Bertz

Followed up with two singles, a walk, and a stolen base. If my math is right he raised his AA OPS about 120 points this game

Oof, Tim Anderson down and it doesn't look great.

Wow! Assumed it was gonna simply be Heyward coming back and someone like Menez getting DFA'd.

I'm keeping my guard up since he's *so* far beyond expectations but it's really exciting. The patience is something I never expected. He's got a lot of swing and miss, but if he can stay patient he does enough for it to play as an everyday guy. Something like Chris Taylor.

Triantos is up to .317/.390/.410 Groundball rate is coming down too, 52% coming into today, and it was pushing 60 I think even into early May.

Thompson living at 94 even in the fifth inning and 70+ pitches makes me really want to see him just hang out in the rotation. I believe he did similar against the Padres.

I don't think I ask for a lot when I say I'd like to see Kohl Franklin actually make it through 3 innings today

They're certainly not the above .500 team Pythagorean r Record would say, but the 1 run record is definitely just some bad dice-roll nonsense, particularly given how good the bullpen is.

Boy that escalated quickly

Justin Steele 2nd time through the order issues returning Definitely give him more runway, but really feels inevitable like he's gonna be limited to that 2-3 inning role

Given that this should be table stakes this is less "way to go Cubs" and more "finally we're not on the bad side of one of these lists" but still good to see.

Timely

Wasn't able to catch the first part of the game but Morel going 1/2 with a double and a walk off of Luis Castillo is encouraging as hell. It's stupid early, but man if he can run even okay K and BB rates he does enough other stuff well for that to play in an everyday role

Hoerner is back, but not yet in the lineup, with Gomes on the IL Hoping we see Nico and Willson in tomorrow's game

I don't know if anywhere has % of called strikes 3's, but I'd guess Seiya's at or damn near the top of the league. Many of them horsefeathers, but also many of them legit. Like the horsefeathers Reds starter on Monday got him bad in the first PA of the game. But Seiya's contact rate is fine (53rd percentile), his contact quality is great (78th percentile for xwOBA on contact) and his eye is very good (92nd percentile in charge rate). So I think any approach issues, e.g. being too passive in 2-strike counts, is just part of the adjustment process. Just like you need at least a full season to consider that a pitcher is true talent better/worse than their FIP, you should probably do the same with hitters.

I enjoy coming out of my morning block of calls to 5 strong innings out of Wicks. 70 pitches, I would have loved to see him try for 6 but never going to argue too hard against protecting his arm.

While the team hasn't been the Padres, they've been fairly quick in promoting guys. If guys perform they don't tend to get more than 60-70 games at a level. Especially through Iowa. Bryant and Rizzo, who were both service timed, didn't even get 300 PAs at Iowa. Ian Happ and Kyle Schwarber got less than 30 games. So while the Caissie placement for example seems aggressive, I don't think it's that crazy. Guys get through two levels a year as long as they produce. Maybe it's 1.5 for the teenagers (Gleyber got nearly 100 games in High A before the trade). Even with his rough start Caissie's already a good game or two away from a league average batting line. Unless all his cold streaks are a month of .300-something OPS, he'll probably be in position to see Tennessee for a month or two this year. From there he'd likely be in Iowa next summer and from there Wrigley is imminent. It assumes he continues to hit but all of these assumptions are that the guys don't abjectly fail. Some will and their ETAs don't matter because it's N/A. And yeah, the pitching development is firing on all cylinders right now. The question isn't anymore whether they're one of the smart teams it's whether they'll be able to continue pushing forward and reach the Tampa/Cleveland/Milwaukee tier.

That's annoying, he was just rounding into form. Yeah hopefully it's minor. I'm also still super curious about whatever the heck happened to him in August/September last year, went like 4-5 weeks without pitching in a game but never got reported on the IL or DL.

With Morel up and Kilian looking imminent, I've been thinking a lot about the timeline for guys in the minor league pipeline. There's gonna be a couple month lull after Kilian, but once Davis and/or Velazquez comes up it should be a pretty steady flow of guys for a while. Obviously a lot can happen in player development and many of these will change, but I'd say it's fair to say these are the guesses on ETAs for some of our most relevant prospects right now: Any Time Now Caleb Kilian, Ben Leeper 2H 2022 Brennen Davis, Nelly Velazquez, more relievers (Brendon Little, Bryan Hudson) 1H 2023 Jordan Wicks, Chris Clarke, Bryce Ball, Alexander Canario, more relievers (Bailey Horn, Danis Correa, Eury Ramos), 2H 2023 Miguel Amaya, DJ Herz, Owen Caissie, Yohendrick Pinango, maybe PCA? 2024 Ed Howard, the Myrtle Beach Bunch, Kohl Franklin There's also the live-armed quartet of Ryan Jensen, Anderson Espinoza, Max Bain, and Riley Thompson. Their ETAs are hard to peg because it depends on how much leash they're going to get as SPs, but any could be up within ~3 months of shifting to relief. And if the Cubs take a college bat at #7, that guy is probably 2023 relevant as well. I think it also underscores my desire to do a buy deal this summer. Even if you're very down on the short and medium term path to contention, you've gotta consolidate some assets if for no other reason than pure roster limit reasons.

https://twitter.com/drivelinebases/status/1528939104808775681?t=yZ27mtVudvyas98HmKeFBA&s=19

Guess that's why Smyly has barely been sniffing the third time through the order

Meant should NOT

Ortega really should survive the roster crunch when dudes start getting healthy