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Bertz

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Everything posted by Bertz

  1. Bertz
    This is underselling his approach. He's cut his Ks again, walks a ton, and is hitting with more power...Without looking at anything else those are breakout ingredients If this last month+ is a real breakout, then absolutely. More likely though is it's just a nice hot streak. He's cut his K rate to 25% this year, which is great, but if homeruns continue to be as cheap in 2020 as they have been in 2019, at 25% his offensive ceiling is still limited to like a 120 wrc+. That's certainly nothing to complain about, but from a left fielder with his defense that's merely a solid regular.
  2. Bertz
    I think for me the Schwarber question is really a juiced ball question. If you think the 2019 ball is the new normal, that makes his prodigious power much less valuable and he simply doesn't do enough other stuff to make him more than an average player. And that comes with some pretty annoying limitations like his defensive range and his trouble with lefties. But if you think we're going to go back to the no-juice 2014 ball, or more likely the 2018 sort-of-juiced ball, I think his power will take less of a hit than 99% of guys and his value rises commensurately.
  3. Bertz
    They also didn't have Chris Morel in their recent top 30, which is ludicrous. They obviously fell off a lot when Jim Callis left, since he's basically the Mike Trout of minor league stuff. But I feel like they've fallen off even more the last year or three. I tend to think it's because they try to put out way more content than they used to to in order to compete with as MLB.com or Fangraphs, but since they still have a pretty small team it has led to a lot more sloppiness. They've also lost Jim Manuel and Aaron Fitt (college baseball) in recent years, who are really good. Good call. Manuel especially touched a lot of the rankings and the handbook.
  4. Bertz
    I feel like BA has a lot more oversights the past few years Hmmn... Omitting Amaya ... maybe that's why they had us with the 29th overall farm system recently ... They also didn't have Chris Morel in their recent top 30, which is ludicrous. They obviously fell off a lot when Jim Callis left, since he's basically the Mike Trout of minor league stuff. But I feel like they've fallen off even more the last year or three. I tend to think it's because they try to put out way more content than they used to to in order to compete with as MLB.com or Fangraphs, but since they still have a pretty small team it has led to a lot more sloppiness.
  5. Bertz
    No Amaya?? Since I think Amaya is the Cubs best prospect, I definitely think that's an oversight on BA's part. I feel like BA has a lot more oversights the past few years
  6. Bertz
  7. Bertz
    Figured this was coming as they moved around some cap hits the other week. Yeah this was expected, but good to see pen to paper. I thought I read they had $20+ million free, so I'm curious where the rest of that money is going (or maybe this deal is just crazy front-loaded?)
  8. Bertz
    Nelson Velazquez has quietly been awesome since coming off the IL. .291/.355/.504, with a 9.2% BB rate and a 24.8% K rate. K's are obviously still a little high, but overall really good stuff from a toolsy 20 year old in the Midwest league. Myrtle Beach is going to be horsefeathering fun next year
  9. Bertz
  10. Bertz
    Thankfully the Cards did not get off that easy
  11. Bertz
    Are we doing magic number posts, or is it bad form to do one when you're not in first place? Because we are at a fun one: http://www.trbimg.com/img-5b943f48/turbine/ct-xpm-2014-01-11-ct-greg-maddux-sullivan-spt-0112-20140112
  12. Bertz
    Even at the worst points I've been a big proponent that we were right to trade them, but not for Quintana. Really glad Q's rebounded from last year and let me drop the 'but.' Really happy with what Phelps has done since coming over. Hopefully we can get Cishek righted, and I'll begin feel good about the bullpen. 7th - Phelps 8th - Wick 9th - Kimbrel With Ryan and Cishek able to be slotted in for opportune matchups. That's plenty good enough to get the job done.
  13. Bertz
    Three of the four have Castillo, Bauer, and Gray. A split would be great. Yeah things actually set up pretty well for the Reds to do some damage this weekend, they have the SP advantage in all four games since Flaherty won't be going. I think I'm hoping for the Cards to go 4-4 or worse over their next two series. Their September schedule is pretty tough, so as long as they don't feast over the rest of this homestand and put a few more games between us and them, I feel good about catching them.
  14. Bertz
    Yeah, but you're stuck with Rendon for his age 30-40 seasons lol Exactly, that's the tradeoff. Kris is still very valuable because even though he's expected to make ~45M the next two years, we're still in the year to year phase with him. If he screws up his shoulder, or gets fat, or forgets how to hit, or whatever, we can cut bait for two more years By doing the Rendon swap, you're locking in two years earlier than you had to, and that's a very real cost. So I'm totally with TT to the extent that I'm not doing this for some "spread the money around" horsefeathers. You get another star, and then use the Kris trade to surround that guy with a stronger cast of reinforcements. You don't trade Kris to make room for Castellanos and a reliever or something.
  15. Bertz
    Yeah I think it works if you bring in another star. Rendon is the most obvious, but there's a million permutations. For example, you could sign Rendon for 10/250ish and trade Kris to the Rays for Austin Meadows and Brendan McKay. You're comparable at 3b while only getting ~5M more expensive, and used Kris' trade value to address two trouble spots of the 2020 roster in CF and #5 starter. Also, because of the presence of guys like Bote and Happ with positional flexibility, and also given that you can ask for the world for Kris, you're not locked into a specific Kris replacement like Rendon. You could just as easily sign Cole and send Kris to the Braves or Twins for outfielder help for example. It's a really smart idea IMO, though I understand how tough it is to pull off in the real world.
  16. Bertz
    I follow the minors pretty closely and if you had asked me 10 minutes ago who Jordan Minch is I would have said "oh yeah that's one of the Cespedes BBQ kids." Really glad that Thompson is healthy enough to make it though.
  17. Bertz
    It's really surpring to me that he's only the 30th best pitcher in terms of fWAR in that stretch, at 1.1. Quintana is 13th at 1.7. Verlander is the one that is most confusing. I get all the home runs, but look at these two lines. Darvish: 62 IP, 11.32 K/9, 0.44 BB/9, 1.89 HR/9, .246 BABIP, 44.2% GB%, 23.6% HR/FB, 3.19/3.85/2.89 1.1 fWAR Verlander: 64.1 IP, 13.4 K/93, 1.12 BB/9, 1.40 HR/9, .268 BABIP, 32.9% GB%, 14.9% HR/FB, 2.38/2.71/2.76, 2.3 fWAR Verlander is better, but over twice as good? It's 1000% the dongs. fWAR is basically FIP times batters faced times some constant. By xFIP, Yu's basically as good as ever right now, but by FIP he's still fairly middling because of the dongs. I generally am a big xFIP guy unless a guy has years of over/underperforming it, but Yu's doing weird enough stuff right now that I'm not super confident in that belief.
  18. Bertz
    Clearing your cookies/cached data might work. I do. It comes back. I don’t know the source unless it’s clicking on some asshat’s tweets when someone is making fun of them. If it keeps coming back then they are actually meaning to target you. You've probably clicked on enough conservative things out of morbid curiosity that Google thinks you're actually conservative (or you share an IP with a staunch conservative?). Go to your Ad Settings in your Google account and remove anything related to conservative politics. That ought to do the trick, though it might take a few weeks.
  19. Bertz
    While I think you're mostly right the window is more like three years: last year/this year/next year. After year 4 for a young QB is generally when the honeymoon is over. If he's good that's when you have to start paying him, if he's not good that's when you can feel pretty confident he's not going to get any better. Plus on the defensive side, our team control on Jackson and Floyd runs through next year.
  20. Bertz
    Graveman was a guy I really wanted prior to the 2018 season. Obviously you worry about any guy coming off of TJ, especially when they weren't exactly a star prior, but I agree I love him as depth.
  21. Bertz
    The only good argument for this terrible signing. Assuming Morrow isn't also an avid Trump supporter IIRC Morrow is pretty vocally liberal. It's basically him and Sean Doolittle.
  22. Bertz
    This is not a comp but purely a discussion of aesthetics, but that looks very Bellinger-y
  23. Bertz
    McCutchen is probably the best comp except for the age component. That probably gets him to something like the 4/62 Jersey threw out there. While I'm hesitant to look at anything regarding payroll optimistically, they should have enough flexibility to do a deal like that and make a few moves for the pen even if payroll only increases modestly.
  24. Bertz
    Morrow was a legit Kimbrel/Jansen/Chapman style super-reliever in 2017, and passed the eye test too. It sucks it worked out this way, but the high risk of this happening is why he got ~$25 million instead of ~$75 million.
  25. Bertz
    I know baseball loves to cut its nose to spite its face in the international department, but is there really concern that there's going to be less than a year of lead time between an International draft being announced and implemented?
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