Bertz
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Everything posted by Bertz
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Very explicitly poo poos Willson to Tampa
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Yesssss!!!!
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This is, unsurprisingly, very good
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I guess we’re interested in Dom Smith.
Bertz replied to Little Slide Rooter's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
Dom Smith sucks but he's more worthwhile than anything else we could throw out at 1B. I think at this point 1B next year is probably Patrick Wisdom with a LH compliment. Hopefully that's ultimately Matt Mervis, but maybe Dom Smith can show enough this year to get first crack at that job. -
Cleveland feels like an inevitable trade partner this deadline is whether it's in a bigger deal or a smaller one. They've got such a deep farm, plus the Hawkins connection, and they could use help at catcher, in the pen, and even a Drew Smyly to help in the back end of their rotation. Xzavion Curry would be extremely in line with the org's current tastes.
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1. Gotta be Nazier Mule, right? He probably doesn't spend too long doing the two-way thing, but it's exciting especially when he throws triple digits as a pitcher 2. Shane Marshall (14th round) probably? He's a catcher, threw a few innings in a blowout where his fastball metrics absolutely popped and the team took him as a pitcher. I think that's fun, and I believe it's similar circumstances to how the org ended up shifting Brandon Hughes to the mound 3. Keep in mind the Cubs have a pretty deep system, but I'd say Horton slots into the back of the top 10, Ferris around 15ish, while Mule, Birdsell, Paciolla, and maybe Frisch in the 20-30 range (or at least have a good argument to)
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You wouldn't think any of the Cubs guys would warrant him (even packaged), but then again you wouldn't think Luis Castillo or Frankie Montas would either.
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I like the seeming strategy at this stage of the draft where everything is a flyer of essentially just data scouting, sorting by velo/spin/exit velo and working your way down. I think teams that do this exclusively are making a big mistake, but at this point in the draft or for your throw-ins on a trade it's the right call. Overall I like the draft. It really infuses some much needed pitching into the lower levels of the org. That said Lee + Prielipp still seems very likely to end up better than Horton + Ferris, while Parada + Prielipp probably does as well. There are good reasons to dislike Lee and/or Parada, but passing on both seems destined to backfire. It'll be interesting over the next year or two how the org's pitching, which at this point has almost all been been acquired and/or primarily developed in the Breslow era, does. The team clearly thinks they're in the cool kids pitching club with the Rays, Guardians, Dodgers, Brewers, and Yankees. Holistically they've been checking the boxes in the minors, but guys like Thompson and Steele need to be wave 1 and not the crown jewels for it to not just be empty messaging.
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Woah woah woah Amaya is going to get some catching in this season?! I had him chalked up as a DH until at least winter ball, maybe even spring training.
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Yeah my (obviously biased) gut says the addition of Corbin means it should be either/or on Davis/PCA not both. I wonder if they're not properly accounting for Soto's top of the scale impending arb salaries.
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Taking MLB Trade Values as direction, it'd be something like Cubs Get: Soto Corbin Nats Get: Hoerner Davis PCA their favorite of Steele/Thompson/Kilian/Alzolay another medium sized trade chip (e.g. another one of the above starters, Madrigal, Wisdom, one Hernandez/Alcantara/Triantos) FWIW, the tool says that Happ and Hoerner are roughly evenly valued, so given that Happ is definitely gone in this scenario, it does help backfill a lot of the value you lose above.
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Every mock draft except whatever the hell prep baseball report is had Horton going between 9 and 18
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Miggy's back!
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So after all of this, is this approximately what we're looking at for rotations throughout the system next year? MLB - FA, Stroman, Steele, Thompson, Hendricks (Alzolay in the pen) AAA - Kilian, Espinoza, Jensen, Clarke, Assad (R. Thompson in the pen) AA - Wicks, Herz, Palencia, Franklin, TBD A+ - Horton, Devers, Gallardo, Hodge, Schlaffer (Little in the pen?) A - Gray, Ferris, Moreno, Birdsell, Noland/McCullough That's pretty good! Honestly though seeing this I kind of hope Jed continues doubling down on pitching at the trade deadline. Fill that last spot at Tenn, and kick a couple of those AAA SPs to the bullpen where they're inevitably going to end up. Let's have a silly Guardians/Rays level of pitching depth to go along with the already in place silly outfield depth.
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A couple to full season ball(Horton, Birdsell) a couple to the complex league(Ferris, Mule), a couple of the senior signs might be relievers real quick(Hull), and a couple probably need pitch lab/dev list/rehab time(McGwire, Frisch). Plus there's a decent chance that the slooooooowwww ramp up they did with everyone in the minors this year is the new normal, in which case even in the unlikely event you've got too many pitchers guys are probably piggy-backing through at least Memorial Day
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Yeah it's a really interesting question because there's a number of explanations: - It's just the way the board fell - It complements the upcoming trade returns - The team feels it has a competitive advantage developing pitchers - Like Irrelevant Dude said, they haven't gotten much pitching out of the IFA market, so they simply want to make sure SB and MB have a full complement of arms next year I'd believe any of them. It does make me want the team to largely eschew arms at the trade deadline though unless those arms have an ETA in the next 12 months.
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"I don't think the Ricketts will trade for Soto because they're cheap" and "I'm worried about the Cardinals" are extremely contradictory statements, no? The Cardinals barely outspent the Cubs last year (Cubs had a higher OD payroll but the selloff brought them below the Cards), and otherwise haven't in nearly 10 years.
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Vrieling and especially Hubbart sound extremely Cubs-y, but I think Brandon Sproat stands out most in my eye? Cannon sounds like someone the org would have taken ~5 years ago IMO, not someone they'd take now
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I think they might still be able to swing a guy around $1 million early today but it’ll require some senior signs too. Yeah, if what you posted from Longenhagen ends up being true, it'd mean that Horton + Ferris was mostly a wash. So that'd leave the $500K overage to play with plus any money they save later. I think my ideal would probably be to take one of the remaining college SPs in the third for ~slot, and then blow up rounds 6-10 to throw some money around in the 4th and 5th.
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Looking at the best availables, there's a bunch of HSers who will likely require extra money as well as several fun college pitchers. I imagine Ferris will cost most of what the team saved with Horton, but we'll probably know pretty quickly this afternoon.
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Fangraphs gives Horton the same grade as Cristian Hernandez and gives Ferris the same grade as Wicks, Herz, and Kilian. It's not what I would have done with Lee on the board but they did fine value-wise. And then you add the context of the org feeling like they're one of the smart ones in terms of understanding pitching and you see where they're coming from.
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I believe Ferris is another guy that gives the pitch design folks a huge boner. The org clearly has a type now.