Bertz

Yeah I think this is the right way to think about it. Even if Jed crushes it this offseason, we're likely looking at a good number of question marks in the lineup between the rookies, the fragile guys (Hoerner and if he's indeed the guy Correa), Wisdom's defense at 3B, and like you said that Madrigal/Mckinstry roster spot. It would be really nice to have Morel as the 10th man, knowing he'll get full playing time but the where can be dependent on what things are going wrong.

I love him and if anything ever happens to him I will hurl myself into an active volcano

He is going to be an absolute monster after he gets pitch labbed this winter.

If not for that disaster outing against the Cards where Stroman gave up 3 dongs and strained his shoulder for a month, his numbers would be exactly where we expected coming into the year

I don't really get having challenges instead of just going full-automated. In all sports, I am generally in favor of being able to challenge bad calls, but the actual review process sucks. Having the game pause for the review isn't fun. There are even times when I have wondered if I would rather just go back to no reviews (especially in basketball, or when football first started reviewing every touchdown). But with balls and strikes, I feel like it is the one situation where you can just immediately have the call be correct and we won't have the need for challenges. The thing I'm worried about is the unintended consequences of robo-umps. I'm absolutely deaf ears on "the human element" but some pretty smart people have voiced some valid trepidations about jumping over to the automated strike zone in one fell swoop. - The super-imposed zones on TV aren't actually totally accurate, getting the actual calls takes a little bit of computer processing time - Umps don't actually call the rulebook zone. It's more oval than square, if we jump straight to the rulebook zone what does that do? Or do we want to codify a more practical zone? - Relatedly, the zone expands/contracts based on the count and the score. Does eliminating that all at once break anything? - Does completely eliminating framing do weird/undesirable horsefeathers to the catcher position? We definitely need to move towards automation. But I think an intermediate step is a good idea. Though I 1000% agree it needs to be fast. No sauntering over, putting a headset on, waiting 90 seconds, disseminating the info, etc. Just like flash something on the scoreboard or give the 2B an earpiece and appeal to him a la check swings or something. I don't watch tennis but my understanding is it's pretty quick and painless there?

Not official, but LaRussa out

I actually think the challenge system is the right call assuming 3 things: 1. Reviews are fast 2. Managers keep successful challenges 3. This is step one on the journey, not the final destination We've seen with minor manufacturing changes to the baseball how delicate MLB's ecosystem is, and there's some legitimate concerns with the implementation of robo-umps. Let's maybe make incremental changes rather than seismic ones.

Wild after the org was entirely bereft of power as recently as 2019 to have (as of the last time I looked) two of the top 5 guys in minor league dongs. And these aren't even our tippy top prospects!

The O-line grades are encouraging. Patrick's issues can probably be written off as his hand injury (I think he was still in the glove thing on Sunday?), and Jones is young/inexperienced enough that we shouldn't write in pen that he can run block but not pass block. By mid season this group might be pretty solid, and in the meantime the only good/scary defense on the upcoming part of the schedule is Dallas.

- In answering a question about the 40 man crunch, Sharma doesn't say much that's concrete, but the one thing that stood out is that he grouped McKinstry with Quiroz and Hermosillo, which is not what I would've guessed about how highly he might be viewed. - Sharma also used the strongest language I've seen yet that the Cubs are looking for more of a game manager profile at catcher, and Contreras isn't going to be pursued unless it was as a bat with a catching afterthought. He also says he doubts Willson will take the QO because of that dynamic and his desire for long term security. Jensen, Hill, and Perlaza being included in that mini camp seems notable with the 40 man situation. I assume they're all under consideration for protection and this is an opportunity to make the final call. And yeah the Contreras stuff seems way stronger and more definitive than I expected. I guess the question at catcher this winter is more about whether they add a Omar Narvaez or Christian Vazquez to replace Higgins rather whether they allocate big resources to the position with a Contreras re-signing or a Sean Murphy trade.

Ah, I was wondering that about Marquez's salary. I remember there being some changes to this sort of situation in the new CBA but was fuzzy on the details. I think Marquez as THE guy is a little scary, but not necessarily bad. Like I said I think whatever is wrong with him is probably something dumb or just general Coors difficulties. That said it'd be a little unnerving to have the main add for the rotation be coming off a 1.5 WAR season. As much as I've railed against two SPs, I probably embrace it in this case. But like you said maybe the way to think about the second guy is how bullpen-able he is. Lean towards guys like Lorenzen who have a successful relief history, or guys like Chris Archer who seem like a fit there. Maybe I need to rethink Smyly too, given his curveball and his success first time through the order as a starter.

I'm very curious about the second SP, and what exactly the thinking there is in terms of caliber of guy. I assume the team is not going over the luxury tax this year, so if the offseason plan already involves a substantial FA starter and one of the shortstops, which most rumoring have indicated, you're capped out at about $10M on this guy. I also assume that a major prospect trade probably isn't on the table, so as reasonable as something like PCA+ for Brady Singer or Tarik Skubal is, it's probably not likely. So what does that leave? There are a couple of guys in trade I see in the goldilocks zone of low salary, modest prospect cost, and sufficient impact. Pablo Lopez, German Marquez, and if he's even made available Lucas Giolito. Those latter two have had rough seasons, but there's nothing that looks seriously wrong under the hood so I imagine Hottovy would have them fixed in 45 minutes. There's also more upside plays. We know the Cubs really tried for Andrew Heaney last winter before the Dodgers scooped him up, and so maybe there's another FA or two that they see as being a tweak or two away from more impact performance. They could also go the trade route, Trevor Rogers looks like one of the more obvious pitch lab guys in the league, you could also look at some of the pitchers who have stalled out for the Tigers, Royals, Lastly, there's also the possibility Jed just just goes for a boring back of the rotation guy. We know Mooney is a terrible writer, so him having taken liberties with the Stroman comp is maybe the most likely scenario. Smyly would seem to have the inside track here, given the chatter about how happy both sides are. I really hope this isn't the play, as I frankly don't really see the point of locking in on a #4 starter knowing that you have to rob the roster elsewhere for the resources, and if he's bad you can't just banish him to Iowa like you can a Wesneski.

Feels kind of mean for the managers to bat both Brennen Davis and Brendon Davis 6th in their respective lineups. I've been fooled checking the box score 3 times already

https://twitter.com/drivelinebases/status/1574560984295174145?t=UuU5lQXsdo1twBXCU60LiA&s=19

Fun fact: Steamer projects Mervis for a line of .260/.318/480 (121 wRC+) right now

There were plenty of WR options out there in FA better than Pringle. One of those was widely mocked by fans due to his perceived overpay and he is one of the best WR in the game through three games. There were absolutely limits to what the Bears could do (they weren't gonna make a blockbuster trade and you never wanna narrow in on one position in the draft), but they treated FA like... well like most first time GMs treat FA. But there was powder there (and now all roles over into an almost unusable amount in 2023). So I'm not lost as to what's occurring, but it wasn't the best foot forward with Fields. Even in that context where, "okay I know they're gonna be a team that leada with the run" and the last two games look like they're treating Fields like he's a rookie 6th rounder from Conference USA. Yeah seeing what we've seen so far, I'm pretty okay with the approach to the O-line. It hasn't been perfect, but it hasn't been "it's gonna get Justin killed" bad like we feared and with the infusion of youth it should presumably improve a good bit as the year goes on. There weren't enough resources allocated at WR though. There was a volume approach tied to the O-line, but at WR there was not nearly a sufficient amount of quantity given the lack of quality. Plus, I'm just generally not as sure you can throw volume at WR and assume things will work out, at least not with such a young QB.

Yeah Football Outsiders has the team finishing 8-9 at this point. The Bears aren't good but this schedule is a joke.

Mooney says that the plan on the pitching front is possibly two Stroman-esque adds rather than one full on Ace. I'd assume that'd have to be one trade and one FA, something like Senga and Pablo Lopez? Otherwise, given that one of the shortstops sounds like fait accompli you'd have to push past the LT.

If I looked into your posts from last year, would I find you saying the same things about Steele? He thinks everyone is a reliever. He said at one point like a month or two back it might be time to shift Stroman to relief. Thompson from his first start against the Padres through July had a 3.86 ERA, matching 3.84 FIP. The xFIP was 4.29, so he was probably a bit dong lucky, but that's still a solid mark for a #4 starter. And the numbers were substantially better in the second half of that run after he added the slider (2.52 ERA, 3.74 xFIP). He was a mess in August, but he was clearly gassed. He lost more than a mile off his fastball (93.9 in the stretch above, 92.7 in August), it's pretty clear the team was trying to have him just push through it to get his innings. A competitive team would have IL'd him to get him a breather at least two starts earlier. To me the only doubt about Thompson is whether he's just going to hit the wall again at 90-100IP next year. So like shifting him to the pen to give Wesneski more run is an acceptable plan, but shifting Thompson to the pen for some uninspiring (and moderately expensive) veteran like Smyly absolutely is not.

Since 8/7: 22.1 IP, 13 H, 10 BB, 40 Ks, 0.40 ERA (only 1 run!)

I've been pretty adamant about Keegan in the rotation, but I think I'm actually moving towards Wesneski starting the year in MLB and Keegan indeed being in the pen. No idea what to do with Sampson this winter. I'd love some confirmation he does in fact have minor league options. Fangraphs says he does but sometimes this sort of stuff gets wonky with the guys who went to Asia for a few years and came back.

Yeah, I'm generally of the opinion that there's essentially no predictive value in rookie QB performance. But there's no shrugging off these kind of year 2 struggles. I believe Josh Allen is the only QB in the modern era to be straight up bad in year 2 and then go on to be an impact guy. One of the Ringer guys, I think Kevin Clark, suggested a few years back that a team in the QB desert should start just taking first or second round QBs every year until they get it right. I think that's an overcorrection, but I'm perfectly happy to do every other year. You have like an 80% idea on who your QB is after year 2. If you don't love what you're seeing at that point, you don't have to wait until the end of year 3 or 4 when you're 100% sure to finally make a move

I have some quibbles, but I think this is in the neighborhood of what I'm expecting this winter. The big one, and I know I'm in the minority, but I kind of hate holding onto Smyly. I also am pretty unfazed by Morel's issues in the second half here, but I don't think there would be anything too egregious about getting him a month at Iowa. The team's at ~$140M for payroll going into the winter if we assume the Franimal is non-tendered. Correa adds ~$30, Senga another ~$20, plus another $15-20M for Narvaez and the bullpen. We know Jed likes to have money to throw around at the deadline, so even if spending up to the LT is on the table this year, you've probably only got another ~$15M to spend in the offseason. Probably a pick two scenario with Smyly/Choi/Kiermaier. That's the tough choice this offseason, you probably have to just ride with internal options at one of C/CF/SP#2. I personally am very comfortable with the internal SP depth, and that's the way I'd go, but I think there's good arguments for and against not addressing each of the three.

Insane luck to get Morel out right there. It's like MLB the show how wild pitches always magnet their way right back to the catcher