Bertz

Bryan Smith brought up the good point that this confirms Rucker and Rivas made the MLB club Where the hell is Morel though? Most of the guys a level too low I'm ultimately fine with, but Morel at Tenn would be needlessly annoying IMO

Yeah realistically any "mistakes" in assignment will be fixed by Cinco de Mayo, so it's not the end of the world. And like you said if they don't go out and immediately show the assignment was a level too low, that's somewhat damning. I think from a trade value perspective, it probably doesn't matter for pitchers? For hitters, age relative to league is maybe the single most important piece of info available. Eric Longenhagen actually had a funny quip in like mid August last year, where he said something along the lines of "get ready for a bunch of unwarranted teenagers getting bumped a level to make opposing team's models horny." The Padres for instance seem to be gaming the system quite a bit in this regard. But pitchers? ARL is barely in the top 10 of things I consider. If you show me a 21 yo and a 25 yo who are identical, I'd barely prefer the 21 yo.

For Kyle it's a real mixed bag, he's not definitely horsefeathed but he's not definitely fine either. The good: - His Velo was fine, actually up a smidge from 2018-2020 (when he pitched at a 3.7 WAR/180 Inning pace) - He didn't throw a bunch more hangers, his Meatball % (balls right down the middle of the plate) was again a smidge lower than his 2018-2020 levels - His overall exit velocity and hard hit rates were largely unchanged from prior levels, and still pretty elite - Beyond velocity, his pitches were largely normal save for a bit of lost curveball movement The bad: - Statcast does NOT think he was unlucky. His expected ERA based on batted ball data was 4.99. This is because while several stats say he was the same guy, the barrel rate against him nearly doubled - Contact rates against him were up quite a bit, both in zone and out of zone, this led to the K rate dropping to a pretty terrible 16.7% - He had two terrible stretches, one early one late. If this were a one-off, he'd likely have stayed fine once he righted the ship The generous read is that he was tipping pitches for a while there and/or he fell too in love with the belt high sinkers and changeups that he used to throw every once in a while to trick guys into swinging and missing. Both very fixable, though show how thin his margin for error is. The negative read is that he's been kind of figured out. He did sort of reinvent himself from '17-'18, maybe this version got him 2.5 years of kicking ass and now he needs to do it again or settle in as a #4.

Yeah I'm captain optimism but Kyle scares the bejezus out of me. I'm very loud and obnoxious about how home run rate is mostly luck, but that kind of truism probably isn't safe to apply to a guy like Kyle who is SUCH a low end outlier in terms of velocity.

That catching tanking seems really light. Contreras/Gomes combined for almost 4 WAR last year which would be too 3-5 at the position. Zips projects them for 3.6 WAR, it’s a top 4-7 catching set up in MLB, imo and should be good for 3.5-4.5 WAR or so on a reasonable projection with a little more ceiling potential. Seems like a lot of room for them to be wrong. Schwindel will probably turn into a pumpkin but he has a high ceiling based on what he showed last year (though his defense will weigh him down from a WAR perspective). Hard to say what to expect from Nico and Madrigal considering how oft injured they are, and stupid no-vaxer should be a WAR machine defensively depending on how much he plays. None of these projections like Wisdom's profile (and neither do i lol) but he has some upside. The OF actually projects fairly well. And finally I'm assuming that the bullpen is ZIPS least accurate position group to project. The Cubs have built adequate to good bullpens from table scraps for years now. The only thing I trust more than the Cubs ability to build a solid pen is the Ricketts ability to do the wrong thing. I love Fangraphs, and there's not a better way to do something like this across 30 teams given the size of their staff, but when you really start digging in you see a lot of cracks in their methodology. They have Steven Brault getting more innings than Justin Steele, they have Caleb Kilian getting 7 innings despite projecting him as an above average starter right now, Brennen Davis getting 0 PAs this year, etc. That doesn't even get into the impacts performance have on play time. E.g. if Clint Frazier is playing at a sub 1WAR pace, he's not getting 400 PAs. This is not to denigrate their work, just that these nuances that are obvious to fans are not obvious to national writers, especially for a team that's not projected well (and will inherently get less QA) It's not going to suddenly make the Cubs look like the Dodgers, but it's why ZiPS (which dynamically adjusts playing time when it simulates the season) has the team pegged at ~.500 while the depth charts peg them 5ish games worse than that. Really, I think the biggest driver for how well this team does will be how quickly Ross figures out the good players vs. the bad. If you figure out roughly the right mix of players in April you can win the division. Figure it out by Memorial Day and a wildcard is very doable. After the ASB and it's going to be a pretty quiet trade deadline. I think this season ends up being very much like 2014, which I enjoyed but I completely understand isn't a ringing endorsement for everyone.

Wicks/Herz/Franklin/Bain/Palencia/Nahas have been the SPs with the SB group in Mesa, per AZ Phil, with Palencia possibly transitioning to closer. Don't like Bain repeating SB, but I guess this is the cost of bringing in all those depth options for Iowa. Also don't love shoving Palencia into the pen already, even if that is where he's pretty sure to end up. On the bright side he might move real fast in relief.

Oh man I'd love to get vintage Marmol in Statcast to see what he was working with. One of the things I find interesting from a Cubs perspective is that they were fairly early adopters on the seam shifted wake front, and never really abandoned two-seamers/sinkers like a lot of the league, but they didn't really go for the sweeping sliders. With the notable exceptions of Adbert and Chafin, it's been largely two-seamer/cutter/curveball. Is that a missed opportunity (i.e. they figured out the first half of the puzzle but whiffed on the second) or is there some underlying reason they didn't jump on the sweeping slider train more aggressively? Pitching seems to be so far ahead of hitting in terms of biomechanical analysis used to improve the player. Yeah it's kind of crazy. The Giants did some stuff last year, which I think basically amounted to taking BP with in-game caliber velocity, but otherwise it's been all pitching going back to the "fly ball revolution" in ~2015.

I read about this last week from the Rangers camp and what immediately came to mind from that term was Carlos Marmol. Apparently Jon Gray and Dane Dunning are names to watch that have taken to it immediately. Oh man I'd love to get vintage Marmol in Statcast to see what he was working with. One of the things I find interesting from a Cubs perspective is that they were fairly early adopters on the seam shifted wake front, and never really abandoned two-seamers/sinkers like a lot of the league, but they didn't really go for the sweeping sliders. With the notable exceptions of Adbert and Chafin, it's been largely two-seamer/cutter/curveball. Is that a missed opportunity (i.e. they figured out the first half of the puzzle but whiffed on the second) or is there some underlying reason they didn't jump on the sweeping slider train more aggressively?

Yankees-specific, but a good article on the latest trend from pitch labs: the sweeping slider.

Manny appears to no longer be in the running for that final pen spot, everything else here is completely expected (Ueckert might have had a shot at the pen if he was on the 40)

With that defense they're going to have to It's a really solid team, but like most Dombrowski teams the bullpen could be a tire fire and there's very little depth. But if they get 60 starts out of Wheeler/Nola they seem like a certain wildcard team.

I guess it's another day on Hosmer watch? Manaea's $9M salary matches up pretty perfectly with dumping half of Hosmer's $18M. That said I kind of wonder if this was actually a fallback plan to bringing in a higher priced OFer. If Preller's financial goal is just to stay under the tax, he can do that in far easier ways than a Hosmer deal. Also upgrading from Paddack to Manaea would not nearly be worth all the contortions.

Sharma has a good article up in the Athletic this AM laying out the OD roster since it's nearly set. Guys with asterisks are not 100%: C - Contreras, Gomes 1B - Schwindel, Rivas* 2B - Madrigal, Villar SS - Hoerner 3B - Wisdom LF - Happ, Frazier CF - Heyward, Hermosillo, Ortega RF - Suzuki Sounds like 14 Position players to start the year. They might drop down to 13 fairly quickly, but they A) don't need an 11 man bullpen immediately and B) want to punt the decision to cut an OFer as long as possible. Vargas is a possibility instead of Rivas, but the team doesn't love having to DFA someone to open the roster spot. Simmons' stay on the IL is expected to be for the minimum. SP - Kyle, Stro, Steele, Smyly, Mills* The team doesn't need a fifth starter the first run through the rotation. So Mills and Thompson will piggyback against the Brewers, and then one will pick up a real start with the Rockies. Miley is expected back the first week of May. RP - Wick, Robertson, Givens*, Martin, Norris, Chavez, Thompson, Effross, Roberts* Givens is a bit behind because of the late signing, but probably gonna be fine for opening day. That last spot is going to one of the Iowa guys with options, so Rodriguez, Rucker, or Roberts.

Seemed likely he'd make the bullpen now official

Cano, Gulliorme or Eduardo Escobar at 2B and then Escobar/Davis at 3B. In theory we could be sending out Wisdom, Alcantara or Happ (who maybe can play some IF) in any trade as well. Feels like a 'to what end?' type of thing for the Mets, like yeah I can maybe shuffle it to not have a gaping chasm, but a few days before the season why would they rush to that outcome? Also Alcantara was traded to Arizona after his DFA, Happ has barely played on the IF the last few years(on top of currently rehabbing during ST), and Wisdom would be our own version of 'to what end?'. I mean I think the end would be reinforcing their suddenly ailing rotation. Here in the first week of April, their options for adding someone of consequence are the Padres and the A's. The A's guys are likely going to take pretty significant prospect capital to acquire, while in this scenario they're getting Paddack for some of the IF depth they've been dangling all winter anyway.

WOWZA to Caissie starting in SB. Sounded like PCA was the more likely to get a shockingly aggressive assignment

I'd really like to throw a Hosmer + Paddack + Gore for Happ with no money trading hands out to the Padres to see what they say. I've seen reports that Gore is looking much better this spring. Wringing as much from Preller as possible certainly feels like the ideal. That said the Mets have pieces I'd gladly take for half of Hosmer's contract. I believe they've been pretty clear about JD Davis and Jeff McNeil being in the block. I'd LOVE McNeil on the Cubs.

?!?

This would seem like a bit of a half measure from the Padres. That said getting out from ~half of Hosmer's contract and only giving up Paddack still makes a lot of sense. If the Cubs' version of a trade would look similar it becomes much less impactful, but also much less risky. I'd still like to pull the trigger. You're essentially signing Paddack to something like 3/45 (pending exactly what he'd make in arb)

I guess this means Conforto is healthy, since who the hell else is available to reallocate those funds to? I really hope Jed pulls the trigger on this though. The most obvious iteration is something like Hosmer + Hassell + Paddack for Mills and a little bit of filler. That said, the Padres still have enough on the farm that you can find worthwhile versions even if Hassell is untouchable.

He only has ~75 IP since 2019. I wonder what his IP limit/target is this year. If he’s a full time starter you’d think he’d be shut down by the deadline or so. Guessing they use him this year like Dodgers/Brewers have used Peralta/Woodruff/Burnes/Suter/May/Gonsolin/Urias in the past to bring along as a opener/piggy back guy, multi inning RP, or spot starter to preserve innings and allow him to pitch most of the year and it doesn’t prevent him from being a SP moving forward as he builds innings. I assume that barring additional injuries in the rotation he'll be a long man/piggyback type and get to low triple digits tops. Given where he's at currently and what's coming up behind him in the org I don't know that he'll ever end up a full time starter.