Bertz

Wait wait wait, Cam Sanders can touch 98? I thought he was just some generic dude. The numbers still leave a lot to be desired but good to know that there's something there worth paying attention to.

More pitchers need to be pushed onto the reliever track IMO. I think the best outcomes for Lange and Little at this point are becoming relievers, and seeing if their stuff/command improves in shorter outings. Underwood looked okay at times last year, but the command may never be good enough even as a reliever. The pitching depth is definitely improved, but it's mostly #4 or #5 starter stuff and potential and low-leverage reliever roles for this group. We don't have the high upside stuff of those pitchers in the Braves' system (with Marquez and Thompson being the exceptions). If after the past few years of focus on pitching via the draft, the farm system can only yield a crop of #4 or #5 at best pitching prospects - who’s head should roll besides McLeod’s? This can’t be their desired outcome. A few things on McLeod: 1. As unpredictable as pitchers are, most frontline guys are still taken in the top ~50 picks, and the Cubs have really only had four pitchers taken that high in the McLeod era: Pierce Johnson, Little, Lange, and Jensen. The Braves, in contrast, had 6 such guys just from 2015-2017. So while other teams have bigger/better stockpiles, they've also expended far more resources in building those stockpiles. 2. There's an argument that the team has fixed this problem already. The 2016-2018 drafts have produced most of the good names in that list. In particular, the 2018 draft with Kohl Franklin and Riley Thompson, is very exciting IMO. 3. I used this metaphor during the offseason but even if you think McLeod is and always will be ass at drafting and developing pitchers, there's a good argument that canning him would be "throwing out the baby with the bathwater" given his ability to find and develop bats. As much as I'd love a better hitter/pitcher balance, at the end of the day it's more important that the farm is good rather than balanced.

More pitchers need to be pushed onto the reliever track IMO. I think the best outcomes for Lange and Little at this point are becoming relievers, and seeing if their stuff/command improves in shorter outings. Underwood looked okay at times last year, but the command may never be good enough even as a reliever. The pitching depth is definitely improved, but it's mostly #4 or #5 starter stuff and potential and low-leverage reliever roles for this group. We don't have the high upside stuff of those pitchers in the Braves' system (with Marquez and Thompson being the exceptions). I could not disagree more. Pitchers are lottery tickets, today more than ever. Making a guy a reliever significantly lowers the potential payout on any of those tickets. You do eventually hit the point with most guys where you have to change tracks, but generally it's due to health or 40 man implications. Little and Lange are 22 and 23 respectively, and aren't Rule 5 eligible until December of 2020. There's no reason to convert either right now except an overreaction to their draft positions IMO.

While it's not exactly the Braves of the past couple years, this is really good. It's also over the last month pushed Underwood and De La Cruz into multi inning reliever roles, where early returns have been strong.

Yeah I'm a bit worried about this too, since he gets so few groundballs. That being said he's running a 26.1% popup rate, which is absurd and should insulate him a good bit more than a typical guy running a crummy groundball rate.

I really would have preferred Schwarber to go the other way there

This is good to see, especially because PFF's grades HATE Trubisky so that's a testament to how much they like the rest of the roster.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/ITYSL/status/1128884357404532736[/tweet]

Annnnndddddd add a triple

Cole Roederer looks to be figuring out the Midwest league. 4/4 with two doubles and a dong today, 3/5 with two doubles Sunday, and 2/4 with a double Saturday

https://twitter.com/LenKasper/status/1143627819366473729?s=19

Please don't. Power is particularly streaky, and we can feel pretty safe saying at this point that last year's injury didn't acrually mangle his shoulder. He'll hit four in a week at some point soon and everything will look fine again.

The Braves bullpen has thrown a lot of innings the last several days. If they can chase Teheran early today that would really pay dividends for the rest of the series.

They'll get something nice, probably a higher minimum wage, otherwise it's gonna be a blood bath

Going back to back is usually the last step. I'd imagine he will join the team during the Braves series

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I know it is just a few innings...... Now the question is.....does Q have any trade value and would you try and get something for him and keep Adbert up for the rest of the year? Yikes

I feel like I'm the only one actually looking at Eloy's performances in pro ball right now rather than going with some generalization of. He's been that! And? Schwarber was an incredible hitter in the minors too, and has been merely pretty good as a major leaguer. Simply put that's the likely outcome for all but the most tippity top of minor league hitters. Hitting well in the minors portends success, but there's practically nothing you can do in the minors that makes the >150 OPS+ it takes to be a star with Eloy's defense a median outcome. Hell Vlad Jr, probably the best minor league hitter of the past 10-15 years, never projected to crack the five win mark coming into this year. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/fangraphs-projections-forecast-elite-numbers-vladimir-guerrero-jr/sn-amp/ And while Eloy was a very good minor league hitter, he was a tier or three below Vladito.

Oh, you're almost definitely under selling it and not by a small amount. No clue what it translate to in WAR but he looks like a guy who will hit for high average and top of the league kind of power without striking out crazy amounts once settled in. The only hole in his offensive game is his walk rates being low, and he's shown the potential to reach 10% in the minors. If there's ML ready MiL players with JD Martinez potential as a DH, Eloy should be on the [very] short list Yeah that’s fine and cool, it’s still a crazy bar he has to reach (given his limitations) to be overly valuable with not much margin for error. For example in 2017, Nelson Cruz hit .288/.379/.549 with 39 HRs, he was only worth 3.9 WAR, same year Corey Dickerson hit .282/.325/.490 with almost 30 HRs and was worth 2.6 WAR. You have to REALLY hit as a DH to be worth a lot and even if you do REALLY hit you still most likely aren’t worth that much. Adding onto this, the last horsefeathers glove corner outfielder to be a real MVP consideration is probably Jose Bautista? Like you have to be an absolutely incredible hitter to be *THAT* valuable when your defensive value is so limited.

This makes a lot of sense. I also wonder if the Alzolay and Kimbrel roster moves will coordinate. Kimbrel will probably be ready next weekend. Call up Alzolay and make whatever reliever roster move late next week, and then the day after Adbert's start send him down and call up Kimbrel. When Kyle's ready a week or two later, call Alzolay up and then option him back down when you activate Kyle.

Agreed. If he does see A+, it’s probably a cup of coffee. Yeah, even if he keeps up what he's been doing so far I wouldn't want him up at MB before August. A few years later than we wanted but it's really getting so that you can see the "wave after wave" of pitching. Every affiliate except MB has at least one very exciting guy, and every affiliate has several arms to like. I think this is the best the minor league pitching has been since like ~2010 when Cashner, Archer, McNutt, and Jay Jackson were all in the system at once.

I think that's because of how bad the week before (@Astros and @Cards) was too. This was the hardest stretch of the schedule by far and they survived it. We're going to go into the off day within a game of first, with ~60% of the schedule remaining and nearly all of the tough out of division games out of the way already. If Carl & Kyle aren't dead we're sitting pretty right now.

Yu's last seven starts: 42.2 IP 35 H 12 BB 47 Ks 5 HRs 4.01 ERA 3.81 FIP 3.62 xFIP And this span includes @Dodgers, @Rockies, the Phillies, and that Cincy game where the wind was HOWLING out (and Joe tried to get an 8th inning out of him like a dummy), so it's not some soft schedule mirage. We're another good start or two from me convincing myself that he's fixed and his bad start to the year was just rust or the weird way his ST ended or something.

Holy cow...I think he's ready. Yeah, I'd think about giving him a spot start next week. The main rotation could probably use the extra off day. Although maybe they wait until Kimbrel's ready to make the roster moves easier?