Bertz
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Everything posted by Bertz
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My wife after my "Overton Window" joke to her just now
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God the Sox rebuild is a disaster. All of that for I believe two wins spread over two ALDS's? Phillies were on an even worse trajectory until ~August of last year. And those two tanked before the draft lottery even went into effect. I think we'll still see small market teams go full scorched earth tank, but I'd guess it's done for mid and large market teams.
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Historically, velo has moved with the weather. Starting low in April and peaking in August. Around 1.5-2 MPH on average. Some of this is the weather itself (i.e. guys can throw harder when it's warmer and they're looser), some of it the nature of guys ramping up from the offseason. I haven't seen any studies focusing on the last few years, but anecdotally it seems to vary much less over the course of each year. My read on why is that guys have now trained enough to throw at essentially 100% right away on February 15th. So a few years ago I'd look at all those guys who were flat and be all "if they're flat now then by June they'll be up quite a bit!" but I'm less confident than ever of that being inevitable. It still happens, Drew Smyly is a great case last year (91.9 in April, 93.3 in August), but it's no longer the universal truth it used to be.
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A couple immediate reactions to that roster: - Is Birdsell hurt, or do we think he's at SB? - Is Ismael Mena hurt? If not close the book on him ever becoming a thing I guess - I know Michael Arias throws fire, are any of the other IFA pitchers worth tracking?
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Not facing back to back Cy Young candidates and getting out of the 30-something degree weather should bode well for the offense this series. Otherwise
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One of the quickest things to matter in a new season is going to be YoY velocity changes. This is stupid early, but here's every pitcher on the team that's thrown so far. Pitcher - '23 velo / '22 velo Stroman - 91.7 / 92.9 Steele - 92.3 / 92.4 Taillon - 94.3 / 94.1 Assad - 94.3 / 93.0 Fulmer - 95.1 / 94.3 Thompson - 93.4 / 93.8 Leiter - 90.9 / 91.2 Boxberger - 93.0 / 92.8 Alzolay - 96.8 / 95.0 Merryweather - 96.4 / 97.4 Rucker - 95.5 / 94.9 Alzolay is the clearest positive. If he's going to be sitting 97 permanently he will be the permanent closer within a few weeks. Assad too, though his coming out party already happened in the WBC. One other I'll note though is Steele, his velo being flat while pitching in those conditions might mean he's really added some juice to his fastball. Stroman and Merryweather are the only guys down noticeably. I don't love Stroman being down, because he got warmed up for the WBC I wouldn't expect him to e.g. be going through dead-arm. Merryweather hopefully it was a one-off, because if he's not throwing absolute gas he shouldn't be long for the roster.
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Yeah Assad definitely needs to do some pruning, which should hopefully help whatever pitches he keeps. It'll be interesting to see where his pitches net out with the newfound velocity. Last year the pitch modeling data at Fangraphs said that he had 5 below average but playable pitches, and then a garbage change up. The very preliminary data on Saturday likes the slider and sinker as above average pitches now, but gave everything else only a modest bump. This data breaks out of the small sample size shackles really quickly, but I'd still probably like to see him get 10ish innings under his belt before making any sweeping judgements. My inkling though is to dump the cutter and the change.
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I believe that K pitch was the sweeper we've been hearing so much about?
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The Dansby Swanson Appreciation Thread
Bertz replied to Brock Beauchamp's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
I was one of like 3 people here who actually wanted Swanson, but I've still been pleasantly surprised. Mainly, I didn't know he had so much opposite field juice. Dansby's big thing is that despite fairly average power, he gets quite good power production. A big part of that is hitting everything in the air, but I had also assumed the balls he actually did damage on were all pulled. But he's already stung several the opposite way. The other is I didn't expect a ton of highlight reel plays on defense. I expected more of a "takes care of absolutely everything he should" deal kind of like Nico. -
Jed Hoyer after every Matt Mervis PA
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Minor League Discussion & Boxes, 4-2-23
Bertz replied to CaliforniaRaisin's topic in Cubs Minor League Talk
Here's to 2023 being the year where Caleb has his 2021 command and his 2022 stuff -
Minor League Discussion & Boxes, 4-1-23
Bertz replied to CaliforniaRaisin's topic in Cubs Minor League Talk
Estrada sitting 92-94 is not great, though given the weather and calendar I assume not especially alarming. -
Williams' velo was down in the WBC too. It's April 1st so not a red alert deal, but I would be moderately worried if I was a Brewers fan.
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I think it'll be fine when the weather warms up. The problem is aside from Rios and Wisdom who are one-dimensional power goofs, there's nobody you'd expect to be able to hit it out regularly in these cold April games. And it's, even when things are going well, not going to be a great OBP lineup.
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Deluzio or Tauchman would have caught that. Even when Seiya is back we're missing something by not having a 4th competent defensive outfielder
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I don't love 3 man booths generally, but Girardi as the 3rd with Boog and JD works well IMO
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I know none of us take Raisin for granted, but he was on Assad turning into a thing at least a month before anyone else last year.
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I was going to mock the fans at the park for getting excited about that ball and somehow it got out?!? Only hot 97 and in this weather?
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I'd guess he could go another in a vacuum but in a tie game and 3rd time through he gets the pull.
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Do we know if spin is impacted by weather? Makes logical sense but never actually seen it mentioned. His velo being here in this weather has me hopeful he'll get a small bump from where he was last year.
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5 from Steele 2 from Assad 1 from Merryweather 1 from Adbert In this weather that's a guaranteed shutout
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Bellinger looks about as comfortable in this cold as Soler used to
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For those not watching
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HOLY HORSEFEATHERING HORSEFEATHERS
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What a play by Steele. I would have only expected Stro to pull that off among our guys
