Bertz
-
Posts
12,369 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
29
Content Type
Profiles
Joomla Posts 1
Chicago Cubs Videos
Chicago Cubs Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits
2026 Chicago Cubs Top Prospects Ranking
News
2023 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks
Guides & Resources
2024 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks
The Chicago Cubs Players Project
2025 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker
Blogs
Events
Forums
Store
Gallery
Everything posted by Bertz
-
I guess from a business sense, I don't get the downside here for the Cubs. You partnered with Sinclair to get your network up and running and to get carriage as wide as possible. Check and check. I believe most of the people managing the day to day operations are CSN and WGN castoffs, not people Sinclair would take with them. The carriage deals are locked in now except for Hulu and YouTube. Shouldn't the Cubs be ecstatic to kick Sinclair to the curb at this point?
-
This article is almost comically vague, but a few things stand out - They're not spending a ton of money this winter, it sounds like it may even be a dollar in/dollar out kind of situation - The team seems to be very confident in the pitching infrastructure. Expect most of the pitching changes to be either from playing waiver wire roulette like last winter or from development of the cache of power arms they now finally have in the minors - They seem to be setting us up for running back mostly the same horsefeathering offense. Probably see one high profile guy sent out (KB?), and a handful of lower profile names brought in - The team sees some Tommy Hottovy in Chris Valaika. They're hoping that as a young, smart, recent major leaguer he can work up to doing similar things on the offensive side
-
-
Cowardly as hell
-
-
Probably the wildest playoff game since the Dodgers/Astros game where both teams hit like half a dozen dongs and there were like 8 lead changes (game 3 or 4 I think?)
-
OH MY HORSEFEATHERING GOD
-
-
So Chris Archer is likely going to be a FA. He hasn't been mentioned much, because the Pirates hold an option on him that was likely still a no brainer pre-pandemic. But I would LOVE to get him in the lab with Hottovy. His velo was down a bit in 2019, but still well above average. And even if the ship has sailed on him as a good starter, with good velocity and a killer slider he'd likely make a fantastic reliever. In lieu of one higher end guy, I'd probably prefer bringing in two veteran guys like this, like say Archer and Mike Minor.
-
Like Brett, I think I'm coming around on this. Something modest probably, like mandating two infielders on each side of 2B. (Though there is the sticky question of when they're allowed to cross) But little things we can do to help encourage balls in play should all at least be on the table.
-
Not a ton here, which is normal for Mooney but disappointing for Sharma. I think the only thing that seems fairly clear is that everyone sees Hoyer as the guy after Theo leaves. I imagine he steps up, they bring in a #2 from outside the org, and everything else stays largely in place. Payroll's also coming down, and they're meeting this week to figure out by how much. Sounds like the expectation is they'll have enough to tinker, but not do anything of substance without moving salary out. It's still possible that it's worse than that though, and they have to move out more money than they bring in. Personally, if it's that bad just burn it down. Don't bother pretending to compete with a $150M payroll.
-
Good fluff piece on the Cubs catching situation, And doesn't even really get into the Hearn/Quintero/Altuve trio in the low minors. I think you have to trade one of the upper level guys this winter. Though who I think depends on how you want to weight 2021 in your planning. Contreras is probably the most valuable trade chip the team has, so if you're okay not giving 100% this year he's the obvious choice. Otherwise, I think given that Contreras and Caratini each have a few more years of control and the trio at the lower levels Amaya is safe to deal. Vic would be the half measure, which probably means that's exactly what Theo's going to do. He's too good to be a backup, but not so good that he's particularly valuable. Dealing him for a B- prospect and signing like Alex Avila would have a real ring of the La Stella/Descalso swap.
-
Week 6: Bears at Panthers, Sunday at noon on Fox
Bertz replied to jersey cubs fan's topic in Other Sports
-
When did Joc Pederson get fat?
-
Good stuff. Yeah if the Cubs managed to have an above average staff with what they put out there, I’m not too concerned about next year either. Focus most of your attention on fixing the offense. How much of the pitching impact is due to Contreras’s framing? Is that a repeatable skill? Several guys who were really bad and took a big leap forward have kept those gains. Realmuto is the main example that comes to mind, but Jason Castro and others have too. He's probably not the best in the league like he was this year, but he's probably legitimately good now. And even if he ends up getting shipped out, Vic has shown to be good, and it sounds like Amaya is as well.
-
Really curious where the Astros go from here. They're losing a lot of talent this winter, and on top of that have $90M tied up in just Verlander, Greinke, and Altuve next year. But at the same time Bregman, Alvarez, Tucker, and Valdez is a really good young cheap core to build off of.
-
-
What's crazy is that the only real difference between Kershaw's career numbers and postseason numbers is his HR rate, which is double. I remember reading a few years back that for a pitcher of his caliber Kershaw throws a shocking number of pitches right down the middle. Yet for whatever reason hitters don't do much damage. I wonder if with the more extensive prep and gameplanning for playoff games hitters are more properly cranking those pitches.
-
A bench guy I'm really interested in is Robbie Grossman. He'd bring that "professional hitter" profile to the bench that we've been sorely lacking since Sealboy left. Over the last three years he's got a 12% walk rate and only an 18% K rate. He's a switch hitter who's better against lefties than righties, but his split isn't huge as he's an above average hitter against both. He's played primarily LF the last few years, but Statcast says he's fast enough for CF and gets good jumps, so I imagine that's just in deference to Ramon Laureano.
-
Holy crap
-
I think this is pretty much exactly where I am. On the rotation, I'm wondering about more of a volume approach. Like if Stroman costs $20M, for that same money could you get James Paxton or Jake Odorizzi on a $15M pillow contract as well as someone in the Alex Wood tier for $5M? It might be too risky given that Alzolay is also unlikely to give you more than 120 innings, but I think it's interesting to consider.
-
Do we really think that if they clear up that payroll that they're going to actually spend the money that they saved? That'd be about $30M less than last year. We'll see how it plays out but the indications we've gotten are that most teams are cutting spending by something in the 10-20% range. Cubs were at 210 last year so 180 would be a 15% cut. It's a very rough guess. I'd personally do something like Ha-Seong Kim (15ish), a decent #3 starter (10ish), and then use the rest to build out the bench as much as you can (like you said a CF, 2B, and C). But if they don't get Kim I would imagine it looks like what you said, maybe going a little higher in CF (JBJ?) and a little lower on the SP front.
-
This is a very interesting article from Sharma and Mooney. Pretty light on concrete info, although a few interesting things stood out: - Non-tendering Schwarber is unlikely - They're not going to tear it down to the studs, so don't worry about Yu and Kyle going anywhere - From my reading, Kimbrel is the only guy whom they indicate is more likely than not to go - Contreras clearly makes the most sense to trade on paper, but the team really values his off the field makeup so they're reticent - Bryant's clearly on the block, but they expect he's in that awkward "more valuable to us than in trade" zone because of his salary Taking all that together, I imagine they're going to trade Dirty Craig and one of Bryant/Contreras. I imagine they try early to trade KB, and if they don't like any offers pivot to Willson right after Realmuto signs. Everyone else gets a chance going into 2021 to rebound. So if we use Brett's ~$180M payroll estimate, that'd give the team ~$35M to spend in FA if Contreras goes, and ~$50M if Bryant does.
-
I'm also glad that it looks like they're going to go down in the LCS. If they had lost in the wildcard round they could have rightfully blamed the new rules. But at this point it's a pretty clear choke job.
-
Thanks Raisin! I wonder if they've also been doing work at Driveline-esque facilities, similar to what we've been seeing Ethan Roberts post periodically. Get into one of those places once every month or two in addition to your normal work, share the data and video with your coaches, and suddenly that's probably not too dissimilar from what's happening at Instructs.