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Bertz

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Everything posted by Bertz

  1. Bertz
    I hope Alcantara starts tonight. I'd love for him to start at least 5-6 of these last several games.
  2. Bertz
    "You know if you set aside the things he's good at he's pretty bad actually"
  3. Bertz
    At this point his option definitely gets picked up, yeah? We know Jed's favorite free agent reliever is "the best guy I can find willing to take a one year deal", and I'd be shocked if there ends up being something better than Kittredge at 1/9. Plus, I think there's a lot of value to having a trio like Palencia/Kittredge/Hodge locked in before FA opens. Allows you to hunt for deals a la Thielbar, but also doesn't preclude you from going big game hunting on like a Helsley.
  4. Bertz
    A collection of players Dansby Swanson is out-WARing since signing with the Cubs Xander Bogaerts Carlos Correa Bryce Harper Elly de la Cruz Alex Bregman Manny Machado Vlad Jr Rafael Devers Kyle Schwarber
  5. Bertz
    I wonder if the celebration being middle of the day allowed everyone sufficient recovery time
  6. Bertz

    Playoff Talk

    Bertz replied to mk49's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk

    Thinking about the bench, there's a lot of interesting decisions: - Castro, one of Santana/Turner, and one of Amaya/McGuire are absolute locks - Do you carry 4 or 5 bench players (corollary to 'Do you carry 12 or 13 pitchers')? - Has Santana shown anything to leapfrog Turner? I'd think not? - Is there enough time for Amaya to leapfrog McGuire? I'd lean no but it's a lot closer - Do you carry a 3rd catcher? I'd think not given that Kelly doesn't have crazy splits, but it's worth asking - Do you carry Billy Hamilton as a designated runner? He's 3/4 in SBs at Iowa, but no idea how he grades out beyond that? - Feels like Ballesteros as the big lefty bat off the makes a lot of sense?
  7. Bertz

    Playoff Talk

    Bertz replied to mk49's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk

    via the Athletic The worry seems to be less "will he be available" and more "can we get him back in time to not have any rust"
  8. Bertz
    Could be. Anecdotally it feels like he's not executing that backdoor curveball to righties nearly as often. But yeah famous last words declaring a pitcher healthy, but I don't see anything off with him. He's been struggling since 8/19, here are his pre-post numbers across a bunch of metrics Fastball Velo - 93.3 / 93.3 In Zone Rate - 57.1 / 57.4 Chase Rate - 29.7 / 23.7 First Strike Rate - 69.2 / 63.6 (heavily skewed by yesterday, was 67% before that) Zone Contact Rate - 85.1 / 85.0 Vertical Release Point - 5.49 / 5.52 Horizontal Release Point - 2.29 / 2.23 Extension - 6.4 / 6.4 Arm Angle - 25.2 / 25.4 Remarkably consistent aside from the chase numbers and the 1st strike numbers (which are probably due to the chase numbers). Hitters have basically gone from chasing as much as Heliot Ramos to chasing as little as Michael Busch. That's the issue, but I can't figure out what's causing that. My suspicions would generally be sequencing or tipping.
  9. Bertz
    There's nothing that looks off physically. He's not drawing as much chase for whatever reason, but there's not even a whiff of anything in his profile that would indicate anything wrong physically. Hell even results wise he's throwing strikes still and his swing and miss are fine, which again are the things you'd see if he was diminished. He's getting hit harder and drawing less chase. I'd guess some of that is luck, and some of that is interrelated to whatever his issue is (my guess is sequencing).
  10. Bertz
    I understand if they don't want to do it until HFA is clinched, but I'd like to see Mo get a game or two behind the plate in this last week and a half here. I'd also like to play Alcantara damn near every day. Hell the team should be getting a HEAVY dose of rest here to end things so just rotate him through each OF spot every day.
  11. Bertz
    Eww let's not
  12. Bertz
    Yeah what Cade's doing isn't particularly close to what Arrieta did. Which that's totally fine, that's about as high a bar as you can find, but let's be real.
  13. Bertz
    It doesn't seem super likely we'll need those games next weekend against the Cardinals, but with Contreras and Winn out and Gray being lined up to miss us they should be *very* winnable.
  14. Bertz
    I wonder if this continues if he can DH. It sounds like he's hitting still, it's just running that's the problem. If we run out of clock can he just hit and jog out any balls in play Aramis Ramirez style?
  15. Bertz
    I know I'm generally the "well akshually this starter is pretty solid" guy but Oviedo is the opposite. He sucks, go beat him and enjoy some early afternoon champagne.
  16. Bertz
    Adding Laureano helped balance things, but all things equal you'd much rather throw lefties at the Padres. Don't overthink it, go Boyd/Imanaga and then Horton. If the Brewers are indeed the DS opponent I feel pretty comfortable with Taillon in game 1. Fangraphs wrote an article last week that I thought did a really interesting job of laying out how the Milwaukee offense is so successful https://blogs.fangraphs.com/what-will-the-brewers-do-if-theres-no-meatwaste/ Among our starters, Taillon is the lowest Meatwaste guy (which I think checks out intuitively) https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfPT=&hfAB=&hfGT=R|&hfPR=&hfZ=&hfStadium=&hfBBL=&hfNewZones=5|31|32|33|34|36|37|38|39|&hfPull=&hfC=&hfSea=2025|&hfSit=&player_type=pitcher&hfOuts=&hfOpponent=&pitcher_throws=&batter_stands=&hfSA=&game_date_gt=&game_date_lt=&hfMo=&hfTeam=112|&home_road=&hfRO=&position=&hfInfield=&hfOutfield=&hfInn=&hfBBT=&hfFlag=&metric_1=&group_by=name&min_pitches=0&min_results=0&min_pas=0&sort_col=pitches&player_event_sort=api_p_release_speed&sort_order=desc#results The Phillies are a little tougher. Taillon seems like red meat for Schwarber and Harper. I'd be tempted to try and float one of the lefties through to start game 1, but that's probably playing with fire.
  17. Bertz
    So we can't clinch tonight because there are some insanely unlikely but technically plausible 3 way tie scenarios with us, the Mets, and the Dbacks? Do I have that right?
  18. Bertz
    This is hilarious. Looks like Statcast backs it up too. Amazing.
  19. Bertz
    I'm not enough of a pitch design guy to elucidate it properly, but the Cubs made some changes to Soroka's fastball while he was on the IL, and PitchingBot on Fangraphs LOVES them. Pitchingbot grades all pitches on the 20-80 scale. Prior to yesterday Soroka's fastball had a 52 grade, and his overall stuff a 43. Yesterday his fastball had a grade of 68, and his overall stuff a 58. Both scores are 10 points higher than any other individual game from him this year. This isn't just the velo bump from moving to the bullpen either. Soroka's fastball sat 95.0 yesterday, his highest of the season, but he's got several games just below that mark, including a 94.9 back in May.
  20. Bertz
    I would say broadly the better a team is the shorter a series you want to see them in. So I think we should be rooting for the Phillies in the DS and the Brewers in the CS.
  21. Bertz
    Pedro Ramirez feels way too advanced to be there. He must just like the food or vibes in Mesa.
  22. Bertz
    I had no idea AZ had gotten so firmly back into the Wildcard mix. That's awesome news, they're playing SF right now and play SD next week. These games mattering makes it far more likely they play tough.
  23. Bertz
    I honestly think for both Wicks and Brown its simply confidence. I firmly believe if we could loan them to the Marlins for a month or two, assure them "you're a major league starter and no one's going to take that away from you" they'd both come back as mid rotation starters or better. I think you can afford to carry one as a long guy on next year's team and have that opportunity to pitch in low leverage until they get their confidence up. But not both. It sucks, but I suspect one of them will be with another org next year and it won't even take until the All Star Break for us to be salty about it.
  24. Bertz
    Tucker news isn't as positive. I'd be surprised if he's back this week.
  25. Bertz
    Jordan Wicks has a 3.30 ERA with peripherals to match in a league where the league average is ~4.80. He's totally going to get moved somewhere where he has some actual runway to fail at the MLB level and make us regret it.
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