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Bertz

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  1. The sinker is also interesting because it doesn't really sink it just goes sideways. If you play MLB the Show it's a Running Fastball more than a sinker. I assume that's why it doesn't lose any velo? And then it looks like on the 4 seamer he traded a smidge of run for a little more rise, which helps separate the two Really fascinating how the sinker appears to have tied everything together.
  2. It looks like Stuff+ is all aboard the Ben Brown hype train. All four of Brown's pitches grade out above average, and his overall Stuff+ score is 111, which for reference would have tied him with Zack Wheeler last year . Generally Cubs pitchers have not fared well via Stuff+. Even the guys we have who do rack up strikeouts have flashed on PitchingBot (Fangraphs other stuff model) but not Stuff+. It doesn't necessarily mean a ton but I thought it stood out looking over Brown's page.
  3. It's early enough that even peripherals are meaningless, but realistically the only players to this point with anything scary going on under the hood are Conforto and Taillon. And to his credit even Taillon got plenty of swing and miss last night, which is generally what I'd worry about with his velocity evaporating.
  4. Noland pitched early in ST a couple times and had some extra juice on his fastball. Curious to see how much of that survived being fully stretched out. Noland was at 90.3 MPH last year. Especially since his primary fastball is a cutter just getting up to 91 and change probably makes him big league viable.
  5. ^Me in a month to the prospect writers who dropped Alcantara below horsefeathering Kane Kepley on their lists
  6. Next Friday against Pitt feels like the smart money. Maybe Wednesday in Tampa with the built in Thursday off day?
  7. The thing with Taillon is he was already the worst projected member of the starting 5 coming into the spring. In fact generally he projects behind Brown/Wicka/Assad too. So any signal that "hey this guy is materially worse than your (already low) expectations" is a bright red flag. He also looked pretty bad in his WBC start against Panama. He kept runs off the board because it's a glorified AA team but that undercuts any sort of "savvy veteran saving his bullets / waiting for adrenaline" type excuse. The team has alluded to a lower body issue, and he's got a lengthy history of those. He also looked like himself the first two innings of his last ST start, and Counsell said he faded later in the outing because of the heat (pretty reasonable excuse TBH). There's a chance this was much ado about nothing and alarm bells were raised over a fairly normal thing that we suddenly received transparency into this year. So like of course give him a chance, frankly give him at least a couple, but the leash can't be especially long.
  8. Less surprising after all the run he got in Spring Training but Hartshorn too. It wouldn't have been a huge shock to wait until May. Lovich and Southisene were on that timeline last year. I'm annoyed at the South Bend infield. Southisene and Mathis should be up there. Escobar probably too, though maybe this is confirmation Escobar going to tbe outfield is more about his deficiency rather than deference to other guys.
  9. Hopefully Taillon’s fixed whatever issues he had and can hold his normal velo for a full game. If not it's lined up for us get a lot of Ben Brown tonight
  10. The Cubs last year had 23 starts where the SP generated 15 or more whiffs. They have 3 already thia year, and Boyd's 20 from OD would have ranked #1 last year. People are wringing their hands about the dongs but the non-Taillon rotation is looking as good as you could hope for IMO.
  11. It's still probably nothing but Rea randomly started getting a bunch more swing and miss last September and then low and behold it happened again tonight. Really like the three inning saves to rest the bullpen. Hope Craig is aggressive with Rea and Brown having outings like this.
  12. EXTREMELY early but 3 BBs and 1 K for Alcantara makes me happy
  13. lmao Velo is down a bit. Averaging a hair under 96. Curious if that's early season stuff or if he's dialed down a bit to throw more strikes
  14. Would seem to point to the Tampa or Pitt series for him to come back if there are no setbacks.
  15. Irvin had a good spring training, but nothing from it looks especially notable to shift your priors on him. This game is about Shota.
  16. Speaking of pitchers who look to have their pre-surgery velo back Luke Little. He was 93-96 today, which is a tick below what he was at his peak but up a good bit from last year. Also worth noting he was primarily throwing sinkers, which is a new wrinkle for him (and probably explains a portion of the still missing velo).
  17. He didnt today but he does throw a curve. Also some of this is semantics but I believe those cutters are actually sliders. Speaking of semantics most of Roberts fastballs are actually cutters. 93-94 is actually pretty strong velo. The average reliever cutter last season was 90.4. Roberts back at his pre TJ velocity is very exciting IMO.
  18. Through three innings Will Sanders' fastball is up nearly a full mile and a half
  19. Fangraphs currently projects Hoerner to be worth 3.2 WAR in '27 and 2.8 WAR in '28. Do the half a WAR per year decline thing and that's ~12 WAR for the life of his contract. I'm not going to back of the napkin the inflation calc but $12-13M/WAR.
  20. This feels like a huge gift paired with this pitching matchup. I don't like how lopsided this game feels. Baseball has a tendendy to make these types of games go the other way to prove a point.
  21. It's weird to crow when you were very wrong in the opposite direction?
  22. He slowed down after the first (where he nearly hit 95 at one point), but it looks like he's back to his 2022/2023 velo. Four seamer was 93.1, sinker 92.4. Last two years those pitches have generally been in the 91s as a starter.
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