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Bertz

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Everything posted by Bertz

  1. Bertz
    So that....doesn't sound great. On the flip side Sharma wrote this yesterday in an article about all of the SP options the Cubs have in house in the wake of the Horton news. It's not impossible that was wrong or something happened in the 24 hours since but it feels like an injury would have come up in talking to folks for that article. Hopefully this is about the weather or maybe it's semantics and he's going to be the piggback for one of the doubleheader games tomorrow.
  2. Bertz
    I like Brown where he is for right now too. IMO his primary issue is between the ears. I think he's gotten snakebitten with BABIP enough times that when he faces some adversity he turns into the CJ "ah horsefeathers here we go again" guy. We saw it on Sunday where a cheap double and a walk and things started spinning too fast for him. I'd probably try and keep him in the role he's in for another ~month, then I'd keep him in long relief but try and push him into higher leverage (come into messy innings, close out a 1 run lead in the 7th, etc.) and then look to move him back towards the rotation.
  3. Bertz
    The only thing Giolito has on Rea at this point is name recognition. I'd take each of Brown/Assad/Wicks over him too. To 1908's point the fact that the Braves haven't signed him (down 3 SPs with a 4th looking pretty diminished) is as much of a tell as you can find.
  4. Bertz
    Depends on exactly how much he loses but yeah averageish. Caple threw 2 innings and 38 pitches in that breakout game, so in the same way I don't want to assume he can hold that for 5-6 innings I'd assume he can go a bit higher in pure short relief. 92 RHP threw 100 innings last year. The median velocity was 94.2. Will Sanders has lost about 1.5 MPH since being stretched out from his Breakout appearance. If you assume the exact same from Caple it'd put him at 94.1, just a smidge below average. If he loses closer to just 1 MPH he'd be a smidge above. Caple seemed to have good movement too, 17" of IVB. All told I'd assume a 55 grade fastball until someone tells me otherwise.
  5. Bertz
    His fastball averaged 95.6 during the spring breakout game. He probably loses some stretched all the way out but I'd still assume 94 and change.
  6. Bertz
    He hit a liner in the 8th too that pulled a little closer to the line would have been a double. Maybe he can get that ISO up into at least the 60s or 70s. The guy not only has more walks than strikeouts, he has more walks than swings and misses. Like even over just a week I've never seen anything like this?
  7. Bertz
    I'm a little torn between enjoying the domination and being a downer and noting that there's not really a good reason for Southisene and Mathis to still be there. But yeah the (hopefully brief) period where all these guys and Conrad are together is going to be like that Braves squad from a few years ago that just made every pitcher they faced want to cry.
  8. Bertz
    Just caught that Cole Mathis is finally playing 3B tonight. That's fun.
  9. Bertz
    Hartshorn is up to 8 BB's and 1 K. Honestly if those were flipped you'd correctly be like "look, the jump to full season ball is harder than ever." I don't even fully know how to contextualize this even with SSS caveats.
  10. Bertz
    🚨 Ty Southisene XBH Alert 🚨
  11. Bertz
    Who the hell is Eric Yang?? Is this going to be an every year thing where Iowa has some nobody catcher who is an RBI machine and I check like 11 run box scores all excited only to find out he's responsible for 8 of them? It was damn Carlos Perez last year.
  12. Bertz
    I think we've had this part of the conversation prior but on the spectrum of opinions I tend to be about 90% of the way towards "WAR is just WAR." There are probably some edge cases where like Nico Hoerner is your best hitter and the offense breaks down, but broadly I think 3ish good (120 wRC+) hitters and no dead weight in the lineup is just as viable as a more extreme stars and scrubs deal. I would also be worried about getting tunnel vision for a fearsome middle of the order bat. I think from a skill standpoint the difference between a Happ/Suzuki/Bregman 120 complimentary type bat and a 150+ guy you'd rightfully call a star is thin.
  13. Bertz
    Yeah Alcantara's nearing the Caissie "horsefeathers or get off the pot" deadline. I think you either move him in July or you, barring something unforeseen in August/September, need to commit to him getting one of Happ/Suzuki's spots handed to him on a platter going into '27. Broadly though yeah 100% aligned. We have five guys at or reasonably close to the majors with a lot of redundancy between them and realistically no more than 1500 at bats a year that can be allocated their way. You should probably plan on moving two of them by this time next year, and I'd plan on it being one of the big ones (Shaw/Rojas/Alcantara) and one of the smaller ones (Ramirez/Triantos).
  14. Bertz
    So I would say it's definitely not the most efficient use of resources. Moving guys up and down the defensive spectrum usually doesn't exactly cleanly align with the value of their respective position. Like if say Rojas is a -5 shortstop but a +5 LFer that's still half a win that went poof in the transition That said I think Shaw and Rojas each have a pretty reasonable chance at being bats you'd be happy to have starting in the outfield, even in a corner. So maybe there's some annoyance that you're not maxing out that guy's value, but a homegrown <25 year old outfielder that looks on track for 3+ WAR would be a gift horse we wouldn't want to spend too much time looking in it's mouth.
  15. Bertz
    Even with Hoerner/Bregman/Swanson locked up I think you can fit two of Shaw/Rojas/Ramirez/Triantos on the roster, especially if you make one of them a full time-ish outfielder. I think it'd be reasonable to cash Rojas in this summer or fall. That said given his timeline (probably wont reach AAA til around the deadline) and that his bat seems like it has the juice to be a corner outfielder, I think you don't go into the next few transaction cycles necessarily looking to spend him.
  16. Bertz
    Fun Fact: Jefferson Rojas is still 20 for a few more weeks
  17. Bertz
    I'm a long time vocal skeptic of Assad's strand rate voodoo but worth noting the last time he had velocity like this while fully stretched out was the back half of '23. He was actually pitching well then he just got lucky on top of good pitching.
  18. Bertz
    It's a little thing, but I'm a big fan of an 0/3 from Triantos coming in the form of three pulled fly balls
  19. Bertz
    Yeah and the 3rd time truly is a kiss of death. Daniel Hudson got a few years on his 3rd UCL and Jonny Venters got one? And I believe that's *it*. That said this stuff doesn't always have rhyme or reason. Adam Wainwright and Masahiro Tanaka each pitched for like a decade with their UCLs hanging by a thread. Nate Eovaldi had both his TJs by 27 and has had one of the best after 30 pitching careers of the last decade. But yeah, realistically revise your expectations for Cade way down.
  20. Bertz
    Two blown UCLs isn't quite the kiss of death it was 10 or even 5 years ago, but it's pretty damn bad. I think you can count on your fingers and toes still the guys who've come all the way back as SPs, and even most of them are pretty diminished (Taillon’s a good example).
  21. Bertz
    Wow. Curious if this is because he's old and they feel the need to push him or because he's looked good enough this spring to warrant it.
  22. Bertz

    Boyd to DL

    Bertz replied to Neuby's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk

    Good news at least is bicep is not usually a precursor for something worse like a forearm. Bad news is eyeballing some prior examples this looks like it takes him out a month to a month and a half.
  23. Bertz
    I'm not totally sure I agree with the premise, but setting that aside Patrick Wisdom’s bat with Alcantara's speed and defense is a ~4 WAR player
  24. Bertz
    I kind of wonder if they're doing the "give this guy some run to make absolutely sure he's cooked" thing with Conforto knowing Seiya's no more than a few days out and they'll need to cut someone.
  25. Bertz
    I probably would have gone Roberts too, but I'm guessing it's Martin because A) they want someone besides Brown who can give them length and B) the next xouple teams on the schedule have lineups vulnerable to LHP.
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