Jump to content
North Side Baseball

Bertz

Old-Timey Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    12,619

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    31

 Content Type 

Profiles

Joomla Posts 1

Chicago Cubs Videos

Chicago Cubs Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

2026 Chicago Cubs Top Prospects Ranking

News

2023 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

Guides & Resources

2024 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

The Chicago Cubs Players Project

2025 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker

2026 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker

Blogs

Events

Forums

Store

Gallery

Everything posted by Bertz

  1. Bertz
    I think unfortunately with pitching there's just a really high degree of fragility as a baseline. Like all of these machinations are to try and improve from say a 40% chance of a major injury in the next three years to like a 30% chance. Because that baseline is so high and so much data is proprietary it's hard to do a study on what exactly works. What we have seen is some pullback from the extreme babying that the league had moved toward late last decade. It's been notable in the minor league threads how much deeper pitchers are working into games. The current wisdom seems to be coalescing towards something closer to what Japan has, where you can ride guys a little harder on a game by game basis but the flipside is a push towards 5 or 6 days of rest as often as you can manage. I wouldn't be surprised if next CBA drops down to 154 games and every team gets one off day every single week.
  2. Bertz
    The White Sox sort of did this with Crochet last year, only quibble is it was more like 3-4 innings, but it appears to have worked out swimmingly. He threw 146 innings after never topping 65 before in college or the minors and has had no ill effects this season.
  3. Bertz
    The waiver route is the only reliable way to get talent at this point. Anything else is a lottery ticket. The teams to keep an eye on for putting legitimate talent through waivers are teams that bought on July 31st and fell out of it in August. Bonus points if they're near one of the LT thresholds or if they have a player in his walk year making good salary but not worth a QO. So IMO the team to keep an eye on is Texas. They're right at the LT line, have 9 pitchers who are impending FAs, and currently have 35% playoff odds. The Angels and Reds were surprise buyers at the deadline, and another month of not making much traction could push them over the edge too. I think for the Reds especially Nick Martinez and Emilio Pagan each have pretty healthy salaries, they'd save $4-5M if they dumped both of them in a few weeks.
  4. Bertz
    Jefferson Rojas has played 17 games at AA. The first 8 he got his ass kicked, the latter 9 he's hitting .242/.390/.364 with more walks than K's. Because of the dire straits around offense in the Southern League that's a 133 wRC+. He's the 5th youngest player in AA this year.
  5. Bertz
    Since June 1st: .250/.335/.410, 109 wRC+ From a guy who was considered the best defensive catcher in last year's draft. The ceiling probably isn't super high, something like Yan Gomes, but I think he's a thing.
  6. Bertz
    Ariel Armas on base 3 more times tonight (and it's only the 5th). I think he's a back of the top 30 guy for me. If he hits at all he's a big leaguer and he's been hitting for a few months now.
  7. Bertz
    Sure, that feels like a lot of extra effort to get a worse hitter more at bats?
  8. Bertz
    Carson Kelly is a much better hitter against lefties than Ian Happ. And if you have a Turner/Kelly/Swanson/Shaw bottom of the order it's pretty easy to neutralize in the late innings with righty relievers.
  9. Bertz
    Assad's second start with Iowa is I believe lined up for tomorrow as well. I think it's reasonable to expect both guys back as early as the Pittsburgh series next weekend. And then Amaya got a bunch of at bats last week but hasn't caught a 9 inning game yet. So he probably joins the team in STL this weekend?
  10. Bertz
    Love it. If he does well at South Bend he's still at a pretty age appropriate level going forward despite being a senior sign.
  11. Bertz
    Cubs offered more by TVM to both
  12. Bertz
    They also tried to sign both Scott and Bregman through at least '27 last winter.
  13. Bertz
    Yeah I suspect the plan is to start using Brown in bulk relief, and maybe Assad too. That's a good way to mitigate the innings limitations with so much of the current rotation. It'd be a really good day for the offense to flex its muscles and let Brown have a soft landing into long relief.
  14. Bertz
    https://www.fangraphs.com/projections?type=zips&stats=rel&pos=all&team=0&players=0&lg=all&z=1754295716&sortcol=14&sortdir=asc&pageitems=30&statgroup=dashboard&fantasypreset=dashboard 3.35 ERA according to ZiPS, and a bunch of the guys around him are second tier closers like Kirby Yates and Trevor Megill
  15. Bertz
    Pressly still projected very well coming into the year
  16. Bertz
    Do they? They haven't run a huge payroll since Dombrowski left, they chickened out of paying Mookie Betts, and they more or less reneged on paying Devers at the first opportunity.
  17. Bertz
    Curious what kind of power the team thinks Southisene can grow into. Is it Nick Madrigal power like he's displayed to this point? Because as a shortstop who steals a ton of bases that probably is playable. Or can he end up in the JP Crawford or Bryson Stott neighbordhood?
  18. Bertz
    Yeah Happ's not going anywhere, and the small chance he does go somewhere is contingent on Tucker being re-signed.
  19. Bertz
    Even if we say that the team has no intention of holding onto Tucker (which whatever, I have no interest in arguing that) there's really not room for all four of the Iowa bats who are currently pounding on the door. After this season you're replacing Tucker and Turner, who will combine for 800-900 PAs this season. So that's two kids playing not quite full time. Maybe you keep a third for injury and redundancy? That still leaves a guy who you have no room for on next year's squad. More room opens up after next season, but there's not a realistic way to hold out for that. At least three of those guys are MLB ready *right now*, and the fourth isn't super far off. You can't just hold their development in stasis and wait 20 months to give them their first extended shot at the big leagues. This week was the perfect time to deal at least one. It's not the end of the world to make a deal this winter, but it comes at the expense of not improving a team that has a decent argument for being the best in the NL.
  20. Bertz
    Much in the same way that we dodged a bullet in not getting Logan O'Hoppe, I'm hoping that one of Brown/Wicks/Birdsell gets some innings that they otherwise wouldn't have and force their way into 2026 opening day plans. That said, I think we need to the Brewers to collapse for the team to get enough wiggle room for Craig to feel comfortable giving sufficient innings to the kids.
  21. Bertz
    I don't have the record but I think it's actually really good. The vibes around here get rancid, like when we swept the Rockies but apparently not hard enough. But I think the actual results are good. It's been when the wind has been blowing out where things have gone more poorly, like that Mariners series.
  22. Bertz
    As far as SP matchups go, this is probably the toughest one this weekend. Rogers isn't nearly as good as his ERA but he is good. That said the O's bullpen should be in shambles this weekend, and the bottom half of their lineup likely a mess. We're probably getting them at about as opportune time as possible.
  23. Bertz
    There's an episode of Scrubs that always stuck with me. Elizabeth Banks plays a star surgeon, I don't remember what kind exactly. JD's got a patient that needs her type of surgery, but she refuses to take on the operation because the patient has a bunch of factors that make it risky. Turns out Banks' character has a history of dodging these tough patients in order to keep her stats up and look better for fellowships, etc. Anyway Jed made four good trades and but refused to engage with the most glaring hole on the roster for the second transaction period in a row. I gave him a D.
  24. Bertz
    Yeah his average fastball last year was 95.0, and he pretty regularly hit 97. Last night it was 93.6 and he topped out at 95.3. I'm not worried, it's basically the equivalent of late early April for him, but he's just a little further away from being an MLB option than he was late last year IMO.
  25. Bertz
    I suspect Berti goes for Amaya. I think Castro ultimately made both Brujan and Berti redundant. Team carries three catchers for a month and then a kid gets the last bench spot in September. On the pitching front, I suspect one of Brown/Horton for one and Pomeranz for the other, barring an injury making the decision for them.
×
×
  • Create New...