Bertz

Nagy is such a horsefeathering coward

I'd heard good things about Greg Olson in the booth but I think this is my first game that he's calling. I think I'm a big fan already.

Yeah for Caissie and Wicks, I like them more than the rest of the tier two guys, but it's admittedly mostly subjective. So I gave them their own mini-tier. But like I think having say Alcantara at #2 is totally reasonable. Nelly is definitely me stretching, but I liked him back in 2019 and LOVE what he did at AA. I'm buying in. Probably prematurely, but I'm buying in. Pinango's got the scary GB% but ARL on his side. If he comes out and cuts his GB% by a third he's a guy I'll latch onto pretty quick a la Nelly Velazquez, but right now I'm keeping him lower than a lot of the other OFers we have.

I think this is my Top 30. It ended up getting away from me and becoming a massive wall of text, so here's the list and then the list with a blurb on each guy in spoilers. Tier 1 1. Brennen Davis Tier 1.5 2. Jordan Wicks 3. Owen Caissie Tier 2 4. Cristian Hernandez 5. Reggie Preciado 6. Kevin Alcantara 7. Nelly Velazquez 8. Pete Crow-Armstrong 9. Miguel Amaya 10. Brailyn Marquez 11. James Triantos 12. DJ Herz Tier 3 13. Kevin Made 14. Caleb Kilian 15. Ryan Jensen 16. Ed Howard 17. Chris Morel 18. Alexander Canario 19. Kohl Franklin 20. Cole Roederer 21. Jordan Nwogu 22. Christian Franklin 23. Yohendrick Pinango Tier 4 24. Anderson Espinoza 25. Chase Strumpf 26. Max Bain 27. Alexander Vizcaino 28. Daniel Palencia 29. Bryce Ball 30. Riley Thompson I broke guys into tiers, and frankly within tiers I don't think there's much difference. I ordered them on my preference but like if you think Vizcaino should be ahead of Espinoza I'm not gonna fight you on it. Overall I'm really happy with the system. Ideally it would have 2-3 more top 100 guys, but the depth is just silly. I could have gone 45 deep. And there is top line talent, it's just far away, I'm not worried about having 4-5 guys on next year's Top 100, I'm just curious about which 4-5 it'll be.

Cubs are starting to look pretty locked in to #7. Miami is two and a half games "up" and the Twins are two games "back."

I still think we do something like the Blue Jays. One star and then a bunch of 1 or 2 year deals.

*Sigh* *SIGH*

*Sigh*

Steele looks really good so far. Could use a nice signature outing if he really wants to start next year. Like I know a lot of the hopes I pinned on Alzolay last offseason we're like "but did you see his game against the White Sox?!"

Flaherty might not be going for game 2 anymore? Or they're planning a separate roster move between games

Having him, Leeper, Roberts, and to a lesser extent Hudson all hanging out at Iowa to open next year is an underrated boon to our short term competitive hopes.

Pinango's tough. I'm generally one to pound the table for guys who succeed at a good age relative to their league, but his defensive ceiling is probably as an adequate corner outfielder and he hits WAY too much on the ground to get to any of his power. He's probably something like Maikel Franco but has enough shot at being Yordan Alvarez that I'm certainly watching him closely. I have him at #23 on the list I'm working on, but think you could argue him like 10 spots higher if you wanted.

I actually have been noodling on a top prospects list given that everything but Iowa is done, and nothing these last two weeks are going to materially change our opinion on Davis, Deichman, or the relievers (which is pretty much all that's left at Iowa prospect-wise). By my count, I see 17 guys you could realistically put in the top 5 (ordered by rough MLB proximity) Davis Kilian Amaya Velazquez (I'm probably alone out on this limb) Wicks Brailyn Jensen Herz K. Franklin (probably the least defensible guy on this list TBH) PCA Made Howard Caissie Hernandez Alcantara Preciado Triantos That really speaks to both the strength and weakness of this system. It's not great that you can argue ~17 guys up as high #5. But on the flip side it's fantastic that guys like Ethan Roberts and Ben Leeper really don't belong in our top 30. Even a lot of damn good systems have like half the depth we do, and have several guys like that in their 20s.

Yeah, I'm happy for the guy, but I'm not sure he's even better than Trevor Megill. When I look at the Tigers and think about regrettable trades, I look much more in Candelario's direction.

Do we know where Riley Thompson is? I thought he was a "hurt but no surgery" guy but with how many injuries there were to keep track of in April maybe I got him mixed up with somebody else. Also, I'm hoping this is good news for Kohl Franklin and Brailyn. I'd think them not being here is a sign they're going to be in the AFL?

Heyward it depends on how you feel about his off field stuff. On a pure in-game basis I'd rather have that role filled by Rivas or Deichman, but I understand if his mentorship wins out, especially in a year where we're going to start calling up prospects. Bote's gotta be traded. You look at his Fangraphs page and it's fairly obvious he's a victim of some BABIP luck. That said, even the good version of Bote is redundant on a roster that already has Wisdom and and an otherwise all right handed infield.

I think this is more or less how I see it - Contreras, Happ, Hoerner, and Madrigal can start every day. Happ ideally no longer in CF, and Hoerner ideally as a SS/2B/CF supersub, but broadly that's four guys I'm happy with - Schwindel and Wisdom are fringe starters. Depending on how the chips fall this offseason I'm okay focusing resources elsewhere, but they're not guys you write in the lineup card in pen. And if they are starters, a high end backup needs to be brought in as insurance (e.g. Brad Miller) - I do tend to think Brennen Davis will be up the bulk of next year. So if they want to do some sort of Ortega platoon in CF to hold the spot warm for Brennen, I'm fine with that, but that does leave one OF spot that needs a starter brought in - Among the bench guys, Chirinos would be a solid backup C, but Duffy, Alcantara, and anyone else lacking minor league options can go. Setting aside catchers, I want my bench guys to be REALLY good at something, or have options so you can cycle them in and out - I think there's plenty to work with in the pen. I'd like a salty veteran to fill the role Jeffress had last year, and they probably need a lefty if Steele's in the rotation (more on him in a minute), but that's about it - Alec Mills now has a career 4.07 ERA as a starter in nearly 180 innings. I'm happy to hand him a spot. Hendricks has been a mess recently, but he's clearly going into next year as a starter - I wouldn't promise Alzolay a rotation spot next year, but would definitely give him the inside track on one. His dong problem is *probably* a fluke. Steele's had some flashes in the rotation, but has just not shown nearly enough. I'd let him go into next ST and try to wrestle that rotation spot from Adbert, but assume he'll be in the pen So that makes the offseason shopping list 2 SPs, a SS, a corner OF, a corner IF, a veteran reliever, and a backup C. Easy peasy :-"

I don't know the numbers but gonna guess a take premised on "you should have run on 3rd and 7" isn't gonna hold up to much scrutiny

I'm not usually on the right side of history with my NFL hot takes, but feeling pretty good about my vehement opposition to getting Wentz this offseason

It's wild how low tech ball spotting still is here in 2021.

https://twitter.com/drivelinebases/status/1438981515531079681?s=19

Really feels like there's something here

Ryan Jensen had a good last start of the year. Didn't miss a ton of bats, but got a ton of grounders. I'm not going to do the napkin math, but he's probably ended his AA cup of coffee with a groundballs rate north of 60%.