Bertz

Ramirez is legit as well. He's been an age darling for a while and there was some EV data posted recently that was encouraging in terms of ceiling. I haven't sat down and done a list in a while, but I'd guess Sanders and Ramirez would land in my 15-20 range and no one else would crack 30. Leigh, Scalzo, and Armstrong have big league relief profiles. But yeah, it's pretty bleak. The good news is there's a log jam at Iowa, so potentially that missing wave of talent doesn't have to be felt too much as it'll take time for the org to work through the guys there.

Yeah "aside from PCA" is doing some real heavy lifting there. Basically the inverse of the old "other than that Mr. Lincoln, how was the play" joke. The Cubs got incredible value for Javy, very good value for Rizzo, and rolled snake eyes on the other two deals. If you'd promised me what we have right now the night of that trade deadline or offered to spin the wheel again I'd have locked it in so so fast.

There was a little bit more swing and miss today than normal from Kilian, so if you really wanted to squint you could take that positive. But yeah he seems beyond even being fixed by Zombro.

Good lord that's awful. I don't know that we've had an affiliate this bad since the farm was at its nadir in 2019. Hopefully Gray and Wiggins are at South Bend and not the IL.

Stop me if you've heard this one before, but Caissie hit a ball 100+ MPH in the air for an out. That is I believe his 4th barrel and he has one hit to show for it

I did this after Japan and it helped me organize my thoughts, so gonna do it again. But things I liked vs. things I don't thus far Likes 1. The bottom of the order - Swanson and Hoerner are showing no ill effects from their surgeries. Shaw and PCA have some warts but there's more good than bad. Our catchers somehow morphed into the Bash ;rothers. If this even vaguely keeps up this lineup is relentless 2. The back of the rotation - Brown has looked great aside from that first inning against the Dodgers. Jameson Taillon’s missing bats again, Boyd's velo was up. I like this crew more than I did a month ago Dislikes 1. The bullpen, obviously - I'm not *way* down on any of our relievers individually, even Morgan there's some things to like under the hood. But already having side-eye for 7 members of an 8 man bullpen a week and a half into the season is insane. Hopefully Pressly's indeed fine with his velo rebounding, and one of Merryweather/Pearson can step up very quickly 2. The front of the rotation - It's five starts, four of them against good offenses, plus the added wrinkles that come with the Japan series. So you can't read too much into things. But there are some red flags in what Steele is doing (though thankfully not as extreme as his ERA would indicate). Shota's weird because his results are sparkling, his high level peripherals are atrocious, but his really advanced numbers go back to sparkling. So he's probably fine, but I'm more nervous about him than I was a month ago

Off days mean there's a decent chance this gets switched up, but opposing starters the next three series currently appear to be: SD - Vasquez, Pivetta, Hart TEX - Eovaldi, Leiter, Mahle LAD - Sasaki, Glasnow, May It's not a cupcake schedule by any means, and attached to three good offenses, but that's not bad.

Up to 19 through 5. This feels pretty significant.

I'm loving what we're seeing from Taillon today. He has 15 whiffs through 4 innings, which already ties his high as a Cub. I love the new changeup, the curve looks like it has some extra bite, and like mentioned earlier the velo is not all the way back but is up from last year.

Presumably Springs is done? 82 pitches through 3 innings for a guy with his injury history feels like a point you don't want to push past.

Apparently it's brand new!

Seiya!!!

Taillon’s changeup looks kind of incredible today. Not sure what's happening there? Also sitting 93-94, so velo not all the way back to pre-2024 from but a big chunk of the way back.

Pete has been getting under the ball early on here, but I'm pretty happy with him at the plate overall. The hard hit rate is up (backed by a huge jump in bat speed), the chase is down a smidge, the in zone contact rate is up, the pull rate is up. While he's hardly Kyle Tucker in terms of swing decisions, it feels like he's improving in that regard. Unless the pop-ups are inherent to the change in swing decisions and bat speed (which I wouldn't think?) I see more good than bad from his early season performance.

We're not even a week into the real season and there's already some interesting stuff happening playoff odds-wise. - Cubs are flat-ish from where they were before Japan. Division odds are up a bit, wildcard odds are down a bit, chance of earning a bye up a smidge as well. Fangraphs has the Cubs winning the division by 3.5 games, though now it's the Cards in that #2 spot rather than the Brewers - The Braves have lopped 5 (!!) wins off their pre-season projection between the injuries/suspension/0-6 start. They are still a likely playoff team, but they coughed up the gap between them and all the wildcard teams. This is why the Cubs' odds of winning a bye ticked up, the NL no longer appears to have two super teams - The non-Rockies NL West teams are 20-3, which is what's dragging those wildcard odds for the Cubs down

Springs is good, this game could be tough. Honestly if we're going to lose let Taillon get knocked around a bit so Keller/Pearson/Morgan can get some low leverage work in and hopefully take steps forward.

Steele's velo is down and he's unable to miss bats in the zone. Those are bright red flags when the sample gets a little larger. The dongs don't concern me though. Dongs are fickle in small samples. Steele's xFIP is 3.78, which is lower than his standard but still quality. I'm fairly worried that he's sliding from a top of the rotation type to a middle of the rotation one, but I'm not worried that he's full out bad now.

Caissie has balls hit 103, 110, and 102 with nothing to show for it.

Workman should be in there IMO

My meatballest baseball opinion is that blowouts like last night are bad actually because the team "uses up" all their BABIP for several days. Prove me wrong Cubs!

Shaw was horrendous in Japan, but in America he's hitting .222/.333/.444 with even walks and Ks. He started looking better straight away on Thursday too. I wonder if the natural break that the Japan series forced helped give him that rookie reset a lot of guys don't normally get until much later.

Playing the Yankees in New York is a really tough draw. So even beyond the SSS aspect I don't want to bite too hard on this. That said, the argument for the Brewers winning the division was more or less "they'll get a 60-70th percentile outcome for their pitching staff because they always do." Between their performance so far and the injuries it is getting tougher to just continue putting that blind faith in them.

I think the issues are Brewers pitching and Aaron Judge's awesomeness than a new bat type.

Amaya playing a day game after a night game with a lefty on the mound is kinda weird.