Bertz

I can't possibly imagine someone with the name of Shea Spitzbarth had an easy time growing up

It’s crazy that despite his unbelievably bad hitting he still has a positive fWAR this year, albeit just 0.1. He’s still a positive fielder and baserunner. I would consider keeping him if he accepted a very reduced role of 25th man, used only for late inning defense and pinch running. If we’re paying him either way why not use him in a way that gives us value? Also he’s a great clubhouse guy to have assuming he accepts the reduced role with professionalism. That said, I’m not sure Ross would use him in that way if he’s on the roster. I hate to infer this because his job should be to put his roster in the best position to win but I get the feeling he will do everything he can to make sure his buddy gets every opportunity in the world to play everyday. Maybe I’m wrong…he did eventually release Arrieta, though I think that release came several starts too late and Jake had to give us 3 IP, 6 ER games for a couple of months before the trigger was pulled. Also, I get that Ross doesn’t make roster decisions like that but I’m sure he had some influence, especially when the deadline happened and there was nothing to play for. Yeah, I think the Heyward decision is tough, so I'm not going to get too invested either way. He's likely not *this* bad of a hitter, and as long as he's not he's still probably in quality bench player range when you add his defense, baserunning, platoon splits, and soft factors like leadership. Like I don't think he's no longer worth being an MLBer, and we're paying him either way. That said I think I think Ortega and Deichman are better players. Probably modestly, but they're probably better. And unlike Heyward, if they're bad next year they are *very* easy to cut bait with. I don't think next year's going to be a total wash, but I do think there's going to be some roster churn, particularly in the first half, and having another roster spot where you can cycle guys through has real value.

GB rate has been up post DL too

Raised his OPS 50ish points tonight. He's been a bit of a disappointment since coming over but it goes to show how little time he's ultimately had over here

Yeah, early on he was pretty unlucky, but from May onwards there was no real excuse. He could have just packed it in but instead he's grinding and finally has his numbers back up to "merely kind of bad." Hopefully he can stay hot and the season at "decent.". Makes this offseason a lot easier if you feel like you can count on him. Love seeing the bullpen rounding into form. Megill's actually been pretty good the last few weeks. Would love for him to do enough that he can be near the top of the list among the guys fighting for a pen spot in Spring Training.

I don't subscribe to BP but I'm damn tempted just for this article

It's not. Him and Sullivan have been irrelevant as far as being sourced goes since the Hendry era ended. If Jesse Rogers or Patrick Mooney say something like that get a little nervous, none of the other beat writers are notably connected though.

I still think Schwindel is interesting. Not nearly ready to say he's good, but I've seen enough I do think he's a legitimate MLBer. He's chasing a lot, swinging at 34.9% of pitches out of the zone. That's a lot (~90th percentile), but a far cry from like Javy. It's more in line with Eloy Jimenez, Ozzie Albies, and Adolis Garcia His contact rate on pitches in the zone is pretty good. At 87.1% that's about 70th percentile, in line with guys like Starling Marte and Xander Bogaerts He also hits very few balls on the ground (33.3%, ~90th percentile), and he hits them hard (89.9 EV, ~75th percentile) These are all things that tend to become meaningful relatively quickly. That's not to say that after ~100 PAs we've found his true talent level, but it does likely mean that on broad terms the four statements above are all likely true. The problem is that with a meh defensive 1B, the bar is really high and so the degree to which each of those statements are true matters a great deal. I think his current peripherals are unique but ultimately able to sustain pretty good production, but if he starts hitting the ball less hard, on the ground more, swing and missing more, etc. things dry up pretty quickly.

I'm finding myself interested in the timing of promotions for some guys that have hit the ground running at their new level. Nelson Velazquez was promoted during a cold streak, he hit .148 and struck out 44% of the time the week leading up to his promotion, and absolutely exploded on getting to AA Yohendrick Pinango was ICE cold for over a month, got hot for a week and then got the bump to A+, and has been raking since Alexander Canario hit .227 and K'd 39% the week leading up to the trade. Again the Cubs promote him and he absolutely goes off I understand that there are non box score reasons for promotions, and that we publicly are using stat lines as proxies. There's all sorts of things like bat path and attack angle and such that we'll never know. But you'd think for a hitter that positive developments in "hidden" areas would manifest in positive developments in the box score. So like you'd expect good production with bad metrics to withhold a promotion, but it's interesting to see bad production with (presumably) good metrics lead to a promotion and IMMEDIATELY follow with good production at a harder level. Like it's unequivocally good. It really speaks to the thought that the Cubs do get player dev, but it's kind of wild to watch from the outside.

ZiPS currently projects wisdom for .234/.300/.465 line, which feels right for what he truly is. Combine that with the defense and I think we have a legit starter at 3B. I would love to add a LH complement if possible over the offseason, but it's not an absolute necessity.

This game was good affirmation that the bullpen will be good again sooner rather than later. Wick has clearly been knocking off rust, but there's a legitimate closer caliber arm there. Heuer was going through some mechanical issues with the Sox, and you can understand why they couldn't be patient but why Cody's still going to be a good reliever in short order. And then Manny Rodriguez just throws absolute fire and racks up ground balls. Hopefully next year you can add back in Brad Wieck. His heart stuff sounds messy and complicated, but he just had surgery and he hasn't shown many reasons *on the field* he can't be an impact reliever. There's also the three headed monster of Ben Leeper, Brendon Little, and Ethan Roberts down at Iowa. I imagine that's better AAA depth than 27 or 28 other teams will have available to them. It needs a setup caliber lefty, and ideally a grizzled veteran like Jeffress was for us last year, but it's a pretty set group going into next year that I'm already mostly happy with.

Kyle's definitely been worse this year, but the dongs are probably noise and overstate how much he's gotten worse by. Probably. That said you can't just assume his FIP beating powers will last forever. Matt Cain was also a guy who ran good peripherals and elite ERAs long enough that you could definitively say it was skill and not just luck. Then in 2013 his peripherals slipped a smidge and his ERA slipped a horsefeathers load, and it wasn't accompanied by a velocity dip or other factor that would easily explain what happened.

There are a lot of very reasonable explanations I would buy for sitting a rookie QB for part of their rookie year: - There's legitimate physical health/safety stuff from not knowing the playbook or NFL defenses yet. Like in the Bills game when Fields completely whiffed on the blitzer on his right and got decked - I could see, especially for a mobile QB like Fields, where if you put them out there too early they'll lean on their legs too much and develop bad habits in the name of short term success - The NFL season is LONG, and in fact just got longer. I'd buy that the ideal is for a guy to get 8-10 games out there, long enough to get into a groove and have both some ups and some downs, and then head into the offseason with some tape and some experience to learn off of - Players do appreciably learn and grow during trainings and practices, unlike something like baseball And I'm sure there's more. The problem is that NFL coaches are so far up their own asses that they think everything they do is a highly valuable trade secret. Combine that with how conservative they often are (even when it's fairly objective that they're wrong) and you have no way of knowing if the team's reasons for sitting a guy are sound or if it's the player development equivalent of punting on your opponent's 38 yard line.

Max Bain since coming off the DL: 24.1 IP, 2.96 ERA, 8 BB, 2 HBP, 2 HR, 27 K, 43% GB rate

So the Tennessee rotation to open next year is probably this, right? Marquez Jensen Espinoza Vizcaino Bain Obviously injuries will make their mark, but talent wise it feels like all five of those guys are major leaguers? And while each individual guy is more likely than not a reliever, odds are you probably net at least one pretty darn good starter out of that group?

Alec Mills career now has a 3.92 ERA over 31 starts for his career. It's very unlikely he'll ever be a guy you want starting a playoff game, but he clearly deserves to be handed a spot going into next year, pending a fairly disastrous September.

This is fun! I'm not totally sure why Rivas is just now getting the call, but regardless he'll be good to see. I don't think he's ever going to have the power for 1B, but I'd run him out there in the corner outfield every day because if he's fine out there defensively he'll be a great first guy off the bench. Effross was just a nondescript dude, but changed to a side armer I believe during the 2019/2020 offseason and took off. As a side armer he's clearly got platoon issues, but that's fine as long as you hold expectations in check accordingly.

With Happ looking less like he's broken I could get behind something like this (or Castellanos). Sign Jorge for RF, put Happ in LF, and whatever combination of Hoerner/Ortega/Hermosillo/whomever in center. When Brennen Davis is ready in ~June, he takes over center, pushes the grab bag of CFers to RF and Soler moves to DH. It's certainly not the most exciting OF, but I think there are enough options in house options that it'll work out fairly well. Plus, it's really cheap. Soler's gonna get what, 2/$20? You've kept most of your powder dry for the rotation and the infield, which is where you can some more substantial moves.

It could very easily be the 7 run lead, but Kimbrel's velocity tonight would have me nervous as hell if he was still ours

I mentioned a few days ago that while not our best prospects, I currently find Velazquez, Canario, and Nwogu are the guys I'm most excited to check on every night. Espinoza and Vizcaino are that on the pitching side. They are horsefeathering fascinating.

I'm curious what the plan is with Espinoza and Vizcaino. Like they're clearly being stretched out right now. So is it to stretch them out here before the end of the MiLB season, make up some of the lost innings in winter ball, and jump them right to AA next year? And if either doesn't hit the ground running next season pull the ripcord and transition to relief? Or is there really some rope for these guys to try being a starter for as long as absolutely possible, given the upside? Figure that like with Alzolay there's no reason to close the door too early?

I'm gonna lay out why I'm SO excited about what Nelson Velazquez is doing, beyond just yelling "DONGS!" at the top of my lungs. And then I'll try to shut up about him for a while. What he's done since he's gotten to AA is some legitimate unicorn horsefeathers: - He's hitting very few balls on the ground. His 32% mark would be tied with Ozzie Albies for 10th lowest in MLB this season - He has a good 10.3% walk rate - He has a fairly average 24.4% K rate - He's always been a prospect known for raw power, and his 24% HR/FB rate backs that up (that would be 16th in MLB this season tied with Bryce Harper) Over the last three years (min 500 PAs) here are the guys who have a GB rate under 35%, a BB rate over 10%, a K rate under 25%, and a HR/FB rate over 20%: Mike Trout and Edwin Encarnacion That's it. That's the list. Like I said, unicorn horsefeathers. Now, HR/FB is a good proxy for power but not a perfect one. Especially for guys who have their Ks under control, they may not have stratospheric HR/FB numbers because they make a little more contact than some others. Plus, the more filters you have on a list of course the shorter it's going to be. So let's remove the HR/FB filter. 11 new names are added: Bregman, Rendon, Betts, Will Smith, Bellinger, Jose Ramirez, Austin Meadows, Hoskins, Belt, Omar Narvaez, and Kyle Seager Every single one is a good player. And the ones with any sort of defensive value are generally stars. Seager is the worst hitter in that group with a 109 wRC+. Now let's widen the bars on BB% and K% (8% and 27% respectively), since those are the numbers I expect Nelly has the least chance of maintaining. You add 6 names, and finally our first ccrappy hitters: Justin Turner, Arenado, Story, Cavan Biggio, Curt Casali, and Stephen Vogt Vogt and Casali are both backup catchers and bad hitters. I think they confirm that you need a certain baseline of power to pull off this profile (which isn't a problem for Nelly), but they do show that this isn't a guaranteed path to a good hitter. That said it is pretty damn close. It's only been about 80 PAs, so any of these rate stats could be tanked with a bad weekend. But if Velazquez maintains this baseline, or close, I think he quickly becomes our #2 pure offensive prospect behind Brennen. This is very exciting stuff, even if it is SSS at the moment.