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Bertz

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Everything posted by Bertz

  1. Bertz
    Whether it's the lingering knee injury or being 35, Rodgers has been decidedly mediocre this year. Now that obviously won't keep up, but if he's more Pro Bowl-y than MVP-y going forward, I don't think the team around him is good enough for them to make the playoffs.
  2. Bertz
    Desmond was never good at SS and hasn’t played meaningful innings there in 3 years and he’s been a negative WAR player 2 straight years. Bote is a better backup SS option than him. That's fair (also, I forgot his year in Texas so I thought he'd been a SS more recently). I'm a little bullish on him, but overall it's more of an accounting exercise than a trade, much like the Dodgers/Braves deal last year. Some money needs to be shifted around if we want to do anything in addition to Bryce this winter.
  3. Bertz
    Speaking of the Rockies, Ian Desmond is an option I like in a bad contract swap. He would fill our backup SS role. and is still useful against lefties. More relevantly. he's due $40 million the next three years, with a cap hit of $14m per year. Chatwood, Duensing, and Kintzler are due 34 over the next two, including a cap hit of $21.1 this year. That cap space would be hugely valuable this winter, especially if the Rockies send along a little extra money to balance out the total outlays.
  4. Bertz
    The difference is talent. I think Theo sees himself as the good guy. He pulled the trigger on Chapman because when push comes to shove he's more competitive than altruistic, but with Russell even without all the baggage he'd be a pretty marginal asset. It shouldn't matter, but it clearly does. I could also see him doing the right thing on this one in an explicit effort to try and make up for Chapman.
  5. Bertz
    Looks like Mathis(1), Grandal(2), and Maldonado(8). Austin Hedges(10), could probably be had in trade without it being painful. Also. I find it funny that Alex Avila is on the positive side of the ledger, after being horrific last year. I think this stuff is generally directionally correct, but IMO the magnitude is probably ~half of what the numbers say.
  6. Bertz
    You only usually go down if you suffer a catastrophic injury that will almost definitely keep you out the entire upcoming year. And even then I don't think you can go below 80% of what you've made previously. Most guys. even after a down year, still get a healthy raise. I'd still expect KB to get ~15 million.
  7. Bertz
    Hamels is pretty comfortably worth 1/20. IMO, but I don't expect him back. The team's payroll situation is too tight currently, and picking it up and trying to flip him could be too problematic for what would likely only be a moderate reward. I expect one of Harper/Machado, and then a trade of Schwarber or Happ to net some pitching and/or payroll flexibility. If they swing and miss on the two big guys, I see a belt tightening kind of winter, where they try and improve the team's payroll situation going forward while only adding low cost/short commitment types to the big league club.
  8. Bertz
    https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/playoffodds Bears now clear favorites to win the division, and nearly 80% to make the playoffs. DAVE, which at this point is I believe a 50/50 blend of how they were projected coming into the year and how they've played so far, has them as the third best team in the NFC (way behind the Rams, slightly behind the Saints, and slightly ahead of the Packers).
  9. Bertz
    There's also his 17 rushes for 117 yards, which would pace to 68/468. Mitch still looked a bit shakey at the start of the game, but basically was prime Aaron Rodgers after that first TD. I'm hoping that pass got the monkey off his back, restored his confidence and he's good to go from here on. Also, the line was amazing today, I hope they get their due credit.
  10. Bertz
    There's lots money to be made from always betting against rmack being right.
  11. Bertz
    I'd guess Escobar and one of the higher end relievers. And probably try to do something creative to help our longer term cap situation. Similar to the Dodgers/Braves trade last winter. One interesting possibility is Grandal. I love Willson, and don't totally believe this, but there's an argument to be made that our pitching staff's issues (aside from Chatwood obviously) fall in his lap. Signing Grandal and using Willson in trade to plug another hole might be shrewd. It's obviously not as extreme but a lot of the things that make us say "horsefeathers pitchers" apply to catchers as well, so I'm not super nervous about getting a little older at the position.
  12. Bertz
    It's definitely not the second half thing. People were complaining just as much in April/May/June. Remember "vaunted run differential?" I think it's about 60% people being spoiled, 30% the Brewers not letting up, and 10% the offense/pitching rarely being good at the same time.
  13. Bertz
    Bears are ever so slight favorites to win the division already. https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/playoffodds Odds probably go up another smidge with Tampa's loss last night. I'm torn on Mitch. On the one hand I was very high on him coming into the year, and I'm reticent to change my mind on anyone after three games. On the other hand he's been pretty bad all around. Given his age I'd be okay with a few inaccurate passes (like the underthrown INT in the SEA game) coupled with good decision making, or a few poor decisions (like the should have been pick 12 in the Seahawks game) paired with good accuracy, but fairing poor in both respects is scary. That being said, unless they're a superstar or a total bust I don't think you really know what you've got in a QB until threeish years in. There is also the complication of working in a new system/playbook. His performance probably won't move the needle much for me good or bad for at least another month or so.
  14. Bertz
    Weird that Dave Kaplan is sensitive to criticism of a man who was terrible at his job, actively avoided learning how the game works to make himself better, and whose only case for sticking around seemed to be corporate politics and inertia.
  15. Bertz
    Nobody is good, everyone is just varying degrees of bad I think the Rams are actually good, but yeah basically this.
  16. Bertz
    Yeah the money is hard to make work. They basically have to trade Chatwood (or Heyward?). I think there's a better chance than we all think of them exercising the option and then trading him. The only reason they didn't do it with Hammel a few years ago was some gentleman's agreement when the contract was initially signed (and the surplus value was likely nominal).
  17. Bertz
    Yeah, I suppose it's some level of progress that there's the level of outrage about these things now that there is. Did we know Bradley was a DV offender when he played? It was my understanding that stuff came out after he was done. Of course, we already knew he was an horsefeathers. This is my memory too. I don't think anything more specific than he was a jerk and a hot head came out until after his Cubs tenure. Though considering how the media treated him from day 1 (Paul Sullivan talked a ton of horsefeathers during the very first televised ST game that year), they probably had a pretty decent idea. This sucks about Russell. This was always what was most likely, but all we really knew for sure was that he was a cheater. Now that Melissa has come out and said these things, there's no ambiguity. Send him home today. Non tender him in November. Don't drag this whole saga put in the hopes of netting some B- prospect.
  18. Bertz
    Yeah the Braves have no one except Freeman and Inciarte signed past next year. So while they don't have as much money as the bigger market teams, they're much better positioned to do something crazy like 5/250. The Phillies are in a similar boat, they only have Santana and Arrieta on the books long term and they've shown they can run a $200 million payroll when they're competitive. The Cubs should be the favorites to sign Bryce, but the Braves, Phillies, Yankees, and maybe Dodgers all have a lot of money to burn this winter. Thankfully, the latter three are all likely more focused on Machado, but except for the Yankeea I don't think we can count any of them out on Bryce. Houston's kind of an interesting dark horse. They likely need to focus their money on retaining/replacing Keuchel and Morton (and prepping for Verlander and Cole to hit FA the year after) but they could potentially pivot to just building a "horsefeathers you" offense and worrying about the pitching later.
  19. Bertz
  20. Bertz
    If the Cubs win tonight I wouldn't mind Joe sending out one of those Dusty style forfeit lineups tomorrow. Give all the important guys two days off with the offday.
  21. Bertz
    I'm assuming they would have gotten something done with Amos if not for the Mack move, but now they'll have to do it next offseason. It should be fine, it looks like the Bears have ~20 million to play with (Spotrac says 30.1, but that's not updated for Goldman yet), and that's before any cuts to guys like Dion Sims.
  22. Bertz
    This is my guess too. They'll try like hell to get two games in this weekend, and if they can manage that they'll let the third one go unless it ends up being needed. I'm actually not even sure they can play a game this Thursday. I think in the CBA there's a max number of days teams can go without an off day and it's right around 25. Unless a rainout counts as an off day (which would be dumb since they still have to come to the park and everything) that'd rule out this Thursday.
  23. Bertz
    I feel pretty good about this game, even though objectively it's probably the toughest one on the schedule. The first 3-4 weeks of the year are generally the most prone to weird stuff happening, especially the last several years since the amount of practice time teams have during training camp has been limited. A game that in November would be a 70/30 affair is probably closer to 60/40 in September. Beyond that, we have the Nagy factor. We know his offense is going to have a lot of unique and interesting looks. I could see the offense being pretty monstrous early this year, even if we ultimately look back on it as a flash in the pan. On the flip side, Smith, Floyd, and Mack are probably not going to be at 100% effectiveness this week, which really sucks since I'm sure Rodgers is going to come out in full terminator mode after missing so much time last year.
  24. Bertz
    OHHHHHH MYYYYYY HORSEFEATHERS!!!!
  25. Bertz
    I think you're wish casting here. Stafford's perfectly fine in the clutch https://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/ranking-matthew-stafford-s-eight-fourth-quarter-comebacks-in-2016-020117 And I'd bet Cousins would do similarly given the same situations. I'd guess that, much like in baseball, clutch in football is just talent meeting opportunity with a splash of luck. So you're going to use an article about Stafford's one playoff season where he's team won 9 games while Stafford put up 24 TD / 10 Int and lost in the wild card round for your example about why he's good in the clutch? And he was losing at some point in 8 of those 9 wins? I didn't read the article, so maybe there's something that would convince me that Stafford makes the playoffs again at some point in his career, but probably not. And obviously, we're just going to have to disagree on the impact of QB performance in the 4th quarter. I really do not care enough about this meatball opinion you have to go back and forth. I just think it's funny that you're going on and on and on about how Stafford is "not a winner" and how good quarterbacks get it done in the fourth quarter and Stafford doesn't when he literally won 8 games in one year via fourth quarter heroics.
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