Bertz

Damn, Nick is a really good fit on the Reds. Do not like. Although that defense has a chance to be like catastrophically bad.

Disgusting. Dude has a lot of guts to make a lot of enemies by (rightfully) exposing the cheating scandal knowing that this was out there. What was it? Pics a 17 year old girl posted of herself with Fiers on Instagram, and then screenshots of DMs of him begging her to take them down.

I like this a lot. I'd love an upgrade from Descalso as well to really put the bench in a healthy place but that may depend on what specific avenue the FO takes to cut salary. Speaking of that, I wonder if the fact that the wallet has finally been opened means the FO knows what specifically they're going to do to cut salary, or if Souza's salary is nominal enough that he makes sense in any scenario.

What are they supposed to be fixing? I believe it's usually one of: 1. Grip Type - To even further improve spin rate 2. Grip Placement - To improve spin efficiency 3. Arm Slot - To improve tunneling https://theathletic.com/1220440/2019/09/18/weird-science-the-cubs-pitch-lab-is-turning-fringe-relievers-into-high-leverage-spin-rate-monsters/ The above article from the Athletic uses good Cubs examples. Wick was a #1, changing from a traditional curve grip to a knuckle curve grip. Wieck was a number two, realizing that he needed to get more on top of his slider. Kyle Ryan was a #3. lowering his arm slot and becoming more of a sidearmer. If you read the MVP Machine there is also basically an entire chapter about Trevor Bauer building a slider from scratch in his own lab (with fun anecdotes about Bauer's douchiness like how he idolizes Elon Musk).

Without digging too deep, that looks right in line with what Steamer has (a little more bullish on the MIF and a little bearish on the COF). I think ZiPS liked Milwaukee a little more, and Cincinnati a little less. So I think unless there's some serious love for our guys, the top four teams in the NL Central are all going to project between like 80 and 88 wins.

https://twitter.com/No_Little_Plans/statuses/1220378210413809665

https://twitter.com/keithlaw/statuses/1220043585518698496

No Amaya, look at the post just above yours. Awesome, thanks for posting the reports Raisin. That's certainly interesting. I would have thought Amaya would be the one guy in the system on all post-season lists. I feel like it's a lot harder to justify Nico as a top 50 guy than Amaya as not even on the list. Also, that EV is more pedestrian for Davis than I was hoping to see. I wonder what he tops out at.

So the Cubs have two top 50 prospects, but as recently as August had the worst farm system in baseball? Also. I'm really hoping Amaya is on the list and Mark just missed him? I've said this a bunch over the last ~year but I don't think BA is in a good place right now.

One thing I find interesting about all these bullpen pieces is that they've all been big time spin guys, but none of them have been all that exciting in terms of velocity. I wonder if that's more due to the supply side of things (all else being equal orgs favor velocity over spin) or on the demand side (the FO feels more confident about fixing spin guys).

Yeah, I can't imagine more than one of Underwood, Mills, and Chatwood make the team as a reliever at this point. With Chatwood currently penciled into the rotation it's currently just Underwood who should be nervous, but if a KB trade nets a big league ready starter I'd think Mills' odds of making the team drop precipitously as well.

There are two components to a good bench. The first is depth, basically the ability to run 8 good players out there every day even with injuries. The second is having complimentary skillsets, putting your guys in the best position to succeed. In terms of depth, the situation actually isn't that bad. And if Nico is good right away, it's pretty good. That'd make 11 quality guys for 8 spots, and with the positional flexibility present every position has a strong backup. It's not the stupid depth from 2016, but it's about as good as any non-Dodgers team. Though clearly Nico being good right away isn't a given. The complimentary skills aspect is where the bench is severely lacking. The entire starting outfield has severe L/R splits, yet the roster lacks a RH compliment beyond Almora. Speaking of Almora, he's the only real CF on the roster. On the infield, the main guys are all right handed aside from Rizzo, but the only LH complimentary bat is Descalso. There's also the whole high fastball thing which is pretty systemic throughout the roster, as well as basically no speed beyond Nico and Javy. The team is very vulnerable to certain matchups. In an ideal world we'd add something like Brock Holt, Kevin Pillar, and Billy Hamilton to patch all those holes. From there send Almora to Iowa until August a la Happ and Descalso would get until Nico'sready to prove he shouldn't be DFAd. Instead we're going to have to hope Descalso's issue was just the ankle and that Almora was overexposed and will do better as a matchup guy. Neither is unreasonable, but when combined with Nico being a rookie and the short track record of the new and improved Happ there is a lot more downside risk than any of us would probably like to see. Something I'd like to see to help combat this is a lot more Willson and KB (if applicable) in the outfield. This would really help Ross have as many positive matchups as possible at his disposal. Yes, Willson essentially lost a game in Pittsburgh last year with his defense, but that was on Joe for putting him out there with almost no prep. If he played once a week or so out there, he'd be an adequate defender and we could get both him and Caratini into the lineup more. KB in CF further solves a lot of the imbalance issues on the roster, and he has the speed to handle it. I really really want to see this if he doesn't get moved. Overall, I'd like to see something like this: Willson - 100 starts at C, 30 in OF Caratini - 60 at C, 10 at 1B Rizzo - 150 at 1B Nico - 50 in MiLB, 60 at 2B, 15 in CF, 15 at SS Baez - 145 at SS Bote - 60 at 3B, 60 at 2B KB - 80 at 3B, 50 in CF, 20 in OF Happ - 80 in CF, 15 at 2B, 15 at 3B, 20 in OF Schwarber/Heyward - 130 in LF/RF respectively Nico and Happ probably don't have to move around quite this much, but it's in service of keeping them both legitimately usable as super utility types.

I expected him to wind up being the LH part of our 2B situation. Hopefully this means we're aiming higher like Holt and not just letting it ride with Asuaje.

That's a pretty fantastic group of talent for a local network, but yeah forcing Len and JD to babysit someone a couple dozen games a year is just monumentally dumb.

Tangentially related: Michael Keaton would be a fantastic IGT theme this season

Bastian and Mooney both with articles since last night about a Baez extension. We've been hearing this all winter, so there's seemingly something there. I'm assuming at this point the offseason plan is either: - KB out, ~$5M worth of bench help in, Javy extended, a little bit of money squirreled away for the deadline - Q out, ~$2M worth of bench help in, Javy extended, austerity deadline Probably depending on what the offers for KB look like.

Ah, yes, that's right. I think I got mixed up because there have been all these split contracts which do use up a spot.

I also believe this fills the 40 man

Yeah I think this is right, with Winkler probably being the next guy up if any of these guys have a tough spring.

He's probably the most fun of all these blah relievers, I got vaguely excited about him a few days ago when the Dodgers DFAd him. Not having MiLB kinda sucks though.

This is....this is the greatest thing I've ever seen