Bertz

Yeah, you have to think he likely starts out at Iowa now. That's fine, because like you said we know he'll be up eventually, and he was never going to make close to 30 starts anyway. Iowa's a better option than long relief IMO. If we assume Adbert at Iowa and Wick opening on the DL out of caution, I'd guess this is the opening day pen? CL - Kimbrel SU - Workman SU - Chafin MRP - Adam MRP - Winkler MRP - TBD Righty (Holder or Stock) MRP - TBD Lefty (Ryan, Wieck, or Morgan) LRP - Underwood or Fenter Those TBD spots I think are going to be the revolving doors for guys with options. We'll see a lot of cycling but I'd think Holder and Ryan will be first up? We might see a 9th reliever, which would probably be an opportunity to stash another out of options guy for low leverage innings.

Yeah, no appetite on my end to pay that price

Yes, for Marisnick. It has to be Maples, doesn't it? Yeah you'd have to think so. He's the name that sticks out on the out of options list. I think talent wise I'd rather dump Norwood but I assume having options is the bigger deal in their situations. I wonder if they can get a little bit for him or if they just have to let him go.

Still one more 40 man move coming I believe

It's hard to compare this to any other deal because it's a fairly recent phenomenon that guys get real money in these deals. Up until a few years ago they were all like the Rizzo deal: 5ish years at tiny salaries and then 2-3 team options at decent money. The union has learned how much of a joke those were, so now you have to lock guys up with less than a year of service time, or wait untilt they're close to FA and pay nearly market rates. This is a total unicorn, which is awesome to see. Given inflation and everything Tatis probably would have gotten close to $500M if he'd stayed awesome until free agency. But we're four years from when the Padres actually had to commit money to him, which is a LONG time. If the Tatis and Machado deals don't blow up though, the Padres are going to be really good for a while.

I'm not going to call any FO (except mayyybe the Rockies) dumb, but the evidence that the prior Phillies' regime was a couple years behind the rest of the league is pretty compelling. That in turn should probably also color opinions on Arrieta's chances of rebounding...

Works for me. Wentz hasn't actually gone anywhere either, so there's still opportunity to revisit when he and/or the Eagles become more reasonable. I tend to think at least one, probably both of Bridgewater/Garappolo can be had too. They're a little lower upside than Wentz, but that much safer. And I'd say the expected production of all three guys is similar (somewhere in the teens if you were ranking every QB ordinally). For me, the play is to get whichever of those three guys costs the least in draft picks and take a day 2 QB in the draft. In FA, do what you can, but don't add any long term $ except maybe a Robinson extension.

No. As part of the health and safety protocols they scrapped that. So 26 man rosters with no pitcher limit. In the abstract I hate it, but it's probably necessary for this year.

He was horsefeathers in his partial season with the Phillies but generally he's been a good setup type arm for the Sox. Sounds like teams are planning to do 9 man bullpens this year, so we're likely looking at: CL - Kimbrel SU - Wick SU - Chafin MRP - Winkler MRP - Adam MRP - Workman MRP - TBD lefty (Ryan as the favorite?) MRP - TBD righty (Underwood as the favorite?) LRP - 6th starter/swingman If Kimbrel is indeed fixed, I actually really like this group

Good News: Davis is all the way up at #41 Bad News: No one else made the top 100 Good News: Marquez and Preciado are both 50 FB guys, which means they're Top 100 caliber Bad News: Whither Miguel Amaya?

I like the over on the Twins at 88.5 a lot. That division is still dog crap, so them and the White Sox are going to have pretty inflated win totals.

I believe I saw that as of tomorrow they can start 60 day DL-ing people. There's not 3 of those (that we know of), but that might account for 1 or 2 of those spots

I really wish we had a 100% answer on how many options Alzolay has, because that goes a long way to determining how I feel about this

I'm not sure if the news of a deader ball makes me more or less okay with this. On the one hand, the only times he's been a GOOD hitter were juiced ball seasons in hitters parks, basically turning some of his mediocre fly balls into wall-scraper dongs. On the other hand, if the ball is deader, maybe a ~.350 SLG is more roster able? I guess I'm probably cool with it if it's a minor league deal?

I do think Yu is at elevated risk for injury, but even setting that aside you said yourself that ALL pitchers are at high risk for injury. If something happens to Zach Davies, you choose your favorite guy out of the Iowa rotation to replace him. If something happens to Yu Darvish, you choose your third, because the first two are already taking MLB starts. That's on PTR's penny pinching, but those were the realities Jed had to choose from. In a normal season, or with a better team, I take the quality and figure out the quantity later. But this team was thin already, and we're heading into a season that might be apocalyptic on the injury front.

Which you can say all of the same for Arrieta, only Darvish just got done doing the good stuff whereas Jake has been trending away for four years now, with a more recent injury history. If we're just focusing on 2021 Zips, which is fine because I think it's the best of the options, I'll go back to my original point. Arrieta and Davies are projected to put up 3.0 fWAR in 267 innings, Darvish is 3.1 fWAR in 151. You can layer in Trevor Williams and his (encouraging) 1.4 fWAR in 140 innings, but I don't think it's fair to line Darvish up against all three, especially when Williams is getting paid less than Lester. Darvish has 140 innings (40 in 2018, 97 in the first half of 2019) of bad pitching where he fought injuries. Before that and especially after that, he's been a top 30 pitcher when he's pitched. And his bad first half of 2019 resulted in a lower ERA than what Jake just did. I don't think there is, or at least should be, much argument with Darvish's production on a per inning basis. I think deGrom, Cole, and Bieber are the only guys I'd for sure take over him right now. But Darvish has never been a paragon of health and durability, and now he's in his mid 30's. Add to that how brutal this season is expected to be from an injury standpoint, and I think the volume approach is probably the smart play. Taking three pitchers who project to ~3.5 WAR is probably better than having that tied up in one guy this season. And I think that's doubly true in the Cubs' case. The team lost three starters to FA, and PTR has decided to be as miserly as ever. While I get the point you're making with 267 vs. 150, this team needs those extra innings. The options were Yu's 150 and a HEAVY reliance on the Iowa crew, or the route that Jed took (which will still rely on Iowa more than we have in quite a while as it is).

Law is good IMO, but at this point I wouldn't pay just to read his stuff anymore. Whereas my ESPN Insider subscription was like 90% for him. I'm glad he went to the Athletic and not somewhere else, because I wouldn't have followed him. When he was younger he used to get a lot more first-hand looks at guys, so he would buck the consensus more. Now that he's middle aged (and no longer in AZ) he's not really that guy anymore. Eric Longenhagen's that guy now.

This is going to be a fascinating season for the pitching staff. The projections *hate* the pitching right now. Fangraphs has the Cubs projected for the 2nd least pitching WAR in baseball, tied with the Orioles. Pecota has the team at 21st in runs allowed (I don't want to put in the effort to split that between pitching and defense). But, like, you can see what the team is doing: - Kyle and Davies appear to be legit FIP beaters (and thus projection confounders?). If you use a runs allowed version of WAR, they rank 14th and 37th the last two years. FG projections have them as the 44th and 127th ranked pitchers for this upcoming year - Alzolay made a bunch of changes at the alternate site, and was phenomenal in his small sample in the big leagues. But the alternate site stuff doesn't count towards projections, so they see just 21 innings last year. That's understandably not enough to move the needle much on his projections, even if the eye test says he's legit now - Alec Mills is kinda boring, but does a lot of the same stuff with seam shifted wake and spin mirroring that Kyle does. He also has a career 4.06 ERA/4.73 FIP/4.26 xFIP as a starter. Even if you assume his low velocity means that homerun problem is here to stay, that's adequate 4th starter material. And if the deader ball or better luck fixes his dong problem, he might actually be kinda good? - Trevor Williams has a chance to join the long line of ex Pirates who leave and immediately find more success when they learn it's not illegal to throw pitches in the top half of the zone - Jake still has the same velo he had his last year in Chicago, when he was still pretty good (if no longer great). It's not hard to imagine the problem was the Phillies coaching staff and/or defense - The bullpen is the same deal as last year. Take a dozen guys who have elite velo and/or spin, and you will unearth 3-4 solid options to pair with Kimbrel/Wick/Chafin There's a ton of ifs there, but none of them are that outrageous. We're not asking for an injured guy to recover, or someone's velocity to magically come back. There will be some duds, probably a few spectacular ones. At the same time, Kyle's the only guy with a long term commitment. The team can cycle through guys until they find the right combo, especially since Iowa actually has a pretty solid staff for the first time in like a decade. It feels crazy, especially since I'm generally the type to be like "b-b-but the projections say blah," but I'm more confident in the pitching staff than the offense for this season.

So with all appropriate caveats about how much of a horsefeathsrs PTR is and how it shouldn't have been an either/or... you've gotta chalk it up to Jed here. He turned Darvish and Vic into Davies Joc Jake Romine 4 good prospects Plus whatever You'd money can buy in '22/'23. In a season where pitcher attrition is going to be through the roof? Yu was my favorite player on the team by a good bit but it's really hard not to say this is better for the team's competitive outlook.

Decent thread about how maybe tweaking some things could make him serviceable. If we can get 160-180 innings of 3.9-4.5 ERA ball I’d take it. This is interesting. His velocity is still basically where it was when he left. There are still some things to like about his secondaries. He still gets ground balls (xFIP thinks he's been a league average pitcher since leaving). Like, God mode Jake isn't walking through that door, but I'd absolutely buy that a smarter coaching staff can help him still be a #3 starter