Bertz
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Everything posted by Bertz
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Wasn't a scap injury one of the things that happened to Prior towards the end?
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With Kilian confirmed that would make Nelly Velazquez, and maybe to a lesser extent Chase Strumpf, the biggest question marks at this point right? Or is there anyone else on the bubble I'm missing?
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Presumably now Steele is 100% in the rotation, all of the outfielders make the OD roster, and one of Roberts/Rodriguez make the pen
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One of the new things in this CBA is that players can only be optioned up and down from the minors 5 times in a single season. After that, they have to pass through waivers and you risk losing them. The Dodgers and Rays have been kings of cycling through arms for the back half of their bullpen, with some poor guys getting called up/down double digit times in a year. Big quality of life thing for players with medium sized strategic implications.
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For the Cubs specifically, I think that last point makes it more likely for one of the funner Iowa pitchers (i.e. Roberts or Rodriguez) to make the team from the jump in place of one of the NRI vets
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One of the lineups I think late last week had Nico-Wisdom-Madrigal 7-8-9 and I loved that. Because we have some of these extreme guys, I really like the idea of trying to break up some of the like skills. Something like this: CF - Ortega RF - Suzuki DH - Frazier 1B - Schwindel LF - Happ C - Contreras SS - Nico 3B - Wisdom 2B - Madrigal
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I don't think Gsellman is gonna head north with the club
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The new service time rules are too soft to impact the next Kris Bryant, but they should hopefully help with guys a tier or two lower
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The South Bend and Tennessee rotations are just absolutely loaded, and Kilian could probably start an MLB game by Memorial Day if needed.
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I kind of wonder if they're being cautious with the new 5 Option rule? Run all the NRIs out to open the year, and then slowly incorporate the Iowa crew to make sure you can limit how many times you have to yoyo guys and risk potentially sending someone down for good earlier than you want. Separately, there's a ton of great stuff in this Keith Law piece I won't copy/paste it all, but the Kohl Franklin section is niiiiiice
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He's going to be really good, and with him already being on the 40 man he's either gonna be first or second man up from Iowa this year.
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I thought Frazier looked really impressive at the plate last night. I'm skeptical there's a better DH in the org right now, I really hope they don't send him to Iowa just to hold onto Heyward.
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The 3rd wave of free agency is done and they have nothing. Being explicit about not trying to acquire any players for your completely alone on an island 2nd year QB does not make it a good plan. You're kind of proving my point. How is it done already? Literally a third of NFL.com's top 100 free agents are still unsigned. We also haven't gotten a bunch of June 1st cuts as well as training camp cuts, both every year shake out additional starting caliber players.
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Poles was pretty explicit that he was going to focus on depth and the 2nd and 3rd waves of free agency and I think Bears Twitter thought that just meant the guys who don't sign in the first 45 minutes of the tampering period. That said, there was some smoke thrown out for a legit name at WR and/or OL, and that certainly didn't happen. Poles punted on adding a star unless he hits huge one one of his lower profile signings like Patrick.
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I'm thinking that Amaya not yet being put on the 60 Day IL despite all of the roster crunch last week is an encouraging sign? Obviously he'll be limited to DH and maybe 1B duty this year, but maybe late April/early May is on the table?
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Yeah the messaging on this was not super clear. I think basically as part of the CBA Manfred can now propose rules changes and implement them for the upcoming year, while previously he would propose them and then have to wait an entire season to implement. So the stuff like the shift changes are not being implemented this year but will be next year. And then afterwards we'll start hearing about things at like the Winter Meetings and then see them the upcoming year. That is much better IMO, because it avoids this exact type of confusion. I don't think we know exactly what will be implemented and when. The shift ban, the pitch clock, and the larger bases seem like 100% for next year. But beyond that the other stuff is less clear, my guess is they hold off for '24 but who knows.
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I actually think Burkhardt is really good. Do we know who his partner will be? Still Greg Olsen?
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I like these rule changes meant to increase the incentive for speed and steals. Interested to see which ones end up being implemented.
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I think to me one of the things that would be especially frustrating about this is that he's likely a plus CFer while no one else on the roster is even average. Based on what Jed did this winter, and even more importantly what he didn't do, the best version of this team is a fantastic defense with a solid offense. Think last year's Cardinals. Trading Hermosillo for Heyward out there would seem to undercut that pretty significantly. And it's not like there's much (any?) offensive benefit gotten in exchange. Now Heyward vs. Ortega, that's much more defensible argument even though we've heard much less about Ortega being a possibility to be cut.
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Wisdom just hit a high fastball about a mile and a half to left center. If he can be just okay on pitches up going forward his odds of not turning into a pumpkin go WAY WAY up
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Brett brought up the good point yesterday that the rotation seems to be lining up: Like Brett gets at I would think either Steele's not long for the rotation, or they're going 6-man to open the year and Miley's gonna slot in after Smyly. 6-man seems more likely at the moment. I kind of wonder if being able to go to a 15 man pitching staff made them largely abandon the piggybacking plan? Just run a normal (albeit bloated) bullpen with one long man, probably Thompson? But yeah I think that's the pen, probably one of Chavez/Gsellman, and one the Iowa guys. Probably Rucker, since he's generally been more of multi-inning guy?
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Quiroz is a LH platoon bat who actually projects okay and has minor league options. That's not a lot but it's not nothing, particularly given the lack of LH bats the Cubs have hanging out at Iowa and Tenn. Fangraphs wrote him up earlier this week in fact