Bertz
    Yup. And I think it does a certain amount of separating out WR performance from QB performance. I would guess that's why even the recent numbers are fairly pedestrian is a lot of this production has been DJ Moore generated.
  23. Bertz
    Fields since coming back from injury has QBRs for each game of 72.0 41.6 65.7 18.0 64.0 66.0 Average those out and you get 54.6 (technically I should weight these by dropbacks but that's more work than I'm willing to do right now and would only change the number a smidge). If that was Justin's full season QBR he'd rank 17th in the NFL between Mayfield and Stroud. In the same neighborhood as Goff, Lawrence, and Carr. So even in the best stretch of Fields' career he's been slightly above average? I feel like the arrow is still pointing up a bit, and if we didn't have the Panthers pick I'd be happy to continue building around Fields. But we do have that pick, so IMO the only reason to keep riding with Justin is because of the Bears' sad QB history and fear of the unknown.
  24. Bertz
    Despite the calendar and the grousing, the offseason is pretty young. 6 of MLBTR's top 10 FAs are still on the board, 10 of the top 20, and 28 of the top 50. Last year 41 of MLBTR's top 50 had signed by New Years, and Andrew Benintendi at #15 was the top rated player unsigned. If you look around the league though, there does not look to be a lot of demand, so the situation might not change very quickly. The Giants and Yankees are signaling they are likely to pull down high-end SPs, but everyone else is indicating they're focused mid-market or lower. I've gone through each non-Cub team below based on what's out there for them (or failing that their history), and it very much looks like a lot of the same (in quotes to avoid endless scrolling) We'll see what Jed does with his opportunity, but at this moment waiting out the market looks like it could pay off.
  25. Bertz
    In my mind a Matt Chapman reunion still seemed pretty likely before reading this. I'm a bit nervous on the pitching front, but things are playing out for Jed to absolutely clean up on the position player front.
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