Bertz

PCA with a walk and a dong so far. Not sure which of those two things I'm more excited about

Canario is slumping, but the fun thing is the strikeouts are still MIA. We probably won't be able to say for another month but it's really looking like he made a material change to his contact ability

Almost no chance Kyle makes it back this year at this point

Like Palencia, extremely happy this was only a brief IL trip

It's absolutely just negotiating. I understand the consternation given the offseason to this point, but every contract hold out/hold in/whatever looks exactly like this.

It's not even a week but Madrigal has been the guy he was supposed to be since coming off the IL

Honestly I think he's just lucky Statcast wasn't implemented a year or two earlier. Jason Heyward xwOBA by year 2015 - .317 2016 - .301 2017 - .319 2018 - .319 2019 - .323 The differences between Heyward any year between 2013 and 2019 look to be like 80% BABIP and the run environment. Definitely the right call to pull the plug now. I thought it was a pretty safe assumption he wouldn't be back next year but I did think he'd come back in September. Glad the team isn't doing that.

He was a very fun bat before this year so certainly worth a shot. I'd also try and see if he could shift to 1B. There's room for a mostly DH on next year's roster if Willson doesn't stick around, but if Franmil could be part of the 1B mix too I'd think it drastically improves his odds of making it to next April with the org.

He seemed to be MLB ready right around this time last year, but his injury scuttled that and then he's been up and down much of this year. Would be nice if he's back at 100% to get him up to the big club soon and see if he's a guy we can pencil into next year's pen.

Looks like Ryan Jensen got skipped this week. I wonder if, given that adding an arm swing didn't appear to give him what it takes command-wise to be a starter, we see him get shifted to short relief like Cam Sanders.

Interesting that Newcomb is already back in short relief. Not bad, probably the right call, but it seemed when he was getting stretched out at Iowa like he was gonna get a shot at the rotation.

There was a 3 week IL stint mixed in there, but since the start of June Palencia has 49 Ks and 11 BBs in 35.1 IP He's probably about ready for Tenn once he's stretched back out

Kohl Franklin has given back the baby steps forward he was starting to make and then some. At least he's making one of the 40 man decisions easier

Oh that's great news. I was kind of assuming the worst and figured we'd see him again over the offseason.

he and Hodge have been skyrocketing up my list of potential pitchers all season long

Luis Devers with 5 Ks through the first two innings. He is so damn fun Less fun is Riley Thompson. We might be at the point of shifting him to short relief

I wonder what the org's thoughts are on Steele's velo. They've had pretty good success at coaxing more juice out of guys, and Steele is flat out dominant when he's living 92-95 instead of 90-93. Do they think there is a path to more of the former than the latter? Is it as simple as a different strength and conditioning plan over the winter?

Yeah I think unless something big changes you write Steele and Thompson into next year's rotation. If Iowa was as bereft of SP talent as it's been historically maybe you don't, but the org finally has a critical mass of young SP so let's lean on it. Having Alzolay in the 'pen and Kilian/Wesneski as major league arms at Iowa with MiLB options is legitimately enviable SP depth. I think how big to go with the one SP addition and whether to go the trade or FA route are the most interesting and difficult questions this winter. FA is basically Rodon and deGrom, each of whom's medicals are terrifying, or a whole host of good but flawed #3/#4 types. Do you throw 9 figures at a guy who even in year one has an over/under of something like 20 starts? Alternatively do you really want to lock into 4 years of a Mike Clevinger type? There are some good buy-low options (looking at you German Marquez!), but given all of the young pitching and Hendricks' struggles the team's going to be in a position where that variability seems disqualifying. The trade route is interesting. There are some big names going into their walk years who could possibly come available like Ohtani, Giolito, or Nola. There's some fun longer term pieces that could probably be had for a very steep price like Brady Singer or Pablo Lopez. The farm does have the depth to make a big move, but does Jed think the time is right? He kind of explicitly called out that part of the reason for adding all of the young pitching over the last month was to avoid having to pay market rates for impact starters.

That Brown ranking sure doesn't seem like it includes this year's performance. And that's a really weird way to make that list. I get why they'd do it like that but it doesn't really seem like it's a useful tool for someone to spend time on. Longenhagen is the lowest on both Wesneski and Brown for what I'd assume are purely geographic reasons. Eric lives in AZ and understandably weighs his in person views on guys heavily. So you have to take the good (he's usually the first national guy on most of our ultra-young prospects playing in the ACL or instructs) with the bad (he wasn't really on Kilian until the AFL, he seems similarly behind the industry on these two east coast arms).

They pretty much could not be any more difference, but the two I have my eye on are Michael Brantley and Joey Gallo. Brantley is going to give you zero defensive value, he can play LF part time but you have to go in with the intention that he's your primary DH. That means him and keeping Contreras are an either/or. However, even at 35 Brantley is your textbook "professional hitter" and could probably be had on a one or two year deal. I doubt Houston holds onto him given that he and Yordan don't compliment each other very well defensively. Gallo is going to give you that defensive versatility of being an option at 1B or any OF position. So while the bat is riskier certainly, he can work around any other personnel moves. The biggest problem with Gallo is that he got traded. So now if he rebounds these two months with the Dodgers everyone knows it was just a NYC thing and that gets prices into his FA salary. If he doesn't rebound then frankly the odds of a rebound next year drop precipitously. The good news though is with Happ sticking around a big LH bat is more a nice-to-have than an absolute necessity.

I wonder if we're getting close to Canario and Perlaza heading to Iowa and backfilling them at Tenn with Pinango and Caissie