Bertz

BJ Murray had looked great in the WBC, definitely understand the sleeper buzz he got this winter

Lucas Patrick is still under contract, right? Yeah, my assumption is that he'll be the primary backup for the interior portion of the Oline but I wouldn't be shocked if they intend to have him be the starting C.

Are we assuming its more likely we see Whitehair head back to center or that it's likely he is an eventual cut?

Tangentially related conversation I just saw on Twitter. Absolutely gotta lock down the interior of both lines pre-draft though.

IMO DT is the only place where you've absolutely got to get a top of the market option Poles can go more mid-market at RT, it just means he ought to take one of the top guys with #9

If we just take the rumors as gospel, adding McGlinchey, Seumalo, Okereke, and one of the top DTs to Edward's would use up most of the Bears' cap space, while emphatically filling every glaring hole on the roster except Edge Rusher. I would absolutely buy that being plan A.

So here's an attempt at a little Monday morning math. From FG, I grabbed every pitcher with 50 IP in both '21 and '22, and looked at their velo, ERA, xFIP, and Stuff+ numbers. I also removed dudes who don't throw a traditional 4 Steamer, e.g. Emmanuel Clase. This left a list of 206 dudes. First off, only one of the 206 added 2.5+ MPH year over year. Griffin Jax, who transitioned from starter to reliever. So unfortunately we should probably assume a good bit of Assad's bump was a one-off, maybe adrenaline coming from national pride like TT mentioned. If Assad permanently added a full 2.5 MPH, especially being able to hold it as a starter, he's a unicorn. Something like 1 MPH is far more realistic though. 21 guys saw a bump between 0.7 and 1.3 MPH, and several of those are pure SPs. The performance lift for those 21 guys is substantial. They saw an their ERA drop by over a run on average, and even if we want to look more process rather than results their xFIPs dropped by 0.59 runs, and they added 5 points to their Stuff+ marks. As a point of reference that 5 points is the difference between Javier Assad and Lance Lynn. So step one is seeing how real this increase is. And we probably won't have a great sense there for another 6 weeks, but potentially we have a fundamentally different guy on our hands.

I think the big question is how much of this velo bump was the starter -> reliever conversion and how much is the offseason velo training you mentioned. A 3 inning outing is an awkward amount for having any sort of strong opinion there. But in the roster scenario where he can sit at 95 with his sinker for 5-6 innings not only does it raise his profile enough to be a sure MLBer, it probably raises it enough to be a mid-rotation starter. As bad as Sampson has been this spring, I'd not drop him from the roster short of injury or someone (presumably quite desperate) offering value in trade. I feel a lot better about both Kilian and Assad than I did a month ago, but I'd like to see them prove it out in Iowa for a month before I bump Sampson down to #9 on the SP depth chart where it's pretty safe to DFA him for the roster spot.

But wait, there's more

For a team that's not historically a baseball powerhouse Mexico's team is pretty loaded. Columbia's up but this feels like a very precarious lead.

Absolutely criminal if Wesneski isn't the #5 to start the year. And he's set up for 150+ innings this year, so it's not going to take especially complicated gymnastics to manage his innings.

Yeah I think if Tyree Wilson is gone by 9 (more likely than not, but not definite?) this is the way I'd go. Let's make the offense around Justin just absolutely absurd.

Bears no longer on the clock, someone change the thread title I do like that this got done pre-FA. I think that makes it easier to know what needs to be done on that front.

This is really really cool stuff. I found PitchingBot over the winter and glad to see it's going to be somewhere more easily accessible. The tl;dr is that both of these models try to break down pitching into its component parts, and granular enough to be at the specific pitch level. And because these are very process oriented metrics rather than results ones, they apparently reach a stabilization point WAY earlier than most of our other metrics. So we can start feeling more confident in some of the early season pitching storylines than we have historically.

I'm terrible at analyzing swings, but Mancini might get significantly more juice just from moving ballparks. I'm counting 14 outs last year that were on the Wrigley warning track or farther, and MIL/CIN are even kinder to him. The offense in general I don't worry about it being bad. There's just too much depth on the bench and at Iowa for that to happen. We do need some fortune with veteran bouncebacks or the youths for the offense to be really good though. Suzuki and Bellinger are the easiest and most straightforward to see, but Mancini putting up another 2019 would have a similar impact.

Starting to sound like Memorial Day is a fair expectation for him being back at Iowa. If he thinks he'll be doing baseball stuff in a week it probably means closer to end of the month in actuality. But even still let's call it 6 weeks in EXST and two weeks of rehab games from there and that still has him at Iowa before the end of May.

I read something that his numbers against fastballs 93+ were pretty pedestrian. Considering the average MLB fastball is now bumping 94 I'd be really concerned. Honestly for that reason I'd guess the WBC here is gonna either make or lose him a ton of money.

It does a little to affirm the quality and quantity of the depth but mostly its nothing. Feels like the bench is solidifying, with the last spot being a battle between Tauchman and Davis - Barnhart is a lock, and Mckinstry is not far behind - Heavy implications going around about Morel opening the year in Iowa - Given the circumstances around his signing, Rios was probably a near lock for the bench from the jump, but even if he wasn't before he's currently earning his way onto the roster - Madrigal is looking surprisingly solid at 3B, and the Iowa/Chicago decision for him has primarily been framed as predicated on defense - All of the guys who can play RF in Suzuki's stead range between adequate and bad defensively. It'd be weird to not have a 3rd good defensive outfielder considering all the harping the team has done about defense - That would leave Deluzio, whose lack of playing time implies he's not actually a strong contender, Tauchman, and Davis as the likely options I'd guess Tauchman's the favorite, but given he would require a 40 man move and the new CBA's service time incentives not an especially heavy one?

Spring training stats don't mean anything for vets with locked in jobs, but a guy competing for a roster spot probably shouldn't have a 27.00 ERA

Given the Cubs are at #13, I do wonder if the best player available might end up being the top HS Arm rather than a 2nd tier player from one of the more valuable demos. I'm probably going to be a lot more open to that demo this year than most years.

Barnhart (#5 in baseball the last three years) and Gomes (#8) both show out really well here. Though Contreras is #17 and well in the black so not exactly an area on defense where he was lacking.

Seems pretty likely he's ticketed for the MLB club

Wick's probably always going to be a Jekyl/Hyde sort but here's hoping we get more good outings this year. Maybe the fact that there's multiple dudes at Iowa nipping at his heels will help