Bertz

I have zero issue with Kilian's outing today. Missed bats, kept the ball on the ground, threw strikes. Unless someone is consistently this hittable, it's very much just a shrug your shoulders and say "horsefeathers happens" situation. The further we get out from his weird Steve Blass phase the more I want him to see MLB again for a run this year.

I mentioned up thread that I think it makes sense this winter to target a few $5-10M arms to round out the pen rather than the 4-5 $0-5M arms Jed has added the last few years. Even if you don't like these three guys in particular it shows there's some interesting options likely to reside in that price neighborhood

Yeah it's definitely a bit weird to have both Leiter and Espinoza in the pen right now. I imagine one gets demoted soon for a more standard one inning reliever. Relatedly, it looks like Manny Rodriguez is close too: Assuming tonight goes well, Miley up to backfill for a Thompson trip to the phantom IL? And then Espinoza demoted, backfilled by one of Sanders/Estrada? Kervin Castro probably gone in two weeks in favor of one of the convalescing Manny and Adbert?

The placement of off-days is really horsefeathering weird. I'm assuming that's still reverberations from the lockout? Seems to disproportionately hurt the Yankees and Astros though, so I won't complain.

I think this offseason would be a poor time to invest in a big ticket NPB player. There's so much uncertainty on the roster as is, I don't think you can responsibly use one of your big ticket offseason acquisitions on a guy you can't totally trust. Especially when it's fundamentally "is this guy an everyday player" trust as opposed to "is this guy a star or merely good" trust with like a Correa/Rodon/Swanson type of acquisition. There are times to embrace variance, last offseason was a great one, but this offseason is IMO an awful one.

It's probably more the former than the latter, but this has gone on long enough that I'm definitely a bit concerned. Nothing specifically has broken. As the season has gone on he's still chasing less than the MLB average, his exit velocity data looks solid, and he's not hitting a stupid number of groundballs (though more than he typically does). The strikeout and walk rates are bad since his hot start, but the components that feed into those are fine, so that may least is very unlikely to be permanent. What has fallen apart are his numbers against non 4 seam fastballs. Since Seiya got back from his IL trip he's been horrendous against cutters and splitters, and bad against sinkers. He's also been bad against curve balls lately after crushing them early in the year. Glass half empty is that the league has found an approach that works against him. Glass half full is that he's simply adjusting to the stuff in MLB still. Japan has lower velocity generally, and so the mid-high 90s sinkers and cutters that are uncommon over here are nearly non-existent over there, and he's seeing a lot of this wizardry for the first time. But the fact that he's still doing damage on 4 seamers would indicate that high velocity more broadly is not going to be a permanent barrier for him. I think he's at minimum a solid 2 win player. The peripheral offensive numbers even if we take out his hot start point to a league average-ish hitter. The defense is legit and has almost never been in question, his numbers are bad but that's mostly because he was total ass early in the year as he was learning new parks. I'm not worried about him going full Fukudome on us. That said I'm less confident he's a star than I have been at any point yet He kinda needs to come out of the gate blasting next season for me to hold onto that hope.

8/30 then suddenly looks like the return to Iowa? That'd give him nearly a full month at AAA plus presumably an AFL stint

Agreed on all of these. Also really enjoying how well Nelly is coming on. That he's not only survived but stepped up while getting exposed to more RHP is huge.

Matt Mervis has just...stopped striking out? No K's through 3 PAs today, only four strikeouts so far in August through 43 PAs. Canario and Perlaza each have dongs already for Tenn, because of course they do

Wasn't Verdugo the guy Bryan Smith talked about this spring training as being like noticeably more jacked? Maybe it took him two months to learn how to properly utilize his newfound man strength?

Wesneski was dominant through 4 but got knocked around in the fifth Jensen (assuming he's done?) pretty dominant himself through 5. Curious if he's on the ropes as far as staying a starter. He's one of the guys on the 40 man bubble this winter, do you try him in relief and see how he takes to it.

They're clearly not yet, but Greene/Lodolo/Ashcraft could be a problem in the not too distant future

So this is the very definition of an arbitrary endpoint as I basically just looked for the furthest back date where his K rate was under 20%, but Canario since 6/21: 162 PAs, .289/.401/.630, 15.4% BB, 19.8% K, 12 dongs He's a lot of fun right now. That said if Jed does make a deal of consequence this winter, Canario does seem to be the best combination of consequential and expendable? There's not really a scenario IMO where all four of Davis/Nelly/Canario/Seiya stick on the same MLB roster. Honestly even three seems unlikely? So while you don't need to make a trade, if you're making one this seems like one of the spots where you can most easily deal from some surplus.

I don't love Swanson or Bogaerts. Swanson looks like your classic guy having an out of nowhere career year in his walk year. And Statcast seems to indicate that the bottom is falling out of Bogaerts. I think Turner's the pretty clear top guy, but I also see him as a safe bet to re-sign with the Dodgers. So give me Correa and let's call it a day.

Did this a few months ago, but it bears updating. Here's where we're at with the 40 man roster plus who is due to be added this winter. The good news is that a lot of the marginal guys have washed out, so moving forward the 40 is certainly a consideration but it's not a dire one - Current roster stands at 39, with 6 on the 60 Day IL and 1 on the Restricted List. Therefore 46 in total - There are 3 impending FAs in Contreras, Miley and Smyly - 8 very easy cuts with Heyward, Vizcaino, Schwindel, Hermosillo, Bote, Rivas, Wieck and Mills - 5 guys are not quite slam dunks but seem more likely than not to also get cut in Ortega, Crook, Leiter, Brault, and Castro - Another 6 guys probably don't get cut but could if the next two months go poorly in Reyes, Mckinstry, Sampson, Rucker, Newcomb, and Espinoza So all told, there's likely 30-32 guys on the 40 man heading into the winter, but that could be as low as 25 if Jed wants to scorch the earth. Now for the additions: - Brennen Davis, Hayden Wisneski, Ben Brown, and Kevin Alcantara absolutely must be added to the 40 - There's a group of guys who are iffy since they have the prospectiness to get picked but likely not the readiness to stick on a roster for a full year. Guys include Luis Devers, Yohendrick Pinango, Ryan Jensen, Yovanny Cruz, and Riley Thompson - On the flip side guys with lower ceilings who do look like they could contribute next year if they were pushed into action like Chris Clarke, Yonathan Perlaza, Darius Hill, and like half the Iowa bullpen (Sanders, Estrada, Assad, Little, Hudson) The lost COVID development year has put most teams in a tough 40 man position, so the Cubs can probably get away without protecting any of the guys from those last two groups. But those are where the tougher decisions lie. Relatedly, if you do see any surprise MLB call-ups in the next 6 weeks it will be from that last cohort. There's already a but if smoke around Sanders, Estrada, and Hill. Overall, it's much less crunched than it looked a few months ago, which is the natural work of attrition. That said, I do think there's enough pressure that we see it influence moves over the next six months. For instance there's very little chance we see Matt Mervis this year, even though he's increasingly looking worthy of a cup of coffee. Similarly when Jed starts filling out the back of the pitching staff next February, I think we see 2-3 additions in the $5-10M range rather than the 5-6 adds in the <$5M range we saw this spring. And while I don't think we see a go for broke trade such as Ohtani, I do think Jed fills one of the MLB holes by trading some of this surplus.

Would love to have him start one of the Wash games next week, it's basically a AAA lineup anyway so should be a soft landing back into MLB

Hate to say it but the MB roster kind of sucks now. It's for the right reasons in that a bunch of guys got promoted, but feels a bit like Kevin Alcantara is Will Smith in that empty house meme. One of the drawbacks to going all pitching in the draft is there's not really been any backfill except for Ballesteros.

Steele very quietly went from being okay but exceptionally lucky to just plain good like two months ago. Super super encouraging stuff, especially in comparison to Keegan who seems to be (understandably) wearing down a bit Also he's got a good ways to go before he can win back our trust, but Madrigal's been legitimately good in his brief time back from the IL

Perlaza is probably a tweener. He doesn't have exceptional speed or power, so as a likely average defensive corner outfielder it puts a lot of pressure on the bat. But on paper the bat is very fun! Plus plus patience, average contact, good power, hits the ball mostly in the air while not also having a pop-up problem, a true switch hitter, etc. He checks a lot of the boxes of a guy who eventually outpaces his scouting report. That said because of the defensive limitations I think he still likely tops out as a good bench bat.

Nelly's had a strong couple of weeks even as he's getting more and more playing time against righties. Him just taking the CF job and running with it these last two months is something I haven't thought much about but would be fun as hell.

O's are comin'