Bertz

16 Ks against 3 walks on the season. I'm not going to do the math on his groundball rate but it was north of 50% coming into the day and went up after this game. Realistically we're probably talking about a back of the rotation ceiling without another gear on the fastball. But definitely looks like a quality arm.

good lord. I am so all-in on him now it's not even funny

Video

You barely need a 4th bench guy in today's game. Especially on this roster where Nico is the backup shortstop. I made this point at some time over the offseason, but Luis Vazquez spent 47 on the roster last year. More than a quarter of the season. and he only got 14 at bats.

Either Brujan to the IL or Workman is gone

It's not quite this simple, but broadly I think Franklin's role is going to determined by how often he puts the ball on the ground - If his GB rate starts with a 5, he's a fifth outfielder/26th man - If his GB rate starts with a 4, he's a high end 4th outfielder a la Reed Johnson or Kevin Pillar - If his GB rate starts with a 3, he's a low end starter

I would say generally when you're talking about a 23 year old the reaction to "he can't do XX" should generally be "he should practice more to see if he can start" rather than just assuming it'll never get better.

I knew it was bad but horsefeathering wow

I know it's listed as TBD but do we know if the Dodgers are planning a bullpen day or a piggyback situation? I can't find anything on it, so I'm assuming a bullpen day.

Yeah I don't know why we're overthinking this. Berti is solid and can totally hold down the position for a few weeks.

I like Hollowell. I do suspect he is going to mostly be a righty specialist, which is a tough place to get a permanent foothold on this team once Miller and/or Brasier are healthy. But hey maybe that extra MPH and added funk can keep his numbers against lefties decent. Steve Cishek in his prime for instance was heat death on righties and ~average against lefties.

Off a lefty at that!

This would tell me that Pomeranz is replacing Wicks and Hollowell is a warm body for the game or two until that can work logistically

It's honestly probably just a slump. Dansby has played 24 games this year, at the 15 game mark (heading to the West Coast for the Dodgers series) he had a 18.5% K rate, a 109 wRC+, and a .410 xwOBA. It's been a *rough* go since, but worth keeping in mind it's 9 games with about half of them coming against very good SPs (Yamamoto, Glasnow, Cease, and Burnes, with Sasaki/Gallen arguable).

While May's numbers are sparkling probably worth noting the three offenses he's seen rank 21st, 23rd, and 29th in wRC+. Between that and tomorrow's game being some sort of opener/bullpen game deal, shouldn't be too tough to get a split and there's a decent chance at grabbing both.

Pomeranz is joining the team on Wednesday reportedly. But Wicks has already been sent down. So I'm guessing Tyson Miller up today, Pomeranz replacing Roberts tomorrow?

He doesn't have to be a star he just has to get lefties out. Seems reasonably likely to still be able to do that.

I'm really curious how/if the team is going to fold in Ballesteros this season beyond IL time. He can play C/1B/DH, and via moving Suzuki out from DH can help cover any OF spot. However, the Cubs are top 10 in the league at all of those spots except LF, where even with a slow start from Happ we rank 11th. Moises doesn't have major L/R splits, so maybe he steals some of Justin Turner's playing time? That said IMO it's quite rare for a lefty hitter to succeed against lefty pitching early in his MLB career. It would be ballsy to e.g. use a 21 year old to provide platoon support to guys like Happ or Busch. There will inevitably be an injury or three, and of course Moises has defensive work to do. But it's kind of crazy to have a guy this clearly ready and just nowhere to put him. First world problem to be sure.

Fun fact, aside from Nate Pearson and Eli Morgan, the Cubs bullpen has a 3.84 ERA and a positive WPA. Now that's not to say those two's performance doesn't count or anything like that, but I think the degree to which we should still be worried about the bullpen is overstated. - Pressly is clearly over his early season command issues. And to his credit even while he was fighting through those did a great job of bending but not breaking - Hodge, Friday's nightmare inning aside, is awesome - Merryweather looks most of the way back to 2023 form. Lost a little velo and in the process has traded some strikeouts for groundballs, but he looks very good again - Brad Keller looks awesome, full stop - Palencia and Roberts look like they are finally over the hump. Both are pitching well and most notably have not wilted in high leverage action like they did at various points in '23-'24 - Thielbar unfortunately I'm thinking might be cooked. He's gotten some sequencing luck, but under the hood things are very ugly. The only bright side is it is still just April Now obviously there's been some poor performance and that's already banked. But I don't see a lot of reason to still be worried about the group. Frankly with the way Keller and Merryweather have looked I feel better about the group now than I did in February.

Looks like it's supposed to end around 4. So they should be able to get this in just several hours late

I'm not especially convinced the Giants are anything more than a .500 team having a good month. The schedule certainly doesn't get easy until mid May, but I consider the Phillies series next weekend to close out the truly intimidating stretch.

Cubs are 2 games up and we're getting to the point where you can see light at the end of the tunnel with the schedule

Ben Brown's opponents and how they rank in runs/game this year 10th 12th 8th 10th 2nd Obviously want him to cut down on the walks but generally still pretty happy with him all things considered.