Bertz

Really good rundown from Bryan Smith. I'd quibble with his choices at the end (I'd keep Mckinstry and Wick instead of Marquez and Uelmen) but the decisions definitely aren't clear cut on several of these guys.

I think people are really sleeping on the Mets chances of winning this whole thing because of last weekend's embarrassment. If they take care of the Padres in 2, they'll be able to get two deGrom starts and a Scherzer start in a five game series against the Dodgers, and as scary as the Dodgers are give me the Mets in that series. Oh, and they'd still have Scherzer ready to start game 1 of the NLCS. I also think the Phillies and Mariners are a bit underrated. Everyone's like "aww good for you buddy you snapped the drought" but these are good teams with fearsome front of the rotation starters who could horsefeathers you up in a short series.

Zach Mckinstry racked up 0.9 WAR in 185 PAs this year despite a 79 wRC+. That'd be basically a 3 win player over full playing time. The offensive bar is super low for guys who can play good defense everywhere on the infield. That said I posted about this a few weeks ago but I think there's a bit more in the bat. Despite the low BABIP Statcast doesn't think he was especially unlucky on balls in play. Where he probably has been unlucky though is in his K numbers. Here are his percentile ranks in several categories among guys who got 150 PAs (these are all set so 100th percentile is most, not necessarily best) BB rate - 60th K rate - 81st Out of zone swing rate - 47th In zone swing rate - 32nd Out of zone contact rate - 69th In zone contact rate - 78th % of Pitches in Zone - 41st None of that indicates a guy who should be running a 28% strikeout rate. He's got good contact rates, is average at chasing out of the zone, and maybe a little passive but not egregiously so. This is a guy who should have a ~20% K rate, which would likely bring that wRC+ up to vaguely average. Stepping back, there's probably only room on next year's roster for one of Mckinstry or Madrigal, and even as a guy who's not a Madrigal hater I feel pretty strongly that Mckinstry should clearly be the guy. They're probably comparable value players in the abstract, but even if Madrigal is little better he is a horrendous fit on this current roster. A RHH who is intractably tied to 2B is just the squarest peg you could possibly think of right now. I think one of the moves that Jed needs to make this winter is a sort of reverse Vizcaino for La Stella trade.

I guess I could pull up the GB game thread but I'll put this here

I'm still of the mind that he can work his way onto the OD roster. He didn't hit much after he came back, but he fixed the contact issues he'd had earlier pre-injury. I'm willing to chalk the limited batted-ball productivity to rust. We know he could hit the snot out of the ball pre-injury, so it doesn't take much to believe that is back. And the horrific contact issues in April are looking more and more like they were due to him being compromised physically.

I'd expect so. I might be missing a guy or two, but everyone they've brought in has been notably big and strong or notably fast. I'd expect the plan is to have a couple of each and mix and match depending on the situation. The sample size is small but it doesn't appear that they're super into the Keenan Allen's of the world.

Man, if only the Mets had an opportunity earlier this year to upgrade from McCann/Nido. Oh well

You know they get more than just the three hours every Sunday we get to evaluate him right?

Gordon's been bad but how often are CBs that aren't top 15ish picks able to hold their heads above water as every down players from day 1? I'm willing to be pretty forgiving with him, but to be abundantly clear he's been a mess to this point. There's a bit of the same logic with Jones as well. Fields had some flashes today, and clearly the supporting cast wasn't doing him any favors. Probably his best game of the season? If games like today were the bad days instead of the good days it'd be a lot easier to feel good about him.

Seiya has donged, Adbert has thrown three perfect innings #WeAreAboutToBeGood

After chewing on the idea for a few days after TT brought it up, I'm very much in on Marquez being SP#1 this winter. It's riskier than some of the other options, but it seems like the right call for a few reasons: 1. He's probably still as good or better than any of the second tier FAs. The three years prior to this one, Marquez averaged 3.8 WAR/180 IP. Yes this year has been down, but he's not lost any velo, so whatever has been at issue seems unlikely to be permanent. It looks like his spin is down on his curveball, but not his other pitches. I'm not a pitch design guy, but that screams grip/mechanical change, not permanent loss of ability. Marquez at his best is not going to approach the deGrom/Rodon/Verlander tier, but there's a very good chance he's better than anyone else available in FA. 2. The financials are a big plus. I expect a good bit of money to get thrown around this winter, but for the team to stay south of the luxury tax. That means ~$85M to play with. That's a lot, but if you're grabbing a SS and two SPs, there's definitely limits and you need to be willing to make some trade-offs. German is set to make 1/$15M, with a team option for another year. Going with him instead of say, Eovaldi, probably saves you about $5M in 2023 and significantly lessens the amount of long term dollars allocated 3. The prospect cost is probably not far off from a QO free agent, particularly if you trade someone off the 40 man. I think Marquez for Kilian seems like the most logical deal for both sides. Certainly the Rockies are bereft enough that the deal could come in many shapes, but let's assume Kilian. Weighing that against the second rounder you give up for a QO free agent, plus adding in the 40 man spot you open up, I think the value is close. The second rounder you lose is approximately pick #50, approximately where the Cubs nabbed Jackson Ferris and James Triantos the past two years. The 40 man spot saves whatever live arm in the upper minors is last off the list to be protected this winter. Someone like Ryan Jensen or Danis Correa. So all told, would you rather have Kilian or Jensen plus another Ferris? I'd say Kilian, but not by much The Cubs appear to be one of the smart teams with pitching at this point, and even if they aren't they certainly fancy themselves to be. Let's see them use these powers in a more impactful way. Getting $10M returns on $5M investments like they did with Drew Smyly is nice, but the next step is getting top of the rotation returns on mid-rotation investments.

Just in case anyone doubts whether he'll opt out

I know a segment of the fan base hates Ross, but I absolutely love that he uses these long relievers in leverage spots. I'm generally reticent to shift guys like Thompson who I believe have it in them to start into long relief because I'm used to that being garbage leverage, but if this truly keeps up it makes the value tradeoff between starting and relieving much smaller.

Yeah It's especially galling with the pitching matchups. Like if you're the Phillies you can't get swept in a series where Wheeler and Nola both go. You just can't.

Things going great amongst Phillies fans!

I think for me a lot of it depends on his minor league option status. Fangraphs says he'll still have one next year, but service time and stuff can get a bit weird with the guys who go over to Asia and come back, so I wouldn't 100% count on that. But broadly, I think if he has options you keep him at Iowa if he doesn't you trade him. The sparkling ERA seems almost surely to be a fluke. The peripherals say he should have a mid 4's ERA, and Statcast agrees. He likely isn't some magic soft- contact guy that outperforms his peripherals. But a mid 4's ERA is not bad! In fact from a 5th/6th starter it's pretty good. There are teams out there, I would specifically circle the Rangers, who will look to add like 3 or 4 SPs this winter, and would be happy to have Sampson as one of the latter ones. If Sampson doesn't have options and can't be stashed at Iowa, I would trade him rather than awkwardly stashing him in the bullpen. Baseball Trade Values isn't gospel but thinks he's worth a prospect or two in the back half of our top 30, that's nothing to sneeze at.

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!