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Bertz

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Everything posted by Bertz

  1. Bertz
    Honestly that's a good outing from Neris. Against the absolute teeth of one of the best middle of the orders in the league a solo dong is fine. Broadly though it's pretty clear he needs to get back up to sitting closer to 94 to be the guy we thought we were getting. Hopefully it comes with the weather.
  2. Bertz
    This ball was hit nearly 4 MPH harder than any ball he hit last year. Clearly shows he's in a different place physically and about as big of a deal as a single PA can possibly be. Horsefeathers yeah.
  3. Bertz
    Not that I expect it to continue but Canario literally has an OPS over .900 right now
  4. Bertz
    I think your main worry in a matchup like tonight's would be Taillon getting mauled by Tucker and Alvarez and losing like 10-6. So the wind blowing in should be a boon.
  5. Bertz
    Well that Xray last night was certainly a bust. Ooof PCA has had a poor start in Iowa. That said there's potential he's worked on some specific things that haven't led to Iowa results but will improve him long term. He has been chasing at an astronomical rate though so any edges smoothed down are probably not coming from that side of the house.
  6. Bertz
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  8. Bertz
    The only bad part about this little hot streak the last few days is his pitches per plate appearance finally dipped below 5 A simple way IMO to define a good plate appearance is one where you do at least one of these three things: - Hit the ball hard in the air - Get on base via walk - See at least 7 pitches if the opposing SP is still in the game I would guess Tauchman's rocking a good plate appearance like 2/3s of the time right now and I doubt anyone else on the team is north of 50%
  9. Bertz
  10. Bertz
    I mean if X Rays were negative I'd be shocked if it's more than a few days.
  11. Bertz
    Really good to see. I'm generally of the mind that super young guys do get a mulligan year, but only one. So Cristian doesn't have nearly as much work to do to get put of the doghouse as like Preciado. Hernandez pulling out of it and this Rosario hubbub proving out even partially would go a long way toward making me feel good about the lower half of the system. Coming into the year Rojas and Carico were the only stateside hitters under AA I felt all that good about. Having four plus the inevitable reinforcements in July would make the farm a lot less lopsided.
  12. Bertz
    So it's looking more and more like Amaya is considered the primary behind the plate. I believe this will make 13 starts for him to Gomes' 10.
  13. Bertz
  14. Bertz
    Nice little vote of confidence in Canario. But yeah Wisdom and Cooper are mostly superfluous so I think this is a reasonable call if a bit surprising.
  15. Bertz
    Oh lord, over/under on Yordan Alvarez dongs at like 2.5
  16. Bertz
    I think, especially with two receiving tight ends and a new receiving-forward RB, it's adequate depth. I don't want Poles to completely skip WR in the draft, but I don't think I'll be too worried if he does.
  17. Bertz
    Apparently Wesneski is coming with him?
  18. Bertz
    Curious if this is for Canario with the string of lefties passed or for Happ going on the IL
  19. Bertz
    It's kind of wild how unimpeachable Busch's start has been. There are the obvious caveats about pitchers potentially figuring some things out as he gets more exposure around the league, and it seems pretty clear his numbers will take a hit when he is shielded from lefties less aggressively. But that's it. Contact, power, and approach all look great. He's not getting bullied by a particular pitch or a particular zone or primo velocity...he's just doing it all.
  20. Bertz
    The Astros early issues have been entirely pitching. Injuries to the rotation and then a bullpen struggling to cover the extra innings (hey that sounds familiar). So you'd really love to win these first two games and lock in a series win before drawing Verlander. He's not nearly as intimidating as he was, but the Astros when getting even solid starting pitching are a tough draw.
  21. Bertz
    I think at this point Alt is #1 for me. I think if we can nab one of Alt/Odunze/Naybors I'm ecstatic. If not I'll be a bit disappointed and I'm not so sure trading back a couple spots doesn't become the right play.
  22. Bertz
    I think on the SP piece I'd probably be fine with holding. As far as guys we know will be available that have some legitimate juice there's a real chance it's just Jesus Luzardo. And yeah if that's the case like AJ Preller will trade his entire AA team for him and I won't blame Jed for not matching. On the RP side though, no excuse not to add someone of substance this year though. Only the elitist of elite RPs would cost one of those big primo prospects, so Jed needs to pull someone down unless things really get locked down by internal options over the next two months. Only so long you can hold out of that market because it's inefficient.
  23. Bertz
    This is a great framework. Like TT I think there's value in delineating between the short relievers who are in the "circle of trust" vs. those you feel good about but maybe don't trust implicitly, but that's the biggest nit I'd pick. I think framing it like this also shows you what the team needs and what we'd want Jed to buy at the deadline if it were coming up. The team's SP have not been great, but the team do not need just a SP. They've got plenty of guys you trust for 15-18 batters. Jed should add someone who you're not horrified to let face a batter for a 3rd time, or not even bother. On the RP side it's similar, you'd want someone at minimum in the Almonte zone, ideally an immediate circle of trust type. There's not a lot of value in a lottery ticket or a warm body who can eat some low leverage innings. We have those already.
  24. Bertz
    So the homeruns won't keep up. I'm increasingly confident we don't have to caveat that "Maybe he's a unicorn but in a bad way" like I have been. He's given up 7 barrels and 8 homeruns. The league has given up 1253 barrels and 653 homeruns. He's just getting unlucky. This isn't exhaustive, but I pulled what I think is most of the position player pitching data from the last 15 years and they have a collective HR/FB rate of 16.5%. Again, he's just been comically unlucky. What I can't handwave away is the complete inability to miss bats. Kyle's giving up a 91% contact rate in the zone. That's in the territory of guys like Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts and Trea Turner. And he's clearly not suppressing hard contact to a meaningful degree and the groundball rate is good not great. So even chalking the dongs up as mostly bad luck I'm struggling to see a path to an ERA much under 5 until he can miss a couple more bats. It's not the disaster it has been but it's behind Brown and Wesneski and Assad in any sort of reasonable pecking order. I might give Kyle one more start before throwing him on the IL to clear his head though, less because I think he'll do anything with it and more because we're starting up this stretch of 16 straight and we probably don't get Justin Steele back until right after that next off day.
  25. Bertz
    I think Zach Neto is the obvious parallel to Shaw if we decided to race him up to MLB in the next few weeks. He was more solid than impactful last year, and looks this year like he might be paying the price for more or less skipping the minor leagues. With Morel settling in at 3B I don't see a need to race Shaw up here. Vazquez despite his hot streak probably doesn't add much beyond Madrigal. I think he's a sweetener in a trade not someone who will get much time with the Cubs short of injury.
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