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Bertz

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Everything posted by Bertz

  1. Bertz
    I think you look more seriously at trading Shaw next winter: - He will probably be more valuable. There is still a lot of uncertainty on guys entering their second year, even if Shaw plays at a solid but unspectacular ~2.5 WAR/600 pace the collapse potential is gone and that outweighs the sixth year of team control - You will have a much more clarity on Nico's situation. Do you still want to commit to him long term? How much is he asking for? - You will know whether there are viable infield reinforcements behind Shaw. Triantos and Ramirez will open 2026 in Iowa. By the end of the season they will either be MLB ready or you can mostly write them off. Rojas won't necessarily be ready even if his season goes well, but he should be close I wouldn't put the same sort of premium surcharge on Shaw as I would Hoerner, but I think Jason put it right that someone has to come up and meet your price not vice versa.
  2. Bertz
    IMO for the Cubs it's a story of eras 2012 - 2015: Incredible. Just an insane hit rate and I'd be shocked if they're not #1 by a mile 2016 - 2020: Awful. There's probably some injury luck here (looking at you Brailyn Marquez), but it appears the Cubs are going to get *nothing* out of this five year period except for whatever portion of the Jeimer Candelario trade you can attribute to Kevin Made (which obviously wouldn't show up in an analysis like this) 2021 - present: Good again? Still need time for results to come in but it seems promising. Mo is the goods, I'd guess at least one of Rojas/Hernandez/Ramirez becomes a quality big leaguer. The IFA team probably gets some partial credit for Alcantara? The IFA guys at Myrtle mostly performed as well It's so tough to evaluate this stuff because it's on such a crazy long time horizon. Like the Cubs' IFA process clearly broke around 2015 and I don't think any of us had any clue until 2018 or 2019?
  3. Bertz
    I think if you keep expectations at what Kelly did for the full year last year and don't just focus on April when he cosplayed Aaron Judge for a month, it's not crazy to think he can repeat. Smart money is he comes in a little south of that, that's the nature of attrition at catcher, but nothing he did last year feels flukey or unsustainable. Kelly's always a guy who had good K/BB numbers and above average raw power, and last year he managed to lift and pull the ball a lot more without killing his contact or his quality of contact. That's an impressive feat that not everyone can pull off, but there's no reason to expect it to expect it to just collapse and snap right back to pre 2025 numbers.
  4. Bertz
    To this point most offenses have at least 6000 PAs a year. Good ones are usually closer to 6200. That is 10 full time players plus a Justin Turner type. especially given the pretty clean platoon pairings on this roster it's not hard to get everyone plenty of time.
  5. Bertz
    Everything's fine
  6. Bertz
    IIRC it was a lower body injury for Neely With modern bullpen construction I have seen some smart folks suggest the plan should be "let's collect a bunch of stuff guys and cycle through them based on who *at this moment* is healthy and throwing strikes." Obviously you can't horde the ~20 you'd need to fill out an eight man bullpen, but amassing 4-5 to fill out two slots? I think that's doable. In the same way last year Hodge and Pearson ended up blowing up on us while Palencia and Keller ended up showing out, looking forward Palencia's still got pretty significant downside risk to him and we shouldn't leave Hodge/Little/Neely for dead.
  7. Bertz
    Would love to hear the rationale for juicing Conrad, Hartshorn, and Wing that also allows you to be logically consistent in having Rojas behind James Triantos.
  8. Bertz
    I think the pitching staff is pretty easy to glass half empty, so while I'm optimistic on it overall it's not unreasonable to think it'll be pretty middling. However, Fangraphs' depth charts are curated by humans, and they're a point in time estimate. Worth noting that Steamer gives Ben Brown *as a starter* the same 3.97 ERA it gives to Edward Cabrera. It gives Jordan Wicks *as a starter* a 4.05. That's two guys who each project to ~2.5 WAR over a full season collectively being marked down for 27 combined SP innings. So even if the computers are right (and worth noting this does not yet include ZiPS, the better of the computers) there are easy levers to pull to improve the team's output.
  9. Bertz
    Since going to the Marlins Weathers has added almost two full MPH, gotten substantially better results, and had numerous shoulder injuries. I'd be shocked if the latter two aren't directly attributable to the former. For the Yankees though they just need two good months as a bridge to Cole coming back, anything else is gravy.
  10. Bertz
    Not a film guy, but IMO "and his feet stayed calm" is the big thing that's changed over the last ~6 weeks and why he's stopped missing so many gimme throws.
  11. Bertz
    Managers are such little whiny horsefeathers. You always see this "how can we ever be expected to survive with only 7 relievers?" stuff and then guy #8 averages like a week between outings and never ever enters a game in grand slam range. It's the dril candles tweet I swear. That said this would be a good way to utilize the current SP depth without taking the risk of shipping anyone off permanently.
  12. Bertz
  13. Bertz
    This is surprisingly mortal, especially when you account for the fact that FG's depth chart tend to be very generous with pitcher playing time. Andrew Friedman has mentioned getting younger this offseason, I'm curious if that means taking a step back this year and keeping lanes open for prospects to fill in before this turns into a late era Dombrowski roster, or if it the pedal stays firmly on the metal and they simply add a young FA like Bichette.
  14. Bertz
    I don't love the idea of spending resources on an outfielder. I was a big proponent of the Cabrera trade both for liking Cabrera and thinking Caissie was superfluous on this roster. Then again I don't like a lot about trading Hoerner so add it to the pile I guess.
  15. Bertz
    So uh, this is probably gonna be the worst Cardinals team in the modern era? Like they've gotta be in real danger of losing 100 games by the time this purge is complete. Like next year is gonna be Wynn and Nootbar and Liberatore and a lot of yuck.
  16. Bertz
    Things I'd be looking for in a Nico trade: - An immediate plug and play high leverage reliever - High impact starting pitching. Either one guy relatively close to MLB ready like Jaxon Wiggins is right now, or two guys a little further away like Jaxon Wiggins was at this time last year - A LHH or switch hitting middle infielder So like the Mariners can do this. Matt Brash, Jurrangel Cintje, and Cole Young? Garret Whitlock, Marcelo Mayer, and Connelly Early or Payton Tolle from the Red Sox fits too. I'm struggling to see anyone else? Like I want to be BOWLED OVER.
  17. Bertz
    And that would make a lot of sense. Boston getting Bichette and SF getting Donovan seems like the logical way for this game of musical chairs to end. And like even if we are dealing Hoerner, I kind of hate the Giants as a trade partner. Bryce Eldridge is awesome and probably right from a value standpoint, but adding him a week after moving Caissie would be silly. They have a lot of quality young pitching, but it's all guys in the Jordan Wicks/Ben Brown zone types as opposed to having one monster we could latch onto. Nate Furman is a fun spreadsheet darling? Ryan Walker would be a nice cost controlled setup man? Like if we were rebuilding they could easily do a nice 4 for 1 deal. But the model for moving Hoerner should be the Tucker trade, something where the other team overpays AND they do so with stuff that neatly fits into your roster straight away. I don't see that coming from the Giants.
  18. Bertz
    Ughhhhh I don't like this, this is the type of language, particularly from a guy like Passan, is what you see when something is getting pretty close
  19. Bertz
  20. Bertz
    Wow I knew having good K/BB was a good harbinger for aging gracefully but holy hell. I listened to Sharma and Mooney's podcast from over the weekend and Sharma said that their internal model absolutely adores him. It was funny the talk track was something about how much they like him off the field, something like "And sure their model loves him but as a person..." and I very much wanted to hear more about what the model thought.
  21. Bertz
    So the way I took AJ's story was this - Sox made an offer early in the offseason - Boras goes to the Red Sox and says "we have a better offer than that" - Red Sox say "Sure, Jan" - Boras goes back to the Red Sox like "no really we have a better offer than that" - Red Sox up their offer to it's final form ($165 with crazy deferrals) - Boras says that's not quite enough - Red Sox scoff and say "fine then take it" and then he does So like I'm wondering if the Cubs have had their offer out there for weeks (a month?) or if there's been multiple rounds of offers and the Cubs were just consistently ahead of the Sox. Doesn't matter a ton either way, but would speak to Jed's aggressiveness. Like if 5/$175 has just been hanging out there since like the winter meetings that'd be wild.
  22. Bertz
    https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/s/0odU2gzv51 Am I crazy or does this imply that the Cubs had their offer out to Bregman for several weeks?
  23. Bertz
    The Mad Men "that's what the money is for" meme but "that's what the Bregman's are for." Part of the incentive for adding guys like Bregman should be so that you can give the kids breathing room without worrying that those early season struggles will be the difference between playing in October or sitting at home.
  24. Bertz
  25. Bertz
    How Nico can be expected to age is so fascinating to me. On the one hand I believe damn near every bit of research says that athletic, well rounded, strong contact bats tend to be the best bets for aging. Strikeouts and dongs being "old player skills" is one of those things where conventional wisdom ended up being backed up by the math. On the other hand Nico's basically just an average hitter even right now in his prime. It's easy to imagine for instance Alex Bregman's bat aging gracefully selling out for power a bit more and trading some K-rate for walks and power. With like 30 grade power is that an avenue even open to a guy like Nico? I suspect not. I suspect that Nico will be a useful player well into his 30's, but will pretty abruptly stop being a guy worth big money to as soon as he loses a step. I'm generally against extending Hoerner, particularly post Bregman. In fact reconciling the Nico situation is a big part of why I got on board with Bregman after being cold on the idea in October/November. I hope Nico gets overpaid by a west coast team like the Giants next winter and gets to hang out close to home.
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