Bertz

Assuming he's done after 7, Keegan Thompson since implementing his slider: 7 starts, 39.1 IP, 34 H, 2 HR, 11 BB, 43 K, 31.5% GB, 2.52 ERA, 2.58 FIP, 3.68 xFIP He's been lucky to only give up 2 dongs with how few groundballs he's getting, but he's been legitimately fantastic. Only 25 qualified pitchers this year have a 3.68 or better xFIP.

I like seeing Thompson dominate the Pirates, not because that's especially impressive but because they're now the first team he's faced twice since he added the slider. It's a nice little data point in favor of this being more breakout than hot streak.

yep - if they add another receiver they'll accomplish basically everything we wanted them to during the offseason. I'm expecting a roughly Reiff-caliber add at WR (Will Fuller is still out there...). I don't think we've seen $ details on Schofield, but I believe Reiff ate up about half of the available funds

Oscar Colas is a bit of a high variance guy in terms of opinion. I believe I've seen him on a Top 100 or two, and he's having a very good year so even if he wasn't in December he might be now. I'd buy he's a guy who could reasonably headline a Happ deal. HOWEVER, such a deal would have to be a quantity deal, a la last year's Gallo trade, and those two arms are not even close to being able to round out a trade. Last year the Rangers got two guys on the 45/50 border and two 40s. Dan's trade has only one of the latter, which makes it pretty unacceptable IMO, even before getting into the weirdness of adding two live arms in A Ball immediately after a draft where the org added a bunch of live arms ticketed for A Ball.

If Houston is truly dropping the "how could we possibly play Martin Maldonado less?" schtick Hunter Brown would be kind of a perfect headliner for Contreras. Back of the Top 100 SP prospect who could step into the Cubs' rotation tomorrow. I also really like Pedro Leon, but him + Brown is probably too much for Willson, and him as the headliner would seem a little light.

In that sense, maybe Josh Bell too, though the risk profile on both ends is different. In terms of who might be another Stroman, the potential FA that cannot get a QO due to receiving it before are Correa(pending opt out), Syndergaard, Verlander(pending opt out), and (lol) Greinke. Josh Bell seems to be certain to be moved, but yeah he's definitely a guy that the QO would change the marginal value of acquiring him substantially. I'm also really hoping Thor goes elsewhere. There's a pretty real chance he's still good and the Angels are just dummies, but I don't want to be on the team making that bet, especially with his velo way down.

The Cubs are likely going to pick in the same vicinity they next year as they did this year. Given that "trading down" and playing bonus pool shenanigans was their Plan A, I do fear that we're in for another winter of working around qualifying offers (sigh). So I think from a Cubs perspective the biggest things to watch are what the Red Sox and Giants do. Do either of them fall so far back of the Wildcard that either Bogaerts or Rodon get traded and can't be QO'd?

The Prospectus suggestion that PCA's South Bend K's look to be a league-transition anomoly seems factually incorrect. 1. He's played two months for South Bend, all of June, and now July. 2. June was 13K/59 AB. So, if there was a league-transition-anomoly month, it should have been June. 3. In July, it's 22K/65 AB. So for this month, now that he's kind of settled in and established his equilibrium, he's K'ing a little over 1/3 of his AB. 4. He's had at least 2K's per game for each of the last four games, so if anything it appears the K-rate has been increasing. 5. He's had only one game this month without a K. I don't say this to rag on PCA. But I think we may need to be reaching a new perception, that the present version of PCA is not the low-K contact-hitting guy the pre-season scouting reports described. For now, his present equilibrium is as a high-K power hitter. Guys are always trying and tweaking and trying to find their best equilibrium. I'm not suggesting he won't make some adjustments and come up with some new balance in the remaining weeks, or next season. This is what getting hundreds of AB's in the minors is for. I'm just suggesting that for now, he is what he is, and that's a high-K guy who keeps his stats afloat by mixing in some homers with the lots of K's. Dan Szymborski had a bit about this in his writeup on Armstrong during the Future's Game. Essentially he doesn't worry about K rates when guys are hitting the hell out of the ball, because they're incentivized to keep swinging. (He had similar comments in a subsequent chat but I'm not going to dig around for those) PCA had an 11.5% swinging strike rate at MB, which was ~70th percentile among A-ballers, and that's climbed to a 14.5% swinging strike rate at SB, about 30th percentile among A+ hitters. I'd say we're still in wait and see mode on PCA's plate discipline trajectory. Plenty of guys hit when they're hot and walk when they're cold, and PCA has practically been swinging Mjolnir since he got off the IL (13 of his 25 hits have been for extra bases). Like TT said I'd lean against the sub 20% K rates being a thing for him moving forward, but I'm not ready to say he's a high strikeout guy either. We're still deep in the throws of small sample size.

I would love to have age overlaid on this somehow too, or maybe filter out guys more than one year older than each minor league level's respective median. My guess is that the more context you layer on the better the offensive side of this chart would look for the Cubs. Conversely if you weight performance by prospectiness the Cubs would start sliding more towards middle of the pack on the pitching end. Asked and received!

I'm pretty sure over the last decade the worst CFer who averaged 20+ bombs annually and was actually a legitimate defender at the position is Randal Grichuk. He's been a slightly below average everyday player. Given that PCA's purported to be more like a +10 defender, the plate discipline is going to really need to become a problem as he moves up the ladder to not end up an everyday player.

It's deep in the weeds stuff, but this is always very important for the Trade Deadline. Teams are more likely to give up better players than they otherwise would have if players are on or due to be put on the 40 man roster. Like last year the Cubs got more talent than expected for Rizzo and Bryant, but part of that is because the 2nd prospect in each deal was an A-baller already on the 40 man roster. The difference between this year and last year is that now the Cubs have their own 40 man crunch. So the team is probably much less likely to take back more Alexander Canario types this year. I'd imagine returns will be either non-40 players or 40-players who seem pretty certain to get MLB playing time in '23. I also wonder if we see a consolidation trade or two, either something really big (Contreras + Happ) or small (sending a fringe 40 man guy e.g. Anderson Espinoza back in a trade with an MLBer for a slightly better prospect return).

FWIW Fields is at the top of Tier 4, which is basically all the unproven guys. He's behind Jones and Lawrence and ahead of Wilson and Lance.

Ken Rosenthal had an article yesterday that said the Padres were the *heavy* favorites. On the Cards, not that it would make it okay but I would take a Soto deal as a sign that Arenado is opting his way out the door. I don't think they can actually make 3 guys combining for ~$90M work, especially when it costs most of their MLB young talent that could help defray those costs. So it would *really* suck, but I don't think we're staring down the barrel of another long term Pujols/Rolen/Edmonds triumvirate of pain.

Assumed Paciolla was gonna take more

Yeison Santana with a dong, I believe his first in full season ball for his career The South Bend box score is nearly as meh as it could possibly be for having 9 runs through 5 innings

I would love to have age overlaid on this somehow too, or maybe filter out guys more than one year older than each minor league level's respective median. My guess is that the more context you layer on the better the offensive side of this chart would look for the Cubs. Conversely if you weight performance by prospectiness the Cubs would start sliding more towards middle of the pack on the pitching end.