Bertz

Brennen with a walk before I've even finished my first coffee of the morning is fun

Effross has been out best reliever, I certainly wouldn't do anything with him. I think you option Leiter, Rucker, and Roberts, DFA the worst of the vet relievers (as of now Chavez), and kick the worst OFer off the team. At the moment that'd be either Ortega or Frazier, and because it's so close you'd choose Frazier because he has options. I do also wonder if how easy it'd be to trade Mills, I think if that's a real option it simplifies things to an extent and would be attractive.

I know the Rays' whole thing is a roster that's greater than the sum of its parts, but man I do not see how this team keeps up with the rest of the AL East this year

He might be more than just a senior signing

Patrick Wisdom has improved his contact rate from horrendous to bad, and he's still hitting the horsefeathers out of the ball. Very early obviously, but he might be ready to level up from last year.

I'm curious if this is mechanics, the cold weather, or he really only has the juice in his arm to do a couple innings at full velo

Chris Clarke shoving too. I hope we get some video on that front

At what point does Jared Young pass Rivas on the depth chart for strong side platoon duties?

Definitely a response to the Rays using an opener, but I don't hate it? Especially while Villar is hot.

I would be very interested in giving Newcomb a shot. Even just give him 2-3 weeks until Miley is ready to show something. But we could really use another lefty in the pen, particularly one with some velo.

Yeah that's not clear, but it seems like it's the result pitch. I'd love to get greedy and get plate discipline (chase, contact, etc.) but I'd imagine it's rare for a guy to e.g. be super susceptible to something early in the count but much less so later. Maybe if more guys choked up like Rizzo? Several of those going the other way too, whereas previously I feel like batting right he's mostly just swung hard and hoped he ran into one.

Yeah and this doesn't help with velocity at all but he is leading all of baseball in wFB which I believe is weighted runs above average against fastballs, and broken down into wFB/100 fastballs seen he's 4th. It's possible with the small sample size that he's faced a number of lower velocity pitchers but he's definitely crushing fastballs better than almost anyone else in baseball. He's seeing an average fastball velocity that's slightly above the midpoint for qualified hitters: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=4&season=2022&month=0&season1=2022&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2022-01-01&enddate=2022-12-31&sort=4,d&page=2_50 I think I found it? This was pretty tucked away but I feel like MLB ought to make a much bigger deal that this is available: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfPT=FF%7CFT%7CFC%7CSI%7C&hfAB=&hfGT=R%7C&hfPR=&hfZ=&stadium=&hfBBL=&hfNewZones=&hfPull=&hfC=&hfSea=2022%7C&hfSit=&player_type=batter&hfOuts=&opponent=&pitcher_throws=&batter_stands=&hfSA=&game_date_gt=&game_date_lt=&hfInfield=&team=CHC&position=&hfOutfield=&hfRO=&home_road=&hfFlag=&hfBBT=&metric_1=api_p_release_speed&metric_1_gt=95&metric_1_lt=&hfInn=&min_pitches=0&min_results=0&group_by=name&sort_col=xwoba&player_event_sort=api_p_release_speed&sort_order=desc&min_pas=0&chk_stats_pa=on&chk_stats_hits=on&chk_stats_xba=on&chk_stats_xwoba=on#results Small sample, but Seiya excels here too. He might just be perfect? Also Happ is apparently crushing velo this year too, and that hasn't always been the case.

Thompson and Steele being so good thus far has me more bullish on short term contention than I was two weeks ago. I was confident that we had enough good arms in the org to fill out a full staff, but I thought we were going to have a MUCH more painful time finding out which ones ought to actually be taking the bump. But if we can run an ~average pitching staff out here in the first half, and then supplement that in the second half with Alzolay, some Iowa reinforcements, and a trade acquisition of substance it changes the outlook for the team substantially.

I wish it was easier to find how guys do against velo. The data exists, you see it on broadcasts, but it's not easy to see anywhere. But I think that's the one open question with Seiya. I don't believe he's really turned around a good fastball. He's wrecked some at like 92, and offspeed stuff from more flamethrower types, but I think he's mostly fought off real velo. Even if he doesn't do damage on a bigtime fastballs I don't think that precludes him from being very good, but it might preclude him from continuing to do insane Juan Soto things.

Having a longman who can pitch leverage innings is really fun. I imagine the hope is that Rucker can do similar things, and while I'm skeptical of that I could see Jensen or Espinoza being similar weapons in the second half.

I know Frazier has reverse splits for his career, but I still have a hard time buying that he's not a better DH option than our admittedly good backup catcher?

On the subject of ARL, these are the guys where it's relevant. I'm doing hitters only since I don't super care about ARL for pitchers, and I don't want to double my work Iowa - Brennen Davis is the 12th youngest hitter in the International League, 18th in AAA overall Tennessee - Ball, Morel, Velazquez, and Perlaza are among the 30 youngest hitters in the Southern League, but would all be in the 50+ range for AA overall South Bend - Owen Caissie is the youngest hitter in the Midwest League, #2 in Hi-A overall - Pinango and Howard are 5th and 8th respectively in the MWL. 6th and tied for 15th in Hi-A - If Kevin Made is in fact just making a pit stop at MB before going to SB, he'll be the youngest hitter in Hi-A Myrtle Beach - Preciado is 6th in the Carolina League, 11th in A Ball - Triantos is 13th in the league, 28th in A Ball - Made is 20th and Alcantara 25th in the MWL, but like the Tennessee guys not insanely young for the level overall (Alcantara surprised me, I didn't realize he had nearly a year on Preciado) - PCA's still young for the league, but only modestly so. He's younger than Howard so if he gets a quick bump (it seemed like he was close to breaking camp with SB) it'll quickly resume being a large feather in his cap There's certainly arguments to be had for exactly how much to weight age relative to league. IMO, for guys like Caissie and Made (assuming the quick bump) it's so massive it needs to be part of essentially every conversation about them. And while not as all encompassing, even for the Preciado tier of guys it's still a big piece of context that heavily informs just about any evaluation of their performance.

August 24th to September 19th, plus April 8th to April 16th "3 months," got it. You're definitely looking to have an honest conversation here.

That he's the youngest player in his league? Oh, and your math is wrong. His ISO for his minor league career is .163. Unless you're calling his 29 games in full season ball 3 months?

That he's the youngest player in his league?

I knew the ump had a bad game yesterday but yeesh

I'd actually put Madrigal in the "mixed bag" camp. He's hitting everything on the ground right now, and that's clearly a big problem. But he's hitting the hell out of the ball, his hard hit rate right now would have been 2nd among qualifiers last year. His patience has been fine as well (Statcast says 53rd percentile). His expected stats have him as a league average-ish hitter so far, even with the huge number of ground balls. He probably starts lifting the ball more and gives back quite a bit on the EV side, ending up where he was with the Sox. Though if he can improve his launch angle AND keep the juice in his bat, that's essentially DJ Lemahieu.

I'm curious how to put the offense in context right now. Of course the biggest and most important context is "it's only been 9 games," but they've been really good. On the one hand, they've played 4 games in Coors this far, which will goose any team's offense. On the other hand Pittsburgh and Wrigley in April are sizeably pitcher friendly, AND the Cubs have face 4 SPs who were stars last year. The Cubs early on are: - 8th in runs per game - 2nd in wRC+ - 7th in walk rate - 7th best in strikeout rate - 9th in ISO - 2nd in BABIP - Highest in groundball rate (by a lot) - Lowest in popup rate - 9th in exit velo - 7th in hard hit rate - 11th lowest in chase rate The groundball rate is a problem, but they're doing literally everything else well. And on a player-by-player basis, it's also mostly positive or at least mixed news. I'm not sure there's anyone who I feel significantly worse about than I did 10 days ago except Schwindel. Maybe Ortega?