Bertz
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Everything posted by Bertz
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Interesting. Curious to see what they've got lined up for him besides the obvious focus on velo.
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Looks like he was 93.5 in the first inning and 92.2 in the second. That first inning is about as hard as we've ever seen him throw, the second was way better than his 2025 but right in line with his 2024 averages (maybe a smidge on the higher side). So good news overall, it's more of just a question of how good.
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👀 Shota's fastball was 93.5 during the first inning today. He threw four fastballs harder than any fastball he threw last year
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Holy hell this is the 3rd Braves pitcher to have their arm explode this spring and it's not even March
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Yeah I'd say so. I can't quite get to Eno's numbers but the Statcast searching I am doing says Steele's in between the two, and closer to Shota than Boyd. Steele throws fewer of his fastballs up than either guy, but it's balanced out by throwing more fastballs.
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https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7064417/2026/02/24/mlb-abs-system-challenges-pitcher-benefits/ Eno Sarris theorizes that pitchers who live on the top of the zone will get the most love from ABS. Cubs have two of the top guys in Shota and Boyd.
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Plopping this here since there was some discourse about it over the offseason. tl;dr is teams are paying about $10.5M per win, but there's a big split between role players ($6-7M) and good players ($12+)
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Helloooo, Ben Brown Sinker
Bertz replied to Matthew Trueblood's topic in North Side Baseball Front Page News
Sahadev Sharma let the cat out of the bag with this sinker a few days ago: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7053313/2026/02/18/a-look-at-what-three-pitchers-are-working-on-as-the-cubs-build-rotation-depth/ One of the things that stuck out to me from that was this It's interesting to come back to this after seeing the details you pulled on the pitch. This is not what I was thinking when I initially read "sinker," but if the goal is to make life miserable against righties you see why this is what they settled on. Like you said it seems like it will make a damn good lane changer. I'll be curious to see what Brown does against a more balanced lineup. Does the sinker get play against lefties? Does the changeup usage get much higher than last year? The quote above makes it sound like the changes might be more incremental vs the other side of the plate. -
Fangraphs in their Top 100 prospects list writeup a few weeks ago noted that Rojas hadnt performed well against velocity. So I'm maybe more impressed that it came off a 96 MPH fastball than I am that he hit it 413 feet.
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🚨 Ty Southisene hit a ball 106 Not especially impressive broadly but for a guy who showed deadball era type power last year that catches my eye.
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I wonder if he was more amped to throw them so they had more juice? Also worth noting it doesn't have a ton of sink. More of a running fastball than a sinker.
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Threw the data in excel and yeah looks like it's two distinct pitches. 2 Seamer?: 10 pitches, 97.4 MPH, 11.8 inch vert, 14.7 inch horizontal 4 seamer: 8 pitches, 96.6 MPH, 15 inch vert, 7.0 inch horizontal The 4 is pretty close to what he threw last year
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If you look though there's two bands of movement. Vertical's a little all over the place but horizontal there's a bunch of stuff at 6-8 and a bunch at 13+ and little in between.
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Brown threw 0 changeups that outing, but it looks like he might have been mixing in the sinker.
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Seiya's playing a good bit if CF this spring and in the WBC, I'd guess we see Shaw out there too. My understanding is CF is the easiest spot on the diamon if you have the requisite athleticism. That last bench spot goes to Carlson or Conforto IMO. How each guy looks this spring obviously plays into it but to your point I'd guess Carlson likely gets an added boost to his chances if neither of Seiya/Shaw look decent out there.
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They have Shelby Miller's spot to play with. Plus Dean's spot on the 40 man should be pretty tenuous.
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The team doesn't really need another LHH bat if everyone is healthy. I suspect in the name of depth Conforto an Carlson are competing to be stashed on that last bench spot while Alcantara and McCormick head to Iowa. It would be ideal for Carlson or Conforto to be on a minors deal that doesn't have an end of spring training opt out, but I'm guessing against things working out that neatly.
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I'm hoping this wnds up being a minor league deal or a split contract or something of the sort, but I suspect it won't be. After dealing Caissie the roster was in a weird spot where it didn't need another LHH bat by default, but if god forbid something happened to Happ or Suzuki (or to a lesser extent Mo) you'd really feel Owen's absence. My guess is in the name of hording depth one of Conforto/Carlson gets the last spot on the big league bench, McCormick gets added to the 40 man so he can be optioned to Iowa. and Alcantara's 100% opening the year at Iowa. The big question on the latter is how much of all these OF machinations are a lack of faith in him versus other rationales.
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I'm not sure if I'm more surprised Grace did it or more surprised none of the superstars from the golden era Yankees did it. Looks like Berra came really close. And Gehrig/Dimaggio did it every year after their rookie year.
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Spring training, don't believe its lies, etc., etc. But god damn Rojas looks good
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One of the most notable things about Rojas is that even when he's struggled he's generally had healthy K/BB/GB numbers. Given his age you hope that as he gets older he stops getting the bat knocked out of his hand so often. If this is a sign that his "man strength" came in this winter you can dream on him really taking off this season. On a similar note Pedro Ramirez hit a ball almost 112 MPH on Friday. I've for a while thought he's tracking towards a Tommy La Stella kind of outcome with better defense. If Ramirez had better defense AND his power is a couple grades higher suddenly you're talking about a pretty complete player.
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From the Athletic this AM. For reference Shota's at about the same level of IVB amd that's a big part of how he misses so many bats even at just 92-93.
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Game isn't on Marquee today but the Giants are broadcasting and it's the MLB.tv free game of the day.
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No break I'm hoping means we're in the clear. I wonder if he can still play in the WBC?
