Bertz
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Everything posted by Bertz
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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
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Whaddaya Seiya Suzuki (Signed with Cubs, 5/$85m)
Bertz replied to David's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
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Very easy to see the superficial Bregman comps
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I think this is the biggest open question about the opening day roster. I thought previously you could fit Heyward on the roster along with everyone else at least until it went back down to 26. But now it sounds like the Cubs are going to do 15 pitchers/13 hitters to start the year. So, barring an injury, one of Heyard, Ortega, Hermosillo, or Frazier won't make the roster. Frazier is optionable, and so maybe it's as simple as that? The team under Jed has always waited as long as possible to make permanent moves.
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Bryan is amazing, but it's really weird to me how he keeps trying to put Kilian at AA. Early in the offseason in his depth charts he had Espinoza at AAA and Kilian at AA, and now this. It's just a really weird thing to be so insistent on? Kilian had a damn near 7/1 K/BB at the level already last year, he's not going to start at Tennessee for the sake of Steven Brault
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Always hard to tell for sure but seems to be one of the league's genuine good dudes
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It does seem inevitable that the ghost runner is permanent. That said, this year is shaping up to be a bloodbath for pitchers, so it wouldn't crazy for the league to be actually telling the truth in this instance that this is temporary change to help not exacerbate things. Though next year the pitch clock is coming, and people are worried about that impact on injuries too...
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Frazier is the guy the projections hate the most but ironically I feel like the easiest to talk yourself into qualitatively. I also wonder if there are things that can be done to help him out defensively. He was really good out there in '20, but bookended that by being awful in '19 and '21. Are there circumstances where he can excel, vs. others where he can't? E.g. he can't see the ball well under the lights, and so he should play the field in day games only.
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It's largely the same list as Longenhagen, except Eric bumped Preciado and Alcantara up one more level, and I think they used different methodologies for converting grades into dollars
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See you in June, Ethan
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It seems like a mix of Yellich, Joc, Bellinger and Happ. Taller stance and a little open, arms high and kinda lanky and the finish kinda falling towards 1B dugout. Yeah I think Bellinger is who I was thinking. Bellinger is more uppercut-y but I think that's it
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Feels like he's got a very familiar swing, but I can't quite place who I think it looks like
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Good god, someone is gonna run a 17 man pitching staff aren't they
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https://blogs.fangraphs.com/top-49-prospects-chicago-cubs-2/ The Cubs have 8 teenagers who are a 45 (a Generic Team's Top 10) caliber or better, and 4 of those are 50's (Top 100 Caliber). No other team FG has done so far has more than 4. Like I get that you wanna complain, nothing from the last 3-4 years makes that unreasonable, but you don't have to pull things out of your ass to complain about?
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To echo, isn't this built in to the rankings all those websites do? People are acting like everyone just ignores the lower levels, when in reality they're just (correctly) discounting the potential down there because baseball is hard and most prospects fail, and the further away you are from the majors, the more chance you have to fail. I don't think anyone's ignoring that? That's basically the basis for the "wait til next year's rankings" comments that are getting dunked on. Like just to zoom in on the meat of the Cubs farm, this is the expected lineup at MB next year That's 8 guys with serious pedigree plus whoever the hell Felix Stevens is. Even after you lose ~3 of them to attrition this year, having ~5 of them jump a level or two is still a net win for the farm. A Kevin Alcantara type in Rookie Ball is a borderline top 100 type. A Kevin Alcantara type at AA is top 20/30. And it's those anchor guys who really drive the rankings.
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Self scouting is important for everyone, but yeah this team is gonna live or die by it. The Giants were a similar team entering last year, and then Gabe Kapler turned into a precog and pulled all the right levers all year and they were amazing. There's no reason to expect that kind of thing from Ross (or frankly, even Kapler again) but it shows the magnitude of impact a high end managerial performance can have with this type of roster. My guess is this ends up being a high 70's win team, but kind of like the 2014 squad we feel really good about the team running out there by the second half. I think it's going to take some time to work through the playing time battles, and like you mentioned you just know that there's gonna be a hiccup with one or two of them (Ross sticking with Heyward far longer than is reasonable seems most likely). But when Davis comes up the OF alignment is pretty set, and I would think whatever landmines end up on the pitching staff will have gotten the axe and been backfilled from Iowa by Memorial Day or sooner. I'm not worried about the deadline. On the position player side, Catchers rarely get dealt in July, and no one else of consequence is liable to be dealt. On the pitching staff, if walk-year guys like Miley and Smyly and Givens are shoving enough to have significant value, then I doubt the team holistically is struggling enough to sell.
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Fangraphs had it at #7 post deadline last year, and their individual player grades got a little stronger over the offseason (but they haven't finished other teams so no new rankings yet). https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2021-in-season-prospect-list/physical-attributes?sort=-1,1&type=4&filter=&pos=&team= They're the high mark, everyone else is largely in the teens. Basically the talent is probably in line with last time, but aside from Davis all the funnest pieces have still yet to play in full season ball. So it's an eye of the beholder thing with how you weight talent vs. proximity. Pretty much everyone thinks it'll be a consensustop 3-5 system next year even after graduating Davis.
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It sounds like there's more and more expectation of an expanded roster for April, and the Cubs' backend starters specifically are expecting there to be piggybacking the first few turns through. So I think this is the rough guess at the opening day 28 man roster C - Contreras, Gomes 1B - Schwindel 2B - Madrigal, Hoerner SS - Simmons, Villar 3B - Wisdom LF - Happ CF - Ortega, Hermosillo RF - Suzuki, Heyward DH - Frazier SP1 - Hendricks SP2 - Stro SP3 - Miley, Thompson SP4 - Smyly SP5 - Mills, Steele CL - Wick SU- Martin, Givens, Robertson MR - Norris, Chavez, Effross On the position player side, it'll be interesting to see who gets the bump when rosters get cut down. Smart money is probably on a phantom IL stints for Heyward, but I do wonder if he's a threat to be outright cut if he's still not performing. Pitching-wise dropping Thompson down to Iowa to stretch out is probably easiest. That said they can largely follow a meritocracy with the pitching staff. Of the vets only Hendricks and Stro are signed past this year, the rest can easily be cut if they're not performing.