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Bertz

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Everything posted by Bertz

  1. Bertz
  2. Bertz
    Logging on to see Wiggins worked into the 7th with only one walk
  3. Bertz
    The good and the bad of Alcantara is that there's nothing obviously wrong with him. The velo is down a smidge, and the stuff with it, but not even remotely close to enough to explain what's happening. He's just been a turd out there. There might be a super easy fix, but that's an expensive gamble. My POV would be that he should cost very little in terms of players unless the Marlins pay down some of his 2026 salary (and before you laugh they might need to spend some $$$ to avoid a grievance from the MLBPA).
  4. Bertz
    Jeff Passan said this morning that the Rays will probably make Drew Rasmussen available. Rasmussen and Pete Fairbanks would be a very direct and straightforward way for Jed to October-ize this pitching staff
  5. Bertz
    It's not worth a separate rumor thread but the Athletic this AM made it sound like the team wants to bring Jorge Lopez back
  6. Bertz
    They said similar with Steele/Alzolay/Thompson a few years ago. I suspect these measures help them "land the plane" so to speak as opposed to allow them to go way over their projections. E.g. if they were expecting 120 IP out of Horton coming into the year, these would help them navigate between 100-140 rather than open up the possibility of like 180. I think these measures also are why they don't just do what Squally is saying and trade for someone now and put Horton on the phantom IL. As much as we refer to a pitcher's innings as bullets it's not really so clean and zero sum in practice.
  7. Bertz
    Demographically I'd love a redo of the '22 draft and just go pitching pitching pitching. For one because the system could use it, and for another because Tyler Zombro appears to be the goods. Pitching trade secrets seem to only have a few years of shelf life, so go all in on leveraging him until all his tricks are public domain.
  8. Bertz
    Yeah all three guys are going to have limitations. There's likely an age component at play which should help Boyd and to a lesser extent Brown. If you look at the reliever to starter converters like Seth Lugo, they seem to have an innings cap of ~150 innings their first year in the rotation. So I'd look at something in that range for Boyd, and thus he probably just needs a small breather at some point. A minimum IL stint probably covers it? The team definitely needs a starter who can take a playoff start, but assuming we avoid more catastrophic injuries like Steele's I'm not too worried about competently covering innings.
  9. Bertz
    I would suspect it's one of two paths, and which one they go with depends on how well he's pitching: 1. Let him pitch until July when reinforcements arrive (whether that's Assad or a trade piece) and then IL him for a ~month to catch his breath. Put him back into the rotation in September 2. Let him pitch until July when reinforcements arrive, and then shift him into a relief role for the rest of the year I think if he's pitching really well you go with door #1, if he's pitching just solidly like he has to this point you go with door #2. But to your point yeah it's probably about 120 innings as the target for this year.
  10. Bertz
    I've mentioned this before but I tend to think of the quartet of big bats at Iowa that two will stick around and get folded into the big league team. I also think, all else being equal, they'll keep one righty and one lefty, and one IFer and one OFer. So Long+Caissie or Alcantara+Ballesteros. Their further performance will obviously impact the decision, and I think the Kyle Tucker situation will impact things (i.e. if he sticks around you can feel a little more comfortable trading both of Alcantara/Caissie), but that's my default assumption at the moment. I also don't think there's a lot of daylight between Mo and Caissie/Alcantara. And if you assured me he wouldn't be able to catch he'd still be behind both of them.
  11. Bertz
    Honestly as a RHH corner guy he's a pretty clean roster fit and IMO one of the most likely prospects to stick around.
  12. Bertz
    Ethan Hearn has been hot lately. Him turning into a guy immediately after Tom's ban would be the funniest possible outcome.
  13. Bertz
    The problem with finally having a decent number of fun pitching prospects again is you really feel the absence on days like today where none of them are going.
  14. Bertz
    Should be a good day for the lefties in the lineup. Martinez doesn't have major splits, but I would say that broadly our lefties like the ball down and the righties like the ball up.
  15. Bertz
    Dbacks are about to be 9 games out of the division and 6 games out of the wildcard. Probably a good team to keep an eye on for the deadline.
  16. Bertz
    As of right now, Ben Brown is 18th in xFIP amongst pitchers with 50 or more IP. The two guys just ahead of him are Chris Sale and Framber Valdez, the two guys right behind him are Dylan Cease and Max Fried. He's good. Really really good. Don't let SSS batted ball data try to convince you otherwise.
  17. Bertz
    Last 4 outings: 24.1 IP, 11 H, 2 HR, 1.85 ERA, 6 BB, 37 K
  18. Bertz
    Ryan Gallagher doing Ryan Gallagher things, struck out the side in the 5th
  19. Bertz
    173 hitters at AAA this year have racked up at least 150 PAs. Long is - 2nd in hard hit rate - 10th in barrel rate - 5th in xwOBA Why in the world are we talking about him like anything he's doing in the batters box needs to change?
  20. Bertz
    Another Jonny Long Dong!
  21. Bertz
    If you look under the hood, most of Alcantara's numbers are actually improved from last year. I think in our exuberance we just all collectively ignored how much of his production at Iowa initially was propped up by a .400+ BABIP The arrow's pointing up, there was just more work to do than we realized
  22. Bertz
    Rough 3rd inning for Will Sanders And good lord Jonny Long crushed that
  23. Bertz
    Plus fast all, plus command, and a plus plus changeup? Sign me the horsefeathers up. I trust this team to help a guy find a good breaking ball.
  24. Bertz
    I wonder if they do an opener. The top of the Reds lineup is very susceptible to lefties, and as much as I think Brown's issues are mostly luck based you could see him pretty rattled in the first inning last weekend. While his confidence is wavy he might do better coming into a game that's already flowing. An opener might be a two birds one stone deal.
  25. Bertz
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