Bertz

I mentioned this I think when we were rumored to be connected, but I wonder how the de-juiced ball helps or hurts Sogard. On the one hand, he's really only hit well with the juiced ball in homer friendly parks, because the confluence of those two factors allows him to hit some wall-scraper dongs. On the other hand, .250/.330/.350 might be playable with a deader ball given his defense.

My wife had part of her Thyroid removed. It's more of a minor surgery than you'd think, but she was not back to normal energy-wise for months. There's a lot of trial and error in figuring out the right dosage on the meds.

I think I like him more than Ildemaro Vargas?

If a guy's sitting 95 right now, you would tend to expect what, 97 by midseason? There's maybe a dozen lefties who can do that. Like Raisin said you've gotta try post pandemic Little in the rotation again, but between him, Marquez, and Caraway I'm feeling good about the ability to add a young fire breathing lefty to the pen at midseason.

Not nearly as scary or ominous as it sounds on first blush

Yeah, about as good as could be hoped for. I really wish this game had Statcast up. Little's been one of the guys posting data from like warehouse Rapsodo sessions during quarantine. I'd love to see how close to real those numbers are on an actual game mound.

Reaaaallllllyyyyy liked what Little showed there. If he's really hanging out at like 95 now, wowza

Adbert looked real good. Even the HBP wasn't *that* far out of the zone

I feel like the team went so out of their way to hold onto Underwood last year, it's weird to me that they did this rather than just 60-day DL Wick. To me that says at least one of the following is true right now: - They think it's a really opportune time to sneak a guy through waivers (as evidenced by Stock just making it) - Wick is behind, but it's only by a matter of a few weeks rather than months - Underwood has looked bad thus far in camp Hopefully just the first two!

VERY interested at getting a look at Little and Fenter

Yeah I assume this is on the Padres. I'll never understand why teams don't heavily prioritize the first few ST games though. Like I'm sure there's some considerations I'm not thinking of, but what could they be that you'd rather air a 30 year old episode of bass masters or whatever horsfeathers RSNs typically air on Monday afternoons?

Most of the bullpen projections I've seen just assume that Kohl Stewart is definitely going to be optioned to the minors. I wonder if that's necessarily true. I tend to be down on Stewart, less because of anything specific to him and more because I think the Twins really know what they're doing on the pitching end. And so if they let him go for nothing that's a red flag for me.

I would have preferred to keep Stock. But now that camp's open and they've got these guys throwing in front of Trackman every other day, it's hard to argue with whatever they decide. Now that we know Wick is out for a while, and Ryan's not too much worse for the wear from his Covid, I'd guess this is the opening day pen we're looking at? CL - Kimbrel SU - Chafin SU - Workman MRP - Adam* MRP - Winkler MRP - Tepera MRP - Ryan* MRP - Holder* LRP - Underwood *Has MiLB options I'd guess Ryan and Holder's spots are most tenuous. Dillon Maples is out of options, so maybe he gets Holder's spot just for one last chance to show he can throw strikes? I believe I read that they altered his delivery a bit. This also assumes Alzolay has another option remaining and opens up at Iowa to manage his innings. If that's wrong that's a further squeeze on one of those bottom three guys.

It may provide a relative benefit to the starters, but what about the relief corps? I do think pitching and defense concentration is a good plan given the offense. Bolster a weakness with a strength. why would a dead ball impact starters any different than relievers? For the Cubs specifically, the starters are going to be among the staffs with the least strikeouts in the league. The relief core is going to be pretty normal in terms of contact, probably actually better than average.

Here they come

I assume Wick goes on the 60 Day to make this work

https://www.mlb.com/news/yankees-first-2021-spring-training-workout Speaking of pitch design, one thing I thought was interesting is that the Yankees just opened their own pitch lab (called the "Gas Station," which I hate to admit I love). The Yankees are an analytics heavy team and obviously not light on resources, so it's interesting to me that they're rolling this out two years after the Cubs. Being two years behind on having a dedicated building doesn't mean they're two years behind on concepts, but add this to the list of indications that the Cubs might be ahead of most of the league on this stuff.

The article admits that they have no reason to believe that it was anything more than a random fan or ESPN employee Right. But, but even though it ended up being a prank, it likely set off all that buzz (due to KB calling around to get this confirmed/denied). Especially since those rumors primarily came from local sources.

I wonder if innings are going to be so light for guys that it's plenty of time to ramp up. We know hitters only need ~2 weeks, and that the reason ST is so long is for SPs. But if teams are going to limit minor league SPs to 3-4 innings at the start of the season anyway, maybe a month is fine. Also, I was very slow on the uptake and didn't realize Ivy Futures was yours. Really good stuff, I've enjoyed everything I've read there so far! :good: I think so too. I haven't heard yet from anyone if they're just going to be doing a ton of piggybacking, but It'd still bet on that as the plan. That would also allow the development staff to keep building out repertoires. Like, Michael McAvene may end up in the pen someday and some organizations would just put him there while accelerating his development, but he's coming into ST with 5 pitches (4s FB, 2s FB, SL, CU, and a new spike curve). There's a whole bunch of pitchers that have been working on pitch design during the shutdown. I think there's just a whole lot of pitchers on each staff going for 2-4 innings through May and June. And thanks! I'm having a blast working on the site. I've learned a lot. It's been very cool to connect with the players, front office people, and other bloggers too. The pitch design stuff is fascinating. It's inevitable that one of these guys who posted their eye-popping Driveline data are going to be able to fully translate it onto the field. Like if Ethan Roberts or Brendon Little are 90% of what they looked like on Instagram this past year, we're going to really have something. Hit on a couple of these guys and the farm quickly and suddenly takes a huge step forward.

I wonder if innings are going to be so light for guys that it's plenty of time to ramp up. We know hitters only need ~2 weeks, and that the reason ST is so long is for SPs. But if teams are going to limit minor league SPs to 3-4 innings at the start of the season anyway, maybe a month is fine. Also, I was very slow on the uptake and didn't realize Ivy Futures was yours. Really good stuff, I've enjoyed everything I've read there so far! :good:

Have to assume this was that weekend where there was a ton of buzz that a trade that was going down imminently.