Bertz

If they're not that far away from being a very good team why would they trade him?

Martin is not even close to 1.62 ERA caliber but he seems legitimately very good. Against Taillon the Sox probably ought to be considered favorites in this game? How long has it been since the Sox were favored in a game against us without having Crochet on the mound? Back in '22?

Carter Trice is starting to be worth paying a little attention to

Speaking of interesting, Braylon Myers?? Longenhagen snuck a blurb about him into his recent list Wicks also appears fixed, which it's probably not a coincidence that it's after approximately a spring training's worth of minor league outings. Swap him out for Trent Thornton (who he weirdly looks like) next week kthxbye

Do we know anything about him? Certainly his age and his production and this quick promo are great signs but I don't remember him as a bonus baby?

Yeah I have to keep reminding myself that Myrtle was a nightmare offensively last year until mid-late June. Something like Tomas and Cabada looking great a month from now would flip this totally on its head.

Things that stood out to me while pulling together my personal rankings: - The farm is missing a capstone up top. Rojas hasn't hit since coming off the IL, Wiggins got hurt, Conrad stayed hurt, Hartshorn is a million miles aways, and Ramirez isn't especially tooled up. I like all these guys a lot but they should probably be your 2-6 or ideally your 3-7 - The farm's arrow is probably still up despite graduating Mo and Wiggins' injury, Like if you made a list of stock ups vs. stock downs the former would probably be twice as long as the latter - Related to the above, it was actually a little tough to cut down to 20 names, whereas in the back of last year it was tough to get to 20 names - The pitching situation is certainly not *good* yet but it's looking much less dire. Sanders/McGwire/Caple all seem like pretty significant breakouts (assuming Sanders' injury isn't major). There are several smaller breakouts like Coppola/Flanagan/Jerzembeck as well. Wing and Reid each appear to be what we wanted them to be on draft night. I think there was a point last year maybe right before the draft where you might legitimately only have Wiggins and Sanders as pitchers in your top 20 and that's not even close to still the case - The second-tier bats at Myrtle aren't getting it done after hot starts. You wonder how much of early April was Southisene/Hartshorn/Mathis working the body and then the pitchers getting ambushed by the Lovich's of the world while trying to catch their breath. Once Hartshorn gets promoted that lineup will be pretty sad until the draft or until the ACL guys (none of whom are crushing it currently?) start percolating up

Jesus Christ what happened the last few innings with the South Bend game

I've said it before but there is some CLEAR Bryce Harper to his LH swing

We're assuming he was pulled for pitch count, right? Speaking of pitching promotions like we have the last few days Reid could probably go to SB whenever. Though he's not so dominant that it can't hold off for a handful more starts.

Longenhagen had Gracia as the #2 guy in the draft coming into the year. It would be very Kantrovitz to just grab a guy like that who is falling.

It would be very baseball to take 1/3 in this series with the 1 being against Chris Sale

Well that's disappointing. Hopefully more of a buildup/rust sort of deal than it permanently being gone.

I wonder a bit too how long Coppola stays at Myrtle. I'm not yelling "move 'em up!" after 7.2 innings, but he's got high octane stuff that can probably bully the kids in the Carolina League, and he got drafted out of the SEC which is probably a more difficult environment outright. Like I wonder if his developmental boxes to check are more about building length and compiling innings more than performance.

12 K's in 7 IP for Coppola and Mcgwire

15 dongs for the Jaguar It's May 13th

This is definitely the most winnable game thia series, so hopefully we can notch it. I'm generally more than fine settling for 1/3 on the road from one of the best teams in the league.

I know we all love dongs but Southisene is fun man

FWIW his velocity in ST was lower than it's been since back before he broke out in the mid '10s. He's probably cooked but hey so was Drew Pomeranz

One thing I'll say is it was harder for me to cut down to 20 than the back half of last year IMO you know things are thin when you're putting DSL guys or fairly generic relievers at Iowa in your top 20. Ideally those guys should start showing up around 30.

Jefferson RojasPedro RamirezKevin AlcantaraJaxon WigginsJosiah HartshornEthan ConradCole MathisOwen AyersWill SandersJames TriantosKane KepleyJonathon LongBrooks CapleKaleb WingTy SouthiseneAngel CepedaMason McGwireJostin FlorentinoAriel ArmasDominick Reid

The other Southisene brother is playing against MB and leading off and just briefly made me think I was having a stroke when I recognized 0 other names in the lineup after him