Bertz
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Everything posted by Bertz
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We'll wait for details obviously but sounds like Kenta Maeda's first deal. Wonder if Shota's health is a little more suspect than we realize.
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I'm really excited for this move. I've been stumping for Imanaga and/or Glasnow basically all offseason. And if you had told me Imanaga was only going to get $15M per year I would have been that much more obnoxious about it. I'll also mention for like the 18th time that the projection systems actually think he's better than Yamamoto on a per-inning basis. The lack of groundballs and the resulting dongs are going to keep him from being elite, but he throws A TON of strikes and misses A TON of bats. Unless you're giving up a Lance Lynn-esque number of homers that's still going to lead to strong production. It also sounds like there might be some low-hanging fruit from a pitch design standpoint. I'm hoping that lack of familiarity gives him a strong 1st half season, and they can make whatever repertoire tweaks to keep the ball in the park in time for his second go around the league.
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I don't know if we see any more big signings, I think those are on Boras' timeline rather than Jed's. That said I wouldn't be surprised if any of the trades that Jed is apparently working on are fast follows. Or bullpen arms. It's very clear Bellinger is going to hold out til ST or just moments before, so there's not really any impotice to wait on him to do more. If anything getting everything else locked in probably pushes Boras to the table faster.
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So probably more or less exactly what Senga got? That's awesome.
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I'm most glad about this because rotation options were getting perilously thin. This winter a GM can sign two decent 1B/DH types blindfolded, so if Jed wants to wait until President's Day or whatever to do the rest of his shopping everything should still be fine. (Please Jed for our collective sanity do not wait that long to make your next move)
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There was some thought that the rush of teams saying they weren't going to get him was a sign he wasn't going to get the 9 figure deal he wanted. I'll say with the posting fee he cracks $100M but not without.
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BTW two bits of required reading/watching about Shota
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I swear to God if Bob Bob's this I'm going to lose my mind But also, yay!!!!
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It's possible, the reporting was that he came stateside and did on-site visits over the last week or so. Usually though the physicals come after an agreement though, so my expectation is still that this gets wrapped up tonight so they can travel, hammer out the contract, and do the physical tomorrow.
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Craig Mish is, as far as I know, the most plugged in reporter for the Marlins. So this is pretty meaningful If you're you're wondering if the Marlins are willing to trade someone sounds like the answer is probably yes
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It's tough, he's definitely got a connection or three, with one of them obviously being Ian Happ. But he's also a moron. When I click a BN article and Brett didn't write it I usually react about like this.
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I mentioned him a few pages back. Bell would be a good way to defray the cost of one of their fun pitchers IMO.
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Feels like this is more or less done. I imagine Shota's agent is going around the room one last time to see if anyone wants to add a year or a couple million of AAV and put it away. Gut still says Cubs or Angels.
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Where to hit Hoerner is a really tough question, and I think for me depends on who gets brought in to bolster the offense. He's a contact guy and as you point out here is especially strong against top of zone fastballs. I want him somewhere to help mitigate that weakness of someone else in the lineup. For example Chris Morel gets eaten alive at the top of the zone, so for example something like a 5-6 in the lineup of Morel-Hoerner would for make a lot of sense. If Wisdom and Morel are in the lineup on the same day you definitely want Hoerner somewhere in between them.
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I'm still extremely skeptical the Red Sox pull him down given their self imposed financial woes
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I was reading Grant Brisbees article this morning, and it's a "what if the season started today" sort of roster analysis for the Giants. This stood out to me JD Davis isn't great, he's basically Patrick Wisdom if he wasn't such an extreme launch angle guy. HOWEVER, the Giants pulled some black magic last winter and turned him into a very good 3B. As we know Wisdom’s defensive prowess has cratered the last two years. Davis and Madrigal would IMO be a good 3B tandem if we're not trusting Morel there.
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That further proves the point, right? If the small army of public draft analysts that contribute to the public zeitgeist (many of whom with input directly from teams as well) can get things so hilariously wrong, just imagine how easy it is for one team's scouting department to muck things up.
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You trade up for a QB or when there's an industry agreement on a tier change. E.g. the Eagles moving up for Jalen Carter who was the last consensus blue chipper left on the board. You absolutely 100% do not move up because you think you're smarter than the industry and can tell the difference between two guys the industry thinks are more or less evenly rated.
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I really wonder how Boras handles conflicts of interest. Like it seems reasonably likely that Boras holding onto Hoskins to keep Bellinger's market afloat ends up blowing back on Hoskins. How do you navigate those sorts of dynamics and like what are the ethics there?
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This is really good! At a high level, the issues Wesnesk had really seem similar to what Alzolay had in 2021. Alzolay became a little more north/south instead of east/west snd bumped up his 4-seamer/Cutter/Changeup usage at the expense of his sinker/slider. I imagine similar gradual changes would work with Wesneski, but that release point split you point out could be the fly in the ointment. I looked at Alzolay and he had one two, but just like an inch or two not ~6 inches like Wesneski.
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Jed did like a half dozen things last year that most make sense if he was planning on going over this year. If Jed doesn't go over this year, he either made some major tactical errors (which isn't likely since Jed's problems are usually being too conservative) or Tom has more or less put the kibosh on ever going over again.
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I don't love FullCountTommy but this actually does feel likely based on what we are and are not seeing out there
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I thought this was really good at laying out the timeline: Harbaugh would throw a lot of this out the window though.
