Bertz

Very easy to see the superficial Bregman comps

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.

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

Always hard to tell for sure but seems to be one of the league's genuine good dudes

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...

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.

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

See you in June, Ethan

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

Feels like he's got a very familiar swing, but I can't quite place who I think it looks like

Good god, someone is gonna run a 17 man pitching staff aren't they

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

I don't blame you for feeling this way but there's a lot of interesting storylines to this season despite a likelihood of being a little worse than mediocre. 1. Is Suzuki actually a superstar? 2. Brennen Davis call up watch. 3. Is 2021 Schwindel a thing? What if he is? 4. To a lesser extent, same thing but Wisdom. 5. How good is Nick Madrigal? If he can sustain last year he's a valuable piece. 6. Killian call up watch. 7. Not about the big league squad but I'm really excited to see how all these prospects on the precipice of top 100 status do. 8. Nelson Velazquez watch. Maybe a thing? 9. Stroman doing his thing. I'm as disgusted as anybody with this payroll BS and the fact that they passed on a really good player at one of the biggest positions of need in the lineup, but there is a lot I'm looking forward to seeing this year. I've got two more for you, as this *should* be the year the revamped pitching development infrastructure starts paying off. 10. Which member(s) of the loaded AA rotation (Marquez, Jensen, Espinoza, Vizcaino, Bain) get up to the bigs in the second half? You should not assume a talented guy opening the year in AA makes the majors. Odds are however between five talented guys opening the year in AA, at least one makes the majors 11. The absolute gas that will be coming out of the pen in the second half. We already saw Manny Rodriguez and his 97 MPH sinker debut late last year. There's also spin god Ethan Roberts, Brendon Little regularly bumping 97 from the left side, and Ben Leeper who sits 98. And those 5 starters opening the year at Tenn? Each sit mid 90s as starters, so if they break into MLB via the pen they'll be threatening 100

I believe the Athletic guys also intimated this weekend that there's still some money left in the banana stand. Probably not a crazy amount, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's ~$20M Jed is sitting on (including what he customarily holds back for the deadline). Payroll starting with a 1 instead of a 2 is the biggest problem, and that's surely on PTR. Payroll being ~$175 instead of ~$195 seems to be Jed making choices like you alluded to. While there are obviously shades of gray, Jed basically had three possible paths to take this winter: 1. Keep the Powder Dry - This is mostly what Jed did. He completely avoided the QO, he didn't trade a single prospect, and made only two multi-year FA deals. To his credit, Stroman and Suzuki were arguably the two best non-QO free agents available besides Scherzer. He didn't go full Cleveland, which there was some worry about 2. Be efficient, but make one or two "uncomfortable" moves - This is the route I wish he had taken. I understand austerity, I'm sympathetic to it, but I think sometimes when you take it too far you're cutting your nose to spite your face. Like if we passed on Trevor Story now just to end up with Dansby Swanson a year from now, a very likely scenario at the moment, that's a failure across whatever time horizon you look at. Similarly we held onto all of our prospects, but how many do we end up having to deal for $0.80 on the dollar next year because we've got a big time 40 man crunch? There are diminishing returns to hoarding assets and I think if we end up being sellers at the deadline again we're gonna see it 3. Ball Out - We saw last offseason with the Padres how much damage you can do with a critical mass of good but not quite consensus Top 100 type prospects. Combine that with the funds available and Jed could have really done some damage. Also, given that there's a big gap between the payroll ceiling and the LT level, it's likely that the team could have back loaded deals to fit more talent in this year (the LT looks at average annual salary, while cash flow is cash flow. When there's a divergence there's possibly some opportunity) I never wanted nor expected door #3, but I think another decent sized move on top of what we got was prudent. I know I'm a broken record on this, I really think sitting out the SS fray was a mistake both for 2022 and beyond. Even if you're less panicky about the medium term SS options than I am, Jed could have done a SP trade (especially after Alzolay got hurt), or brought in a LH bat of consequence, or something else and I don't think it would have meaningfully hurt the 2023+ clubs.

I would think that's one of those that hurts like hell for a while but is very unlikely to actually injure you?