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Bertz

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Everything posted by Bertz

  1. Bertz
    Kyle's deal is really weird. He's missing bats more than ever. Even if you exclude his first start of the year because reasons, the contact rates are still at his career averages. The scariest thing about him last year by far was that he just seemingly couldn't get a swing and miss to save his life for some reason. But the groundball rate is way down, and the hard contact rate is way up. He's also throwing four seamers at a career high rate, which may explain both the added swing and miss and the extra damage when guys do connect. I'd be selling my Kyle Hendricks stock right now, but there's enoughsilver linings that make it so I wouldn't be especially shocked if he's fine.
  2. Bertz
    Thank goodness there’s a draft lottery now It would be extremely Reds to be the first team boned by the lottery and end up with like the 4th pick in this scenario
  3. Bertz
    Lost in the dong-splosion yesterday, Kevin Alcantara's numbers have gotten up to a pretty good place. He's now hitting .232/.348/.391, which in the Carolina League is a 110 wRC+. He's got a great 13.3% walk rate and a "too high but not alarming" 28.9% K-rate. He's not going to be part of the next moving day with all of the outfielders who are exploding right now, but he looks on track for more than a trivial amount of time at SB this year.
  4. Bertz
    .425 OPS and 30% K rate for the last 14 games or so. Adjustments are needed and I’m sure he’ll pull out of the tailspin eventually. I think he's going through normal struggles but it looks really bad because it's against the roughest part of our schedule. Going back to the Rays series, here are our opponents ranks in pitcher strikeout rate: Rays - 5th Pirates - 25th Braves - 10th Brewers - 1st White Sox - 4th Dodgers - 3rd Padres - 8th There's a stretch in July that's going to come somewhat close, but for the offense this is the worst gauntlet of the season for the offense.
  5. Bertz
    Relevant right now
  6. Bertz
    Liam Hendriks is presumably down today, he's worked in 3 or 4. That said given who's making decisions in the visiting dugout...
  7. Bertz
    Preciado with three hits including two doubles. Probably his first really good game at MB, hopefully he can go on a run from here.
  8. Bertz
    Hendricks is inscrutable. There are problems with his peripherals, and then there's the hard contact which is a new thing for him starting last year. If/when his peripherals are fine, does that mean the hard contact is bad luck? Or has his FIP-beater status permanently evaporated?
  9. Bertz
    A LH OFer getting promoted to the team and PCA not playing after an off day has folks speculating that PCA got promoted Also glad to see Preciado back in there, I'd kind of wondered if he got dropped down for Made.
  10. Bertz
    Yo!
  11. Bertz
    He doesn't fit Poles' fetish of fast O-lineman, but he's young (not even 24) and PFF thinks he's solid (has hovered around a 70 each of his first three years).
  12. Bertz
    A couple possibilities I can think of 1. The team probably has guys working on specific mechanical changes during instructs/ST. It might take a few weeks to translate some things (e.g. start your hands lower) into actual production against real competitive pitching 2. Guys saw very few pitchers more than once per game for first few weeks of the year. I believe most teams had starters stretch out slowly akin to what we saw the Cubs do, so while I wasn't tracking it exactly that might be about the time starters regularly began getting to 15-18 batters faced 3. Related to #2, I wonder if starters were throwing harder? Anecdotally I feel like we saw a lot more "OMG Riley Thompson hit 100" type of news the first few weeks. Maybe that was because it was fresh and exciting, but maybe it was because it was happening more due to the shorter SP workloads There's also always the weather factor, though Tenn and MB seeing the same swing as SB makes me think that's not the primary explanation.
  13. Bertz
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  15. Bertz
    Also has a walk
  16. Bertz
    Okay looks like this is a yes, but he started the process last year (probably really late when I wasn't paying attention anymore). Wick Horizontal Slider movement by year: 2018 - 4.8 inches 2019 - 5.6 inches 2020 - N/A 2021 - 10.9 inches 2022 - 12.8 inches My guess is '18-'20 those are actually just misclassified cutters. He's added it in the last 12 months or so. Looks like a real weapon.
  17. Bertz
    Wick's an example of a sweeper guy right? Because I don't ever remember him having anything with anywhere near this much horizontal movement.
  18. Bertz
    I'd start pushing him towards the short half of a platoon. His numbers against lefties aren't great, but they were a week ago, so I tend to think the dip is seeing McLanahan, Fried, and Lauer in the span of about a week.
  19. Bertz
    IMO occam's razor is that he thinks he can scout his way to a good line, so he took a critical mass of guys he likes and they'll work it out on the fly. I don't love doing the appeal to authority for execs so I won't, but given Poles' resume and his background it wouldn't be especially shocking if he has a competitive advantage over the market when it comes to scouting O-line play. I think if he didn't like Fields he would have simply traded him prior to a historically horsefeathers QB draft rather than putting him in the ground as part of a 9-dimensional chess play.
  20. Bertz
    I assume the plan is to let Stro go batter to batter in the 7th with a lefty warming for Yelich and/or Tellez
  21. Bertz
    Feels like we're weeks rather than months from doing a moving day with Nelly to Iowa, Canario to Tenn, and PCA to SB
  22. Bertz
    Hey, Bailey Horn's alive. Curious to see if we start seeing anything with him. I think between an injury and a stint on the development list we've seen very little in a Cubs uniform since he came over
  23. Bertz
    Didn't realize we were getting a second Wicks start this week
  24. Bertz
    I'm also wondering if the opportunity afforded by the May roster cut down might embolden Jed to be more decisive than he otherwise would. Especially in the case of Hermosillo, Schwindel, and Ortega, it's one thing to say 'okay we're gonna play Rivas and Frazier more' and keep them around if they break out of the rut, since who else are you gonna call up, Deichmann? But if you have a one time opportunity afforded by the roster squeeze, maybe you say 'okay that's enough' because you have the chance to give someone external that spot at minimal cost. I could also see us swapping one or more out for someone out of the org. Sounds like there's some expectation for trades in the next 48-72 as teams face this roster crunch. Maybe there are guys out there on a similar roster bubble who fit this specific roster better.
  25. Bertz
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