Bertz

12.2 IP and only 3 runs for the pen the last two days

I wouldn't boot someone from the 40 just for him, but when a 40 man spot opens up organically I'd bring up Burdi immediately. He's 30 no need to waste bullets down at Iowa if he's healthy and effective right now.

Assuming Seiya comes back Friday, that'll have been exactly 7 weeks I believe

"Lower left side tightness" per the broadcast So an oblique. Hopefully more cramp than strain

If you can finish this up with Leiter and Merryweather it removes a lot of the need for roster machinations I was wringing my hands over earlier. Probably swap Estrada for Rucker and you're fine? Leiter and Alzolay would be the only guys in the pen down, and with Stroman pitching and an off day Thursday that should be fine?

I mean with how much running he has done around the bases tonight most likely thing is a cramp right?

Really curious to see what the roster moves are tomorrow. So Estrada is the only other short reliever on the 40 man (Hughes is pitching a rehab appearance right now). Assad could come up, but you'd have to IL someone (probably not an issue?). This seems most likely, assuming they think he's ready to go another 3ish innings. Kilian and Sampson started on Saturday and Sunday. Is tomorrow soon enough for one of them to give us 3ish innings if necessary? Ryan Jensen is on the 40 and slated to start tomorrow, do you bring him up? On the position player side, do you send Nelly down the game after he played hero? Do you finally cut bait with Torrens? That has the double benefit of opening up a 40 man spot for another Iowa reliever. You also need to be mindful of needing to activate Seiya presumably on Friday and Hughes a few days not long after that. Gonna be an interesting day, though if Adbert can efficiently eat another two innings maybe they dont have to do anything too dramatic.

Yeah true. If we were a few innings later no chance, but given the circumstances probably have to.

You still probably need to try and get two innings from Merryweather right? 4th and 5th Merryweather, then a bunch of the guys who worked last night can work again tonight. This game is gonna be brutal for whoever loses, because both pitching staffs are gonna be shredded tomorrow

Caissie and PCA both make it for the Southern League. No other Cubs, though given the cutoffs I'd guess Ramirez, Hernandez, and maybe Ballesteros are in the next ten for the Carolina League and Triantos when if he were healthy would be in the 10-20 range for the MWL

"Flex"-en you say?

I guess another thing on Wicks. The Stuff+ grades on his pitches are reportedly Fastball - 116 Change - 108 Slider - 137 Curve - 82 That's three better than average pitches, with that slider getting an elite grade. Last year, 159 MLB pitchers threw 80+ innings (so starters and Keegan-esque swingmen). Of those: 34 had 3 or more pitches at 100 or better 42 had a primo pitch with a grade of 120 or better 19 had both Those 19 dudes were by and large your stars. There were two relative duds in the group, Keegan Thompson and Kyle Bradish. Keegan's easy enough to explain, that primo pitch is the slider he added mid-season. He only threw it 4% of the time last year all told because of how late he added it and his nascent command of the pitch. Bradish I'm not sure what his deal was. I guess every list has to have a WTF guy

Great stuff. I think there's two really interesting things with Wicks that make me consider that top of the rotation potential. First is velocity. His fastball, even averaging 92-93, grades out well by the metrics thanks to a superlative spin/movement profile. So he doesn't *need* to add velocity. But you'd think they'd try right? To this point though I believe his velo is basically where it was when he got drafted. Did the team already try with him and fail, or have they not crossed that bridge yet? Generally adding velo is among the first things the org does with a pitcher, it usually goes Velocity -> Movement -> Command. Maybe they think they can't improve the velo without materially impacting the other qualities of his fastball? But like Brozdowski slapped a 116 Stuff+ grade on his fastball already, that's the same grade Shohei Ohtani's fastball had last year. (Despite the velo Shohei's fastball is more good than great, it's the secondaries that make him a monster) The other is the slider. It also gets outstanding grades, but all of the scouts who see it are pretty meh about it meh on it. So is it an impact weapon? Again via Brozdowski it got a 137 Stuff+ grade, which would rank it between Corbin Burnes and Dyla. Cease last year. Or is it a tertiary pitch and Jordan's still at the drawing board on finding that 3rd pitch he can lean on?

Of the division mates, the Cards have definitely had the toughest schedule to open the season. But 4.5 games back of the Brewers already still seems like really bad news.

After tonight, in 9 games the Cubs will have faced 3 of the top 5 starters in baseball by projected ERA coming into the season

Assad seemed likely to go down for Hughes in a few days so I guess they took advantage here since after yesterday Assad's spent for the next few days anyway. Wonder if Nelly is really only up for 2-3 days or if there's going to be more additional machinations once Hughes and Seiya are back to keep Nelly up

I'll be interested to see the pitch modeling data on his repertoire after this. That stuff does well in small samples but you'd still like to see a couple of starts before you jump to conclusions. That data for his first start though basically graded his stuff about the same except for his change, which it thought was trash. I'll be curious to see if that’s a result of this armslot adjustment, or if it was just a one-off because he didn't have the feel.

Haven't watched, but from GameDay and his stats nothing scary is happening. There were a couple non-competitive ABs that first weekend, but on the whole he's just underneath the ball. K's are a bit elevated, but the swinging strike rate and the walks are both healthy, so it's mostly just a deep counts deal. He's hit a ton of pop-ups and weak fly balls. I'll worry about it when it's gone on longer but for right now it's just a bad weak. Kind of like Bellinger it's not a great start but I'm more encouraged by some of the under the hood stuff Tham I am discouraged by the topline results.

Well, sounds like some guy you thinks name is (Cas)tillo is about to get his ass kicked